Visualization of music, musicians, and musical instruments in the works of Adyghe artists

Abstract

This article reviews painting and graphics of Adyghe artists, which plotlines and images resemble musical instruments, musicians, and in a certain way, music itself. The author assumes that the entire heritage in this area can be divided into three groups. The first group contains the artworks that are perceived as historical documents testifying to the presence or absence of certain types of musical instruments, ways of playing those, dances, dance positions, moves, etc.; this also includes paintings with ethnographically precise reproduction of the past or present reality, which depicts music and motions. The second group contains the portraits of prominent musicians who significantly contributed to the history of regional culture. The third group is comprised of the musical instruments and dance, which visualize something secret behind the traditional things. Each group has a special technique and means of visualization of music and musical instruments. The novelty of this research lies in examination of the canvases of Adyghe painters preserved in the funds of the North Caucasus branch of the State Museum of Oriental Art (Maykop), and are virtually unknown to the general audience; in articulation of the topic aimed at examination of means of visualization of music, musical instruments and musicians in painting and graphics; in the proposed non-homogeneous classification of painting heritage related to music, musical instruments and musicians, which can be implicated to any other regional culture; in determination of the role of this type of cultural heritage for future generation. It is stated that painting and graphics exhibited in museums are not perceives so much the past as the present, which is included in the cultural and emotional-psychological life of modernity.