Hierarchy Of Genres Research Articles

Жанровые дефиниции в современной читательской литературной критике

The article studies definitions of genre that exist in mass readers’ minds and appear in their book reviews. While readers’ literary criticism and other forms of online-communication per se are now beginning to draw scientific interest, the problem of genre in fiction book reviews written by readers has been underinvestigated. Non-professional literary critics have a rather vague idea of literary genres that often lacks logic and does not comply with traditional hierarchy of genres. Readers try to fit the text they have read into a genre system they understand, but if it does not fit they create or coin a new genre definition that reflects their own understanding of the text, how they define its subject matter and what the text made them think about. In the minds of novice readers genre definition is closely related to the plot and their personal opinion of the book. Genre criteria analysis is often overlooked or seems arbitrary, oftentimes readers use the first genre definition that comes to their minds, i.e. a socially-agreed-upon definition, a convenient definition, a general definition, or a definition that has been widely used lately (for example, in the movie or book advertisements). Using their own reading experience, reviewers create their own reader’s glossary, in which literary movement is intertwined with their own estimation of the book quality, stylistic devices are mixed up with the author’s individual writing style, and reader’s emotional response becomes a genre criterion.

Ways of developing the repertoire for folk instruments in the works of the composers of Slobozhanshchyna

Statement of the problem. The formation of the repertoire of folk instruments is a comprehensive and long-term process that began in Ukraine only in the 20th century. A significant part of the musical repertoire for folk instruments was written by the composers of Slobozhanshchyna, because namely this region became the centre of the folk instrumental art of Ukraine at the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, the necessary arises to recreate the holistic picture of developing the music for folk instruments in the works of the composers of Slobozhanshchyna that has not yet attracted the attention of researches, which determines the relevance of our work. Objectives, methods, and novelty of the research. The purpose of the article is to present as much as possible the entire range of music for folk instruments by the composers of Slobozhanshchyna, to reveal the dominant genre-style vectors and timbre priorities in the works of H. Khotkevych, V. Podgorny, B. Mikhieiev, V. Ivanov, M. Stetsiun, I. Haidenko and A. Haidenko. The genre-style method helps establish the hierarchy of genres and styles in music for folk instruments; historical one – to determine the stages of formation and distribution of the folk instrumental repertoire; the method of source studies – to analyze the existing sources on the works of the composers of Slobozhanshchyna; structural and functional method – to reveal the compositional features of the works. Today there are a number of works devoted to bayan /accordion, domra, balalaika, bandura, guitar and cimbalom art. A significant number of works for folk instruments by the composers of Slobozhanshchyna have already been considered, but in isolation, outside the general scheme of the development of folk instrumental music in Ukraine. The novelty of our topic lies in the fact that for the first time a panorama of music for folk instruments is presented and the ways of its development in the repertoire of the artists of Slobozhanshchyna are considered. Research results and conclusion. The panorama of music by the composers of Slobozhanshchyna for folk instruments presented in the article gives grounds for the conclusion that, starting from the 1930s, by the way of the gradual extending the genre and style guidelines, the complication of the form of works, from arrangements of folk songs to large scale concert compositions, due to discovering the original timbre solutions and bright playing techniques, deepening the artistic and conceptual content and expanding the folklore “geography” of the compositions (besides Ukrainian, appeal to Spanish, Romanian, etc. folklore), the artists from Slobozhanshchyna “guide” folk instruments to the concert stage, giving them the opportunity to establish themselves on the same level as the instruments of the academic tradition. According to chronology, since the 1930s, the original bandura works (H. Khotkevych) are first, and only since the 1960s the composers of Slobozhanshchyna write for the button accordion (V. Podgorny, A. Haidenko, M. Stetsiun), for the balalaika (P. Haidamaka, V. Ivanov, B. Mikhieiev, A. Haidenko, M. Stetsiun), and the domra (V. Podgorny, M. Stetsiun, A. Haidenko, B. Mikhieiev, V. Ivanov). Since the beginning of the 1990s, the bandura (A. Haidenko, I. Haidenko), the guitar (M. Stetsiun) and the cimbalom (A. Haidenko, I. Haidenko, M. Stetsiun) repertoire has been replenished with original compositions. The high artistic and professional status of the works of the composers of Slobozhanshchyna confirms not only their popularity among performers and listeners, but also their inclusion as mandatory in the programs of international performance competitions.

