Century Art Research Articles

The Sensory Legacy of the Russian Avant-Garde: Haptics, Scent, Movement, Immersion

Abstract Aside from its obvious influence on 20th century art in general, the Russian Avant-Garde was a precursor to many conceptual trends, not always directly related to our general notion of “Avant-garde”, but more as the fulfilment of its prophecies. This paper explores the legacy of the Russian Avant-garde through the prism of a multisensory study, involving haptics, optics, immersion and participation. Revisiting manifestos of the early 20th century in the context of contemporary theories of art and perception, the paper traces intersections and “dreams come true”. Inter alia, the paper also considers the problem of how to collect non-visual components of art from the viewpoint of contemporary museum practice.

Armour in Medieval India. Medieval Indian Armour, Hoysaḷa Representation, Wider Documentation and Later Reality

Armour is very rarely shown in the non-Islamic art of medieval India after appearing, albeit infrequently, in the Indian art of earlier centuries. Subsequently, the representation of armour would become significantly more common. Nevertheless, there are exceptions, notably on temple carvings and carved vīragal hero or memorial stones from what had been the Hoysaḷa kingdom in the southern Deccan region. This article seeks to interpret these carvings, to identify the reality of the armour shown and to explain its socio-political context. Potential links are drawn between such carved representations and the terminology of armour as used in medieval India. The article concludes by looking at the possible survival of medieval armour technology and styles in the continued use of textile-based armours in southern India into and beyond the early modern era.

Gastronomic ethnobiology of smelt, Osmerus eperlanus (L., 1758), a culturally significant but vanishing food item in Sweden

European smelt, Osmeras eperlanus L., was popular as food in central Sweden a century ago. During spring spawning, this fish could easily be caught in large quantities in rivers and streams with nets and wooden traps. While it is still appreciated as a delicious spring primer in several countries around the Baltic Sea, in Sweden its consumption is negligible. The fish has vanished from markets and restaurant menus, and it is fished only locally in Central Sweden. In Stockholm, smelt was fished commercially until 2016.Smelt is a small fish yet loaded with cultural symbolism, and it has attracted the attention of authors, designers, and visual artists for centuries. Attempts to relaunch smelt as a local speciality have had only marginal impact. It is far from endangered in Swedish waters, but as human food, this fish has gone from highly popular to neglected and ultimately ignored. This article discusses the significance of smelt as food and cultural symbol in historical times, causes and consequences of changing habits, and their influence on the consumption of smelt, the loss of knowledge regarding fish preparation, and the place of fish today in Swedish food traditions versus modern food preferences.

Short Communication: A novel hypopigmentation for southeast Pacific humpback whales

Southeast Pacific humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) migrate annually to breeding grounds in Machalilla, Ecuador, and Uramba Bahía Málaga, Colombia. This species usually displays a black/ grey body colouration with its dorsal and caudal fins exposed above water. Between 2005 and 2023, whales in these regions were studied and photographed on 1,627 days. Results indicated that 29 whales have novel body markings, including white spots, irregular circles and sinuous lines, which resemble the paintings of 20th Century artist Jackson Pollock. While this novel ‘Pollock‐style’ pigmentation does not appear to cause health problems, we recommend further studies to evaluate its origin and effects.

Antwerp's Royal Museum of Fine Arts

AbstractThe Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, reopened after an 11‐year renovation. In addition to completely cleaning the exterior façade of the neoclassical building, a new, modern wing was built inside former internal courtyards—a glossy, white cube with very high ceilings and a dramatic 100+ step flight of stairs. The historical part of the museum was also fully renovated to its original grandeur. The collection was reinstalled, and the overall interpretive strategy focused on making the art approachable to a multigenerational and multicultural visitorship: Eschewing chronology, paintings are grouped by themes, texts are user‐friendly and encourage interactive experiences, and special activities are available for children. Short videos are also available in some galleries that provide context, explain specific art techniques, or contain games. A wide range of experiences is available to museum users, somewhat consistent with an approach proposed by the Smithsonian Institution's IPOP framework. The reviewer found the reinstallation and related user experiences a relevant, people‐oriented model for 21st century art museums.

The image of the luminosity of the divine nature of Christ in the Western European temple decoration of the IV-VIII centuries.

