gabo realistic manifesto and sculpture

THEORIES OFMODERN ART

A Source Bookby Artists andCritics

HERSCHEL B. CHIPPcontributions by

PETER SELZ and JOSHUA C. TAYLOR

U N I V E R S I T Y OF C A L I F O R N I A PRESSBerkeley and Los Angeles: 1968

ROOOOb 15631

University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CaliforniaCambridge University Press, London, EnglandTheories of Modern Art is a volume in the

CALIFORNIA STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ART

sponsored in part by the Samuel H. Kress FoundationCopyright © 1968 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 68-12038Printed in the United States of America

N E O - P L A S T I C I S M A N D C O N S T R U C T I V I S M

This period is our period and today we are witnessing the birth of a newplasticity. There, where on the one hand the need for a new spiritual—in the widestsense of the word—as well as material foundation for art and culture makes itselfconspicuous, and on the other hand tradition and convention—necessary com-panions of every new idea or action—try to keep their own ground in all fields bytimidly opposing the new ideas, the task of all those who have to testify to the newcognition of the time—either plastically or graphically—becomes an importantand difficult one. Their task demands an unabated energy and perseverance, whichis strengthened and stimulated by preservative opposition.

In that manner they, who deliberately give a false interpretation of the newconceptions and contemplate modern plastic •works of art in the same way as theycontemplate the impressionistic works, i.e. not deeper than the surface, unwittinglycooperate in the foundation of a new conception of life and art. We can only bethankful to them for that.

If we look back upon the numbers [of De Stijl] of the past year, then itmust fill us with admiration that productive artists succeeded in giving form to theideas, which they acquired in the course of their work, thereby contributing muchto the elucidation of the new cognition of art.

This is sufficiently confirmed by the increasing interest—also abroad—inthe contents of this monthly magazine, which did not fail to influence the young,as well as the old generation. These contents therefore provide for the need of man,who has acquired a deeper aesthetical cognition. This may be a stimulus to con-tinue with our aesthetical work for civilization, in spite of the difficulties whichconsiderably impede the publication of periodicals.

Naum Gabo, "The Realistic Manifesto," Moscow, 5 August 1920*

Above the tempests of our weekdays,Across the ashes and cindered homes of the past,Before the gates of the vacant future,

We proclaim today to you artists, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, poe ts . . . toyou people to whom Art is no mere ground for conversation but the source of realexaltation, our word and deed.

The impasse into which Art has come to in the last twenty years must bebroken.

The growth of human knowledge with its powerful penetration into themysterious laws of the world which started at the dawn of this century,

* Written in Russian by Naum Gabo and signed by Gabo and his brother AntoinePevsner, this manifesto was distributed as a handbill at an exhibition which included their work.This English translation from Gabo, introductory essays by Sir Herbert Read and Leslie Martin(London: Lund Humphries, 1957).

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The blossoming of a new culture and a new civilization with their un-precedented-in-history surge of the masses towards the possession of the riches ofNature, a surge which binds the people into one union, and last, not least, the warand the revolution (those purifying torrents of the coming epoch), have made usface the fact of new forms of life, already born and active.

What does Art carry into this unfolding epoch of human history =Does it possess the means necessary for the construction of the new Great

Style;Or does it suppose that the new epoch may not have a new style.?Or does it suppose that the new life can accept a new creation which is

constructed on the foundations of the old ?In spite of the demand of the renascent spirit of our time, Art is still

nourished by impression, external appearance, and wanders helplessly back andforth from Naturalism to Symbolism, from Romanticism to Mysticism.

The attempts of the Cubists and the Futurists to lift the visual arts fromthe bogs of the past have led only to new delusions.

Cubism, having started with simplification of the representative technique,ended with its analysis and stuck there.

The distracted world of the Cubists, broken in shreds by their logicalanarchy, cannot satisfy us who have already accomplished the Revolution or whoare already constructing and building up anew.

One could heed with interest the experiments of the Cubists, but onecannot follow them, being convinced that their experiments are being made on thesurface of Art and do not touch on the bases of it, seeing plainly that the end resultamounts to the same old graphic, to the same old volume, and to the same decora-tive surface as of old.