Subjektiivsuse aspekt Aurora Semperi kontserdikriitikas aastail 1938–1940 ja 1957–1965

The article examines the subjective aspect in concert reviews by Estonian music critic, pianist, teacher and music historian Aurora Semper (1899–1982), investigating whether and how different socio-political context influenced the manifestation of Semper’s subjective evaluations and taste in her writings for the newspapers Postimees (1938–1940) and Sirp ja Vasar (1956–1965). The paper focuses on the question of to what extent Semper’s subjective aesthetic understandings developed by the 1930s, such as seeing chamber music at the top of the hierarchy of musical genres, her educational background, including piano studies and the experience of West European musical life, were expressed during the Soviet regime with its demands on re-evaluation of music according to the Marxist-Leninist ideology. Comparing Semper’s reviews written in the late 1930s and 1960s, enough common features emerge. The found similarities include the preference for chamber music/ensembles and symphony concerts as well as the focus on the performance aspect, interest in historical issues and the observation of the long-term development of the collective/artist. Also, the attitude towards contemporary music is generally supportive and favourable. As a difference, one can notice the absence of stage works’ reviews in Semper’s Soviet-era writings and a stronger ideological message which is not emphasized but which Semper expressed when necessary in her attitudes, as well as the use of language and emphases. It can therefore be concluded that Aurora Semper’s subjectivity, which was strongly shaped by her studies in Europe (Germany, France) in the 1920s, broad mind and curiosity for knowledge, marriage to an intelligent and tolerant writer and politician Johannes Semper, music history teaching experience and a delicate character, became visible in the relatively free press of the independent Estonia in the 1930s and remained generally unchanged, despite the new socio-political context, in the much more rigid and ideologically controlled Soviet years.

남북음악교류와 한반도 대중음악의 감성정치

In the wake of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, inter-Korean musical exchanges featuring reciprocal performances by South and North Korean performing arts troupes resumed after a hiatus of 16 years. Such exchanges began in 1985, serving as peace events affirming ethnic homogeneity and persisted intermittently, subject to interruption by conflict between the two Koreas arising from domestic or international political contexts. However, the 2018 inter-Korea performance deviated from earlier programs of gugak, traditional Korean music from the South and minjok eumak, ethnic music from the North, which had long been highlighted in previous peace events, and instead brought popular music from both sides to the forefront. This change demands closer examination and discussion.
 Since 1999, other than events primarily organized by broadcasting companies visiting North Korea, there have been no instances of the complete absence of traditional music, which represents the exclusion of national music in favor of popular music.
 This study initially examines the trajectory of South-North Korean musical exchange, then discuss the meaning of ‘ethnic’ music and the collective sentiments of popular music in the context of 21st-century Korean Peninsula Cold War politics, The allocation of meanings relation to ‘ethnicity,’ ‘nation,’ and ‘peace’ to the popular music in the nation-led South-North Korean musical exchange symbolically signifies the position of popular music in the 21st century Korean Peninsula. Consequently, the 2018 musical exchange became an event that both the elevated status of popular music, which had previously occupied a lowest position within the hierarchy of music genres in the 20th century Korean Peninsula, and effectively reflected shifts in attitudes and sentiments toward popular music.