The main subject of this research is the tradition of visual representation of the luminosity of the divine nature in Western European Christian art of the IV-VIII centuries. The objects of study are fragments of monumental temple decorations containing images, both literal and symbolic, of this divine phenomenon, as well as written sources related to the interpretation of these images. The focus of the research is on the Western European artistic tradition of depicting the halo of Christ and its change during the period under review. The purpose of this work, which is the first part of the study, the chronological framework of which covers the period from the IV to the XIII centuries, was to compile a holistic view of the development of the iconographic tradition of representing the theme "I am the light of the world", the luminosity of the divine nature of Christ in the context of the study of the visual language of Western European medieval religious art of the IV-VIII centuries. The visual sources of this work are Christian churches that have preserved the monumental decoration of the IV - VIII centuries, which are located on the territory of Rome, Ravenna, Milan, Naples and surrounding areas. The methodology on which this research is based is represented by typological, iconographic and formal stylistic methods of analysis. The novelty of the present study is a detailed analysis and systematization of various visual representations of the luminosity of the divine nature of Christ, first of all, variants of the image of the halo and their transformation over time. Based on the studied sources, the author has compiled a certain classification picture, which allows forming a holistic view of the formation and development of the artistic tradition of representing this topic.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE WORK OF TWO ROCOCO MASTERS JEAN-HONORÉ FRAGONARD AND GIOVANNI BATTISTA TIEPOLO

Jean Honore Fragonard and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo were the central figures of 18th century art, who established creative freedom in their inventive compositions and open criticism of conventional art centres.

Conceptual approaches to the design of advertising and information support for the exhibition of contemporary art

The article discusses the principles of the artistic organization of advertising and information support for international periodical exhibition projects of contemporary art of the XX-XXI centuries, the development of which is due to a wide range of artistic practices and the search for effective and dynamic means of communication with the audience. The object of research is the media of information about the exhibition project - printed materials, outdoor advertising, digital media, information content of the exhibition environment. The purpose of this article is a comprehensive analysis of conceptual approaches to the design of advertising and information support for modern Russian and foreign periodic exhibition projects. The periodicity allows us to trace the dynamics of the transformation of individual elements of the exhibition design, their relationship with the ideological content of exhibitions, to identify expressive means and artistic and imaginative solutions for the design of advertising and information support, to identify general cultural factors influencing its formation. In order to reproduce the holistic development of the advertising and information support of the biennale, the article uses a systematic approach, formal stylistic and comparative methods. The analysis of the elements of the graphic design of the international exhibition systems and the Ural Industrial Biennale of Modern Art made it possible to identify the specifics of the exhibition identity, the connection with the conceptual content and organizational structure of the projects. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the development of the design of advertising and information support, as a synthetic activity, is due to the constant creative search for new conceptual content of the exhibition and the rethinking of compositional means of graphic design of media about the project, experiments with new materials that involve visitors in a discussion about the nature of modern art.

Смеховое начало и комизм в советской кинокомедии 1960–1970-х

The author of the article notes the influence of the research of Russian folklorists and cultural historians on the interpretation of the 20th century art and captures the humanitarian trend towards searching for primarily archetypal situations and images in contemporary art, Soviet film comedy included. The article highlights the importance of the concepts by V. Propp and M. Bakhtin for the current perception of works of art and urges us not to limit ourselves to this, but to place new accents — to look for differences between the ancient and modern worldviews, between the impersonal solutions to dramatic situations and characters types, on the one hand, and the author’s aesthetics and individual interpretations of the world and man, on the other hand. Based on the material of the comedy films by L. Gaidai and E. Ryazanov, the fairy tale film An Ordinary Miracle by M. Zakharov, the author shows how far the artistic messages of these directors are from the archaic concepts of laughter and comedy, from the ideas of carnival freedom and harmony, which, however, does not deny the use of satire drama structures, palliata, and paired archetypical characters. This refers to the cultural layering of the images of Shurik, Nina, Saakhov, and the comical trio of the Coward, the Fool and the Pro. In addition, the article analyses the role of the water element in the comedy The Irony of Fate... and gives a detailed interpretation of the non-normative behaviours of Zhenya Lukashin and Ippolit possessing only external signs of carnivality. Conclusions are drawn about the dramatic heuristicity of laughter in the comedy films by Gaidai and Ryazanov, which had adaptive psychological functions and also contributed to the internal self-reflection of the Soviet audience.

