Art Criticism Research Articles

The peculiarity of the musical and sound continuum in the epic "War and Peace" by Sergei Bondarchuk

Using the example of the domestic film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace", the features of the sound component of the film are investigated. A comparative analysis of the author's text of the writer and his cinematic interpretation is carried out. A significant part of the article is devoted to the issues of sound engineering, the organization of the acoustic (noise) environment of the film. The problems of modern reconstruction of film classics, the difficulties of "translating" the original into a new digital format are also touched upon. The issues of preservation and popularization of the cinematic heritage of Russia are raised. The role of the regional film distribution system in promoting the national film classics, educating the younger generation of moviegoers is noted. The field of application of the research results is cultural studies, theory and practice of film studies, art criticism. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the analysis of the musical and sound continuum of Sergei Bondarchuk's film epic. For the first time, an attempt was made to study the features of not only the musical context of the film, but also the noise environment, the acoustic originality of colloquial speech. A detailed analysis of off-screen monologues, which play an important dramatic role in the film narrative, is carried out. Special attention is paid to the history of the national digital reconstruction of the epic "War and Peace", undertaken in the 1990s. The role of modern technologies, which allowed to preserve the musical and acoustic environment of the film, is noted. The question is also raised about the need to popularize a new digital version of the film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic novel. The prospect of introducing a special course on the history of Russian cinema into the Russian education system is considered.

Рассуждение о понятии «художественный замысел»

The subject of the article is the content of the concept, answering the question of what an artistic intention is and clarifying its nature. Coupled with a number of concepts in textual criticism, art criticism, aesthetics (author’s intention, plan, idea, teleology, purpose, completeness, integrity), the concept of “artistic intent” does not duplicate any of them. To this day, Dmitry S. Likhachev’s judgment has not lost its relevance, according to which “The will of the author and his plan are extremely complex phenomena and, in their very essence, still little studied. Representatives of different scientific specialties should take part in studying them in the future.” The article makes an attempt to cover the morphological and etymological aspects of the concept; its definitions and approaches to understanding available in the research of domestic humanities are compared.

Архитектурные мотивы в ювелирном искусстве XX — первой четверти XXI века

Throughout the history of jewellery, craftspeople have appealed to architectural motifs in the composition of church utensils or jewellery. In different historical periods, this process developed in accordance with the aesthetic requirements of the time, the peculiarities of the artistic and stylistic development of art in general and jewellery in particular. As a result, a number of certain artistic techniques have been formed; they were used by masters in past eras and are used by modern artists and jewellers, as well as architects and designers working in this field of decorative art. This article is devoted to the analysis of the formation and development of these artistic and stylistic techniques at the present stage. This topic has not yet been adequately reflected in scientific literature. The research problem is only mentioned in general works of foreign and Russian researchers on various historical periods (to a greater or lesser extent). Most interest in the topic is shown by bloggers who popularize certain brands or master jewellers in various electronic resources. In the first quarter of the 21st century, the appeal to architectural motifs as a key element of artistic, figurative, and compositional solutions in jewellery became very widespread both in the luxury segment and in the author’s jewellery art. This article is the first experience of art criticism research on this artistic and stylistic phenomenon. The research uses descriptive, formal, stylistic, and comparative methods. As a result, the author of the article identifies and formulates the main methods of using architectural motifs in the compositional, artistic, and figurative solutions in works of modern author’s jewellery art.

Two Approaches to Aesthetic Experience

Abstract This article examines two approaches to aesthetic experience, especially with respect to the practice of art criticism. The two approaches are (1) aesthetic experience construed as experience necessarily valued for its own sake and (2) aesthetic experience characterized in terms of its content. In this article, the content approach is defended as the one most suitable to the practice of art criticism.

