Figurative Art Research Articles

The visual psychology of European Upper Palaeolithic figurative art: using Bubbles to understand outline depictions

ABSTRACT How have our visual brains evolved, and exactly how did this constrain the specific way that animals were depicted in Upper Palaeolithic art? Here, we test predictions derived from visual neuroscience in this field. Using the example of open-air Upper Palaeolithic rock art of Portugal’s Côa Valley, we point out the frequently recurring outline strategies that past artists utilized to depict the prey animals upon which they were dependent for survival. Their depictional tendency can be mirrored onto the most visually salient anatomical aspects of these species, a finding that results from our use of a visual psychological experimental programme, called Bubbles. We find a remarkable correspondence between the aspects of the anatomy of horses and bison that modern participants found most helpful in successfully discriminating between the two, and those same aspects that are elaborated most in Upper Palaeolithic art. This leads us to conclude that the visual system of Homo sapiens drove the way that important prey species were depicted, and hence, the form of their art.

Extending the inter-Adriatic trade of bitumen beyond the fifth millennium BCE

Grotta dei Cervi (Apulia, Southern Italy) is the most important European figurative art site for its Neolithic red and brown paintings found in the various galleries of the cave. It was frequented with particular intensity between an advanced phase of the Early Neolithic (first half of the sixth millennium BCE) and continued up to the end of the Bronze Age (last centuries of the second millennium BCE). Among the more than thirty thousand finds, some ceramic shards had black residues on them. These residues were sampled so that molecular and isotopic investigations could be carried out. GC–MS-MS and EA–IRMS after fractionation of the samples allowed us to identify bitumen on some archaeological potsherd remains and to identify its geographic source by comparison with geological samples from Majella and Selenicë, two deposits located respectively in Italy and Albania and known to have been exploited since Neolithic times. All the bitumens from Porto Badisco correlate with each other and with the Selenicë geological samples. Isotopic fingerprints strongly support the biomolecular evidence and confirm the Albanian origin of the archaeological bitumen. The data presented herein provide the first evidence of export and trade of raw bitumen across the Adriatic Sea from Selenicë to Apulia during the Neolithic age thus bringing back to the fifth millennium BCE the transport of bitumen across the Adriatic Sea in the central Mediterranean area.

REGOLAZIONE DELLA FERTILITÀ: ARTE E NEUROSCIENZE

The term ‘fertility’ (from Latin language getting abundant harvests) leads back to several fields of the sciences; however, when it is linked to the physiology of reproduction it became, along with nutrition, as a fundamental behavior for the living species. The ‘mystery’ of human reproduction has been an attractive issue and extensively represented in figurative arts (paintings, sculptures, ect.) throughout the centuries and different cultures, being itself an ‘art’. Many scientists have been so fascinated by the art to have modified their personal and scientific lives. Art and sciences, in particular the neurosciences, share their origin during human history, being both the expression of human abilities to formulate an abstract thought to understand and describe the complexity of the world around us. For instance, paintings as the Cabanel’s Birth of Venus as well as the Primavera by Botticelli summarize several aspects of the sexual desire and reproduction; however, the neurosciences provide a more complex and artistic picture of the control of fertility. From the first descriptions, by Geoffrey Harris and Luciano Martini, of the control of the hormonal cascade governing reproductive functions by the hypothalamus, an important region of our brain, it came to the identification of the GnRH, the master regulator of hormonal reproductive axis. GnRH is produced by specific hypothalamic neurons and it is released in the blood vessels directed toward the pituitary gland in a pulsatile manner, finely tuned for rhythm and intensity, to regulate the secretion of pituitary gonadotropins LH and FSH. Released gonadotropin will exert trophic and regulatory effects on gonadal functions and on the production of sex hormones (testosterone and estrogens). A number of neuroendocrine signals control the development and the activity of GnRH neurons and whose functional alterations are responsible of several reproductive system diseases. According to the data so far available, it is fair to say that the development of such complex mechanisms, under the brain control, endowed with the extraordinary ability to create new individuals could be a real artwork.

