Today I‘d like to talk a bit about socialist realism.

In my opinion, this is a very interesting direction in art not so much because of its character, but much because of its beginning. Socialist realism appeared in the Communist Soviet Union after the Bolsheviks took power. Artists had to create what authorities wanted. It was decided that the images must carry socialist content and have a simple, realistic form so that the average, uneducated worker could understand it. The painters had to give up the symbols and the failures, and those who react against this situation had to leave the USSR.

I will show you the print of probably the most famous Polish socialist realist picture, Give the brick.

Arts like these are kind of propaganda posters. They often present workers at work or the revolution of the proletariat. People are well muscled and strong, you can call them even kind of monumental, but not especially on this example which I’ve showed you.

There aren’t many details, so people are a bit clunky, they seem harshly cut. In this way, they wanted to hide the author's own style. The image had to be similar to each other - in this way they wanted to make them all timeless and universal.

In my opinion there are the features which make it very easy to recognize the image of socialist realism. When you see worker with no expression, dull-witted face, you will know that this is the direction.