Polyphony in Vadim Salmanov's a cappella choral work

The author examines in detail the revival of ancient choral genres and forms that corresponded to the aesthetic trend in the Russian musical culture of the second half of the twentieth century. The subject of the study is the stylistic features of Vadim Salmanov's polyphonic writing. The object of the research is the choral heritage of V. Salmanov's a cappella from the point of view of integrating new compositional techniques and polyphony. Special attention is paid to polyphonic techniques in the concert for the a cappella choir "Lebedushka". The author examines in detail the dramaturgy and architectonics of the choral concert "Lebedushka", as well as such aspects of the topic as: polyphonic methods, including imitation polyphony and heterophony, writing techniques of the twentieth century (sonorica, aleatorica). V. Salmanov's works clearly demonstrate that the genre of choral concert occupies one of the main places in the history of Russian choral creativity a cappella. It is proved that in the genre hierarchy, it is the choral concert that plays the leading role in terms of the number of artistic discoveries. The research methodology is based on the analysis of historical materials, a wide range of works by Russian musicologists concerning the history and theory of musical genres, polyphonic writing techniques and performing practice. Through the synthesis of research methods, including musicology and choral studies, the parameters of musical composition are revealed. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the paradigm of artistic connections of traditional polyphonic techniques with modern means of compositional writing. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time polyphonic techniques in modern choral composition are analyzed from the standpoint of musicology and choral studies. A special contribution of the author to the disclosure of the topic is the study of V. Salmanov's choral concert "Lebedushka", which had not previously been the object of special research from the point of view of polyphony. In this work, the presentation of musical material itself, as well as polyphonic methods of working with it, are conducted under the auspices of the search for a new sound characteristic of modern music. Attention is focused on the need to study the issues related to the role of polyphony in modern choral composition, due not only to the general artistic and historical potential of choral culture as a whole, but especially its great importance in modern musical art.

Društvena uloga Policijskog glasnika i pojava crne hronike u Srbiji

In this paper, the social and security history of Serbia at the end of the 19th century is analyzed through an overview of the emergence, survival and functioning of the police press as a newspaper intended for the general public, but also as a significant means of shaping political culture and a stable environment. The appearance of the first issue of the Police Herald at the end of 1897 marked the strengthening of the class organization of this service, but also the growing influence and reputation in the society of that time. Although they represented a social-class and professional magazine, the editors (who were also policemen and journalists) made significant professional progress with their responsible, engaged and mobilizing approach on the border of literary and journalistic style, becoming visible in the international environment as well. Their main goal was to educate and train both members of the police and supporting administration, as well as the entire public in order to act preventively against the increasingly noticeable spread of numerous pathological phenomena. The culture of reading the press could not spread as fast as the desire for social change, but the skill of marketing content that talked about thieves, swindlers, bandits, murderers, corrupt government representatives, poisoners and similar actors of deviant phenomena, without sensationalism, manipulation and glorification of such persons was stunning. The Police Newsletter was published intermittently until 1944 (first stage 1897-1914; second stage 1920-1944). The affirmative and propaganda-activist purpose of the newspaper is visible in the intention to bring biographies and results of police officers, including their photos, to the public. More than 5.000 pictures of hardened criminals have been published against whom proceedings were conducted and who threatened the society in any way, while the number of texts related to the local crime was over 12,000. Their characteristic is the literary-publicistic style of narration, which brings criminal investigations and topics closer to a wider audience. Because of the simple, vernacular language and interesting storytelling, the readership was very high for that time. With a mild, informal and friendlier approach, the Police Herald built a bridge of trust with the community, expanding the reputation of the police and its employees, while simultaneously changing social awareness of corruption, crime and other pathological phenomena. This clearly shows the educational and professional mission of the newspaper, which, by scripting deviant behavior, strives to change the patriarchal consciousness of the Serbian public, especially doing everything to transform the behavior of persons from the criminal sphere. The narrativization of reality extends and strengthens the regulative influence of the police service and legal procedures, because through the discourse of local crime reports, social practices are legitimized in the social order in which they function. The processes of symbolic changes are complex and ambiguous, but as the content of newspapers became more interesting and explosive, so did the number of readers. The Newsletter reveals the then-unknown stories about thieves, swindlers, bandits, murderers, corrupt government officials, the sins of government officials... but at the same time it teaches the people how to oppose them or help the police to arrest them. The class-oriented editorial structure and genre hierarchy of news and reports, with a focus on the contents of the local crime reports, only increased the interest of public opinion in the operation of police services, but also the role and status of police officers and their relationship with the state and citizens. Even then, stories and records from the world of crime significantly stimulated the public's attention to the newspapers that publish them, at the same time empowering and creating a mobile audience core ready to responsibly and courageously oppose various forms of deviant behavior. Conservativism was at least temporarily pushed aside, so it can be said that the Police Herald at the crossroads of the 19th and 20th centuries represented the initiator of security reforms and new winds in the stagnant and blurred atmosphere of political confrontations and conflicts among parties of the time.