Diogenes’ tub and the double bind of science and vocation in the late Middle Ages

Intellectuals tend to cherish heroes who embody their ideal way of life. The fact that the personas of the unworldly Greek philosophers Diogenes and Crates were so popular in the late Middle Ages proves that Max Weber’s Idealtypus of the “authentic man of science” (as termed by Steven Shapin) has been problematic for centuries. This finding gives cause to modify Max Weber’s and Shapin's viewpoints about the loss of the “authentic man of science” due to professionalization. The development of the university as an educational institution in the High Middle Ages chained the academic once and for all to a formal training that costs time and money: investments that were expected to have reward. Soon, university-trained experts were highly appreciated by local and national authorities. By combining Frank Rexroth’s and Marcel Bubert’s ideas on the coming into being of an “amor sciendi” in the twelfth century Arts faculties, with David Kaldewey’s and Klaas van Berkel’s appeals for academic autonomy, my article argues that academics have always struggled to protect the pursuit of truth, even while they recognized its vital importance from the beginning.

TOWARDS THE MULTIFUNCTIONALITY OF ART: RIGA OF 1901

The issues related to local artistic expressions are raised in the context of the paper. The focus is on the cultural events that took place in 1901, with a special emphasis on the visual arts. In 1901, the 700th anniversary of the city of Riga was celebrated with a great flair. The celebrations and related events made a high impact on different classes of society. The phenomena observed in the context of socio-culture at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries call for a more detailed examination of whether visual arts is becoming more multifunctional, or whether visuality is used in a conceptualised manner in different areas of life. The events of art life analysed in the article prove the expansion of the functions of art. In the context of the anniversary exhibition, the social, ideological, educational and entertaining functions, as well as the highest function of art: art for art’s sake, are characterised. The functions of art mentioned in the article are not the only functions; however, they allow us to see the multifunctionality of the 20th century art. The visual design of the 1901 anniversary exhibition is dominated by Art Nouveau, which, taking into account the idea of synthesis of art relevant to this style, ensures multifunctionality. The anniversary exhibition expands on a larger scale, and every element is essential for the conception of the exhibition. The overall vision of the exhibition, ideological content, structure, visual design, music, entertainment – the entire programme of the exhibition serves a common goal: to position Riga as a modern, European centre of economics, trade and culture in a contemporary modern form.

An investigation of the photostability of 19th century artists’ cochineal lake pigments using MFT and conventional accelerated ageing tests

ABSTRACT Red lake pigments are known for their high light-sensitivity generally when exposed to museum environments. In the cultural heritage field, the colour loss experienced by organic pigments is of special concern as the appearance of objects may be significantly altered after uncontrolled exposure to light. The present work focuses on the use of microfading testing (MFT) to study the light sensitivity of 19th century cochineal paints. MFT is a technique that combines visible reflectance spectroscopy with accelerated light ageing testing and was developed to perform in situ investigations of the light-sensitivity of cultural heritage materials in a relatively short amount of time. Reconstructions of these pigments following the manufacturing processes used by 19th century Winsor & Newton workers, as well as historic samples of cochineal pigments, were prepared using gum arabic and poly(vinylacetate). Purple cochineal paints showed a moderate sensitivity to light, while Carmine, Crimson and Scarlet paints were classified as high-sensitive materials. Overall, the carmine references turned out to be the most lightfast when mixed with gum-arabic while the scarlet pigment with poly(vinyl acetate) showed a slightly smaller colour change when compared with the almost complete loss of colour of the other poly(vinyl acetate) paints. Finally, advantages and drawbacks of the MFT method are addressed.

«Собирание существования» как один из осевых мотивов творчества Б. Пастернака и Р.М. Рильке

The article deals with the motivic paradigm of “collecting / packing existence” in the work of B. Pasternak. The study aims to determine its role in the lyrical and philosophical concept of the poet and to identify its structure and connection with the creative system of R.M. Rilke. In the first part of the study, the motif of “collecting existence” appears as one of the basic Pasternak motifs. Further — as a point of contact between the creative concepts of Pasternak and Rainer Maria Rilke. That is how the paradigm forms an intersystem metatext. Rilke’s metatext is also conceptual and relates to the philosophical system of S. Kierkegaard, respected by both poets. Then, based on the analysis of the sub-paradigms of the motif of “collecting existence” in the work of B. Pasternak, it is proved that the paradigm has one of the essential roles in revealing autosystem metatext character of his lyrics, artistic, journalistic, and epistolary prose and forms a poetic and philosophical field. Its repeated reproduction in different genres implements an existential understanding of time and the objectness of the world. It combines the motifs of specific actions, such as collecting cars on the train, things on the road, and people in crowds and gatherings, and imaginative motifs: a collection of abstract realities in man, time, space, and the realities of nature into a picture of the world, both an instantaneous one and imprinted in art for centuries.

