A Study on the Russian Textile Design

Original Article

Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association 2000;38(1):25-38.

러시아 텍스타일 디자인에 관한 연구 - 혁명기를 중심으로 -

이혜주

중앙대학교 생활과학대학 의류학과

A Study on the Russian Textile Design

이혜주

ABSTRACT

This study focuses on the Russian Constructivist Textile Design in the post-revolutionary period, of the early 20th century. Russian textile of the time is highly valued in the west in terms of innovative changes in aesthetic directions, which has become one of the most important centers for the development of new textiles, or the origin of industrial design. Most of brilliant mass-production patterns were produced specially by the pioneers of constructivists such as Stepanova and Popova who were influenced by 'Maxism' through the Revolution regarded themselves as productivists for the proletariat. They were inspired by the avant-garde movements, which were involved with traditionalism, futuristic mechanism, stylization of nature, pure geometrical and abstract form. Early textile design was based on the relationship between the graphic methods of design and the technology because they regarded art as physical, intellectual and technical production. They created all the excitement made from the primary simplest forms of precise mathmatical shapes, such as the circle, the triangle, the rectangle and horizontle and vertical lines. These geometric design can be interpreted as the mechanization of the artists'labor, or methods in line with the technology of mass production, however partly roots in the rich tradition of Russian decorative art. On the other hand, stable crystalline construction on the surface reflect urban architectural complex, and the world of industry in graphic form. They were interested in illusion of movement, cinematic movement of vertical linear rhythms, optical formations and vibrations, by composing a multi-leveled constructions by several spatial planes, or color-field, and combining structures of several intersecting matrices, and superimposing parts of the forms on each other. All these characteristics of the Russian textile designs reflect the complex interactions between 'art and society' of Constructivist's idea and represent the traits of the epoch.