The works of the Leningrad art industry enterprises of the second half of the twentieth century and their role in the organization of the living environment (on the example of the products of the Leningrad Enamel plant)

Sapanzha Ol'ga Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0001-7874-2539 Doctor of Cultural Studies Professor, Department of Art Education and Decorative Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. 196601, Russia, Pushkin, Glinka str., 17, sq. 28 sapanzha@mail.ru

The works of the art industry of the post-war and late Soviet period are now quite actively included in the space of collecting, and therefore inevitably become the subject of scientific interest. Nevertheless, when studying the corpus of printed items produced at Soviet enterprises and having a certain artistic component, difficulties arise in determining the disciplinary boundaries of their research. Formally attributed to the subject area of technical aesthetics and design, the goods of the interior and haberdashery industry are difficult to analyze from the standpoint of classical methods of the art criticism approach. At the level of real construction, the traditional formula "benefit – strength – beauty" operates, in the field of historical and art studies, it is necessary to bring the optics of studying a range of objects to the logic of art criticism analysis. It is equally important to take into account the historical and cultural context - the dependence of the development of the art industry on general value orientations, the specifics of the development of everyday culture practices, cultural policy. Finally, the most important thing is to take into account the technological component - the level of development of industrial technologies that make it possible to transfer into the format of mass production the body of objects, the creation of which was based on the principles of decorative art.

So, it is necessary to state that in the problematic area of industrial production of mass-demand goods having an artistic component (interior plastics, textiles, haberdashery), the actual subject of study is a set of external representative characteristics (design) of these works. The logic of studying design is not limited to art criticism formal and stylistic analysis, but involves the study of the historical component (the history of enterprises), technological (organization of production) and cultural (the place and role of objects in the organization of the living environment). 

It seems logical that the first attempts to study the designated subject were associated with the inclusion of works of the art industry in the academic art history discourse and the study of mass porcelain, which, according to its stylistic characteristics, quite fit into the methodology of describing works of decorative and applied art, although in terms of circulation, production technologies and mass distribution as part of the interior, it belonged to the sphere of technical aesthetics. Dissertation research on the products of the Pervomaisky Factory ^[1], the Leningrad Porcelain Factory ^[2], research on the products of the Novgorod enterprises – factories "Krasny Farforist", "Proletarian", "Vozrozhdenie" ^[3,4,5], demonstrated a steady scientific interest in mass-circulation porcelain, not recently included in a serious, non-journalistic art criticism the context and at the same time defined porcelain production as a participant in the processes of forming a typical, specially organized living environment.

The second area of the art industry, which is also being actively researched, is textiles. The connection of masters of decorative textiles (tapestry, tapestry, artistic souvenir works) with the production of fabrics, determined the study of the problems of industry (Vera Slutskaya factory, Novosti production association) in connection with the level of author's creativity ^[6]. At the same time, reverse situations are also being studied – movements from mass production to art objects ^[7].

The initial theses of research on the works of the porcelain and textile industry of the 1950s and 1970s are the assertion of the role and importance of the professional level of the masters who came to the enterprises, the connection of changes with the transformation of artels into factories, the fight against artisanal and taste and the formation of a system of art councils approving the release of samples of interior and utilitarian plastics, fabrics, haberdashery, other mass-market goods. demand.

The above determined a new level of goods intended for release. So, graduates of the Leningrad Higher Art and Industrial School named after V. I. Mukhina, sculptors Lev Naumovich Smorgon (born 1929), Tamara Andrianovna Fedorova (1928-2009), Anatoly Alexandrovich Kiselyov (1929-2017), artists Lyubov Afanasieva Rodionovna (1930-2017), Vladlena Grigoryevna Gorovneva (1926-2003) came to shop No. 3 of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory). Another university supplier of personnel was the sculpture faculty of the I. E. Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, whose graduates – Vladimir Isaakovich Sychev (1917-1995) and Alexander Vasilyevich Degtyarev (born 1929) also worked in the workshop for the production of artistic sculpture.