MUKHTAR AUEZOV’S ROLE IN PRESENTING ABAI’S POETIC HERITAGE IN THE CULTURAL SPACE

The article will focus on the life and fiction of Mukhtar Auezov, as well as on the course of writing and translating into Russian the epic of the novel “The Way of Abai”, reflection in the literary, cultural, artistic criticism of the state of Russia, which is our neighboring state, about the media space of the world. Russian publication of the novel “The Way of Abai”, written by the great man M. Auezov, is hotly discussed in Russian literature. A theoretical analysis of the views of Russian literary critics on the professional requirements of literary criticism was also carried out. To date, this topic is one of the most relevant, which has been little studied. In recent years, especially during the period of independence, Russian literary studies have been considering various scientific studies and historical cognitive works, new materials based on other archival documents, new approaches to texts, opportunities for new examinations. Numerous research papers and scientific books, historical documents, etc. have been published about Mukhtar Auezov's “The Way of Abai”. Currently, up-to-date information in social networks, electronic channels, M. Auezov was considered in comparison with scientific conclusions, historical data related to the established Abai studies. Mukhtar Auezov is a classic of Kazakh literature in his research work. The evaluation of the poet's artistic image in the novel “The Way of Abai”, given in Russian literature, was analyzed in a comparative form from today's point of view.

Semantic aspects of musical language

Music is a multifaceted phenomenon: it carries the mission of aesthetic education and enlightenment, performs therapeutic functions and is not only a source of information, but also the subject of filling human consciousness with a sense of joy, drama, and a high spiritual beginning. All the above is provided due to the many components that constitute the whole picture of musical art. These include intonation and rhythm, tempo and dynamics, timbre and texture, and more voluminous components: genre and form. Each of its elements represents a certain category, which, in turn, carries a semantic load or semantic aspect belonging to it. Having a centuries-old history of existence, music and, accordingly, its components have undergone considerable evolution. The purpose of the study is to show the semantic aspects of musical language as an integral system in their continuous dynamics of development, updating, and complication of content. The history of sound creativity is a vivid picture of styles and techniques of writing, images, and themes inherent in a particular era. The above is inextricably linked with the deep evolution of semantic aspects that convey the content and importance of all the leading categories of music. They represent, regardless of the period, an integral system of elements, the transformation of which is discussed in this article. The definition of the boundaries of "evolution" in relation to music, the disclosure of its action at various levels (the evolution of musical thinking, the evolution of national style, artistic area, the evolution of individual compositional style), the development of the theory of evolution in the field of functioning of musical phenomena – these and other problems are priorities for modern scientific musicology and art criticism. Realising the complexity and globality of the problem posed, the basis of which is the consideration of musical phenomena in the aspect of the theory of evolution, this article includes one of the possible approaches to solving this issue, involving the "general theory of systems" created in the 20th century. For that reason, this publication is relevant. It combines the most important theses of researchers investigating the problem of the semantics of the musical language in the context of such disciplines as pedagogy, quantum physics, medicine, social science. The study searches for the materials on the studied subject, their systematisation, and provides a panoramic display of the analysis of the semantic aspects of musical art. The author also shares the prospects of analysis of the mentioned phenomenon. The need for this research is conditioned by the essence of the subject, since it constantly changes, gets enriched with new qualities, actively responding to what is happening in real-time.

“Art and Objecthood,” Michael Fried and Jonathan Edwards

Summary Michael Fried’s 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood” is one of the most well-known and influential pieces of art criticism ever written, and continues to generate novel interpretations. Its overtly theological cast, however, has never been the subject of close study. This article focuses on Fried’s decision to use a lengthy quotation from Perry Miller’s biography of the theologian Jonathan Edwards as his epigram, and contends that Fried’s essay is informed in significant ways by Edwards’ notions of history and grace, and characterized by wordings that reveal an active engagement with Miller’s text. Certainly, the contexts in which Edwards and Fried worked were irreducibly different. Nevertheless, an examination of the ways in which Fried drew on Miller’s text and Edwards’ ideas demonstrates that he was productively influenced by both in composing “Art and Objecthood.”

Perspektif Rasional Lukisan Abstrak di Era Kontemporer

The accumulated meanings and the noisy visuals are one of the impacts of the contemporary art era on the painting movement in Indonesia. This research aims to analyze the aesthetic tradition of Nunung W.S. The abstract painting movement developed around 1960 to 1970s, since then there are not many records of female painters in Indonesia who use the abstract formalism approach. Qualitative methodology and literature study to analyze the artist's creation process, and described narratively with Feldman's art criticism approach. Nunung's work is always related to the process of interpreting nature in the space where she lives, using color, line, shape and space. Whether the artist's subconscious experience can be used as the basis for ideas in the process of creating abstract paintings is an implication for further research.

