Session 4 : Constructivism

Constructivism is an art movement that started in Russia in 1913 but gained more popularity in 1917 following the Russian Revolution. This art movement had a key impact on architecture, art and design. This movement to some was more of a philosophy to some as it reflected a belief in art for a social change rather than expressive art. A key style of constructivist artwork is a mixture of photomontages and unique typography to help give an industrial tone to the work. The colours were also fairly limited to dull colours and a continuous black and red colour scheme.


Here I have chosen to look at 2 posters from the same artists, The Stenberg Brothers, who had a massive influence during this movement. The first poster is a movie poster from 1921 for the movie A small town. This poster uses key elements of constructivism such as using the dull, grainy colour scheme, allowing it to stand out while still being dull. Another technique the poster uses is layering, as you can see there are multiple layers from the pink background, the characters, the striped suits, text and then the black boarder along the sides. This poster also clearly conveys its genre to the audience being a comedy film, this can be seen through the facial expressions on the characters and actions of the characters.
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The second poster I have chosen is another by the Stenberg brothers, this one is a poster for the Moscow Chamber Theatre, designed in 1923. This poster follows a similar layout to the first poster with the single colour boarded in the middle by another solid colour, as well as having the main subject and character in the middle. By doing this is helps guide the readers eye down the middle of the poster. This poster features a lot more typographical elements, using several different fonts, sizes, colours and techniques. This really helps break up the text but also makes the poster appear more chaotic.