The Realistic Manifesto is a key text of

Constructivism Constructivism may refer to: Art and architecture * Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes * Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in the Soviet Union in t ...

. Written by Naum "Gabo" Neemia Pevzner and cosigned by his brother,

Antoine Pevsner Antoine Pevsner (12 April 1962) was a Russian-born sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. As the originators of Constructivism and pioneers of kinetic art, the brothers are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpt ...

, the ''Manifesto'' laid out their theories of

artistic expression Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

in the form of five "fundamental principles" of their constructivist practice. The Manifesto focused largely on divorcing art from such conventions as use of lines, color, volume, and mass. In the text, Gabo and Pevsner reject the successive stylistic innovations of modern art as mere illusionism (beginning with

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

, and including

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

and

Futurism Futurism ( ) was an Art movement, artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the ...

), advocating instead an art grounded in the material reality of space and time: "The realization of our perceptions of the world in the forms of space and time is the only aim of our pictorial and plastic art." The text was first published on August 5, 1920, in poster form, on the occasion of an exhibition with

Gustav Klucis Gustav Gustavovich Klutsis (, ; 4 January 1895 – 26 February 1938) was a pioneering Latvian photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century. He is known for the Soviet revolutionary and Stalinist pro ...

in Moscow.Editors' introduction to "The Realistic Manifesto." In Art in Theory, 1900-2000, edited by Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, 298. Malden: Blackwell, 2003. Extracts were reproduced in the first issue of '' G'' in 1923.

References

External links

*Audio (MP3) of Naum Gabo reading th
Realistic Manifesto
*Audio (MP3) of Naum Gabo reading th

* Website on the Realistic Manifesto http://www.terezakis.com/realist-manifesto.html Modern art Russian avant-garde Constructivism (art) Art manifestos 1920 documents {{art-movement-stub