Dictator Kitsch

(Wall Street Journal) ... Some years after the collapse of Communism, I asked a Russian art critic what had happened to all the Socialist Realists in his country. He said they were still earning a living making other kinds of art, but that the transition hadn't always been seamless. He cited the case of a painter whose stock in trade had been portraits of Lenin. The man was now earning his living churning out religious subjects. But, my friend added, so ingrained were his earlier habits that every time he painted the face of Jesus, he wound up with a likeness of Lenin. Continued

Photo: Socialist Realist style poster at the MARC station in Brunswick, Maryland. (MDRails)