УКРАЇНСЬКА ПІАНІСТКА ТАЇСА БОГДАНСЬКА ЗІ США: КОНЦЕРТНО-ВИКОНАВСЬКА ДІЯЛЬНІСТЬ

The article analyzes the concert and stage work of a Ukrainian pianist, pedagogue, musicologist and public figure, a director of Ukrainian Music Institute of America – Tayisa Bohdanska. She started her music education in Stanislav (now Ivano-Frankivsk) with Tetyana Lepka, later in the Lysenko Higher Institute of Music in Lviv where she tought by the famous pianist-teacher, Vasyl Barvinskiy’s student – Roman Savytskiy. After leaving Lviv in 1944, she continued her studies at the Vienna Conservatory in the class of prof. A. Korolkov-Karalis, Roman Raupenshtrauch and Ravsan Strauss. Starting from 1952, she moved to the United States and found a job as a piano teacher at the Ukrainian Music Institute of America in New York, where she continues to work in the field of serving and promoting Ukrainian piano art in the world. She has performed in big US cities, such as: Newark, Philadelphia, New York, Miami, Rochester, Grand Cayman and Virgin Islands, Toronto (Canada), Curacao (Japan), Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Drohobych (Ukraine), engaged in recording business, published articles on Ukrainian performers and composers. The article reveals her pianistic performing skill is characterized by a temperamental, fiery playing, based on her proficiency in chord-octave and finger-shining technique, while achieving a commonality of melody, careful phrase design and a clear articulation of small passages in a fast-paced tempo, the pianist has a unique way of sound extraction, with a soft finger stroke, which causes the middle register of the instrument to sound like a cello with a baritone hue. T. Bohdanska’s work in the conditions of emigration served to develop Ukrainian music and spirituality. In April 2017, a solemn concert took place honoring the artist and on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of her birth, where one could hear words of gratitude to this wonderful person, specialist, pedagogue, musicologist, and “the bright professor” as she is called in music and institute circles. Her artistic figure should serve as an example of creative dedicated work for the present and future generations of talented youth - performing pianists and educators.

Archive fund of the composer Mark Karminsky

Archive fund of the composer Mark Karminsky

Cave art reveals human nature

Summary Prehistoric artworks have been discovered on numerous cave walls around the world. They tell us about the minds and lives of ancient humans as well as about their relationship with the now extinct megafauna that surrounded them. Michael Gross reports.

The Allegorical and Symbolic Meaning in West European Porcelain Craft of the 18th Century

The article takes a look at the works of various porcelain manufactories: Italian Docchia, German Meissen and Nymphenburg, Viennese and French Sèvres. These works are subject to allegorical interpretation and symbolic meaning. This content feature is one of the characteristic features of Baroque and Rococo art. The author pays particular attention to the identification of allegorical attributes and specific elements of form and decor that carry symbolic meaning. Porcelain artifacts, the authors of which are prominent European masters (Soldani, Kändler, Eberlein, Bustelli, Niedermeier and Fournier), are examined in detail. These kinds of decorative and applied arts reflected the unique worldview of a person living in the 18th century - the period of Enlightenment. The following methods of art history laid the foundation for this study: the formal-stylistic and iconological analyses of porcelain artifacts, which enabled the author to identify the semantic content of examined images. The scientific novelty of this article lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian art studies, a comprehensive study of the works of 18th-century porcelain crafts from different countries was carried out in order to identify their symbolic meanings. A detailed study of these works gives the author reason to conclude that bestowing artifacts with symbolic content is characteristic of Baroque and Rococo art, and that these works reflected one of the features of the figurative art system of the 18th century.

REFLEXOS DA ESCRITA DE SI EM CRÔNICA DE TARSILA DO AMARAL

O presente artigo propõe uma análise da produção cronista de Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973), uma das figuras centrais da arte brasileira no século XX, em aproximação com a escrita de si e a presença feminina na imprensa brasileira. Para isso, tomamos como foco o texto “Tragédia parisiense”, publicado em 1937 pela artista plástica nos periódicos Diário de S. Paulo e O Jornal, acreditando que a autora utiliza o exercício da memória como interessante artifício de atração e envolvimento de seus leitores. Dessa forma, para embasar o nosso estudo, valemo-nos de Amaral (2001; 2003), Candido (1992), Figueiredo (2013) e Gomes (2004), entre outros, assimilando aspectos da representação autobiográfica e avaliando seus desdobramentos na tessitura da crônica tarsiliana.
 Palavras-Chave: Tarsila do Amaral. Crônica. Escrita de si. Autoria feminina. Imprensa brasileira.