One could have hailed Futurism in its time for the refreshing sweep of itsannounced Revolution in Art, for its devastating criticism of the past, as in noother way could one have assailed those artistic barricades of "good taste" . . .powder was needed for that and a lot of it. . . but one cannot construct a system ofart on one revolutionary phase alone.

One had to examine Futurism beneath its appearance to realize that onefaced a very ordinary chatterer, a very agile and prevaricating guy, clad in thetatters of worn-out words like "patriotism," "militarism," "contempt for thefemale," and all the rest of such provincial tags.

In the domain of purely pictorial problems, Futurism has not gone furtherthan the renovated effort to fix on the canvas a purely optical reflex which hasalready shown its bankruptcy with the Impressionists. It is obvious how to everyone of us that by the simple graphic registration of a row of momentarily arrestedmovements, one cannot re-create movement itself. It makes one think of thepulse of a dead body.

The pompous slogan of "Speed" was played from the hands of the Futur-ists as a great trump. We concede the sonority of that slogan and we quite see how

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Naum Gabo, 1941.

it can sweep the strongest of the provincials off their feet. But ask any Futurist howdoes he imagine "Speed" and there will emerge a whole arsenal of frenzied auto-mobiles, rattling railway depots, snarled wires, the clank and the noise and theclang of carouseling streets . . . does one really need to convince them that all thatis not necessary for speed and for its rhythms •

Look at a ray of sun . . . the stillest of the still forces, it speeds more than300 kilometres in a second . . . behold our starry firmament . . . who hears i t . . .and yet what are our depots to those depots of the Universe; What are our earthlytrains to those hurrying trains of the galaxies >

Indeed, the whole Futurist noise about speed is too obvious an anecdote,and from the moment that Futurism proclaimed that "Space and Time are yester-day's dead," it sunk into the obscurity of abstractions.

Neither Futurism nor Cubism has brought us what our time has expectedof them.

Besides those two artistic schools our recent past has had nothing ofimportance or deserving attention.

But Life does not wait and the growth of generations does not stop and

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we who go to relieve those who have passed into history, having in our hands theresults of their experiments, with their mistakes and their achievements, afteryears of experience equal to centuries. . . we say . . .

No new artistic system will withstand the pressure of a growing newculture until the very foundation of Art will be erected on the real laws of Life.

Until all artists will say with u s . . .All is a fiction . . . only life and its laws are authentic and in life only the

active is beautiful and wise and strong and right, for life does not know beautyas an aesthetic measure . . . efficacious existence is the highest beauty.

Life knows neither good nor bad nor justice as a measure of morals. . .need is the highest and most just of all morals.

Life does not know rationally abstracted truths as a measure of cog-nizance, deed is the highest and surest of truths.

Those are the laws of life. Can art withstand those laws if it is built onabstraction, on mirage, and fiction?

We say . . .Space and time are re-born to us today.Space and time are the only forms on which life is built and hence art must

be constructed.States, political and economic systems perish, ideas crumble, under the

strain of ages. . . but life is strong and grows and time goes on in its real continuity.Who will show us forms more efficacious than this. . . who is the great

one who will give us foundations stronger than this iWho is the genius who will tell us a legend more ravishing than this

prosaic tale which is called life;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.In them we do not measure our works with the yardstick of beauty, we do not

weigh them with pounds of tenderness and sentiments.The plumb-line in our hand, eyes as precise as a ruler, in a spirit as taut as a

compass. . . we construct our work as the universe constructs its own, as the engineerconstructs his bridges, as the mathematician his formula of the orbits.

We know that everything has its own essential image; chair, table, lamp,telephone, book, house, man . . . they are all entire ivorlds with their own rhythms, theirown orbits.

That is why we in creating things take away from them the labels of theirowners . . . a// accidental and local, leaving only the reality of the constant rhythm of the

forces in them.i. Thence in painting we renounce color as a pictorial element, color is the

idealized optical surface of objects; an exterior and superficial impression of them; coloris accidental and it has nothing in common with the innermost essence of a thing.

