Новые горизонты зрительного и слухового восприятия: творчество художников ОСТа в контексте звуковых экспериментов 1920-х годов

Abstract

This paper discusses unobvious links between the art of the Society of Easel Artists (OST) and the sound experiments of the 1920s. And it is for the first time that this subject is the focus of research. This theme was secondary in the creative practice of the OST artists, but selecting it for research is relevant due to a growing general trend towards the study of marginal phenomena that clearly highlight cultural mechanisms. This paper aims to broaden understanding of the complex nature of the painting of the Society of Easel Artists (OST) by introducing the previously unaccounted and, nevertheless, significant data about the cultural context in which the society functioned. After the revolution, all aspects of sound became very attractive for the implementation of different scientific and artistic intentions. The most significant among them were put in practice by L. Termen, P. Lazarev, A. Avraamov, M. Matyushin, S. Nikritin, and Dz. Vertov. The appeal of the OST painters to the “alien” sphere of sound testified to the paradoxicality of their easel painting and was a way of diversification into other fields of art (e.g. poster art, photography, cinema, etc.) in an attempt to “expand” painting without breaking its traditional form. The simultaneous compound scenes in the paintings of the Society of Easel Artists (OST), which connect different points of view, train the exceptional ability of our consciousness to “hear” the whole world at once, like we seem to hear the rhythmically organized films of the 1920s by Dziga Vertov. The other side of the high levels of noise in the canvases by the OST painters is a strange “muteness”. It can be regarded as a direct parallel to physical research into unheard ultra- and infrasound having a strong impact on the environment, or to studies into “deafening silence” carried out at the Phonological department of the State Institute of Art Culture. The conclusion that follows from this study is that the attempt undertaken by the Society of Easel Artists to make the viewer comprehend the whole world through auditory and visual perception was in line with the experiments of the 1920s both in science and in art. The final aim of the OST group was to organize the psychology and life of the people of the future by means of this artistic method.