VOLUME
In the autumn of 1920 B. Korolev and A. Lavinsky headed the workshop at the faculty of sculpture. Before the beginning of classes at this workshop, students were mainly engaged in sculpting of living nature. All the students were impressed by the absolutely unusual still life set by A. Lavinsky in September 1920 for his first assignment. There was a cylinder on the stand, a cube placed at a corner to it, an I-beam on the stand, and an architectural detail was placed on top of the cylinder. The tutor asked the students not to literally mold this composition from the clay, but to convey their vision in its peculiar refraction. This was the beginning of the propaedeutical discipline Volume.
At the origin of the propaedeutic discipline were three sculptors – B. Korolev, A. Lavinsky and A. Babichev. Korolev and Lavinsky were the followers of Cubism in sculpture, so the methods of teaching sculptural propaedeutics were intricately mixed with analytical techniques of “objective method” and Cubism style. At the first stage, cubism techniques prevailed, which helped to overcome imagery stereotypes formed among students.
The initial program consisted of unrelated assignments. Students were offered simple geometric forms from which they had to create a composition. Students of not only sculpture, but also other faculties had to solve problems on volumetric composition with the set properties. For example, to reveal the volume in space, to show the ratio of weights of volumes, to express dynamics, to show interpenetration of bodies, etc. They used a certain set of objects or forms for this – sphere, cube, parallelepiped, cylinder, cone, pyramid. The following tasks were given: to create an abstract composition from a set of different elements – plane surface, cylinder, cable, wire, using in particular the relation of different materials.
Students also created cubist compositions in compositions from living nature.
А. Babichev was never fond of cubism and his approach to sculptural propaedeutics was deprived of conceptual and stylistic edge. He believed that students in the process of creating volume-plastic compositions should move from simple to complex. Being a member of the group of objective analysis of INHUK, Babichev in his pedagogical activity sought to introduce an “objective method” of teaching with his elemental analysis of means and techniques of artistic expression. Babichev paid much attention to developing materials for this geometric propaedeutics. The works of his students are devoid of any influence of cubism. These are really study compositions on the combination and influence of simple geometric forms in their purest form.
Babichev did not hurry to lead novice sculptors to complex figurative compositions, as in this case it devalued the subsequent propaedeutic course for them in VKHUTEMAS. That’s why he built his course from simple forms to complex – from preliminary general sculptural skills to deep mastering of volume and compositional regularities with the use of plastic combinations of simple geometric forms.
Having mastered these skills, the students fell into the hands of the tutors of “Volume” discipline.
Based on VKHUTEMAS by S.O. Khan-Magomedov,
book 1, chapter Propedeutics of A. Lavinsky, B. Korolev and A. Babichev – establishment of the discipline “Volume” 169–172