We affirm that the tone of a substance, i.e. its light-absorbing material body isits only pictorial reality.

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2. We renounce in a line, its descriptive value; in real life there are no des-criptive lines, description is an accidental trace of a man on things, it is not hound up withthe essential life and constant structure of the body. Descriptiveness is an element'ofgraphicillustration and decoration.

We affirm the line only as a direction of the static forces and their rhythm inobjects.

3. We renounce volume as a pictorial and plastic form of space; one cannotmeasure space in volumes as one cannot measure liquid in yards: look at our space . . . whatis it if not one continuous depth?

We affirm depth as the only pictorial and plastic form of space.4. We renounce in sculpture, the mass as a sculptural element.It is known to every engineer that the static forces of a solid body and its material

strength do not depend on the quantity of the mass . . . example—a rail, a T-beam, etc.But you sculptors of all shades and directions, you still adhere to the age-old

prejudice that you cannot free the volume of mass. Here (in this exhibition) we take fourplanes and we construct with them the same volume as of four tons of mass.

Thus we bring hack to sculpture the line as a direction and in it we affirm depthas the one form of space.

5. We renounce the thousand-year-old delusion in art that held the staticrhythms as the only elements of the plastic and pictorial arts.

We affirm in these arts a new element, the kinetic rhythms, as the basic forms ofour perception of real time.

These are the five fundamental principles of our work and our construc-tive technique.

Today we proclaim our words to you people. In the squares and on thestreets we are placing our work convinced that art must not remain a sanctuaryfor the idle, a consolation for the weary, and a justification for the lazy. Art shouldattend us everywhere that life flows and ac t s . . . at the bench, at the table, at work,at rest, at play; on working days and holidays . . . at home and on the road . . . inorder that the flame to live should not extinguish in mankind.

We do not look for justification, neither in the past nor in the future.Nobody can tell us what the future is and what utensils does one eat it

with.Not to lie about the future is impossible and one can lie about it at will.We assert that the shouts about the future are for us the same as the tears

about the past: a renovated daydream of the romantics.A monkish delirium of the heavenly kingdom of the old attired in con-

temporary clothes.He who is busy today with the morrow is busy doing nothing.And he who tomorrow will bring us nothing of what he has done today

is of no use for the future.Today is the deed.We will account for it tomorrow.

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The past we are leaving behind as carrion.The future we leave to the fortune-tellers.We take the present day.

Naum Gabo, "Sculpture: Carving and construction in space."

The growth of new ideas is the more difficult and lengthy the deeper they arerooted in life. Resistance to them is the more obstinate and exasperated the morepersistent their growth is. Their destiny and their history are always the same.Whenever and wherever new ideas appeared they have always been victorious ifthey had in themselves enough life-giving energy. No idea has ever died a violentdeath. Every idea is born naturally and dies naturally. An organic or spiritual forcewhich could exterminate the growth of any new idea by violence does not exist.This fact is not realized by those who are all too keen to fight against any new ideathe moment it appears on the horizon of their interests. The method of their fightis always the same. At the beginning they try to prove that the new idea is non-sensical, impossible, or wicked. When this fails they try to prove that the new ideais not at all new or original and therefore of no interest. When this also does notwork they have recourse to the last and most effective means: the method of iso-lation; that is to say, they start to assert that the new idea, even if it is new andoriginal does not belong to the domain of ideas which it is trying to complete. So,for instance, if it belongs to science, they say it has nothing to do with science;if it belongs to art, they say it has nothing to do with art. This is exactly the methodused by our adversaries, who have been saying ever since the beginning of the newart, and especially the Constructive Art, that our painting has nothing to do withpainting and our sculpture has nothing to do with sculpture. At this point I leaveit to my friends the painters to explain the principles of a constructive and absolutepainting and will only try to clarify the problems in my own domain ofsculpture.