아트테이너 현상 연구

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changing characteristics of the art world and popular culture in the 21st century by tracking entertainers who are also active in the arts, also known as “arttainers”. The results of this study showed that most “arttainers” are young singers or actors with no academic art background, while 24% are art majors from prestigious universities. They are mainly active in commercial venues such as art fairs and galleries in Seoul and the Seoul metropolitan area, as well as in art auctions, NFTs, and home shopping. Their works are highly popular in the market and command high prices. Most of them participate in “group art exhibitions,” which are a kind of casual art event, but some celebrities consistently introduce their works at famous galleries and well-known art spaces. In addition, celebrities declare themselves to be “artists” without having participated in any specific art activities in their their public career. On the other hand, “arttainers” also present their works in spaces with a strong artistic character, such as art museums, art centers, and biennials, and are active in various charitable activities. In addition, a significant number of established artists present their works together with celebrities, forming an intersection between the art world and the entertainment world. In this way, this paper is significant in that it examines the characteristics of the 21st century art world and popular culture by analyzing “arttainers”.

Worlding China: Huo Mingzhi’s transnational dealership and global narrative of Chinese art in the early twentieth century

This article studies the multifaceted interactions between a Beijing-based art dealer Huo Mingzhi (霍明志, 1880-?) and the Euro-American art market in the early twentieth century. By delving into the circulations of both Huo’s stock of Chinese antiquities and his transcultural narrative, this article provides a sketch of Huo’s strategies to reify Chinese cultural identities through Chinese antiquities in the international arena and a glimpse into the cultural environment of collecting Chinese art at the time. Despite being an influential tastemaker and expert in Chinese antiques during his day, Huo has rarely been studied either in art history or general historical research. By tracing Huo’s contact with institutions and individuals within the changing context of the early twentieth century art market, I explore Huo’s self-presentation as a mercenary dealer and also as a transcultural scholar, whose monographs and collections re-trained the eyes of a broad range of connoisseurs and amateurs for Chinese art, domestically and internationally. Studying Huo’s bilingual writings: Bowu Huizhi 博物彚志 and Preuves des antiquités de Chine 達古齋古证录, I argue that Huo not only contributed to the transmission of Chinese material culture and the acceptance of Chinese art abroad, but also conjured a strategic vision for cosmopolitan Chineseness.

Sketches for the Illustrations of the Novel Don Quixote de La Mancha in the Creation of Pavel Șillingovski and Ilie Bogdesco

This article compares the preparatory drawings for the illustrations of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s novel Don Quixote de La Mancha by Pavel Șillingovski and Ilie Bogdesco, two famous artists, whose work represents the successive stages in the evolution of graphic during the 20th century. The series of drawings represents different attitudes towards the process of illustrating literary works. In order to achieve the proposed objective, we have resorted to theoretical concepts, present in the science of “art history” and described by the Viennese theorist Walter Koschatzky, as well as the published diary of I. Bogdesco, which complements the artistic creation inherited from the artist. In addition, has been described and analysed, the historiography, including very recent, in which the series of works, proposed for investigation, is published. The sketches for the illustrations allow us to see how the image of the famous hidalgo passes through 20th century art. In addition to this, we also make a brief incursion into the artistic context in which these two personalities worked. Through this modest theoretical approach, we wish to join the series of events and publications commemorating the centenary of the birth of the great graphic artist Ilie Bogdesco.

Arts’s Fight for Life or the Triumphant End of the Avant-Garde

The aim of the article is to outline a logical sequence of events that led to radicalism in the art of the 19th and 20th centuries by studying the connections between art, life (reality), and science and technology. From the mid-nineteenth century through the 1970s, art acquired a unique quality: it rapidly radicalised, creating a number of alternative art practices, such as impressionism, abstractionism, cubism, ready-made, etc. Before that, except for random individual phenomena, art for centuries was just changing styles: Baroque, Rococo, Classicism. Results. The article identifies the cause for the revolutionary avant-garde trends in art and the reason for the end of the revolutionary era. It presents a view based on art’s relations with life in competition with science and technology that had different effects on art, ranging from influentially adaptive to revolutionary rebellious. The scientific significance of this study is its innovative approach to the consideration of factors of the emergence and development of avant-garde trends in the art of the 19th and 20th centuries. The rational study and comparable analyses of events in science/ technology and art in relation to life (reality) offers an inventive and coherent reason for the appearance and disappearance of avant-guard art. Conclusions. This article identifies the cause for the revolutionary avant-garde trends in art and the reason for the end of the revolutionary era. It presents a unique view based on art’s relations with life in competition with science and technology and shows how an inadvertent battle of art for life (reality) with photography, film and television triumphed in the twentieth century and broke the very possibility of further revolutionary changes.

