Patricia Railing
Popova's Force Constructions of 1921
1 / Installation photograph of Painterly-Force and Spatial-Force Constructions Liubov Popova Posthumous Exhibition Museum of Artistic Culture, Moscow, December 1924-January 1925
The only known photographs of Liubov Popova’s paintings of 1921 are views of two walls of the installations of her Posthumous Exhibitions, the first opening in December 1924 at the Museum of Artistic Culture within the VKhUTEMAS school in Moscow, and the second opening in the spring of 1925 in Kiev. In the photograph of the MAC exhibition, above, the central group contains six paintings, four of which are known today, and they would be among those she had titled Painterly-Force Constructions and Spatial-Force Constructions in 1921. Flanking the group on either side are paintings and works on paper which would also belong to the group of Force Constructions, although there are two Painterly Architectonics in the middle left. Beneath them is a group of works on paper next to which is a large painting which is apparently lost. The sign on the walls reads, “Latest Period. Triumph of Painting”. Popova would have begun the Force Constructions in 1921 and they are the direct result of the debates on construction and composition taking place in the Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture, INKhUK, between January and April of that year, to be resumed in the autumn.
Following a meeting of the Moscow Institute of Artistic Culture, INKhUK, on 1 March 1921, the secretary, Liubov Popova, recorded what had been agreed on as the definition of "construction" in painting:
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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"The scheme of construction is the set of lines with the areas and forms defined by them. It is a system of forces.... The line is the image of force. The set of lines with the areas and forms defined by them is a system of forces, is the diagram of construction."
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At the end of the debates in April, the architect, Vladimir Krinsky, summed up his "Conclusions on Construction" writing, "Construction presupposes motions, forces, or directions, diagrammatically expressed by lines. A system of lines is already a construction in its most basic form. And any system of surfaces or spatial forms, each expressed in its motion, is a constructive structure. A structural system embodies the law governing the interaction of the elements of the construction."
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The enquiry into construction and forces in art was the main subject debated in the INKhUK meetings between January and April 1921. The artists – painters (Popova, Ivan Kliun, Alexandra Exter, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Alexander Drevin, et al.), sculptors (Rodchenko, Karl Ioganson, Vladimir and Georgii Stenberg, Konstantin Medunetzky, et al.), and architects (Aleksei Babichev, Vladimir Krinsky, Nikolai Ladovsky, Alexander Vesnin, et al.) – gathered almost weekly to thrash out very basic definitions about what the new art was and consequently what the new aesthetics was, especially in painting. It was Rodchenko who admitted that he didn't know if there could be "construction" in painting and consequently if "force" could be incorporated into it or, indeed, what it would even mean. "In contemporary paintings there is no pure construction yet insofar as no definition of pictorial construction exists."
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Having made this point he continued by saying: "So in order for us to get clear what construction is, we can start with Ladovsky's definition, which is a technical and engineering definition." Now the way Ladovsky had defined construction was: "Technical construction is the whole set of material elements of expression in accordance with a precise plan, i.e., a plan is required to attain an effect of force."
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Applying this interaction between material and forces to painting, Rodchenko remarked: "In painting there is no out and out construction. But we are inclined towards this construction.... As a new aesthetic standard, the 'effect of force' is no use in art. We need a precise and clear aim without arriving at an 'effect of force'. In art, the composition as a whole is an 'effect of force'". Ivan Kliun is recorded to have said that, "Even in colour there can be construction.... The strength of colour contributes to construction, along with form, giving it a precise force.... The purpose of an object defines its type, construction gives the impression of forces, is a result of the combined action of different forces." To this, Rodchenko replied that "There may not even be a purpose. Construction is not a fixed thing. Construction is the appropriate utilisation of the properties of materials, that is to say, end and not just means."