According to the assertions of our adversaries, two symptoms depriveconstructive sculpture of its sculptural character. First, that we are abstract in ourcarving as well as in our constructions, and second that we insert a new principle,the so-called construction in, space which kills the whole essential basis of sculptureas being the art of solid masses.

A detailed examination of this slander seems to be necessary.What are the characteristics which make a work of art a sculpture = Is the

Egyptian Sphinx a sculpture• Certainly, yes. Why • It cannot be only for the reasonthat it consists of stone or that it is an accumulation of solid masses, for if it were so,then why is not any house a sculpture, and why are the Himalayan Mountains nota sculpture? Thus there must be some other characteristics which distinguish a

* From Circle: International Survey of Constructive Art, eds. J. L. Martin, Ben Nichol-son, and Naum Gabo (London: Faber & Faber, 1937), pp. 103-11. Reprinted 1966 (New York:George Wittenborn).

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sculpture from any other solid object. I think they could be easily established byconsidering that every sculpture has the following attributes:—

I. It consists of concrete material bounded by forms.II. It is intentionally built up by mankind in three-dimensional space.

III. It is created for this purpose only, to make visible the emotions whichthe artist wishes to communicate to others.

There are the main attributes which we find in every sculptural work sincethe art of sculpture began, and which distinguish a sculptural work from any otherobject. Any other attributes which appear are of a secondary and temporary natureand do not belong to the basic substance of sculpture. In so far as these main attri-butes are present in some of our surroundings we have always the right to speakabout them as things with a sculptural character. I will carefully try to considerthese three main attributes to see if a constructive sculpture lacks any of them.

I. Materials and Forms.Materials in sculpture play one of the fundamental roles. The genesis of

a sculpture is determined by its material. Materials establish the emotional founda-tions of a sculpture, give it basic accent and determine the limits of its aestheticalaction. The source of this fact lies hidden deep in the heart of human psychology.It has a utilitarian and aesthetical nature. Our attachment to materials is grounded inour organic similarity to them. On this akinness is based our whole connectionwith Nature. Materials and Mankind are both derivatives of Matter. Without thistight attachment to materials and without this interest in their existence the riseof our whole culture and civilization would have been impossible. We love mater-ials because we love ourselves. By using materials sculptural art has always gonehand in hand with technique. Technics does not banish any material from beingused in some way or for some constructive purpose. For technique as a whole,any material is good and useful. This utility is only limited by its own qualitiesand properties. The technician knows that one cannot impose on material thosefunctions which are not proper to its substance. The appearance of a new materialin the technique determines always a new method in the system of construction.It would be naive and unreasonable to build a steel bridge with the same methodsas those used in their stone bridges by the Romans. Similarly, technicians are nowsearching for new methods in construction for reinforced concrete since theyknow the properties of this material are different from the properties of steel. Somuch for technics.

In the art of sculpture every material has its own aesthetical properties.The emotions aroused by materials are caused by their intrinsic properties and are asuniversal as any other psychological reaction determined by nature. In sculpture aswell as in technics every material is good and worthy and useful, because everysingle material has its own aesthetical value. In sculpture as well as in technics themethod of working is set by the material itself.

There is no limit to the variety of materials suitable for sculpture. If a

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sculptor sometimes prefers one material to another he does it only for the sake ofits superior tractability. Our century has been enriched by the invention of manynew materials. Technical knowledge has elaborated methods of working with manyof the older ones which could never before be used without difficulty. There is noaesthetical prohibition against a sculptor using any kind of material for the purposeof his plastic theme depending on how much his work accords with the propertiesof the chosen one. The technical treatment of materials is a mechanical questionand does not alter the basic attributes of a sculpture. Carved or cast, molded orconstructed, a sculpture does not cease to be a sculpture as long as the aestheticalqualities remain in accord with the substantial properties of the material. (So, forinstance, it would be a false use of glass if the sculptor neglected the essential prop-erty of this material, namely, its transparency.) That is the only thing our aes-thetical emotions are looking for as far as the materials of a sculpture are concerned.The new Absolute or Constructive sculpture is intending to enrich its emotionallanguage, and it could only be considered as an evidence of spiritual blindness oran act of deliberate malice to reproach an artistic discipline for enriching its scaleof expression.