Epistemological specificity of art: from the «psychophysiology» of the primitive world to the «practical philosophizing» of the modern era.

The subject of the study is the epistemological specificity of art through the «prism» of the Paleolithic and modern eras. The focus of the research is aimed at analyzing the phenomenon of «eidetism», which is a link between modern and primitive art. The purpose of the article is to comprehend the epistemological specifics of art, which began with the «psychophysiology» of the primitive world and developed into forms of «practical philosophizing» of the modern era. The research methodology includes a review of literary sources, a dialectical approach to historical and art historical reconstruction, analysis of paleopsychological data, comparative analysis, elements of systems psychology and sociology. An element of novelty is the author's position that already in the lower, early layers of its evolution, the status of art «as one of the most ancient forms of human activity» is enriched by the status of «a form of practical philosophizing». The generalization is made that the art of the XX-XXI centuries, on the one hand, abandoned both mimesis and humanism, on the other – it continued the path of «practical philosophizing» begun in ancient times, based on the perceptual-empirical method of cognition of reality. The evolution of art from its primitive origins through archaic, classical to its modern state is, at the same time, the transformation of human consciousness, and the comprehension through artistic and creative activity of one's being and place in the universe, etc. - the development of its «depth» (the content of art). This is the development of art «in breadth» (the development of artistic form): the proliferation of its types and genres, the growth of stylistic and technological polyphony, etc. As a result, «art has come a long way from its purely psychophysiological hypostasis to «practical philosophizing». Artistic and creative activity itself as a whole continues to be the most important component of the global «mechanism» of mastering reality.

Excited-state dynamics of deuterated indigo

Indigo, a rich blue dye, is an incredibly photostable molecule that has survived in ancient art for centuries. It is also unique in that it can undergo both an excited-state hydrogen and proton transfer on the picosecond timescale followed by a ground-state back transfer. Previously, we performed gas phase excited-state lifetime studies on indigo to study these processes in a solvent-free environment, combined with excited-state calculations. We found two decay pathways, a fast sub-nanosecond decay and a slow decay on the order of 10 ns. Calculations of the excited-state potential energy surface found that both hydrogen and proton transfer are nearly isoenergetic separated by a 0.1 eV barrier. To further elucidate these dynamics, we now report a study with deuterated indigo, using resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionization and pump-probe spectroscopy with mass spectrometric isotopomer selection. From new calculations of the excited-state potential energy surface, we find sequential double-proton or hydrogen transfer, whereby the trajectory to the second transfer passes a second barrier and then encounters a conical intersection that leads back to the ground state. We find that deuteration only increases the excited-state lifetimes of the fast decay channel, suggesting tunneling through the first barrier, while the slower channel is not affected and may involve a different intermediate state.Graphical abstract

Art History as a New Discipline at the Estonian University in Tartu after the Long 19th Century

The article is the first attempt to present the beginnings of Estonian professional art history in the 1920s in a regional and global context. The author strives to situate the University of Tartu (Dorpat) in the pan-European network of universities, where art history had gradually become regarded as a new discipline during and after the long 19th century. Art history is rooted in the Age of Enlightenment, with Johann Joachim Winckelmann retrospectively named the father of art history. But it was about a half century after his death that art history was incorporated into a general subject of aesthetics taught at universities. It took another fifty years for art history to become a separate discipline in the modern universities of Germany and Austria-Hungary, and another half century to receive a separate chair at the Estonian national university in Tartu. The development of art history as a discipline at the University of Tartu is analysed on a very granular level, based on primary sources from Estonian and Swedish archives. During the 19th century art and its history were used to the ends of national politics and in search of national identities. In Estonia, this was hindered by the activities of another ethnic group, the Baltic-Germans, who had been the ruling class in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire. The first professor of art history at the Estonian University of Tartu, Helge Kjellin, wanted to bridge the gap between Estonian and Baltic art history. He attempted to merge these two concepts and define the territorial concept of Estonian art from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century. He also defined this as a proper field of study for Estonian art historians. However, after his departure from Estonia, art history was neglected and irrelevant for the Estonian University and the Estonian Republic. Science and academic professions were regarded as a masculine field of activity until after the Second World War. Only the lack of men, who had died in the war, enabled women to start seeking a more equal place in the academic world worthy of their intellectual ability. Despite there being many capable female students among those who studied art history with Kjellin, the first female professor of art history in Estonia, Krista Kodres, was elected to the Estonian Academy of Arts only in 2003.