Avant-garde
Destructive laughter used to be a kind of disease of culture beginning from Pushkin up to the times of Block, and turned into irony the whole XIXth century , and reached its peak in decadence." The latter is close to avant-garde. The audience, warmed by mass media, laughed at Mayakovski's orange shirt and top hat, made fun of painted faces of M. Larionov and D. Burlyuk, and., of course, mocked their works. For every middlebrow avant-garde groups of artists like "DonkeyOs Tail" and "Knave of Diamonds", futuristic poetry caused only laughter. To make it short, show, flaffoonery, circus, jestery, funny epatage on the eve of the tragic XXth century.

The aesthetics of satiric lubok of the XVIIIth century undoubtedly influenced "The Soldier's Series" by M. Larionov; "The Headless Barber" by D. Burlyuk; devils sawing a woman by K. Malevich. (1914). Like the characters of O. Daumier's caricatures A. Lentulov and Yakulov could duel with brushes for the audienceOs fun.

In the pictures of cubists, futurists, and expressionists an image of some mechanic smile looking like convulsion on the lifeless face appeared. This smile did not make people laugh, but was repulsive and scary. The avant-garde art being paradoxical and full of irony does not produce ready-made formulas or gives any definite knowledge; its purpose like caricatureOs is to stimulate the search, to create new experience, to prepare people for stress situations and even for world cataclysm. Russian futurists were fortune-tellers and prophets of all those scary caricatures and nonsense which appeared together with the epoch of wars and revolutions. Gloomy buffoonery caused O"great futuristic laughter to make the face of the world younger". The creative work of futurists, dadaists, expressionists, surrealists, and pop-artists is not a style, but the way of thinking. They mystify, stimulate intellectual cooperation. The most consistent is dadaism which invented Mona Lisa with moustache (M. Dusham), photomontage (D. Hartfield), and gave life to great satirists O. Dix and G. Gross.

Surrealists appeared to be second to none geniuses of laughter (e.g. "Fir Tea-set" by M. Oppenheim, "Telephone-Lobster" by S. Dali). They also practiced "black humour" (e.g. "Refined Corpse"). "Black humour" destroyed routine stereotypes. Thanks to A. Breton "Anthology of Black Humour"(1940) was published. Paradox, irony, and grotesque were widely used by all surrealists; their method itself "comparison of incomparable" was close to the principles of "black humour", where everything is possible and insignificant. In 1947 R. Margitte painted a satiric picture "Philosophy of Boudoir" where a nightie turned into woman's body" this method is formally used by modern caricaturists. R. Margitte was also the author of "Portrait" with a one-eyed pancake on the plate as the main character.


1. The P. Picasso's works are the peak of irony of the XXth century.


2. M. Larionov. Caricature of V. Tatlin. 1912.


3. M. Larionov. Caricature of A. Kruchyonikh.


4. K. Malevich. 1913.


5. K. Malevich. "Anti-German Lubok". Detail. 1914.


7. M. Chagall. Self-portrait. 1918


8. E. Lisitsi. Coffin-makers. 1920-1921.


6. S. Valishevski. At the Dispute. Detail. 1915.
 

By Dmitry Moskin
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