Since the establishment of the first state-supported art academies in the second half of the sixteenth century, the elaborate and schematic pedagogical principles set forth by the founding Mannerist artists were subsequently assimilated by the French Academy and instilled across Europe as a dominant model of art education. This traditional academic, pedagogical doctrine “has determined the character and the destiny of academies of art down to the twentieth century” (Pevsner, 1973, p. 66). In the nineteenth century, reinforced by the Romantic narratives of genius, the paramount view on artistic creation was still a reflection of the Kantian position that “beautiful Art is only possible as a product of Genius” (1790/2000,para. 46). The author of a work of art, “does not himself know how he has come by his Ideas;” thus the artist has no power “to communicate it to others in precepts that will enable them to produce similar products” (1790/2000,para. 46). On the one hand, art, as a property of genius, cannot be taught. On the other, the founding principle legitimising the existence of art academies lies precisely in the belief that artistic genius must be educated.

Progressive early twentieth-century art and design schools resolved the aporia of nineteenth-century traditional art academies. Design education proposed a radical solution – a unity between art and technology, producing thus not only the possibility of teaching art but a new paradigm of education – in which everyone can learn to be creative. The argument of this presentation is that modernist and vanguard art trends, together with the foundation of design schools such as Bauhaus and Vkhutemas, evidence the departure from the traditional academic model of art education and introduce a fundamentally different approach to teaching creative skills as something that anyone can acquire.

To examine this premise, I will discuss the pedagogies of some of the most progressive art schools of the early twentieth century – Svomas (1918-1920) and Vkhutemas-Vkhutein (1920-1930). These institutions were a result of the first reform of art education in Soviet Russia, carried out after the October Revolution. The traditional system of art academies was abolished – all artistic schools in the country (Academies of Fine and Applied Arts) were dissolved and converted into Free State Art Workshops (Svomas) (Khan-Magomedov, 1995). This new organisation was not only a complete break from the previous conservative model – for the first time, art education in Russia became organised on principles of freedom (Adaskina, 1992). Students had a right to elect a master of the workshop of their liking and even to enrol to a workshop without any supervisor. Moreover, admission to Svomas required no exams, no previous diplomas of completing other courses or secondary education and was free of charge.

In 1920, a second reform was carried out – merging the First and Second Svomas in Moscow and resulting in the creation of Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic-Technical Workshops). The establishment of Vkhutemas coincided with the time when vanguard artistic movements in Russia gained momentum - the most progressive leftist artists were given the task of creating their studios within Vkhutemas as well as defining the foundational course (so-called propaedeutics) obligatory for all students. The new system was conceived to open possibilities of artistic education to hitherto marginalised groups – youths from rural and working-class family backgrounds. Vkhutemas was an institution of mass education – in 1922, there were 2,222 students enrolled (in contrast to 119 students at the Bauhaus) (Bokov, 2020). The most urgent pedagogical difficulty to overcome was how to train students en masse, many without any previous contact or training in art.

The study is based on a selection of sources which could be divided into three categories: i) texts written by artists teaching at Vkhutemas, which include memoirs, journal publications, reviews and reports; ii) a selection of documents from the Ministry of Education (Narkompros and IZO Narkompros) – decrees, instructions, statutes and reports – written by the ministry officials (such as its Commissar Anatoly Lunacharsky or the head of its Arts Department David Shterenberg); iii) institutional publications – catalogues of students work and schools self-advertising publications. Additionally, it is supplemented by materials contained in monographs and studies on the institution by Russian (Khan-Magomedov, 1995; Adaskina, 1992, 1997) and international scholars (Fitzpatrick, 1970; Bokov, 2020; Lima & Jallageas, 2020) – which reflect the most recent renewed interest in Vkhutemas and its pioneering pedagogies. This presentation is not a tentative of another study of the institution – in this analysis, I propose to examine the school within the scope of a broader argument – the universalisation of creativity and art education and the role of design schools in this process. To this end, a history of the present approach (Foucault, 1991, p. 178) is adopted insofar as it aims to discuss how revolutionary and controversial these new pedagogies were in the early twentieth century (ultimately leading to the dissolution of Vkhutmeas and the return to the traditional system of art education) and how the same ideas are promoted and accepted as natural in the present day discourse on art education and education in general. Vkhutemas focus on mass education and the intense reflection produced by the leading vanguard artists on possible experimental pedagogies led to the adoption of methods whose main objective was de-mystification of creativity – in the words of one the pedagogues the goal was “to raise the mysterious veil of ‘creativity’” (Bokov, 2020, p. 276). In doing so, these pedagogues were hoping to teach large numbers of students from different artistic disciplines in a unified but interdisciplinary way – and with satisfying outcomes. Therefore, the selection criteria for sources described above are based on a theoretical framework that allows identifying narratives that promote the universalisation of creativity and naturalise creative processes. By mobilising the past-present gaze, it becomes possible to look at the history of Vkhutemas as a rich source of insight and a fertile ground of reference in the present-day debate on education.

This proposal is a result of an ongoing study – the aim is to analyse and discuss available sources in order to understand how the shift from the conservative and elitist system of Art Academies to the universal model of education in an institution like Vkhutemas facilitated the naturalisation of creativity and artistic talent. This argument is based on the confluence of several factors: i) the early twentieth century was a moment of rapid and dynamic appearance of modernist and vanguard art theories and currents; ii) the foundation of progressive art schools, which set in practice the heterodox ideas proposed by the leading artists of these movements; iii) constitution of a new discipline in art education – modern graphic and product design, which consequently demanded and proposed novel pedagogical methodologies; iv) in the post-Revolutionary context of Soviet Russia, the necessity of mass education. In the short history of Vkhutemas, all of the above circumstances converge or overlap. The arising pedagogical challenges resulted in a quest for the so-called objective method, in the conviction that everyone can learn artistic disciplines. During the decade of Vkutemas functioning, its artists-turned-pedagogues (many of whom had never taught before) responded with a variety of novel procedures in teaching art – for instance, Ladovsky’s “psychoanalytical” method or Rodchenko’s rigorous Constructivist approach. It was an unprecedented educational experiment – “stepping into the unknown” (Krinsky, 1975, p. 125) as one of the pedagogues described it – which allowed for the trying out and implementation of an array of different pedagogies, which are, at present, considered mainstream.

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