European Art History Research Articles

Solid Passion - A Brief Analysis of Neoclassical Art Style

Neoclassical art style is an important genre in the history of European art. It combines the solemnity of classical art with the passion of modern aesthetics to form a unique artistic style. This article aims to explore its status and influence in the history of art through in-depth analysis of the origin, development and artistic characteristics of neoclassical art style. The article first introduces the formation background of neoclassical style, then analyzes its artistic characteristics from the aspects of form, color, composition, etc., and shows the artistic charm of neoclassical style through the analysis of specific works. Finally, the article evaluates and looks forward to the contribution of neoclassical style and its impact on modern art.

Всемирная история искусств в контексте развития советской исторической науки 1930-х гг.: к вопросу создания учебника "История западно-европейского искусства" 1940 г.

The article describes how the first study guide in the Soviet art science – History of Western European Art (3rd – 20th centuries): A Brief Course – was created. Its team of authors included the leading scientists – professors of the Department of the Art History of the Middle Ages and the Modern Period of the All-Russian Academy of Arts – Nikolay Punin, Aleksandr Gushchin, Mikhail Dobroklonskiy, Vera Belyavskaya, and Valentin Brodskiy. The study guide was published by the Iskusstvo editorial house in 1940, and for some years it became the main textbook for students at art faculties. In the 1930s, the Soviet art science was forming actively, strengthened by the processes of institutionalization: emergence of independent departments and faculties of art theory and history. In 1935, the AllRussian Academy of Arts established the Department of the History of Arts and in 1937 the Faculty of Art History (later the Faculty of Art Theory and History). In this context, the study of the history of forming the educational space (including the first independent study literature) is of a scientific interest. The history of the writing of this study book also reflects general processes, which occurred in the historical science in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and influenced all fields related to the historical knowledge. After the Politbureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of the Bolsheviks issued an order about history in 1934, organizations held a number of events to discuss its provisions and arrange the historical block of the science in compliance with the new course. Discussions about the new courses of historical art science were conducted in the All-Russian Academy of Arts. The study guide of 1940 appeared, to some degree, to be a result of these discussions and showed new principles of understanding the historical development of the art of painting. The article for the first time shows the materials of the discussions on the problems of art history in relation to the order on history and discussions of the structure and tasks of the study guide for the history of art in Western Europe. The materials are stored in the Research Archives under the Russian Academy of Arts. Most of them are first introduced into scientific discourse and allow distinguishing three stages in the development of the Soviet historical art science of the 1930s. The first stage was a wide discussion of new principles in studying the history of arts (1935–1936). The main result of the second stage was the institutionalization of training for art scientists. The third stage is related to the creation of a number of study literature materials (1938–1940) that reflected the new course in understanding the laws of art history development and aimed at training art historians who would be responsible in the future for educational work with the population.

Gold Links: Teaching Culture through Commodity Chains

ABSTRACT This co-authored article offers reflections on the pedagogical potential of focusing on commodity chains as an approach to teaching culture. By way of example, it foregrounds gold, drawing on the two authors’ experiences teaching material related to this valuable mineral in very distinct fields: European art history (in courses on the ancient and medieval eras) and Latin American literature and culture (in courses about the Amazon taught in Spanish and Portuguese). The authors also discuss their collaborative work in creating an Open Educational Resources (OER) module on gold, and the possibility of a co-taught course. Gold is a particularly interesting commodity given the many myths that surround it, its history as a form of currency and standard of value, and the aesthetic qualities attributed to it. More generally, however, focusing on specific commodities from the point of extraction to their use in an array of products encourages students to think about the materiality of culture and its implication in an array of political, economic, and ethical issues. It also offers a way of charting connections and differences across long arcs of time, across geographical space and cultural differences, and across different academic disciplines.

New Romantic Painting and the Image of History

ABSTRACT For contemporary Cree artist Kent Monkman, painting offers a means of rehistoricizing Indigenous life. However, rather than attempt to capture a putative authenticity, Monkman's work questions the relationship between visual representation and historical truth, deeply complicating his own task. This complication is managed in part through the careful deployment of self-reflection, such that the images of history he composes always advertise their unstable relationship to the past and the present, questioning theirs authority in the process of exposing how European artists attempted to establish their own. This exploration produces works that are highly citational, in which figures and elements from across European history and art history are juxtaposed and arranged into fantastic, anachronistic tableaus. But it is especially the works of Romantic painters that serve him as models for remodeling and settings for repopulation. Indeed, if Romantic painters such as George Catlin (1769–1872), Paul Kane (1810–71), and Albert Bierstadt (1830–1902) flatten Indigenous people or actually evacuate them from North American landscapes, Monkman does not simply reject their work but realizes in it a rich potential for dialogic revision. In Monkman's painting, Romanticism's own historical self-consciousness finds new expression.

