ON ONE TENDENCY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LENINGRAD LANDSCAPE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 1950S — 1960S

Abstract

In the scientific literature, the concept of the Leningrad landscape school is usually concretised in the chronology of the 1930s-1940s. The article examines a stylistically integral trend in landscape painting of the second half of the 1950s – 1960s, associated with A. Semyonov, S. Osipov, K. Gushchin and several other masters. The genesis of this trend is outlined: the Thaw period processes in culture and society. The formation of a new visual image of time, fixed by the so-called modern style, is shown. The problem of re-actualization of this concept in connection with a number of recent exhibitions is considered. The formative and worldview factors, due to which the creative searches of these painters converge into a single trend that determines the nature of the Leningrad landscape of the specified period, are analysed. It can be traced how this trend, which absorbed many impulses of the modern style, became its major component. An attempt to identify an essential tendency in the Leningrad landscape of the next stage, the second half of the 1950s - 1960s, is the purpose of the article. Are there grounds for focusing on this period in the development of the Leningrad landscape? Are there any connections between the trend in landscape painting, which we will consider, with the general style vector of Soviet art of the period we are interested in? Namely, with the socalled modern style? The very formulation of the question was initiated by several exhibitions dedicated to the so-called Thaw period in the State Tretyakov Gallery, the Pushkin Museum, the Moscow Museum in 2017–2018. But above all, by the exhibition “In Search of Modern Style. Leningrad Experience. The Second Half of the 1950s - Mid1960s”, which was held in the Russian Museum in 2018. (3). The concept of the organisers of the exhibition in the Russian museum was somewhat different from that of their Moscow colleagues. The creators of the expositions mentioned above sought to show a cross-section of social problems and moods, the history of mentalities. The curators of the exhibition in the Russian Museum were more focused on identifying stylistic vectors, shaping, and visual practices. Based on practical and theoretical research outlined in the article, the author returns the concept of modern style to scientific circulation.