Contested political alliances in fortress Europe: migrants and Europeans in Helon Habila’s Travellers

ABSTRACT Helon Habila’s Travellers was written as a response to the refugee crisis in 2015, and it narrates loosely connected stories of African asylum seekers precariously travelling in Southern and Western European countries seeking shelter. This article discusses the novel’s representation of Europeans and migrants acting together by drawing from Jacques Rancière’s theorization of dissensus as a tool to challenge existing political hierarchies by creating new solidarities against present orders. I maintain that the novel manages to problematize the mainstream media images of immigration issues, as well as other such narrative tropes that reinforce the understanding of immigrants as Europe’s others. I argue that the novel instead exposes facets of structural violence in fortress Europe as it violently suppresses immigrant voices. Along these lines, the novel is further discussed as a representative of critical art or dissensual art that not only exposes contemporary exclusionary politics, but also advances a new affective politics by actively demonstrating more democratic ways of including people without a political voice. It can thus help to reconfigure which political questions are included in public deliberations in the future and provoke new, more democratic ways of seeing immigration issues.

Визуальный портрет главной героини в «Пейзаже и жанре» Н. С. Лескова «Зимний день»

The problem of the interaction of words and images in the works of N.S. Leskov is currently the least studied. The genre subtitle of the late story A Winter’s Day (1894) – “Landscape and genre” encourages us to consider the work in the aspect of the designated problem. O. V. Evdokimova (1980), B. S. Dykhanova (2013), O. V. Chervinskaya (2018), D. S. Rivanenkova (2021) analyze the features of the genre, taking into account the meanings of the subtitle. The specific nature of the genre of the work determines the poetics of the portrait in it, which has not been studied before. The portrait of the main character in the story by N.S. Leskov is interpreted as a visual portrait, a visual image. The understanding of the “visual image” is based on literary, cultural and art criticism works of the modern scientists. The climax in the poetics of the portrait of the main character, Lydia, is a comparison with the goddess Diana. The analysis of sculptural and pictorial contexts (“Goddess Artemis with a deer” Tanagra, end of 4th century B.C., “Diana of Versailles”, circa 325 B. C., “Diana Resting”, 1732–1733, “The Hunt of Diana”, 1616–1620 etc.) illustrates that the writer shows the world through the lens of the depicted. Contextual connections of Lydia’s portrait with the image of Diana actualize the visual image in the work of N. S. Leskov. The main character of the story is an exceptional character against the background of other (everyday) characters of the work, since her visual portrait, which includes the features of pictorial and sculptural images, was created as a separate work of art. The article shows that the poetics of a visual portrait is determined by different facets of the genre – “Landscape and genre”: the everyday and the existential ones.

Lee Ufan's ambivalent otherness and art historiography

AbstractThis article aims to reexamine the relationship between the artist Lee Ufan and nationalist art history through his idea of “ambivalent otherness,” which he defined as both “suffering” and “power.” Traditional art history is established upon a nationalist framework that emphasizes the artists' nationality, leading to the marginalization of national others at the border. As a zainichi Korean, Lee has undergone the “suffering” of being excluded by the art world and art historiography. However, he transformed it into his source of “power” to challenge art historiography based on nationality. This study analyzes the art criticism of “Japanese Contemporary Art History” written by Minemura Toshiaki and Chiba Shigeo in the 1970s and 1980s and highlights the ruptures that the artist's in-between identity wrought on nationalist art history. This shows how both the Mono-ha movement and the artist were marginalized in the construction of “Japanese Contemporary Art History.” Furthermore, this study scrutinizes how Lee attempted to rewrite art history using Mono-ha art theory and a perspective committed to “overcoming coloniality” from the postcolonial in-between position, by reinterpreting Lee's article on Chosŏn minhwa, written amidst an aesthetic controversy across the border between Japan and Korea.

