1925 - 1932
Member List
In 1925 (or, according to some sources, 1924) a movement was created by the name of the 4 Arts Society. It has brought together artists of several generations and artistic inclinations, from the masters of the Blue Rose and the World of Art and to representatives of the most leftist groupings.
Exhibition catalogue. 1926
The members, above all those from the Blue Rose movement, have keenly felt the need of integrating the fine arts into life. This, in their opinion, was to be achieved by the bringing together all four types of fine arts: painting, architecture, sculpture and graphic art, which has served as the origin of the movement's name.
Thoughout the course of its existence the movement has brought together around 70 members: painters, sculptors, graphic artists, architects. Among them artists such as V.Favorsky, K.Istomin, N.Kliun, P.Kuznetzov, V.Lebedev, L.Lissitzky, V.Mukhina, A.Ostroumova-Lebedeva, K.Petrov-Vodkin, N.Tyrsa and others.
The declaration of the 4 Arts Society was published in 1929 in "Ezhegodnik literatury i iskusstva" (Annual Journal of Literature and Art). "The artist presents to the audience first and foremost the artistic quality of his work. Under the conditions of Russian tradition, we consider artistic Realism to be the most suitable to the contemporary art culture. We value the French school above others for ourselves, as one which develops the basic principles of painting in the fullest and most comprehensive manner. The content of our work is not characterized by the subjects, <...> which are only triggers for creative transformation of material into artistic form".
Exhibition catalogue. 1929
The members of the 4 Arts Society were all masters of brilliant abilities and skills. They folowed principles of Realism, but also stressed the importance of the careful realization of the intended subject in complete and perfect form.
The society have held several exhibitions: in 1925 and in 1926 in Moscow; in 1928 in Leningrad; and in 1929 in Moscow. They also participate in a few other exhibitions.
However, the 4 Arts Society was not understood among the oficial circles. The artists following of the world art and culture, their aim for high professionalism, their careful hard strive for perfect form and complete subject, all this was branded "contraband" and "artistic counterrevolution", as wrote the journal "Iskusstvo v massy" (Art for the Masses). The society was accused with having "narrow formalist, really bourgeois, tendencies".
This political pressure has in effect brought the activity of 4 Arts Society movement to an end a short time before the great "reform", in 1932, when it was dipersed along with the other groups and societies.