Urnfields in the middle Oder basin – a perspective of a Lubusz-Greater Polish territorial community

Urnfields in the middle Oder basin – a perspective of a Lubusz-Greater Polish territorial community

N. K. Roerich’s Contribution to the Knowledge of the East

The article deals with activities of a famous Russian artist and public figure Nikolai K. Roerich in the field of Oriental studies. N.K. Roerich read law at the St Petersburg University, however he also attended the lectures at the faculty of history. His genuine interest in history later revealed in numerous studies in archaeology, ethnography, folklore, general and cultural history of the Eastern counties. As a scholar, he visited Altay, Mongolia, India and Tibet, lived there and conducted his research. He was also instrumental in organizing two complex research expedition to Central Asia and Manchuria. Besides he took part in short term expeditions to Western Himalaya as part of the work of the Himalayan Research Institute. This Institute was founded by the Roerich family and was based in the Kullu valley (India). During his expeditions he collected vast material, which comprised historical sources of different art and nature. This material was subsequently researched by himself as well as by his elder son the Orientalist scholar George (Yurii) Roerich. Nikolaj Roerich developed a unique research method, which combined purely academic and artistic approach.

Imagining Compromised Creativity: Art and Fear in Shostakovich Bio-Fiction

ABSTRACT The life of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich features in several contemporary anglophone bio-fictions, both novels and film, raising the question of the larger implications of Shostakovich’s life in art today. In my paper, I aim to address how such Shostakovich bio-fictions reinvent the composer’s creative labour in the context of World War II, Stalinist and post-Stalinist politics. Shostakovich’s life as artist and man appears torn between fear of persecution, social commitment, and the claim of individual, aesthetic autonomy tied to a controversial degree of political dissent. In Western eyes, the Soviet composer thus epitomizes the transnational figure of the twentieth-century artist – compromised, yet achieving an expression of his personal voice, creating an emphatically modern art that is bound to its times and yet ultimately eludes both the dictates of politics and mimesis.

Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo

Reviewed by: Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic ed. by Jo Ann Cavallo Samuel Zawacki Jo Ann Cavallo, ed. Teaching the Italian Renaissance Romance Epic. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2018. pp. 382. In her latest publication, Jo Ann Cavallo compiles and organizes an immense amount of knowledge on the Renaissance romance epic. With thirty contributors, the text is difficult to synthesize succinctly. However, each essay brings to the table a pedagogical approach, with each contributor incorporating anecdotes and observations from courses previously taught on topics pertaining to the Renaissance romance epic. The subject matter encompases nearly every facet of the genre, ranging from its Arthurian origins to its modern video game incarnations. While dozens of epics are discussed throughout the book, three authors come under analysis more prevalently than the rest: Matteo Maria Boiardo, Ludovico Ariosto, and Torquato Tasso. Teaching the Italian Romance Epic gives its readers a neatly compartmentalized guide to the genre. Cavallo starts by introducing her project as a volume which "offers tools and ideas for teaching the Italian Renaissance romance epics from a wide range of perspectives and methodologies," while simultaneously calling on instructors to "reflect on issues of utmost relevance in today's increasingly interconnected and globalized—yet resistantly compartmentalized and even polarized—world" (x). She then goes to give a brief description of each of the book's ten parts. Each part is comprised of two to five essays, totaling thirty essays beyond introductory and supplementary materials. While each part is different from the next, as the book progresses, a clear trajectory arises: Cavallo starts with the basics—the language used and the genre's precursors—then [End Page 350] takes her readers on a carefully curated journey through time, leaving them with a well-rounded survey of the Italian Renaissance romance epic. Beginning with the fundamental debate over editions and translations, Marco Dorigatti ("Italian Editions: A Bibliographic Survey of Epic and Chivalric Poems") elucidates the crucial distinctions between modern editions of the most important chivalric epic poems written in Italy between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. Moving the discussion from editions to translations, Joshua Reid ("Teaching the Italian Romance Epic in Translation: Materials and Methods") gives new readers a succinct description of the most important translations, both historical and modern, of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso. With sample citations of each translation and a discussion of the importance of cross-translational analysis, Reid creates a quick reference guide of sorts for both students and instructors alike. Part II introduces readers to the Arthurian chivalric epics produced during the Middle Ages to highlight the foundation set for Renaissance poets to come. Leslie Zarker Morgan ("From Roland to Orlando: French Charlemagne Tradition and its Development in Italy") presents the evolution of Roland from his incarnation in the Chanson de Roland through his translation into Orlando in texts such as the cantari, Orlando innamorato and Orlando furioso. By adding a syllabus of suggested readings on the development of Roland, Zarker Morgan gives readers ample opportunity for further exploration. Focusing specifically on the cantari, Maria Bendinelli Predelli ("Adventure, Love, and Prowess in Medieval Italian Cantari") highlights the important sub-genre. Placing emphasis on the communal and performative aspects of the oral tradition, Bendinelli Predelli further evidences broad dissemination of Roland's tale. Having covered the tools needed to understand the romance epic, Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso become the focus. In Part III, the contributors help students wade through centuries of analysis and critique. Giovanna Rizzarelli ("Teaching Ariosto's Furioso through Sixteenth-Century Editions") proposes that students analyze Ariosto's Orlando furioso through different lenses such as genre, theme, and image, while Gael Montgomery ("The Transformation of Angelica") advocates for a reading of Angelica's character in its different permutations, across all three authors in question. Going beyond the literary medium, Chris Picicci ("Figurative Arts, Music, and Film for Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso") and Evelyn Birge Vitz ("Teaching Boiardo and Ariosto through Performance") propose analyses of Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso through art, music, film, and theater. Picicci provides a detailed course summary and his methodology for introducing students chronologically to iterations of the romance epic through figurative art, musical composition, and modern film. Birge Vitz, on...

МИСТЕЦЬКИЙ ВИСТРІЙ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАТИВНОЇ ГРУПИ ПРИМІЩЕНЬ В ГРОМАДСЬКИХ БУДІВЛЯХ ЛЬВОВА У ДРУГІЙ ПОЛОВИНІ ХІХ СТ.

The article considers the characteristic features and distinctness of the artistic design of representative rooms of public buildings in Lviv in second half of 19th century. Traced the main factors that influenced their formation, both architecturally and artistically. Highlighted in detail the Viennese historicism and its features in interior decoration, which is had influenced and reflected to the Lviv’s public buildings. For a more detailed analysis of the artistic structure, a representative sample was made of key public buildings, both, in Lviv and their analogues in other cities of the empire. There are was included: theaters, universities, Sejms and parliaments, museums, courts and other buildings, which have a wide representative group of premises. Also highlighted there are common trends, direct and indirect quotations, both in the artistic elements and in the overall composition. In addition, was also show up the key figures in art and architecture who were active in the second half of the 19th century in Lviv who made a significant contribution to the formation of the artistic arrangements of public buildings. Instead, was indicate and considered main impact factors: administrative, cultural, artistic, social and educational. There was administrative influence, both direct and indirect. Along with funding from imperial exchequer, the facts of straight directives on the style of decoration of representative premises are known. There was also a direct influence on the formation of schools, workshops and in general on the field of architecture and art. Another important factor is that, both the elites and society was focused in the all spheres of life on the capital of the empire. Especially in the culture, architecture and art. For conclusions, in stylistic terms, the artistic design of representative public buildings in Vienna followed the pan- European tendency of historicism, but stood out in its characteristic features. Since Lviv was part of the administrative structure of the Austrian part of the empire, by analogy with the capital, it had a corresponding list of key public buildings. Comparative analysis reveals many similarities, from the layout of the premises, to the decorative and applied elements of artistic design, and in some cases there is a direct citation. Among the main factors are administrative, cultural, educational and economic, which are manifested both in the form of directives and in socio-cultural imitation the current trend at that time in architecture and art.

