Tatlin, Vladimir Evgrafovich (1885–1953)

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Vladimir Tatlin was born in Moscow in 1885. He attended the Kharkov Technical High School and left soon after for the seaport of Odessa in 1902. There he found work on a ship that sailed the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. He studied at the I.D. Seliverstova School of Arts at Penza and the Moscow College of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. It was through the painter Mikhail Larionov that he was introduced to artists and writers in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Milner, 1983; Zhadova, 1988). Around 1913, Tatlin began a career as a painter and became a member of the Union of Youth. His early work resembles impressionism and the paintings of the Kandinsky circle. In 1914, he visited Paris and was inspired by the work of the fauvists and French cubist painting. Although influenced by these groups, his work contained a vitality found in Russian art (Milner, 1983). During this period, he began the constructions he called ‘painterly reliefs,’ paintings with three-dimensional appliqué (Milner, 1983, pp. 92, 132).

An active artist throughout his life, Tatlin’s repertoire was varied: drawing, painting, threedimensional constructions, theater set design, clothing and costume design, furniture and domestic objects, architecture, and even a flying machine. Tatlin was continually interested in materiality, and especially exploring ‘materials as language’ (Milner, 1983, p. 94).

Talin’s most influential and celebrated project was his proposal model for the Monument to the Third International, commissioned by the Department of Artistic Work of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment in 1920. The project, although never realized as a building, was an icon for theoreticians that combined the social aspects of communism with constructivist art (Milner, 1983). The model displayed a series of leaning conical spirals meant to rotate at the various levels; the top portion was to contain a telegraph office speculatively intending to transmit images. Employing ruled lines and carefully constructed dimensions, this image shows a diagrammatic elevation of the planned project. The page can be considered a sketch because it describes a preliminary or preparatory diagram, although it appears similar to an etching. This view of the monument reveals little context, consisting only of a few industrial buildings, either very distant or diminished in scale by the tower. Consistent with a diagram, Tatlin labeled the various levels of the tower in case the audience was not able to perceive his intent. The monument’s structure and proportions are completely proposed, but as a building that was to house government offices, the sketch provided little explanation of mass or inhabitable volume.

Although the page’s overall impression is not sketchy in technique, it reflects both the miniature model and the model as idea. The much-publicized design became an icon for the Soviet Revolution. It symbolized the forward-looking communist state, embracing a new ideology, and had far-reaching impact as a rallying point for an optimistic future. John Milner speculates that its form represents the ‘progress of communism’ and the leaning spirals mimic a step forward (1983, p. 156). They are also suggestive of Hermes or Mercury, and the stepped transition resembles a Ziggurat (Milner, 1983). As a sketch, this image could be left unfinished and unresolved, since its purpose was ideological. The proposed monument speculated on a future and may have contributed to moving a political
machine. It did not need to be fully resolved as architecture, instead it could suggest a belief system and through its vagueness, it could conjure and implore a whole country. Tatlin continued to alter and redesign the tower over the years. This continual manipulation resembles qualities of sketches as in process and the ambiguity of this image to be transformed. The Monument of the Third International acted as a social mechanism, the sketch and especially the model through their visual powers were able to help promote an ideological goal.

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