Rodchenko

Aleksander Rodchenko

Born on 23rd November 1891 in St. Petersburg, Aleksander Rodchenko was to become a huge part of the Russian constructivism movement and created art for a reason, with a purpose and not just to sit there and look pretty mainly to be a symbol for something important or to convey a certain message. Alongside another great artist of their time, Liubov Popova they began to re-form and re-shape Russian art for the future generations to come.

Rodchenko was a very skilled and educated individual when it came to art, he studied a wide range of artistic subjects. He studied applied arts in Moscow, he helped found a museum and become the first director, he also taught high grade art, illustrative work in theatre included costume designs for many theatres... here is an example (to the left) of one of his designs for a play called "The Princess Padua" in 1914, his designs are emotional, dark, detailed and unusual.                                                                     , films typography and advertising, provided cover designs, photography was one of his passions, shot afew short movie reels, photo reporting and as you can see the list can go on and on... so it is clear to see that he is an experienced expert when it comes to things to do with art.. even in his first job (an assisstant to Tatlin at a 1916 futuristic exhibit in Moscow) ten of his pictures were shown there at the exhibit, so even at a young inexperienced age his talent was quite apparent.

But the most outstanding and most recognised of his work are usually his posters because they have their own style, he uses very few simple colour techniques, he only uses block colour usually no more than 3-4 on a typical poster. This image to the leftis a very well known poster of his that has been re-done/ re-coloured/re-designed so many times by so many artists... the simplicity of the piece is effective with the bold block lettering and the use of words in the design that they are in start to become part of the image itself instead of just being plain writing ... this was believed to get the message across and captivate the onlooker of the poster into reading what it has to say because ultimately it has become more interesting- these sort of posters were used for many things in Russia eventually by the government simply because the message was conveyed more clearly by the way the writing was displayed.. people obviously wanted to read it and eventually was used as propaganda, advertising, and much more...