Spiritual Art in the Context of Transdisciplinarity and Transculturalism

This paper deals with the emergence and meaning of the term spiritual in modern, postmodern, and contemporary art with a particular focus on its transdisciplinary and transcultural aspects. The problem develops because of the hitherto neglected involvement of the spiritual in the development and expansion of the modernity program in recent European art history, with a particular focus on recent research redirected from traditional positions of national context to the transformation of visual language and transcultural character of some movements in modern art. This work covers the meaning and development of transdisciplinary spiritual art, the non-national character of its production, and the internationalization of its practice, focusing on the link with the reduction, abstraction, and tendencies of media dematerialization. It concludes with a review of innovative aspects of spiritual art and its apolitical character in times of intense social change.

Barbad Golshiri's Acts of Alterity

Abstract In his transdisciplinary practice, artist, writer, and translator Barbad Golshiri interprets from his viewpoint located in Iran the iconic pieces of the European art history, including paintings by Jan van Eyck, Jacques-Louis David, and Kazimir Malevich. Inserting his own artistically inscribed body into the material milieus of these artists, Golshiri activates the present via transfer of the past onto the future, in an attempt to differentiate the script of history. Deleuzian approach of repetition as a means of differencing instigates this interrogation of Golshiri's Malevich cycle, comprising Quod (2010), which references Malevich's Black Square (1915); Cura; the Rise and Fall of Aplasticism, (2013), restaging in Moscow and Tehran the Last Futurist Exhibition of Paintings 0.10 (Petrograd, 1915); and post-performance object “.” (2013); as well as a series of QR code actions that continue the process of dematerialization of Black Square via social mediation. In their coded language, these works speak truth to power.

Eye, Picture and Color

The paper gives priority to the painter's point of view regarding the issue of vision, color and the essence of colorisms. It brings forward the message of a unique work of art that analyzes the issue of color throughout the history of European art, penned by the Polish art historian Maria Rzepińska. The text also tackles the issue of color in contemporary visual art.

«Хорошо организованный беспорядок». Взгляд на испаноамериканское необарокко

The article consists of two parts: theory and artistic practice. The first part examines the history of the concept of Latin American Neo-Baroque. It begins in European art history, first, when J. Burkhard characterized the Baroque as a certain period in the development of art; then, when G. Wölfflin presented the Baroque as a kind of “great style” and singled out its constitutive features; finally, when E. d’Ors formulated the theory of “eternal” styles, “classical” and “non-classical” (baroque) cyclically replacing each other. D’Ors’ concept was accepted and developed by Cuban writers J. Lezama Lima, A. Carpentier and S. Sarduy. Two factors led to the formation of the theory of Latin American Neo-Baroque. The first one is the richest layer of colonial art that developed in the Baroque style; the second one is the peculiarity of Latin American imago mundi, which from the very beginning was the opposite to rationality, system, order. The peculiarity of this imago mundi is revealed in the section “Artistic Practice. Motives”. The citations show that in Latin American literature are embodied such constants of Latin American imago mundi as chaos, predominance of curved lines, violation of European norms and mystery. The final part of the article presents an analysis of the four famous Latin American Neo-Baroque novels that reveal the poetics of this literary current on the level of imagery and motives and, most expressively, in style.

Konstruowanie atlasu. Surrealizm - fotografia - Reprodukcja

“The history of art is [...] the history of what is photographable,” wrote André Malraux. Surrealism and related interwar visual phenomena add an interesting context to this observation. If we look at surrealism through the prism of the numerous magazines that accompanied it, we can see the special role of photographic reproduction. It seems that it plays a slightly different role there than in other practices of the interwar avant-garde: it tends to be a visual form of thinking, establishing photography as a crucial medium. The case of the journal “Documents” (1929–1930), existing on the fringe of surrealism and anthropology, seems particularly interesting. It can be seen as a kind of atlas of visual forms, in which the problem of reproductions of artworks and artefacts from different cultures was constantly problematised. The cannibalisation of various types of iconography was related not only to discussions on cultural visual appropriation, or the criticism of various conventions of seeing and making images, but also to a broader project whose aim was the decolonisation of seeing. It assumed a re-examination of European (art) history – in a radical, non-hierarchical and non-encyclopaedic way. The aim of the editors of the journal was to move away from the metaphysical and ocularcentric paradigm in favour of a more horizontal and relational (and in effect anthropological) positioning of a work of art. The question of reproduction is problematised in “Documents” in terms of a discussion on the aura of works and objects from other cultures: displaced and uprooted from their cultural context. The subversive photographic practices of the surrealists related to the status of copies and reproductions are also contextualised here, as are two monumental projects based on reproduction: Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas (1924–1929) and Malraux’s Museum of the Imagination (1947–1951), or a “photographic album of universal culture”, but which were created in the face of similar problems to “Documents” (the visual form of knowledge; the “universal” in the face of colonialism; the relationship between artwork and reproduction). All three projects were a kind of response to the globalisation of images and the crisis of cultural memory. Here the use of the atlas form and photographic reproduction becomes an attempt to establish a new epistemic paradigm.