In S. O. Khan-Magomedov, Rodchenko - The Complete Work, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1987, p. 289. V. F. Krinskii, "Conclusions on Construction", in Art into Life, The Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, 1990, p. 64. There are also the "Conclusions" of the other participants as well as other documents related to these debates and those of the Working Group of Constructivists in this exhibition catalogue. 3 Ibid., p. 87, as are the following quotations unless otherwise indicated. 4 Ibid., p. 83. 1 2
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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"Construction is not just putting different parts together", Rodchenko continued. "In construction, neither colour, nor form, nor technique can be separate.... But since we have taken the conception of construction from mechanics we must apply this technical definition of construction to art and find out whether it is there or not." And so discussions went on, the members analysing each others' paintings in an attempt to get to the core of what construction actually meant and whether it could be applied to painting or not. Rodchenko eventually went so far as to say that: "Construction does not exist in painting. In reality construction is a precise object and in painting we cannot depict a construction: we can only fashion well a particular object that, as such, will be constructivistic." This seems to have been towards the conclusion of the debates when Rodchenko was working increasingly in three dimensions, fast becoming a Constructivist – which meant just that: works in three dimensions: "Construction is a precise object", as Rodchenko put it. There is no "Constructivist" painting, then, there can be only the principles of "construction" in painting. Meanwhile, in March 1921, the artists had, in fact, come to at least one definition of construction in painting as Popova recorded it – that construction in painting is a set of lines where the lines are an image of the force, so revealing the system of the forces. This was confirmed by members such as Krinsky at the conclusion to the debates hence, it was a definition that stuck. Together with "the suitable organisation of material elements" – the pigments and other media distributed in appropriate areas and surfaces – painting in 1921 had become "constructive" or "constructivistic", as Rodchenko had preferred to say. This painting would be shown in a group exhibition entitled 5 x 5 = 25 in September of that year, three of the artists – Alexander Vesnin, Liubov Popova, and Alexandra Exter – using "construction" in the titles of their works. Varvara Stepanova's paintings were representational but she nonetheless championed construction in art, while Rodchenko naturally refrained from calling his works "constructions", even if he had called his Line paintings, "constructions" in 1919 of which there was one canvas in the 1921 exhibition. In the works of Vesnin, Popova, and Exter, sets of lines reveal systems of forces. They were truly "constructions", just as it had been defined. Popova's Painterly-Force and Spatial-Force Constructions are all thought to be mainly of 1921 with the exceedingly reductionist linear constructions being of 1922. Her “Constructions” are the direct result of the questions raised, the thoughts and comments by her colleagues, and the general definition of construction and force in painting of March 1921. So, what were these "systems of forces" that the artists had taken, according to Rodchenko, from mechanics, and arranged in "sets of lines" in order to "construct" a painting?
Mechanical Forces Mechanics, succinctly put, is the branch of physics concerned with how physical bodies react when subjected to forces. In the very particular perspective of technology and engineering, the function of forces is to make things move, the forces used to make machines that do things. There are other forces involved in the construction of stable structures such as bridges and buildings. The INKhUK artists were living in an urban environment. Because the technologicalengineering definition of construction given by Ladovsky had been the reference for what pictorial construction would be, so the forces that were considered would also have originated here. What is seen in some of Popova's paintings are the forces found in mechanics, in the forces of urban technologies, the world of machines, while in others there are the forces at work in the world of buildings and other engineering structures.
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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Forces of Machines All around one, forces are at work in the city. The steam engine is among the most spectacular, but there are many others. In Moscow in 1920 there was the bicycle, the motor car, the tram, the elevator, the knife grinder, the clock and watchmaker, the sewing machine, the loom, the cinema projector, the crane, and so on and so on. These machines function due to two basic kinds of forces: those that act by rotational forces, and those that act by linear forces; many machines operate by combinations of linear and rotational forces.
Rotational Forces Rotational forces are found everywhere: in the wheel of every barrow to the bicycle to the motor car, in the clock and the watch, in pulley systems used for trams and elevators (from 1851 to Popova's time and beyond), in the piston-driven wheels of steam engines, in the turning belt and wheel of the knife grinder, to the multiple wheels on cranes, to the reels of the cinema projector. In these machines the shape of the wheel is what determines the circular rotational force. There is an ink work on paper among Popova’s City drawings in which two wheels are visible in what appears to be an iron structure with two pulley lines. (Ill. 2) There are coloured pencil drawings in which the artist has simply captured the rotation of several interlocking wheels held in place by the rectangular bars of the machine. The inscribed circular shapes depict the forces of rotation where the direction of spin is indicated by the colours – red is clockwise, blue is counterclockwise, and black is what generates the two wheels to rotate. Here it is the force alone that is the subject, the "lines the images of forces", as was said in the March INKhUK minutes. (Ill. 3) Another drawing, 4, demonstrates the effects of speed in the rotation of what could be a large wheel fixed onto the straight metal bars of a machine. The concentric circles and part-circles appear to be throwing out light reflections, the flickering effects as the wheel spins around.