ОБЗОР МЕЖДУНАРОДНОЙ НАУЧНОЙ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ «НАСЛЕДИЕ СЕМЬИ РЕРИХОВ: ИНДО-РУССКИЙ МАГНИТ. К 100-ЛЕТИЮ СОЗДАНИЯ ФИЛОСОФСКОГО УЧЕНИЯ ЖИВОЙ ЭТИКИ»

The article covers the proceedings of International academic online conference ‘The Roerich Family Heritage: Bridge between India and Russia. Marking the Centenary of the Creation of the Philosophical Teaching of Living Ethics’, which was held on November 27, 2020. The conference was organized by the Indian Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (INDAPRYAL) and The International Centre of Roerichs (ICR). Researchers from India, Russia and Belarus took part in the project. The entire Roerich family was indeed brilliant in its versatility: Nicholas Roerich — a great Russian artist, humanist and public figure of the 20th century, Helena Roerich — a cosmist philosopher, George Roerich — a prominent orientalist, historian and linguist, and Svetoslav Roerich — an outstanding artist and public figure. The philosophical doctrine of Living Ethics was created by Helena Roerich in close connections with the ancient spiritual traditions of India. March 24, 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the beginning the creation of the corpus of these texts. Living Ethics was the main common factor of all the Roerichs’ works. The conference discussed the exceptional role of the Roerichs’ heritage in Indo-Russian cultural interrelations. The topics of the papers included a wide range of areas for studying the multi-faceted creative heritage of the Roerich family — the close connection between the philosophy of Living Ethics and Vedic and Buddhist philosophy, epistolary works of Helena Roerich as a detailed commentary on the texts of Living Ethics, images of India in the Roerich heritage, preservation and popularization of the Roerich heritage in the space of Indian culture etc. The conference showed that the Roerichs’ heritage contains a rich scientific, cultural and creative potential for the development of Russian-Indian relations, deepening mutual understanding and bringing the cultures of the two countries closer together.

“Slavic club in Krakow”: Scientific-educational work in 1901–1912

The article aims to study Slavic cultures as well as their breakthroughs and focuses on the analysis of the work of the “Slavic club” intellectual community created on the territory of Austro-Hungarian Empire. The club consisted of 45 members who held positions as university professors, grammar school teachers and were scholars in liberal arts and humanities, as well as cultural and art figures. The founders of the club saw their goal as creating a strong community of Slavic culture experts who would be free of any political commitment. The political indifference of the club was stated on the pages of its print media, the monthly journal “Slavic World”, published in Krakow and sponsored by Polish philanthropists. The article highlights the work of the club’s chairman, philosopher, linguist and cultural theoretician M. Zdziechowski and mentions the most significant works of competent journal correspondents, such as professor J. Baudouin de Courtenay, sociologist L. Gumplowicz, and writer A. Grzymała-Siedlecki. The journal kept Polish academic readers informed about the latest developments and phenomena of social life in the Slavic world and provided them with high-level expertise and evaluation. The scientific-educational activities of the journal are thoroughly demonstrated in the paper. The wide range of interests and topics discussed in the journal is illustrated. Authors of the journal analysed works by L. Tolstoy, B. Chicherin, M. Bakunin, ideas of S. Sharapov, as well as works of Russian Slavophiles. The whole period of the club’s activity until it was renamed as the “Slavic community” in 1912 is widely covered in the article. The article shows the importance of this international project for the consolidation of Slavic peoples.

Seeing different motifs in one picture: Identifying ambiguous figures in South Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art

Ambiguous figures, as described in visual perceptual psychology, are single pictures that contain several possible, mutually exclusive, motifs. When looking at a rock-art panel, petroglyphs at a fi...

РОССИЙСКИЕ ЭМИГРАНТЫ – ФОТОГРАФЫ В США: ПУТЬ В ИСКУССТВО И БИЗНЕС (1930-1960-е гг.)

The article is devoted to the Russian diaspora in the USA as one of the centers for the development of photography as an art and a type of private enterprise. The author examines the destinies and creative heritage of the leading masters of photography in Russian America, revealing their interaction with the world of innovative art of the Russian artistic emigration. The author's hypothesis is that the main factors of the outstanding achievements of the leading figures of Russian-American photographic art were the synthesis of artistic and aesthetic innovations of European and Russian art, perceived or directly created by Russian émigré photographers in the 1920s, and the capabilities of the American publishing industry, the ability of its leaders to take creative experimentation and commercial risk for future success. The article also examines the social environment and personalities of the development of photography as a service sector, which has become an integral part of the life of the Russian diaspora in the USA in the twentieth century.