It is worth noting that the named enterprise was not focused exclusively on the production of works of interior plastics ^[8]. The main direction in the work of the porcelain factory since the organization (the artel was transformed into a factory in 1952), was the manufacture of technical porcelain. By way of cooperation, the plant was engaged in the production of technical products for the radio engineering industry plants of the Moscow, Voronezh, Novosibirsk and Leningrad Sovnarkhoz. Electrical installation porcelain was also produced, which was supplied to the plants of the Main Management System of the Leningrad City Executive Committee and the Electrometallprom Trust. Nevertheless, the company's reports contain information about the constant expansion of the production of artistic sculpture, which was supplied to trading organizations in Leningrad. In the early 1950s, LZFI produced figurines according to the shapes of other factories, but the involvement of its own personnel allowed creating a wide range of interior porcelain plastics. The principle of the distribution of artists into production remained in the late Soviet period. So, the situation in the textile industry was similar – outstanding masters Felix Ilyich Leibovich (born 1939) ^[9], Boris Georgievich Migal (1946-1999) ^[10] come to work for the Novosti industrial art and haberdashery association formed in 1964.

By the middle of the twentieth century, the system of higher art schools produced a sufficient number of specialists who were ready to solve author's artistic tasks with a view to the future circulation of works, and therefore they bore the stamp of a certain creative school. At the same time, the specifics of the form and decor, the choice of subjects, and the color scheme allow a number of researchers to distinguish not only private approaches of educational institutions, but also to talk about the presence of local regional schools, for example, a special "Leningrad style" ^[11]. The emergence of such schools, which determine the stylistic specifics of works, makes it possible even today to distinguish local creative schools in specific types of art ^[12].

If the art of porcelain and textiles has already taken a fairly stable position in the art history problem field, then the works of the haberdashery industry with the use of metals and enamels (production of compact boxes, cigarette cases, caskets) and even more so – plastic masses (boxes, caskets, interior decorations) are not yet included in the research within the boundaries of stylistic analysis, preference is given to the culturological approach ^[13]. And, nevertheless, we can confidently talk about the expansion of the research areas of the art industry, as well as about the search for tools for their study and systematization. At the same time, when focusing on the problems of analysis and interpretation of a particular work, there is a danger of the disappearance of the context – the cultural field of the emergence and development of a social order that has determined specific visual markers and the requirements of stylistic conformity.

The term "style", which has been mentioned several times, needs a separate comment in relation to mass-produced products. When studying the artistic processes of the second half of the twentieth century, the use of stylistic categories is difficult due to the fragmentation, multi-composition of the phenomena themselves and the blurring of visual language in the conditions of mass culture. It seems more correct to use the term "design", meaningfully related to the organization of the living environment. In both cases, we are talking about the development of a certain artistic and plastic language, the specifics of which are determined by a range of circumstances - political, ideological, technological, social, aesthetic, etc.

The change of coordinates, the transition from stylistic paradigms to design ones began with the twentieth century and received a design by the 1960s. The environment itself, which has been rapidly assuming a visually unified and mass urbanized character since the middle of the last century, determined the final collapse of the principle of two cultures in one, where the first culture was a space of large styles within which the search and development of the language of aristocratic culture took place, and the second was a space of tradition, a mass peasant way of life at that time. The classical history of arts (fine and decorative) focuses on the visual language of the aristocracy, called the style – Baroque, classicism, Empire. Peasant culture, based on rituals and also having its own visual language and traditional crafts, often moves into the subject field of ethnography.

The twentieth century, which created a mass society, destroys this picture – first declaratively, then really. The already elegant and refined Art Nouveau spoke its own language not only with the aristocracy, but also with the new bourgeoisie, helping them to create a space of life, in fact, for the first time offering the concept of design as an organization of the environment. Art Nouveau itself, which grew out of the dictates of machine production and attempts to preserve stylistic traditions, gave rise to works in which the "truth of the material" sounded - they actually prepared the transition to the principles of artistic design ^{[14, pp. 8-9]}. Soviet constructivism created an absolutely new non-figurative language, formally addressed to all workers, but in reality limited in the degree of dissemination. However, the restructuring of the system of higher art education and the unification of universities of high art and applied technologies (VKHUTEMAS-VKHUTEIN) testified to significant changes – the beginning of the abolition of high style and the birth of mass design.