Dans l’absolu: de Louis XIII à Louis XIV. Par Stéphane Van Damme et Héloïse Chochois

This, the eleventh in the planned twenty-volume Histoire dessinée de la France, takes the reader on a quick tour of the French seventeenth century, with Alexandre Dumas père, Ernest Lavisse, and Pierre Goubert as guides. Each of them travels through a time-travel portal to access an aspect of the period that corresponds to his interests: Dumas explores war and the colonies, Lavisse observes royal grandeur, and Goubert encounters the difficult conditions of the common people. This premise allows the authors to foreground the role played by historians in establishing and contesting the French national narrative while complicating the commonly held view of the period as the Versailles-centred apogee of French glory; Lavisse, in particular, is disillusioned by what he finds. The unique, irreverent, and approachable format of the graphic novel suits this project of demythification well. The high rate of mortality during the period is underscored by the depiction, at the bottom of a series of pages, of the faces of a large fictional peasant family that Goubert visits; as drought and famine afflict their region, the faces are crossed off one by one. The wit of the genre also comes across in a section devoted to the hierarchy of genres endorsed by the Académie de peinture (p. 54), from best to worst. The graphic-novel section of the book closes with a brief account of slavery and the Code noir, related by a Black French sailor whose presence allows a Breton merchant to explain to Dumas that ‘même au xviie siècle, être français, ce n’est pas forcément être blanc!’ (p. 99). Lavisse and Goubert acknowledge the failure of historians to address the slave trade adequately, before moving on to a sober assessment of a century characterized by great cultural achievements but also by near-constant war; symbolically, one of the last panels depicts Versailles plunged into darkness, devoid of its solar inhabitant. The book ends with a series of densely written scholarly essays on various topics only glancingly treated in the graphic novel. A section on the Fronde partially remedies the striking lack of women in the rest of the work; a section on ‘le siècle saint’ complicates the earlier and frequent dismissal of religion as dogmatic, intolerant fantasy. Overall, the work conveys the authors’ efforts to problematize the French seventeenth century all without significantly challenging French pride and global importance. The aforementioned Breton merchant takes care to note that his wealth, unlike that of his counterparts in Nantes and Bordeaux, was not acquired from the slave trade; absolutism is described at times as a politically motivated invention of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as a near-tyrannical thirst for order and control, and as a rational, much-needed response to the trauma of the religious wars. The result is a volume that serves as an interesting perspective on the period, accessible to a wide range of readers, but one that also invites reflection on our current historiographical moment.

Changes in the Research Methodology of Contemporary Ukrainian Art: Representation of Femininity

The article discusses the shift from the methodology of the Soviet totalitarian period in Ukrainian art history to the modern methods that are more appropriate for the interpretation of contemporary Ukrainian art. The analysis showed that, during the Soviet period, art and art history in Ukraine were under strict ideological and political control. Art history and criticism were widely used as a means of ideological propaganda, and therefore art studies could not fully represent and interpret art. A considerable part of the art phenomena was ignored by researchers due to the hierarchy of trends and genres of art established in the USSR; art historians had to assess the “validity” of an artwork or an artist according to the official ideology. The variety of methods and research instruments was limited and insufficient for the research of contemporary Ukrainian art, including feminist art. The creative work of the Ukrainian female artist Alina Kopytsa is shown as an example in order to demonstrate the expedience of modern approaches, which are still not common for Ukrainian art history. Thus, a wider range of methods and approaches is regarded as the means to develop an effective methodological background, and to provide a better understanding of contemporary Ukrainian art.

Time, Media, and Visuality in Post-Revolutionary France

Time, Media, and Visuality in Post-Revolutionary France

Dutch Flower Still Life of 17th Century: Interest and Oblivion through the Centuries

