DOI article:
Kodres, Krista: Toward a new concept of progressive art: Art history in the service of modernisation in the late socialist period: an Estonian case
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.52521#0218
212
Krista Kodres
inist aesthetic and approach to art and art history The promising post-Stalin-
ist rhetoric encouraged public discussion on the theoretical fundamentals of
art and art history in Moscow and Leningrad art history circles in particular,
centering on discussion of the nature and boundaries of Realism.4 As a result,
Soviet art historians fell into two camps in interpreting Realism: the dogmatic
and revisionist, and the latter was embraced in Estonia. In the following, I will
delineate criticism of the Stalinist art history canon in the late 1950s and early
1960s, pointing out the key positions in regard to the changes in the discourse,
and examining how they were expressed in the rewriting of art history based on
the Estonian example. It should be noted here that the art history revisionism
in both the USSR and the Estonian SSR was not characterised by radicalism.
On the contrary it involved rather cautious criticism. Memories of the Stalinist
terror had not faded, thus, art history texts of the era are cryptic and camou-
flaged, with the progressive parts concealed in an otherwise orthodox flood of
rhetoric. The ambivalence that is evident in the texts leads us to the problems
of the ideological engagement of the interpretation of art and its history which
both supported and undermined the political regime. From the standpoint of
discipline, this meant the beginning of the renewal of the socialist art history
discourse5, which, among other things, had a significant impact on modernisa-
tion and the public exhibition of contemporary art. In the art context, the idea
of progressiveness began to be reconsidered. In previous discourse, progress was
linked with the "realist" artistic method that sprang from a progressive social
order. Now, however, revisionist art historians found new arguments for ac-
cepting different cultures of form, both historical and contemporary and often
these arguments were "discovered" in Marxism itself.
AN ART PRIMER, 1967
In 1967, a work was published by the accomplished artist Ott Kangilas-
ki and his nephew, the art historian Jaak Kangilaski (b. 1939) :6 the Kunsti
4 B. Bernstein, "Seosesvaidlustega realismi üle" [Regarding the disputes over realism, 1-2],
Kunst 1966, 3, pp. 13-22, and 1961, 1, pp. 1-14; J. Kangilaski, "Realismi meiste metamorfoo-
sid nôukogude kunstiteoorias" [Metamorphoses of the notion of realism in Soviet art theory],
Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi/Studies on Art and Architecture 2003, 12(1-2), pp. 11-24.
5 K. Kodres, K. JSekalda, "Introduction to Socialist Art History: On Formulating the
Soviet Canon," in: A Socialist Realist History? Writing Art History in the Post-War Decades,
eds. K. Kodres, K. Jöekalda, M. Marek, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2019.
6 Jaak Kangilaski later became one of the most renowned art historians in Estonia. He
defended his candidate thesis (PhD) on the French artist group "Les Nabis" in 1969, su-
Krista Kodres
inist aesthetic and approach to art and art history The promising post-Stalin-
ist rhetoric encouraged public discussion on the theoretical fundamentals of
art and art history in Moscow and Leningrad art history circles in particular,
centering on discussion of the nature and boundaries of Realism.4 As a result,
Soviet art historians fell into two camps in interpreting Realism: the dogmatic
and revisionist, and the latter was embraced in Estonia. In the following, I will
delineate criticism of the Stalinist art history canon in the late 1950s and early
1960s, pointing out the key positions in regard to the changes in the discourse,
and examining how they were expressed in the rewriting of art history based on
the Estonian example. It should be noted here that the art history revisionism
in both the USSR and the Estonian SSR was not characterised by radicalism.
On the contrary it involved rather cautious criticism. Memories of the Stalinist
terror had not faded, thus, art history texts of the era are cryptic and camou-
flaged, with the progressive parts concealed in an otherwise orthodox flood of
rhetoric. The ambivalence that is evident in the texts leads us to the problems
of the ideological engagement of the interpretation of art and its history which
both supported and undermined the political regime. From the standpoint of
discipline, this meant the beginning of the renewal of the socialist art history
discourse5, which, among other things, had a significant impact on modernisa-
tion and the public exhibition of contemporary art. In the art context, the idea
of progressiveness began to be reconsidered. In previous discourse, progress was
linked with the "realist" artistic method that sprang from a progressive social
order. Now, however, revisionist art historians found new arguments for ac-
cepting different cultures of form, both historical and contemporary and often
these arguments were "discovered" in Marxism itself.
AN ART PRIMER, 1967
In 1967, a work was published by the accomplished artist Ott Kangilas-
ki and his nephew, the art historian Jaak Kangilaski (b. 1939) :6 the Kunsti
4 B. Bernstein, "Seosesvaidlustega realismi üle" [Regarding the disputes over realism, 1-2],
Kunst 1966, 3, pp. 13-22, and 1961, 1, pp. 1-14; J. Kangilaski, "Realismi meiste metamorfoo-
sid nôukogude kunstiteoorias" [Metamorphoses of the notion of realism in Soviet art theory],
Kunstiteaduslikke Uurimusi/Studies on Art and Architecture 2003, 12(1-2), pp. 11-24.
5 K. Kodres, K. JSekalda, "Introduction to Socialist Art History: On Formulating the
Soviet Canon," in: A Socialist Realist History? Writing Art History in the Post-War Decades,
eds. K. Kodres, K. Jöekalda, M. Marek, Köln, Weimar, Wien 2019.
6 Jaak Kangilaski later became one of the most renowned art historians in Estonia. He
defended his candidate thesis (PhD) on the French artist group "Les Nabis" in 1969, su-