Technical aesthetics became the terminological product of design in the Soviet tradition of discourse around the problems of the organization of the living environment – the term by which the Czech designer P. Tuchny designated in 1954 the theory and practice of artistic design of means of production ^{[15, p.550]}.  In 1962, the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics (VNIITE) was established, whose tasks, among other things, included the strategic design of an environment that includes industrial products of a high aesthetic level. The bulletin, published since 1964, and then the magazine "Technical Aesthetics" covered issues related to the most important problems of the new industry organizing the living environment: the role and significance of the designer and the relationship of artistic design and the quality of industrial products ^{[15, pp. 550-554]}.

So, by the mid-1960s, the foundations of a new industrial design had been formed, which included both an institutional component (a system of training specialists, the presence of a research institute), and a substantial one (the publication of a magazine, a broad discussion of new technical aesthetics), and a practical one (the presence of a network of enterprises that produced art industry goods). The period of the 1950s can be considered as a transitional period, which marked the movement from the aesthetic parameters of the Stalinist Empire (Triumph style) to the new coordinates of the thaw and the principles of decorative minimalism. The main principles when studying the products of enterprises from the point of view of classical art criticism analysis will be the fixation of the change of artistic language. The technological approach is based on the development of production, the cultural approach is based on the principles of designing a new type of living space, primarily urban. 

It was noted above that the areas of porcelain and textile industry are of the greatest interest to researchers today. The first area actively created a new Soviet interior, the second - determined the development of the fashion industry, and therefore the research interest is quite understandable. The production of haberdashery goods is still a little–studied area. Meanwhile, the products of enterprises producing consumer goods with artistic qualities allow us to demonstrate the transition from attempts to "keep the style" to the creation of goods that meet the new requirements of technical aesthetics. The analysis of the products of the Leningrad Enamel plant confirms this thesis.

The Lenemalier artel (Leningrad Enamel) was founded on June 27, 1931, from July 23, 1946 it was part of the system of the Leningrad Industrial Union, the charter of the organization was registered in the Leningrad City Financial Department on January 15, 1948 [CSA St. Petersburg F. 1853. Op. 10. D. 8]. According to an extract from the protocol No. 1 of the reporting meeting of the Lenemalier artel dated March 16, 1947, the artel carried out trade in consumer goods of its own production in accordance with the procedure established by law, as well as to trading organizations according to concluded contracts and set itself the task of organizing and developing enamel-metal and stamping crafts and other subsidiary crafts with it [TSGA SPb. F. 1853. Op. 10. d. 8. l.7]. The main objectives of the Lenemalier cooperative fishing artel, according to the Charter, were to increase the production of high-quality consumer goods in every possible way to meet the constantly growing material and cultural needs of the population and improve the service of its household needs; to increase the material and cultural level of the members of the artel and to educate them as active conscious builders of communist society [TSGA St. Petersburg F. 1853. Op. 10. d. 8. l.25].

Artels were cooperative commercial associations with common means of production and jointly organized labor leading public economy [Central State Administration of St. Petersburg. F. 1853. Op. 10. d. 8. l.24]. The board of the artel was located in Leningrad at the address Konnaya str., 2/5, had a seal, a stamp with its name, a production (factory) stamp [TSGA SPb. F. 1853. Op. 10. d. 8. l. 27]. The plant will receive a new building at 54 Elizarova St. in 1959 [F. 9688 Op. 1, 1266 l.42]. At that time, a number of enterprises were transferred to the Nevsky District – for example, the Leningrad Porcelain Factory mentioned above.

Immediately after the Great Patriotic War, the artel was actively involved in the production of mass-demand goods. Thus, correspondence is constantly conducted with the Pavilion of the best consumer goods of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce.

The permanent pavilion of the best samples of consumer goods was created as part of the All-Union Chamber of Commerce on July 17, 1938 on the basis of a resolution of the Economic Council under the SNK of the USSR. Its purpose was to promote the introduction of new types of consumer goods into the industry and the modernization of obsolete ones. On May 22, 1945, an agreement was signed between the Pavilion and the Lenemalier artel [F. 9805 Op. 1 d. 894. L.1]. Immediately after the conclusion of the contract, the company undertakes, according to the samples received from the pavilion, to organize the production of cigarette cases for IG5-8/2 cigarettes with a modification of the shape along the length of cigarettes, compact boxes and brooches stamped, painted with paint according to the drawing and sketches of the pavilion [F. 9805 Op. 1 d. 894. L.2]. Already on July 25, 1945, the artel had to present a cigarette case with the image (stamped) of the monument of Peter the Great [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. L.3].