The character of the new materials which we employ certainly influencesthe sculptural technique, but the new constructive technique which we employin addition to the carving does not determine the emotional content of our sculp-tures. This constructive technique is justified on the one hand by the technicaldevelopment of building in space and on the other hand by the large increase inour contemplative knowledge.

The constructive technique is also justified by another reason which canbe clarified when we examine the content of the "space problem in sculpture." Asshown in the accompanying illustration, the two cubes illustrate the main distinc-tion between the two kinds of representation of the same object, one correspondingto carving and the other to construction. The main points which distinguish themlie in the different methods of execution and in the different centers of interest. Thefirst represents a volume of mass; the second represents the space in which themass exists made visible. Volume of mass and volume of space are sculpturally notthe same thing. Indeed, they are two different materials It must be emphasized thatI do not use these two terms in their high philosophical sense. I mean two veryconcrete things with which we come in contact every day. Two such obviousthings as mass and space, both concrete and measurable.

Up to now, the sculptors have preferred the mass and neglected or paidvery little attention to such an important component of mass as space. Spaceinterested them only in so far as it was a spot in which volumes could be placedor projected. It had to surround masses. We consider space from an entirelydifferent point of view. We consider it as an absolute sculptural element, releasedfrom any closed volume, and we represent it from inside with its own specificproperties.

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Naum Gabo, objects from "Sculpture: Carvingand Construction in Space."

I do not hesitate to affirm that the perception of space is a primary naturalsense which belongs to the basic senses of our psychology. The scientist will prob-ably find in this affirmation of mine a large field for argument and will surelysuspect me of ignorance. I do not grudge him this pleasure. But the artist, who isdealing with the domain of visual art, will understand me when I say we experi-ence this sense as a reality, both internal and external. Our task is to penetrate deeperinto its substance and bring it closer to our consciousness; so that the sensation ofspace will become for us a more elementary and everyday emotion the same as thesensation of light or the sensation of sound.

In our sculpture space has ceased to be for us a logical abstraction or atranscendental idea and has become a malleable material element. It has become areality of the same sensuous value as velocity or tranquillity and is incorporatedin the general family of sculptural emotions where up to date only the weight andthe volume of mass have been predominant. It is clear that this new sculpturalemotion demands a new method of expression different from those which havebeen used and should be used to express the emotions of mass, weight and solidvolume. It demands also a new method of execution.

The stereometrical method in which Cube II is executed shows elemen-tarily the constructive principle of a sculptural space expression. This principlegoes through all sculptural constructions in space, manifesting all its varietiesaccording to the demands of the sculptural work itself.

At this place I find it necessary to point to those too hasty conclusionswhich some followers of the constructive movements in art have arrived at in theiranxiety not to be left in the rear. Snatching at the idea of space they hasten to

3 3 3


assume that this space-idea is the only one which characterizes a constructive work.This assumption is as wrong an interpretation of the constructive idea in sculptureas it is harmful for their own work. From my first affirmation of the space-idea inthe Realistic Manifesto, 1920,1 have not ceased to emphasize that in using the spatialelement in sculpture I do not intend to deny the other sculptural elements; thatby saying, "We cannot measure or define space with solid masses, we can onlydefine space by space," I did not mean to say that massive volumes do not defineanything at all, and are therefore useless for sculpture. On the contrary, I have leftvolume its own property to measure and define—masses. Thus volume still re-mains one of the fundamental attributes of sculpture, and we still use it in oursculptures as often as the theme demands an expression of solidity.

We are not at all intending to dematerialize a sculptural work, making itnonexistent; we are realists, bound to earthly matters, and we do not neglect anyof those psychological emotions which belong to the basic group of our percep-tions of the world. On the contrary, adding Space perception to the perception ofMasses, emphasizing it and forming it, we enrich the expression of Mass, making itmore essential through the contrast between them, whereby Mass retains itssolidity and Space its extension.

