RED in Socialist Realist Art

There is a red thread to be found throughout the history of Russia. Red has traditionally stood for violence, aggression, frantic changes but also for progressive thought in the symbolism of the French revolution and avant-garde art. Red as a symbol of majesty and grandeur came to Europe from the Far East. In ancient China, red was the colour of the emperor. The religious art of the Byzantine Empire reinterpreted the pagan value of red for fire and light and established red as the colour of the martyrdom of Christ.

Thus red started to be omnipresent in religious painting, ecclesiastical vestments and liturgical objects. Renaissance artists depicted statesmen and the figure of the Pope only in majestic red garments. There is also a linguistic perspective of red for the absolute values of good and beautiful. In Eastern Slavonic languages krasny meant beautiful. Red was first used as the colour of revolution during the French revolution.

Red in the French flag stands for liberte, i.e. freedom. Russian Bolshevik ideology exploited this connotation of red as liberating force and added to it the one of blood, victory, hope and faith steaming from religious icon imagery. Red was the natural choice to reflect the state of a new ideal nation and therefore the Soviet regime institutionalized red in the Red flag and Red army.

In Social realist painting red plays a paramount part, which is not surprising considering the above. There is a twofold dimension to red in social realism. On the surface red was to stand for the moving force of a new society moving forward towards communism. Soviet artists depicted a red industrial Russia triumphant over the ignorance of the rural tsarist Russia of the previous centuries. But more intrinsically, red is present in Social realist art as in any other important art movement to embody the eternal wave of life breaking in from within the work of art. Pure red transcends all ideological boundaries and stands for the everlasting current of life that art has always and will endlessly try to embrace and explain.

The common theme in the works shown is that red is used to transmit some or all of the values of beauty, hope, freedom and goodness of the new Soviet society. Some of the works exhibited lack a clear political connotation but show a more timeless dimension of red as the colour of light and change.

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