Over three and a half centuries, the genre of flower still life created by Dutch artists experienced ups of interest and oblivion. There were the maximum assessment of society in the form of high fees of the 17th century artists; the criticism of connoisseurs and art theorists; the neglect in the 19th century and the rise of auction prices and close attention of art critics, manifested from the middle of the 20th century to the present day. In the middle of the 17th century, there was already a hierarchy of genres, based on both the subject and the size of the paintings, which was reflected in the price. Still lifes and landscapes were cheaper than allegorical and historical scenes, but there were exceptions, for example, in the works of Jan Brueghel the Elder and Jan Davidsz. de Heem. Art theorists Willem van Hoogstraten and Arnold Houbraken, resting upon academic tastes, downplayed the importance of still-life painting. Meanwhile, the artists themselves, determining the worth of their paintings, sought for maximum naturalism, and such paintings were sold well.In the 20th century, this genre attracted the attention of collectors in Europe and the United States. A revival of interest in Dutch still lifes in general, and in flower ones in particular, began in the 20th century, the paintings rose in price at auctions, and collecting them became almost a fashion. Art societies and art dealers of the Netherlands and Belgium organized several small exhibitions of still lifes. The course for studying symbolic messages in still lifes, presented by Ingvar Bergström, is continued by Eddie de Jong, who emphasizes the diverse nature of symbolism in Dutch painting of the 17th century. Svetlana Alpers, on the contrary, criticizes the iconological method and presents the Dutch painting of that period as an example of visual culture. Norman Bryson’s view of Dutch still lifes is formed against the background of the development of a consumer society, economic prosperity and abundance. Finally, there has been an increasing interest in the natural science aspects of flower still-life painting in the researches of the last twenty years. Curiosity, skill, and admiration for nature are the impulses that can still be felt in the images of bouquets and fruits.

Gennady Gorbaty's painting: crypto-realism as overcoming imitation of reality

The purpose of this article: analysis of Gennady Gorbaty's painting, in the work of which the transition from a realistic reflection of the world to the art of postmodernism, characteristic of Ukrainian art of the late 20th century, was reflected in a peculiar way. The methodology is the application of art analysis, methods of comparison and generalization, biographical and historical approach. The scientific novelty lies in the discovery of the peculiarities of the transformation of the traditional for Soviet art reflection of reality into visual practices of the late 20th – early 21st centuries on the example of the work of a particular artist. Conclusions. Gennady Gorbaty studied at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1981–1987), so his formation was significantly influenced by the traditional school of painting with a mostly realistic reproduction of the world around it and a purely academic hierarchy of genres. The socio-political situation in Ukraine in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only contributed to the liberation from such a view of art, but also intensified attention to the development of both contemporary world art and modernist manifestations that existed in the culture of the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, many artists became interested in the history of Ukraine, especially in its tragic or dramatic pages, which led to the emergence of numerous compositions with a complex system of symbols and associations, elements borrowed from the paintings of past eras. In the work of Gennady Gorbaty can be consistently traced a variety of influences, which demonstrate his search for his own plastic language, the gradual departure from the conditionally realistic art of the Soviet era and the formation of a peculiar manner of performance. This was facilitated by an acquaintance with Western European art of the late 20th century, as the artist has been working in Germany since the early 1990s. It was one of the German art critics G. Beck who defined the stylistics of G. Gorbaty's works as crypto-realism, in which the emotional beginning, reflected in the color scheme and expression of picturesque textures, is combined with supposedly hidden motives of visible reality. In the works of this author, the blurring of genres, the synthesis in one picture of elements of different artistic epochs – from the Middle Ages to postmodernism – is also noticeable.

Intergenred Diffusion in Orthodox Hymnography (On The Example of Canticles of The Troparion Subsystem)

