The Triumph of Christianity
Artist
Dmitry Stakhievich Orlov
Russia, 1883 - 1946
Printer
Bezbozhnik u Stanka Moscow
Date1923
Dimensions28 1/2 x 42 1/2 in. (72.4 x 108 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.299
DescriptionDimitrii Moor (born Dimitrii Stakhievich Orlov), whose name appears at lower right here, was a well-known Soviet caricaturist who produced designs for the periodical Bezbozhnik u Stanka (Atheist at the Workbench), founded in 1923 by the Moscow Party Committee to promote the Bolshevik state’s anti-religious ideology and policies. It was one of several large posters of works that had appeared in the new journal and were now offered to its subscribers. (In 1927, some 150 images from the journal were published in a portfolio of posters for public and private circulation, and it 1931 it ceased publication.) Here, as in his other work, Moor ignores the avant-garde style of much Soviet poster design of the period, instead adapting the visual language of figurative icon painting to create an image that can be readily understood by a barely literate population. A fat, grinning plutocrat in a top hat drives a huge cross in the direction of the figure of Christ and the dark abyss below him; he navigates the structure with strings attached to a chain gang of weary working men who struggle to support it.On View
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