Палеонтологиялық экспонаттардың көшірмелерін жасау әдістері

The article presents methods of making copies of paleontological exhibits based on many years of experience in making copies of paleontological exhibits. The proposed methods allow you to avoid errors, improve the quality of exhibits, reduce the production time and increase the service life. These guidelines are addressed to restoration artists, art critics and museum keepers. These recommendations are based on many years of experience in training young specialists in the necessary professional skills during internships for the manufacture of copies and restoration of paleontological fossil bones at the Museum of Nature of the Republican State Enterprise “Gylym Ordasy” Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Changes in the representation of heroes in contemporary Ukrainian cinema

This article examines current trends in the changing concept of the hero in recent Ukrainian cinema and the related tendency to neglect authentic Ukrainian culture on account of the pervasive influence of Western traditions in cinema. The article employs various, academic methods of art criticism: literary and film analysis, comparison, synthesis, analogy and typologisation. Analysing several films from the period of independent Ukraine, Cyborgs: Heroes Never Die (2017, dir. Akhtem Seitablayev), Sniper. The White Raven (2022, dir. Marian Bushan) and Klondike (2022, dir. Maryna Er Gorbach), the authors show that the depiction of Ukrainian film heroes depends on contemporary local events. The contemporary hero of Ukrainian cinema emerges as an ambiguous figure.

Anthropocene as Capitalocene

If the Anthropocene designates humanity’s environmental footprint, the Capitalocene underlines the economic and political premises of the current climate crisis, tied to long-term colonial dispossession and exploitation of ‘cheap nature’. The current article explores the matrix of violence embedded in the Capitalocene as it is appears in the research-based critical art projects produced by Romanian artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefán. I show how, focusing on devastated or fabricated landscapes, as well as on contested sites of conflict from the Global South that are often camouflaged or disguised under eco-veils, Benera and Estefán’s art practice rethinks post-socialism from a planetary perspective. I also claim that their body of work, which employs archival and cartografic formats of visualisation, proposes an alternative epistemological matrix, directed against the global exercise of environmental and political violence.

Art master Yulia Gusarova is an artist of multifaceted talent

The article contains materials about the work of St. Petersburg artist Yulia Vasilievna Gusarova, a master who creates works in different materials and techniques and has her own theme, manner and style. The purpose of the article is to determine the foundations and nature of creativity, to track the dynamics of the personal development of a hereditary artist. She is multi-faceted and is successfully realized in the art of painting, in mosaics, in ceramics, in textiles, in scientific and pedagogical activities. The main themes of her work: stories from the history of culture and art, travel impressions, the world of the sea and marine life, the fantastic world of the medieval "bestiary" and modern technology. The article presents examples of her works, describes their semantic content and artistic merits, notes theoretical and methodological-pedagogical aspects of the problems of art and art education. The materials of the article have novelty, because they are offered for publication for the first time. There was no scientific study of Y. Gusarova's creativity in domestic and foreign art criticism. The results and research methods in this article can be useful in art criticism for use in writing monographic works about the work of other artists, as well as for creating a complete picture of the features of the work of domestic ceramic artists of the XX - XXI centuries.

The works of the Leningrad art industry enterprises of the second half of the twentieth century and their role in the organization of the living environment (on the example of the products of the Leningrad Enamel plant)

During the last decade scientific interest of the Soviet period consumer goods has been increasing in the context of global political processes, on the one hand, and from the point of view of the organization of the living environment, on the other. The post-war and the late Soviet period consumer goods are interesting for analysis, since they are connected with the state policy of the everyday life of a Soviet citizen. Since the late 1940s, the formation of the consumer goods has been taking place on three levels of everyday culture: the space of the body, the space of the house, the space of the city. The article examines the problem of transition from an environment filled with private objects (1950s) to a single concept of the organization of the environment - design (1960s), using the example of the products of Leningrad art industry enterprises and archival materials (enterprise reports). The study of the material filling of the everyday space of the Soviet are citizen within the framework of the culturological approach assumed the use of a structural and functional method. As part of archival research, a source–based assessment of materials was carried out - annual reports of enterprises. When analyzing the works - products of the art industry enterprises, a set of art criticism methods was used. The materials of the Leningrad Enamel artel/plant are presented for the first time, some samples of the company's products are selected and analyzed in the context of changing stylistic coordinates and the formation of technical aesthetics. Based on the analysis of the degree of study of the porcelain and textile industry of Leningrad in the post-war and late Soviet periods, the conclusion is made about the importance of studying the problem of transition from a stylistic marker of the subject component of the living environment to a design one. This transition is demonstrated by the example of the history and some works from the assortment of the Leningrad Enamel company. Archival materials made it possible to expand the understanding of the history of the enterprise, the circumstances of the transfer of the artel to state administration and the making of products in accordance with the requirements of decorative minimalism. The analysis of artistically designed household goods (cigarette cases, compact boxes) confirms the theses not only about the formal change of artistic language, but also about the formation of ideas about a new living environment.