2 / Study for Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 India ink on paper, 26.5 x 20. 5 cm. Private Collection, Moscow
3 / Study for Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Coloured pencil on paper, 35.3 x 21.6 cm. Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki George Costakis Collection
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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4 / Study for Spatial-Force Construction Signed and dated on back 1921 Gouache and watercolour on paper, 44 x 36 cm. Perm State Picture Gallery
Linear Forces In the piston-driven wheels of the steam engine there is the shaft that moves back and forth along a horizontal axis which makes the wheels turn. In elevator pulley systems there are the straight ropes moving on the vertical, up and down the shaft with the movement controlled by weights and wheels. And one could go on – to the dockyards where winches bring a ship to berth and pulleys and hoists let down gangplanks and unload goods. Then there's backstage in the theatre, a veritable forest of ropes and pulleys lifting and lowering. What appears to be the combined forces of weights being lifted (or lowered) is seen in another of Popova's ink drawings (illus. 5). The weights are supported by bars or ropes, the heavy black lines possibly girders. They resemble the iron framework of the crane, which can be seen in Ill. 7 and in the painting of this construction, 6, which captures the strong contrasts between light and dark.
5 / Study for Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 India ink on paper, 26.5 x 20.5 cm. Private Collection, Moscow
6 / Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on board, ----
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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Many of these devices are set in motion by all manner of levers and cranks – linear structures driving linear or rotational forces.
Rotational and Linear Forces Some of the linear forces create linear movement such as the crane (which also involves the forces of weight and gravity), while cranks, which are straight or may be bent at given angles, can be used to generate rotational forces. In the two drawings above (No. 4 and No. 5) there are what appear to be axels of the wheels which are force structures for a spinning wheel. In another drawing (No. 2) Popova has set turning wheels along what could be ropes, for example, as one would find in pulley systems. Rotational forces and linear forces, then, are the technical, mechanical forces that Popova was depicting in several of her Painterly- and Spatial-Force Constructions. She discovered these forces by observing and studying urban technology and machines that function due to these forces. Indeed, Popova employed some of the urban machinery that uses these forces as the stage sets for three theatrical productions of 1921, 1922, and 1923. They are the template, as it were, of her city of forces and in City of the Future, illus. 7, she has depicted the hoist, the lever, the crane, the giant wheel set in motion by a smaller wheel, as well as the tensions of bridge abutments, a veritable vocabulary of technological, urban forces.
7 / Maquette for City of the Future, 1921 With Alexander Vesnin. Pencil on paper, Private Collection, Moscow
Popova's Dynamic City of Forces The city being so full of technological marvels must have inspired Popova to set out with sketchbook and pencil in pocket to stroll through the streets of Moscow in search of this dynamic city of forces. Not only did she find an array of moving machines, but in its streets and buildings, the city itself is an order and arrangement of forces. L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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There is one particular group of works known because on the front of a sketchbook the artist wrote, "The City". These drawings and related ink drawings (among which ill. 2 and 5 belong) and linocuts are depictions of forces as they stretch along beams, cables, poles and pulleys, Popova capturing the inner forces of all the relationships as seen in scaffoldings – to judge from a contemporary photograph by Moholy-Nagy (illus. 8). They reveal linear systems of direction, of weight, and of points of tension and expansion. Of the many sketches in this notebook, Popova tended to isolate the strong vertical and horizontal beams of contrasting forces push-pulling against each other, with subsidiary bars giving the structure stability (illus 9 and 10). In another sketchbook, the triangular-shaped spaces between beams and bars are picked up as almost transparent arrangements of air and tonal light which emphasise direction and tension (illus. 11 and 12). From these many drawings she would create paintings in which the emphasis would be on the structural lines in space or, alternatively, in which the emphasis would be on the airiness, light and colours of the sky seen through the structural lines.
