The impact on the world of art by the Russian experience was, indeed, widespread.

Interviewee: Neala Schleuning

In my book I am questioning the differentiation between Socialist Realism, Social Realism (apparently the acceptable American designation), and American Realism. Still another source coined the term “democratic Realism.” The confusion is unfortunate, because the impact on the world of art by the Russian experience was, indeed, widespread, especially in Europe and the United States. Each country took the concept in its unique direction, but all worked with the same set of expectations: that art had an undeniable link with politics in the real world. In the United States, the political realism was shaped by a Russian-inspired Socialist ideology and political agenda. It did not emerge from isolation. I have chosen to apply the same term, Socialist Realism, in all geographic settings. The debates within specific settings clarify how each parsed the ideological positions. One example is the whole mural movement in this country in the 1930th during the depression that was inspired by Diego Rivera. The idea was that this art would portray the real lives of people. One of the interesting things about, let’s call it political realism, today is that socialist realism once was highly circumscribed by the Russian Communist Party. There were certain conventions, certain images, you wrote about the workers lives or you portrayed the work of lives in photography or in painting, but the aesthetics was controlled by the Central Committee, because the communist’s view of art had to reflect an economic agenda.