A complex and multifaceted characterization of the phenomenon of intergenre diffusion on the material of the troparion subsystem songs is carried out. A number of general scientific and special methods and approaches have been applied, in particular musicological (comparative and analytical), culturological, historical, philological, liturgical, theological. The method of analysis of individual hymns by eight genre features (developed by Olena Shevchuk on the basis of research by other musicologists, in particular Johann von Gardner and Iryna Bezuglova) was tested. For the first time in Ukrainian medieval music studies, rare troparion genres were involved in comparative studios — triadika, martyrika, thanatika, doxastika, eisodika and apolytykia. The problem of genre typology and genre hierarchy in hymnography, interrelation of liturgical genres with homiletic, euchographic and biblical ones is outlined in a new way. Several interrelated levels of intergenre diffusion have been identified in troparia, kathismata, hypakoi, monostrophic kontakiа and other related chants. Three main ones have been singled out: sources of poetic texts, genre names, common poetic-musical models. It is noted that the sources of verbal texts of troparion songs were often proimions and ikos of polystrophic kondaks of St. Romanos Melodos, which could act as selfsimilar to the hymns of the troparion subsystem. It has been proved that the change of genre names (troparion — kathisma — hypakoe — kondak — stichera) is connected both with different regional origin of names (Constantinople, Jerusalem) and with the historical development of liturgical genres and the whole genre system. Other common attributes in the hymns of the troparia group are determined — the theological content of the verbal text (contemplative, didactic, historical, dogmatic), genre styles and chants (in the Stoudios period — papadikon in Byzantium, kontakarion in Kyivan Rus, in Jerusalem — Bulgarian), forms (one-segment, two-segment, stanzas with codes, rondo type), methods of performance (hymnody, antiphonal, responsory). It was found that special troparia genres — triadika and thanatika — were sung in eight voices, but there were no special self-similar ones.

World Literature, Industrialization, and the Two Faces of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction

Abstract: In "World Literature, Industrialization, and the Two Faces of Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction" Yiping Wang discusses contemporary Chinese science fiction against the backdrop of the influence of world literature and the development of industrialization in China. Wang argues that two sides represented respectively by Liu Cixin and Han Song constitute the feature of contemporary Chinese science fiction. The side characterized by the works of Liu Cixin is the close connection with world science fiction and the positive attitude and consistency with technological innovation and industrialization in China while the other side has Han Song as its representative, whose works, with similarities to high literature of world canons and the mainstream Chinese literature, reflect on the development of technology and industrialization focusing on individuals and disasters in the shadow of modernization. These two sides join together in the illustration of the basic image of science fiction in contemporary Chinese literature. By absorbing the essence of world literature and echoing the concerns of the nation, contemporary Chinese science fiction surmounts the hierarchy of literary genres and make its way into the active center of world literature.

Polska epika bohaterska przed i po „Gofredzie”

The article is a review of the most important trends in the development of the Polish epic in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the absence of significant traditions of knightly works, the creation of Polish heroic poetry should be associated primarily with the humanistic movement, whose representatives set a heroic epic at the top of the hierarchy of genres and recognized 'Eneid' as its primary model. The postulate proposed first by the Renaissance and later by the Baroque authors did not lead to the creation of a ‘real’ epic in Poland. The translations of: the Virgil’s epic poem (1590) by Andrzej Kochanowski and Book 3 of 'The Iliad' by Jan Kochanowski can be regarded as the genre substitutes. These translations seem to test whether the young Polish poetic language is able to bear the burden of an epic matter. Then again, the works of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski on the Latin 'Lechias' (the 1st half of the 17th century), which was to present the beginnings of the Polish state, were not completed. Polish Renaissance authors preferred themes from modern or even recent history, choosing 'Bellum civile' by Lucan as their general model but they did not refrain from typically heroic means in the presentation of the subject. This is evidenced by such poems as 'The Prussian War' (1516) by Joannis Vislicensis or 'Radivilias' (1592) by Jan Radwan. The Latin epic works were followed by the vernacular epic in the 17th century, when the historical epic poems by Samuel Twardowski and Wacław Potocki were created, as well as in the 18th century (the example of 'The Khotyn War' by Ignacy Krasicki). The publication of Torquato Tasso’s 'Jerusalem delivered' translation by Piotr Kochanowski in 1618 introduced to the Polish literature a third variant of an epic poem, which is a combination of a heroic poem and romance motives. The translation gained enormous recognition among literary audiences and was quickly included in the canon of imitated works, but not as a model of an epic, but mainly as a source of ideas and poetic phrases (it was used not only by epic poets). The exception here is the anonymous epos entitled 'The siege of Jasna Góra of Częstochowa', whose author spiced the historical action of the recent event with romance themes, an evident reference to the Tasso’s poem. The Polish translation of Tasso’s masterpiece also contributed to the popularity of the ottava rima, as an epic verse from the second half of the 17th century (previously the Polish alexandrine dominated as the equivalent of the ancient hexameter). This verse was used both in the historical and biblical epic poems, striving to face the rhythmic challenge.