Концепции формирования неосуществленных городских архитектурно-художественных ансамблей на примере павильона «Рабочий и колхозница» (Москва невоплощенная)

The object of the study consists of the architectural and artistic ensemble of the “Worker and Kolkoz Woman” pavilion created for the Paris International Exhibition in 1937 by architect B.M. Iofan and sculptor V.I. Mukhina as a part of a grandiose architectural idea declaring the aspiration for the future Soviet state and a sacred symbol of communist ideology. The study reveals that the monument was aimed at carrying a more substantial ideological message than just an architectural structure. The study of the sites proposed for the installation of sculptures for prominent figures in politics, science and art, monuments perpetuating the memorable events of Russian history and mankind shows that they constitute an important historical response to the demands by authorities at various levels for artistic solutions to contemporaneous socio-political problems. The subject of the study included the motivating factors in the selection of placement sites for the outstanding work of B.M. Iofan and V.I. Mukhina in the capital city. The article considers the scientific approach to the selection of sites for the placement of significant urban monuments on the basis of historical, cultural and architectural studies following the vector of spatial planning laid down in the General Plan for the Development of the City. The study combines general scientific methods of research (analysis, synthesis) with a number of specialised methods, such as system-structural, formal-logical, graphical virtual reconstruc-tion, complex research and others. Methodological approaches for studying the consequences of non-implementation of urban planning concepts and projects were developed. The result of the research is pre-sented by the proprietary development of approaches to adequate methods for determining the potential im-pact of major unimplemented urban planning projects on the formation of the capital of Russia on the exam-ple of the “Worker and Kolkoz Woman” pavilion.

Poder y representación en las fiestas efímeras: la entrada triunfal en potosí del virrey-arzobispo morcillo

En este estudio se propone el análisis de determinados artefactos iconográficos, que se erigen con motivo de celebrar la entrada triunfal del recién nombrado virrey interino arzobispo don Diego de Morcillo y Auñón, a la Villa Rica del Cerro de Potosí, de paso rumbo a Lima. Tales artefactos, los magníficos arcos triunfales, mascaradas, una loa y hasta un cuadro al óleo, comisionado a Melchor Pérez de Holguín, se diseñan con antelación; el objetivo es exaltar la figura del virrey, plasmando las figuras emblemáticas acostumbradas. Se propone la lectura de algunos aspectos del programa iconográfico producido en torno a la figura de Morcillo, con el objeto de dilucidar rasgos locales y de la agencia criolla en Potosí, desplegada cuidadosamente en estos emblemas.

Idealno-realna lepota u teurgijskom stvaralaštvu - teme i pojmovi likovne estetike srebrnog veka Ruske kulture

The paper explores the Christian-intoned philosophical aesthetics of the figurative arts during the silver age of Russian culture. In this period, which covers the second half of the nineteenth and the first two decades of the twentieth century, Russia's speculative thought, based on the Orthodox patristic and philosophical idealism, promoted the original religious philosophy, which highly valorized the importance of comprehensive gnoseology and ontology of "total-unity", true knowledge sought only through the absolute - an ideal which in itself synthesizes a real beauty, truth and goodness. That is why the Christian fine arts and aesthetics of this period in Russia were built only as an organic segment of a holistically interpreted philosophy of life, recapitulated by its essential principle - Christ. In order to systematize various aspirations, ideas and concepts of this artistic aesthetics, the paper singles out and explains three major themes that are intertwined. These are: the beauty (integral with goodness and truth), Christlike according to Dostoevsky, ideal-real according to Soloviev; theurgical creation, viewed both as artistic (free and transformative) and as an ascetic likeness to God; and the icon, which - through a philosophical-theological interpretation of an apophatic-kataphatic antinomy, reverse perspective and symbolism - integrates the issue of beauty and creativity into a common discourse, entering the Orthodox apologetic front before western art and culture, from the renaissance to the modern digital age.