8 / L. Moholy-Nagy, Scaffolding, photograph 1921
9 / From “The City”, 1921, India ink on paper 26.5 x 20.5 cm. Private Collection, Moscow
10 / From “The City”, 1921, India ink on paper 26.5 x 20.5 cm. Private Collection, Moscow
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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11 / Spatial Force-Construction, 1921 Gouache and ink on paper, 10.4 x 7.3 cm. Private collection, New York
12 / Spatial Force-Construction, 1921 Gouache and ink on paper, 10.8 x 8.2 cm. Private collection, New York
The 5 x 5 = 25 Exhibition – Painterly-Force Constructions
13 / Initialled L. P. page in catalogue of 5 x 5 = 25, 1921
From the drawings capturing the forces by which the stable structures of scaffoldings are governed Popova did a number of paintings, while into the 25 catalogues of the 5 x 5 = 25 exhibition she glued a linocut whose construction is based on the same principles. These would be among the works she titled, “Spatial-Force Construction”, of which there were two paintings listed in the catalogue. The other three works were titled “Spatial Volumetrics”, “Coloured Plane-Surfaces”, and “Closed Spatial Construction”. None of the paintings she exhibited has been identified. Significantly, Popova listed her five works under the single title of, “Experiments with Painterly-Force Constructions”, and she provided a short statement that reads: “All the experiments shown here are pictorial and must be considered only as a series of preparatory experiments for concrete material constructions.” Popova is clearly making the distinction between three-dimensional constructions and two-dimensional paintings constructed on the basis of forces that can be conveyed pictorially, as paintings. By using the word, “painterly” she is insisting on the characteristics of painting: colour, texture, light and dark, and so on.
L. Popova, "Construction = Sets of Lines + Systems of Forces"
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14 / Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on plywood, 64 x 60 cm. Formerly George Costakis Collection, Moscow State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow
15 / Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on plywood, 88.5 x 64.5 cm. Formerly George Costakis Collection, Moscow State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow
16 / Painterly-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on canvas, 48.9 x 39.4 cm. James G. Forsyth Fund, 1970 Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N. Y.
17 / Painterly-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on canvas, 78 x 61.8 cm. Private Collection, Cologne
18 / Painterly-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on plywood, 124 x 82 cm. Formerly George Costakis Collection, Moscow State Tretiakov Gallery, Moscow
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Popova’s known works that would belong to the group of “Spatial-Force Constructions” are characterised by their variety. The linocut, 13, is highly animated by lines of varying widths and hatchings in the play of light against dark, while in several paintings she has reduced the elements to the forces of beams and bars thrusting against each other in several layers in space with subtle lighting effects on the ground, as in 14. Contrasted to this is a similar composition of bars which are now coloured, 15, in which moving air and lights in all their painterliness dominate. In another canvas, 17, the areas are very colourful and delineated by a fine line of force running through the construction which may change colour due to changes in light (a device much used by Vesnin in his theatre set designs), while in another, 18, the structural bands of the scaffolding are superimposed over the complex activity of pulleys as in the drawing, 2 – indicated by the blue part-circles – moving along ropes or cables in the changing atmosphere of light and colour. This painting is further energised by two rectangles, red and black, that would be parts of a machine or levers controlling the pulleys, elements which are dominant in another painting, 19. As with all of these works, Popova has emphasised plays of light and dark in a variety of ways, even breaking a bar or a line by changing its colour, as can be seen in 3 as well as in 17, 18, and 19. Despite the similarity of subject matter – tensions and directions of forces – Popova has explored a number of ways to convey this. The painting titled, “Closed Spatial Construction” would suggest a work based on a rotational structure, which always operates within a closed system in order to provide a continuous flow of forces in a given direction. Two works demonstrate this superbly, 19 and 20. They are characterised by whirling circles that spin round, held in place by black bars of varying width – they would be the machine parts holding the wheels and themselves active in a back and forth movement, perhaps. These are powerful paintings in which all the forces of turning wheels can be felt, and they are set in contrast to the different kinds of forces of the linear structural bars. As with the City paintings, Popova has moved from a very full painterly solution to one that is pared down to capture the “bare bones”, as it were, of the lines of directional forces accentuated by the flashing of lights and darks of blacks and white with the red flashes capturing the rotations of the wheels.
19 / Painterly-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on board, 53.8 x 40.5 cm. Private Collection, Cologne
20 / Spatial-Force Construction, 1921 Oil on plywood with marble dust, 112.3 x 112.5 cm. George Costakis Collection, Moscow Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki
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