Closely related to the space problem in sculpture is the problem of Time.There is an affinity between them although the satisfactory solution of the latterstill remains unsolved, being complex and obstructed by many obstacles. The def-inite solution is still handicapped by its technical difficulties. Nevertheless, the ideaand the way for its solution is already traced in its main outlines by the constructiveart. I find it essential for the completion of the discussion of the whole problem ofour sculpture to sketch here in general terms the question of Time.

My first definition, formulated in the Realistic Manifesto, was. "We denythe thousand-year-old Egyptian prejudice that static rhythms are the only possiblebases for a sculpture. We proclaim the kinetic rhythms as a new and essential partof our sculptural work, because they are the only possible real expressions of Timeemotions."1 It follows from this definition that the problem of Time in sculptureis synonymous with the problem of motion. It would not be difficult to prove thatthe proclamation of this new element is not the product of the idle fancy of anefficient mind. The constructive artists are not the first and will, I hope, not be thelast, to exert themselves in the effort to solve this problem. We can find traces ofthese efforts in almost too many examples of ancient sculpture. It was only pre-sented in illusory forms which made it difficult for the observer to recognize it.For instance, who has not admired in the Victory of Samothrace, the so-called dynamic rythms, the imaginary forward movement incorporated in thissculpture? The expression of motion is the main purpose of the composition of the

1 Various translations from the original Russian of the Realistic Manifesto quote thisstatement somewhat differently than Gabo's text here (see "Realistic Manifesto," above). Sincethis text was written in English by Gabo in 1937, it may be taken as an accurate expression ofhis meaning.

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lines and masses of this work. But in this sculpture the feeling of motion is.anillusion and exists only in our minds. The real Time does not participate in thisemotion; in fact, it is timeless. To bring Time as a reality into our consciousness,to make it active and perceivable we need the real movement of substantial massesremovable in space.

The existence of the arts of Music and Choreography proves that thehuman mind desires the sensation of real kinetic rhythms passing in space. Theor-etically there is nothing to prevent the use of the Time element, that is to say, realmotions, in painting or sculpture. For painting the film technique offers ampleopportunity for this whenever a work of art wishes to express this kind of emotion.In sculpture there is no such opportunity and the problem is more difficult.Mechanics has not yet reached that stage of absolute perfection where it canproduce real motion in a sculptural work without killing, through the mechanicalparts, the pure sculptural content; because the motion is of importance and not themechanism which produces it. Thus the solution of this problem becomes a taskfor future generations.

I have tried to demonstrate in the kinetic construction [see illustrations]in space photographed here the primary elements of a realization of kineticrhythms in sculpture. But I hold it my artistic duty to repeat in this place what I saidin 1920, that these constructions do not accomplish the task; they are to be con-sidered as examples of primary kinetic elements for use in a completed kinetic

Naum Galo, drawing for "Sculpture: Carvingand Construction in Space."

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composition. The design is more an explanation of the idea of a kinetic sculpturethan a kinetic sculpture itself.

Returning to the definition of sculpture in general, it is always stated as areproach that we form our materials in abstract shapes. The word "abstract" hasno sense, since a materialized form is already concrete, so the reproach of abstrac-tion is more a criticism of the whole trend of the constructive idea in art than acriticism of sculpture alone. It is time to say that the use of the weapon "abstract"against our art is indeed only the shadow of a weapon. It is time for the advocates ofnaturalistic art to realize that any work of art, even those representing naturalforms, is, in itself, an act of abstraction, as no material form and no natural eventcan be re-realized. Any work of art in its real existence, being a sensation perceivedby any of our five senses, is concrete. I think it will be a great help to our commonunderstanding when this unhappy word "abstract" is cancelled from our theoreticlexicon.