The Problem of Aesthetic Truth in Adorno’s Aesthetics Ⅱ: Art Criticism and Recognition of Truth

The Problem of Aesthetic Truth in Adorno’s Aesthetics Ⅱ: Art Criticism and Recognition of Truth

Рецензия на альбом-каталог: Владимир Попов. Каллиграфия. Автор-составитель Л.Н. Донина (Казань, 2019. 400 с.)

The article is devoted to the illustrated-annotated album-catalogue “Vladimir Popov. Calligraphy,” representing one of the stages of the work of the famous artist. Works by V.A. Popov's are found to be of ever-increasing relevance – in connection with Russia's new turn towards the ideas of Eurasianism, towards cooperation with the countries of the East, an important mediator of which is Tatarstan. The calligraphic works of the master are shown in the context of his life and creative path involved with with the history of the country and the region, the development of the Tatar national culture and the Arabographic art of the republic. This reflects the uniqueness of the author’s concept of L.N. Donina, expressed in a detailed display of the creative path and civic stance of the artist. The reviewer notes the depth of the publication author's search for the meaning of V.A. Popov’s turn to Islamic graphics. This stage of his biography is interpreted as a period of finding answers to important life questions that were posed and solved by the artist. In the wisdom of Islam, he finds those ideas that resonate with his own spiritual search and do not contradict the postulates of other world religions. He expresses them in his characteristic expressive manner, using a wide range of means of artistic expression developed by him in previous years. This gives the author a reason to characterise the master’s work of this period as a synthesis of Tatar and Russian cultures, traditions of East and West. The article concludes that the work under review is an independent research work in which L.N. Donina, in addition to the main art criticism, uses general scientific and historical approaches. Album-catalogue “Vladimir Popov. Calligraphy” is certainly a creative achievement of the author.

ՀՀ ԳԱԱ արվեստի ինստիտուտը և պարսկական արվեստի ուսումնասիրությունը

NAS RA Institute of Arts prepares scholars for our neighboring friendly country - the Islamic Republic of Iran. From the year 2008, citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran do their postgraduate research work at the Institute. Many of them, having completed and defended in due term their PhD theses, are awarded a PhD degree in Arts and/or Architecture. Naturally, their research is mainly focused on the issues of Persian art. NAS RA Institute of Arts Specialized Academic Council in Arts 016, the only one in Armenia, awards academic degrees in all the fields of Art Criticism. At the Specialized Council 016, postgraduate students of not only NAS RA Institute of Arts, but also of Yerevan State Academy of Arts, Yerevan State University and Komitas Yerevan State Conservatory - citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran, defended their PhD theses. In the article, the contribution of NAS RA Institute of Arts to the study of Persian art is elucidated for the first time. The list and relevant data of the Iranian postgraduate students, who defended their theses at NAS RA Institute of Arts Specialized Academic Council in Arts 016 and received academic degrees of PhD in Arts, was compiled and introduced to academic circles for the first time.

Beckett’s Prose Fiction and Waiting for Godot

Abstract Waiting for Godot is not often presented as homologous with Beckett’s narrative fiction. However, a close consideration of the status of the boy(s) in the play shows that the drama text undermines the dichotomy between inner and outer world, which Beckett was addressing in comparable ways in his novels and art criticism.