An airplane instead of a cross: how to make your eyes work

Abstract

The preface to the archival cluster “The Optical Turn and the illustrated children’s literature in early Soviet Russia” offers a brief review of ideas, policies, tendencies and institutions that played a crucial role on shaping a new visual landscape in Russia during the first fifteen years after the Bolshevik Revoltuion. Largely, the turn towards the optical was determined by very pragmatic considerations: when compared to the printed word, visual images were much more effective in their impact on the mass audience.
Yet, the specificity of this situation was determined by a very particular historical condition: the new (post-revolutionary) language was created by highly creative professional artists (who lacked other venues). Moreover, for the proponents of the Russian avant-garde, various “artistic forms of the
day” became a key vehicle for implementing the avant-garde’s main task of bringing art into life. The illustrated children’s book was a major part of this process of creating a new visual reality, new visual devices and technologies, and, finally, a new visual literacy. The archival cluster includes texts of key participants of the optical turn, demonstrating the scope of opinions and reminding the main
assumptions which determined the development of the mass Soviet book for children.

Keywords: the visual, pedagogics, illustration, picture books, graphic literacy.