The shapes we are creating are not abstract, they are absolute. They arereleased from any already existent thing in nature and their content lies in them-selves. We do not know which Bible imposes on the art of sculpture only a certainnumber of permissible forms. Form is not an edict from heaven, form is a productof Mankind, a means of expression. They choose them deliberately and changethem deliberately, depending on how far one form or another responds to theiremotional impulses. Every single shape made "absolute" acquires a life of its own,speaks its own language and represents one single emotional impact attached onlyto itself. Shapes act, shapes influence our psyche, shapes are events and Beings. Ourperception of shapes is tied up with our perception of existence itself. The emotionalcontent of an absolute shape is unique and not replaceable by any other means atthe command of our spiritual faculties. The emotional force of an absolute shape isimmediate, irresistible, and universal. It is impossible to comprehend the content ofan absolute shape by reason alone. Our emotions are the real manifestation of thiscontent. By the influence of an absolute form the human psyche can be broken ormolded. Shapes exult and shapes depress, they elate and make desperate; they orderand confuse, they are able to harmonize our psychical forces or to disturb them.They possess a constructive faculty or a destructive danger. In short, absoluteshapes manifest all the properties of-a real force having a positive and a negativedirection.

The constructive mind which animates our creative impulses enables us todraw on this inexhaustible source of expression and to dedicate it to the service ofsculpture, at the moment when sculpture was in a state of complete exhaustion.I dare to state, with complete confidence in the truth of my assertion, that onlythrough the efforts of the Constructive Idea to make sculpture absolute did sculp-ture recover and acquire the new force necessary for it to undertake the task whichthe new epoch is going to impose on it.

The critical condition in which sculpture found itself at the end of the lastcentury is obvious from the fact that even the rise of naturalism through the growth

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of the impressionist movement was not able to awaken sculpture from its lethargy.The death of sculpture seemed to everybody inevitable. It is not so any more.Sculpture is entering on a period of renaissance. It again assumes the role which itformerly played in the family of the arts and in the culture of peoples. Let us notforget that all the great epochs at the moment of their spiritual apogee manifestedtheir spiritual tension in sculpture. In all great epochs when a creative idea becamedominant and inspired the masses it was sculpture which embodied the spirit of theidea. It was in sculpture that the demoniac cosmology of the primitive man waspersonified; it was sculpture which gave the masses of Egypt confidence and cer-tainty in the truth and the omnipotence of their King of Kings, the Sun; it was insculpture that the Hellenes manifested their idea of the manifold harmony of theworld and their optimistic acceptance of all its contradictory laws. And do we notfind completed in the impetuous verticals of the Gothic sculpture the image of theChristian idea?

Sculpture personifies and inspires the ideas of all great epochs. It manifeststhe spiritual rhythm and directs it. All these faculties were lost in the decliningperiod of our culture of the last century. The Constructive idea has given back tosculpture its old forces and faculties, the most powerful of which is its capacity toact architectonically. This capacity was what enabled sculpture to keep pace witharchitecture and to guide it. In the new architecture of today we again see anevidence of this influence. This proves that the constructive sculpture has started asound growth, because architecture is the queen of all the arts, architecture is theaxis and the embodiment of human culture. By architecture I mean not only thebuilding of houses but the whole edifice of our everyday existence.

Those who try to retard the growth of the constructive sculpture aremaking a mistake when they say that constructive sculpture is not sculpture at all.On the contrary, it is the old glorious and powerful art re-born in its absoluteform ready to lead us into the future.

Kasimir Malevich, "Introduction to the Theory of the Additional Element in Painting"*

The village, as center of the required environment, was no longer suited to thepainting of Cezanne, but equally alien to it is the art of the big city, of the industrialworker (and the more so, in fact, the more intensive is the metallic culture proceed-ing out of industrial work). The art of the industrial environment has its firstbeginnings in Cubism and Futurism, that is, at the point where conventional paint-ing leaves off. These two cultures (Cubism and Futurism) differ, incidentally, intheir ideologies. Whereas Cubism during the first phase of its development stillstands at the edge of the culture of Cezanne, Futurism, already pointing toward

* Originally published in a German translation from the original Russian in KasimirMalevich, Die Gegenstandslose Welt, Bauhaus Book n (Munich: Langen, 1927). This Englishtranslation from the German edition is by Howard Dearstyne from The Non-Objective World(Chicago: Theobald, 1959), pp. 61-65.

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