Monumental and decorative art of the second half of the 20th century in specialized literature

Abstract

The article deals with a number of issues highlighted in the research of monumental painting during the 1960–2000s, and follows the development of art studies literature during the specified period. Ukrainian monumental painting during the second half of the 20th century evolved rather unequally, which affecte the art criticism reflections. In the 1960's and 80's the active and dynamic development of monumental art took place. Research in this area also reached the peak of its popularity. For example, the article of I. Pronina contains a review of publications from 1973–1974, and the author brought the statistics indicating more than 200 works. (180) Since the mid-1960's, academics have been increasingly focusing on monumental art. The attitude to monumental painting in the art history literature of the 1960's is ambiguous. However, most researchers are still critical of post-war practice and consider monumental works of the late 1950`s and 1960`s as a step forward. The distinctive differences between the 1960's and 1970's – 1980's lie in various attitudes towards themes and scenes of the monumental painting. In the 1960's the monumentality was associated with the laconic content, using a set of all understandable associative attributes. The expansion of the range of themes in monumental painting in the professional literature occured in the 1970's. Since the research problem stands at the crossroads of various branches of art, important scientific advancements were reflected in such prominent professional publications as: "Architecture of the USSR", "Decorative art of the USSR" and "Fine Arts". In the 1970's the publishing house "Soviet artist" released a series of articles compilations called "Soviet monumental art." The state of monumentalism significantly changes in 1990's as there was a significant decline in the activity of this artistic direction. At this time the monumental painting fell into the field of wide-scale artistic studies. In the professional literature of the last decade the scope of art study themes has changed to a certain extent as the art historians more often address the issues previously tabooed in Soviet times, and some of them partially or fully relate to the monumental painting. To such themes belong the Sixties and Boichukizm. Today the problem of the preservation of Soviet monumental works sharply appears. Many authors turn to the theme of monumental art in order to attract the attention of society to the rapid destruction of mosaics and wall murals, and to prove their value for Ukrainian fine arts.