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When Constructivism emerged shortly after the Russian Revolution, its central principles concerned structure and efficiency in the work of art and the nature and properties of materials. In a series of eight essays, Brandon Taylor examines the origins of these principles and their extraordinary consequences for the rest of modern art. Even before Constructivism, structure was a vital ingredient in Cubist art. After it, ideas about faktura or the "madeness" of an art object--and about its rational organization--became stock-in-trade for De Stijl in Holland and Art Concret in France and bore decisively on other currents such as Surrealism and abstract art. After 1945, artistic movements including Systems, Kinetic and Minimal Art were all touched by the long reach of Constructivist ideals. Recent art has proved no exception. Taylor shows that casual attitudes to materials, even the collapse of Constructivist ideals, have helped form the artistic tenor of our times.

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CHOICE Review

Artworks' manufactured and material aspects are traceable as artistic concerns to at least the mid-to-late 19th century. Courbet's paintings, for instance, emphasize artworks' reality as made objects. The Impressionists proffered the sketch, or impression, as a finished work that revealed rather than concealed, as academic paintings did, the process of picture making. In 1890, Maurice Denis famously proclaimed that a picture be recognized as essentially a two-dimensional surface covered in pigment, arranged in a particular order, before being understood for what it represents. Taylor (emer., Southampton Univ., UK) traces this interest in the concept of faktura, the physical and logical organization of artworks, in relationship to Russian constructivist art and to later work inspired by constructivist forms, materials, and ideas. He indicates that the term's meaning shifts in response to the different interests and concerns of different contexts. In eight chapters, he treats the contexts in separate but related case studies that are chronologically and thematically organized. In the first chapter, he explains cubism as an important precedent of constructivism. This broad conceptualization of Russian constructivism distinguishes Taylor's book from other, more narrowly conceived histories of the movement, making it a valuable addition to both the literature of constructivism and to studies in modern, postmodern, and contemporary art. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. --David E. Gliem, Eckerd College

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B randon Taylor is professor emeritus, history of art, Southampton University, and tutor in history and theory of art at the Ruskin School of Fine Art, University of Oxford.