In 1946, the pavilion issued a technical specification for a brooch "Seven elephants" made of aminoplast (the text of the technical specification: "the brooch is made of aminoplast has a shaded pattern of seven elephants, and the edging is in the form of a rope, the color may be different except for elephants whose color should be white or ivory. The shape is oval and embossed. The reverse side is smooth with a collar on which the assembly pin is mounted" [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. l.8]). In addition, a cigarette case with views of Leningrad with a nitrocoating, a compact with an engraving to the tune of Russian fairy tales, a women's set "Cameo" (brooch, bracelet and earrings), cuff links of four types according to the samples of the pavilion and a men's throat cufflink are accepted for production [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. L.12-13]. When issuing tasks, the technical details of the production of products are recorded in detail. For example, the technical specifications for a cufflink metal button with an enameled insert art. No. 2525 are the following description: "The cufflink is made of brass and octahedral biometall with a stamped enameled insert, the color of which can be of different colors. Both halves of cufflinks are exactly the same. On the reverse side of each half of the cufflink, a leg with a button is mounted, with one half of the cufflink having a socket with a spring, and the other a button that serve to connect two and a half cufflinks. The cufflink is electroplated by applying a layer of 3-4 microns of silver" [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. L.14]. The technical specification for the Elephant brooch silvered with a coating of cold enamel art. 2351 looks like this: "The Elephant brooch is a metal plate having the shape and contour of an artistic drawing "Elephant". A plate with a pin is soldered on the reverse side of the brooch. On the Elephant brooch there is a mat on the back, which is enameled with cold enamel of two colors. The brooch is intended for decoration and serves as a hairpin. The thickness of the silver layer is 3-4 microns" [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. L.18].

Already during this period, the plant is actively mastering the technique of cold enamel, which will then be constantly improved to increase the circulation of products. In general, the technical component occupies an important place in the company's activities, but the content component is also in the center of attention.

Thus, an important place in the works of the enterprise already in the second half of the 1940s was occupied by images of Leningrad, which is an important sign of the phenomenon of household classics associated with the replication of images of monuments of the imperial period on everyday objects [33. pp.9-11].

On April 13, 1949, a letter was sent to the chairman of the Lenemalier artel from the Pavilion with the following content: "When considering on April 13 of this year the samples of the Hunting and Vityaz cigarette cases presented by you, the Leningrad Expert Council proposed to give an image of Leningrad architectural monuments on the lids of the cigarette cases: the Bronze Horseman, the Admiralty, the Peter and Paul Fortress and others in order to to reflect the beauty and grandeur of our city on the product. We ask you to inform us about the decision" [F. 9805 Op. 1 d. 894. L.63].

In the same year, the plant receives a task to produce two cigarette cases for the anniversaries – the 150th anniversary of the birth of A.S. Pushkin and the 45th anniversary of the death of the destroyer "The Guardian". The Commission adopted the following conclusion on the samples of mass cigarette cases with drawings "Pushkin" and "Watchman" and with drawings inlaid with enamel, with round and oval ornaments mastered from experimental samples: Cigarette cases consist of two lids connected by a hinge. A lock is mounted in the lower lid to lock the cigarette case. Cigarette cases with drawings "Pushkin" and "Watchman" have a grid pattern with a diamond or some other pattern on the bottom cover. Cigarette cases with enamel pattern have the same pattern on both lids. Cigarette cases are silvered by electroplating (Pushkin, the Guardian), the rest are nickel-plated. [F. 9805 Op. 1 D. 894. L.100].

The spread of the assortment of the enterprise is evidenced by the materials of the meeting of employees of the system of the Leningrad Industrial Union on the development of new types of products based on the samples of the Pavilion on February 20, 1947. The Lenemalier artel is invited to master the square compact No. 204, linen buttons, men's garters with metal fittings [F. 9805 Op. 1 d. 895. L. 9]. This trend will continue in the following years at many enterprises – the goods of the art industry will coexist in production with household household items.