What Was History Painting and What Is It Now? Edited by Mark Salber Phillips and Jordan Bear (Montreal, McGill Queen’s University Press, 2019) 320 pp. $135.00 cloth $44.95 paper

Phillips and Bear’s volume about history painting, past and present, opens with an epigraphical quotation from the German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer: “History is only present to us in light of our future” (3). The choice is apt. With Gadamer in tow, Phillips and Bear, too, collapse time through their rhetorical framing and commitment to uniting a remarkably wide range of visual material. In their view, the concepts of narrative and history have dictated and delimited understandings of the genre. By revisiting these frameworks, they suggest that history painting in fact escapes definition—and that this elusive quality has long enhanced its appeal to artists and audiences alike.What Was History Painting and What Is It Now? is not only unprecedented in its timespan, beginning in the fifteenth century and ending in the twenty-first. Few macro-studies and even fewer transnational works about history painting as a genre exist.1 Its position atop the Western hierarchy of genres has so long been accepted as historically entrenched that most meta-analyses are devoted to its inevitable twentieth-century fall—a tale of decline that the volume’s authors explicitly challenge, proposing instead a narrative of change. They do so, in part, through the concept of “distance” as a “dimension of representation” (11). In the introduction, Phillips proposes “four fundamental distances that shape our experiences of history and time” in works of narrative art—“form, affect, summoning, and intelligibility” (11). Over the centuries, he argues, artists’ evolving engagement with these facets of distancing helped to shape the genre in unpredictable ways.Arranged chronologically and thematically, the book is divided into three parts, each introduced by Bear. Part I, “Human Figures and Human Viewers,” begins in 1435 with the concept’s birth—Leon Battista Alberti’s use of the Latin word historia (“story”) to describe “a narrative image with many figures” (27). This fundamental ambiguity between history and story interweaves the section’s chapters, from Stuart Lingo’s examination of Agnolo Bronzino’s Martyrdom (“such distinctions were contested from their inception”), to Susanna Caviglia’s study of premodern France and Phillips’ account of secular “re-distancing” in nineteenth-century Britain.Part II, “History Painting in the Marketplace,” details how history painters increasingly produced subject matter for public audiences and art markets. Cynthia Roman’s analysis of the satirical printmaker James Gillray’s academic background and enduring narrative aspirations provides an incisive model of an artist’s “re-distancing” from elevated to “more immediate national and secular concerns” (90–91). Additional essays by Bear and Tim Barringer illustrate the genre’s evolving fluidity.Part III, “History Painting after Modernism,” dispels the notion that history painting ended with modernism. Instead, it shows “how many of history painting’s constitutive features endured in unexpected, often mutated, forms” (154). One forceful example is Michael Godby’s assessment of William Kentridge’s Triumphs and Laments (2016), a work of reverse graffiti on the Tiber riverfront in Rome; another is Elizabeth Harney’s discussion of Julie Mehretu’s Mural (2009), created for the Goldman Sachs lobby after the 2008 economic crash. The mutability of the genre is encapsulated in Dexter Dalwood’s treatment of Rita Donagh’s Reflection on Three Weeks in May 1970 (1971), an abstract painting that references both Henry David Thoreau’s Walden and the 1970 Kent State shootings and is intended to document her performance with her students as part of the narrative that she presents.The question arises whether works such as William Kentridge’s ephemeral frieze or the Icelandic artist Rúri Fannberg’s interactive, sonic Archive: Endangered Waters (discussed in Chapter 13, by Mark A. Cheetham) overextend the mandate of history “painting” and might be better described as narrative art. But part of the volume’s power is its insistence on placing these works in the Albertian tradition. Less successful, however, is its attention to gender. No women artists appear until discussions of the twentieth century, when they emerge as creators of some of the volume’s most abstract works. Aware of this male focus, the editors have gendered all viewers female. Yet such rhetoric implies, problematically, a story of male artists creating for female audiences, whereas the chapter structure suggests that only as history painting unmoored itself from traditional structures could women, and non-white men, enter the profession. This absence is not for lack of potential material. Earlier instances abound, including Angelica Kauffman’s classical narrative canvases and Marie (Mme.) Tussaud’s wax displays. Such examples would have buttressed the volume’s overarching argument for the perpetual accessibility and commerciality of historical art—the themes that otherwise anchor the chapters so effectively, by reconstituting “history painting” as a protean genre that artists continue to mold to their own means, patrons, politics, and times.

Освітня функція документальних телевізійних серіалів: філософське осмислення

The television series are viewed from the perspective of their potential educational role. It is noted that television as a whole, and separately its component – the television series, remain an influential form of media communication of our time, despite the diversification of the delivery channels of the media message and the rapid spread of digital devices.
 In the complex hierarchy of TV formats, genres and niches, the television educational series, when it had being appear, became a hybrid documentary broadcast format. Considering the specificity of the video footage, television as a media is characterized by a high potential for reliable reflection of reality (another thing is how television channels operate on this potential). It is no wonder, then, that scientific documentary, as a genre, existed since the "pre-television" era.
 The focus is on documentary television series that can directly perform educational functions. It is generalized the idea of creating of the television series that are specifically designed for educational purposes and which can be part of relevant educational programs. It is substantiated the expediency of using educational serials on special educational television channels that are already operating abroad and just beginning to develop in Ukraine. It is emphasized that in the broad sense of the word, all television series, even entertaining ones, have a certain educational function – through the translation of certain ideas, values and patterns of behavior embodied by the characters of these serials.
 Typical popular documentary series of recent decades have been analyzed in terms of their specific educational functions. It is substantiated that documentary serials of the present day are able to relay information of a household, scientific and educational value, which should partially rehabilitate both television and television series for educational functions, which are guarded by the culture of any level of the organization.
 Despite belonging to one television format, science and education serials communicate at the level of iconic and index characters, and more entertaining reality shows are saturated with symbolic signs. Because of their conventionality, uncertainty, to some extent, nebula, these shows widen the range of potential interpretations, so they can target a flexible and fragmented audience.

The hierarchy of genres and the hierarchy of life-forms

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe hierarchy of genres and the hierarchy of life-formsEmmelyn Butterfield-RosenEmmelyn Butterfield-Rosen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Res Volume 73-74Spring-Autumn 2020 Published in association with the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/711228 Views: 426Total views on this site Copyright © 2020 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this issue may be reproduced without permission of the publisher.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Labor Market in the Seventeenth-Century Italian Art Sector

We analyze the labor market for painters in Baroque Rome using unique panel data on primary sales of still lifes, portraits, genre paintings, landscapes and figurative paintings. In line with the traditional artistic hierarchy of genres, average price differentials between them were high. We identify supply and demand factors related to prices of paintings. The panel dimension of the dataset and its matched painter-patron nature allows us to evaluate the extent to which price heterogeneity is related to unobservable characteristics of painters and patrons. We find that most of the inter-genre price differential is explained by the variation in average artist heterogeneity across genres. This suggests that the market allocated artists between artistic genres to the point of equalizing the marginal return of each genre. We also explain residual price differences in terms of efficiency wage, signalling and incentive mechanisms to induce effort in the production of artistic quality.

Трансформация концепции «ut pictura poe­sis» и новая формула презентации истории в русском искусстве: дискуссия об академической иерархии жанров в отечественной прессе в 1860­е годы

Трансформация концепции «ut pictura poe­sis» и новая формула презентации истории в русском искусстве: дискуссия об академической иерархии жанров в отечественной прессе в 1860­е годы

Fitting a deeply nested hierarchical model to a large book review dataset using a moment-based estimator

We consider a particular instance of a common problem in recommender systems, using a database of book reviews to inform user-targeted recommendations. In our dataset, books are categorized into genres and subgenres. To exploit this nested taxonomy, we use a hierarchical model that enables information pooling across across similar items at many levels within the genre hierarchy. The main challenge in deploying this model is computational. The data sizes are large and fitting the model at scale using off-the-shelf maximum likelihood procedures is prohibitive. To get around this computational bottleneck, we extend a moment-based fitting procedure proposed for fitting single-level hierarchical models to the general case of arbitrarily deep hierarchies. This extension is an order of magnitude faster than standard maximum likelihood procedures. The fitting method can be deployed beyond recommender systems to general contexts with deeply nested hierarchical generalized linear mixed models.