By the mid-1950s, the artel was mastering a significant range of consumer goods, and "together with the Soviet people, inspired by the historical decisions of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The fifth session of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR and subsequent decisions of the party and the government, under the leadership of the LENIN-STALIN Party, ensures the successful construction of communism with their selfless work" [F. 5008 Op. 2 D. 988. L. 99]. Among other products, Lenemalier produces cup holders "Openwork", "VSHV", "Abundance", "Black Grouse", a small-format cigarette case "VSHV", "Leningrad", "Capercaillie", a compact "Stone flower", a brooch "Deer" with enamel [F. 5008 Op. 2 d. 988. L.91], silver-plated cup holders with enamel of two new types, powder boxes with enamel, cufflinks with mother-of-pearl and plastic of three types, a nickel-plated metal soap dish are planned for development [F. 5008 Op. 2 D. 988. L.92].

Serious changes at the enterprise take place in 1956, when the artel acquires the status of a factory – it turns from a fishing partnership into a state enterprise. The acceptance act of September 1, 1956 states that in accordance with the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR of August 10, 1956 No. 554 on the transfer of fishing cooperation enterprises to state associations and the decision of the Leningrad Executive Committee of August 15, 1956 and subsequent decisions of higher levels of industrial cooperation and the decision of general meetings, the acceptance and delivery of local industry property and As of July 1, 1956 [F. 5008 Op. 1 d. 2789. l.1]. On September 3, 1956, an act was signed that the Lenhorgalkhimpromsoyuz transferred, and the Electrometalloprom Trust of the Main Department of Local Industry of Leningrad accepted the Lenemaler production and trade cooperative artel into Leningrad, Konnaya str., 2/5 according to the balance sheet as of July 1, 1956 [F. 5008 Op. 1, 2789. l.7].

The following workshops of the enterprise were placed at the disposal:

The labor collective was also subordinated to the new parent organization:

The production of products in kind by the Lenemalier artel in the period from 1940 to 1965 demonstrates a steady increase in the production of cigarette cases, compact boxes, cufflinks and brooches.

The largest part of the production was metal goods, which, in addition to household goods, included works of art. A popular product in the assortment of the company were, for example, enameled plates with artistic inserts. In the annual report of the plant for 1958, the trust manager asks the Minister of Finance of the RSFSR to lower the tax on their production: "The Leningrad Enamel factory produces plates with an artistic insert. The planned calculation includes a tax of ten percent, and the Department of the Ministry of Finance of the RSFSR taxes them with a turnover tax of thirty-eight percent as other haberdashery" [F. 9688 Op. 1 d.1185. L.41].

In 1958, the plant produced more than twenty thousand pieces of such plaques, in 1960, according to the report, 24003 pieces [F. 9688 Op. 1 d.1413], and in 1961, such taste was already sharply criticized. In the article "To improve the artistic quality of household items", which is included in the collection of articles "Designer Artist", the question of the colossal importance of the artistic appearance of household items is raised again. The author's anger falls precisely on the plaques of the Leningrad Enamel factory: "endless "wall medallions"..... anti-artistic and vulgar, they are able to give any, the strictest and most beautiful room, a taste of philistine vulgarity ..... What, apart from the desire to distort the taste and vulgarize the way of life of people, can explain the release of "artistic products" like this creation"? ^{[16, pp. 44-45]}.

Indeed, works of this kind were not distinguished by sophistication and taste, they were based on imitation of high styles with reduced materials (imitation of noble enamel, imitation of metal openwork frame plaques), however, in the post–war period, such works (and among them - paintings on cardboard imitating a baguette, plaster figures, etc.) had a serious burden on giving individual features to the post-war housing and forming ideas about the significance of historical heritage, that is, solving the very tasks that were associated with the general state policy. New aesthetic coordinates, set, including by specialists of the educated VNIITE, prescribed to fight against manifestations of philistinism and vulgarity. The style of the company's products is changing dramatically. Cigarette cases with views of the VSHV or panoramas of St. Petersburg, occupying the entire surface of the lid and resembling engravings, are replaced by boxes in which the city becomes a detail, a conventional sign, and the main space is occupied by light and elegant ornamental motifs. At the same time, enamel is actively used in the design of cigarette cases – a small enameled insert with the image of the sphinx on the University Embankment can be located in the upper corner of the lid. The material is no longer a means of imitating a more noble material, but strives to reveal its capabilities by artistic means. No less important is the circle of monuments depicted on the lids of cigarette cases. In the first half of the 1950s, this was, for example, the Central Pavilion of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (since 1959 – the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy, VDNH), In the 1960s, monuments of Leningrad modernism - the Theater of the Young Spectator, the building of the Finnish railway Station – were presented on the lids of cigarette cases. So the changes fixed by architecture are reflected in the haberdashery industry.

Similar processes occur with compact boxes and brooches. Modern style, based on the principles of decorative minimalism and set by new ideas about technical aesthetics, has become the basis for the products being developed and manufactured.

Both stages of the company's development, which determined the specifics of its products, were directly related to the two stages of the development of Soviet design. The first (post-war) period was the time of determining the basic parameters of a new sustainable way of life. Developing in the wake of the "triumph style", the Soviet art industry focused on high standards and used the means available to it to imitate works stylistically tending to "big styles". These are plates with artistic inserts, the stamped frame of which imitates openwork metal, boxes with enamel, repeating the shape of snuffboxes made of precious metals of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, cigarette cases, the covers of which are decorated with detailed views of the city. With the approval of new principles of technical aesthetics, the product range is gradually changing – simple cigarette cases, caskets, compact boxes, brooches are being developed based on the principles of decorative minimalism, within which the cheapness of the material and the possibility of mass production are understood as a positive side in the development of new opportunities for the art industry. The new decorativism that replaced decorative minimalism until the end of the Soviet period declared a return to lush decorative motifs in the design of mass-demand goods, but the very development of new artistic techniques was hindered by the general fatigue of society ^[17].

The designated stylistic transformations could not be isolated from the general processes of changing the quality of the living environment, complicating the practices of everyday urban culture and vectors of cultural policy. The latter, for example, determined the interest in the representation in the works of the Leningrad Enamel Artist of classical monuments of the imperial period and the new architecture of the city, leading a dialogue with tradition. The formation of a single standard living space and sustainable forms of life characteristic of an industrial city has led to an increase in the circulation of products. Economic, economic decisions of the transformation of artels into factories led to the strengthening of the artistic component of the circulation products by attracting graduates of art schools. 

All this made it possible by the end of the 1950s to create a stable system of art industry enterprises (porcelain, textile, haberdashery), to a large extent, decorating a new urbanized space, giving each specific standard housing notes of originality, and allowing almost every citizen to have everyday goods, properly decorated in accordance with the requirements of the new design (bodies, houses, cities). Each edition of items created in accordance with general style preferences and technological capabilities became an important marker of a new cultural way of life.

Today, the active inclusion of works in scientific research, not only domestic, but also foreign ^{[18, 19, 20]}, is both a common interest in the culture of everyday life, and the search for new directions in the development of historical art and cultural studies, expanding the boundaries of the studied artistic material, which should be recognized as a positive factor in the interaction of different fields of humanitarian knowledge.

The logic of such an integrated approach allows us to determine the algorithm for studying the works of art industry enterprises. The first step is to describe the historical context, the global coordinates of Soviet politics and its regional, local manifestations ^{[13, pp. 6-11]}. At the second stage, it is advisable to study the history of enterprises - the corpus of archival materials (in particular, annual reports of enterprises to the statistical office) makes it possible to solve the problem of reconstruction of technological processes, organization of production, assortment and circulation. The third stage involves the study of specific materials - products of enterprises (presented today in museum collections and in private collections) and the integration of art and cultural methods to determine the formal and stylistic characteristics of manufactured products, their description as part of the new Soviet design, as well as their place in the deployment of everyday practices and the organization of the environment. Compliance with this logic and the implementation of each of the stages in relation to specific enterprises will allow us to form a holistic picture of the artistic and industrial development of the post-war and late Soviet periods as part of the overall picture of Soviet society and culture.