Shakespeareov "Hamlet" između klasike i manirizma / Shakespeare’s "Hamlet" between classicism and mannerism

Continuing the previous research on mannerism in the history of European art, primarily the book Dnevnik melankolije [The Diary of Melancholy] by Dževad Karahasan, this paper tries to understand the specific internal contradictions of William Shakespeare’s play in the tension between the classical and mannerist experience of the world. On the foundations laid by Gustav Rene Hocke in his books on mannerism, Karahasan examined the relationship between classical and mannerist dramatic techniques throughout the history of European drama. In accordance with Hocke’s approach, Karahasan recognizes periods of domination of the mannerist type of drama. Shakespeare is cited as one of the mannerist playwrights, but, among other authors, no detailed analysis is devoted to him. This paper, therefore, tries to further develop Karahasan’s basic theses on the example of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, in which we want to recognize the intertwining of classical and mannerist dramatic techniques. Following Karahasan’s methodology, the focus will be on the analysis of the character, plot, action and dramatic situation, and then from these specific problems of dramatic technique, the classical and mannerist image of the world in dramatic literature will be discussed. Thus, within the framework offered by Karahasan, this paper seeks to further problematize Shakespeare’s position in the context of the history of mannerist drama. Therefore, this paper is aimed beyond just confirming Karahasan’s basic theses - we perceived Shakespeare as even more important than it was the case in Karahasan’s conception.

„Обрядова війна” 1860-х років на західноукраїнських землях і церковне малярство

The article investigates into the influence of the „ritual war” of the 1860s on the formation of an authentic center of church painting in the western Ukrainian lands of the second half of the nineteenth century by the example of the creative life of prominent artists. Much attention is paid to one of the consequences of the 1855 concordat between Austria and the Vatican, which was the „ritual war” of the Greek Catholic Church in the 1860 s. The long-term activity of the clergy to purify the Greek rite in the Greek Catholic Church is detailed. The role of artists in the development of church painting and the individual approach of Oleksandr Rachynskyi, Kornyl Ustiianovych and Kornyl Romanovskyi to rethinking the traditions of Ukrainian icon painting of past centuries is revealed. It is proved that by studying the history of Ukrainian and Western European art they contributed to a new approach to pictorial-compositional and figurative-semantic solutions of church painting, they rethought ancient traditions with due regards to the requirements of their time.

Olexander Roitburd’s Paradoxical Nomadism

The article examines the creative method of O. Roitburd according to the aesthetic principles of nomadism (A. B. Oliva’s term) as a variant of the trans-avant-garde. The methodology of the artist’s thinking, which is based on the principle of “quotation”, is visualized. The artist’s creativity was not only a manifestation of individual “genius”, but was largely formed in the ambience of the specific mentality of Odessa, a city which culture has a popular laughter dominant. The article explores the paradoxical nature of O. Roitburd’s thinking as an Odessan and a modernist. It has been proven that his work is also based on the intellectualism of the artist, who felt and traveled freely in the broad strata of classical European art history. The combination of the artist’s humorous disposition, his inherent paradoxicality in reinterpreting information, his tendency to quote the classics gave a bright manifestation of nomadism of the highest artistic quality and ingenuity to the art of Ukraine. The interpretive possibilities in O. Roitburd’s painting are considered in the paper. The artist’s wide use of the entire palette of the popular laughter artistic tradition is visualized: from carefree laughter to cruel, sad and even brutal. The paper proves that the work of O. Roitburd (painting, filming, video projects, happenings, etc.) of the 1990s–2021 is a vivid embodiment of the Ukrainian trans-avant-garde.

Review: Rubens in Repeat: The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America, by Aaron M. Hyman; Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520–1820, by Maya Stanfield-Mazzi

Review: <i>Rubens in Repeat: The Logic of the Copy in Colonial Latin America</i>, by Aaron M. Hyman; <i>Clothing the New World Church: Liturgical Textiles of Spanish America, 1520–1820</i>, by Maya Stanfield-Mazzi

Through Thick and Thin

Through Thick and Thin

Р. Дж. Коллінгвуд: художній смак як чинник персоналізації історії мистецтва

The article considers 'artistic taste' both as a theoretical problem that is actively involved in the space of European art history at the turn of XVII – XVIII centuries, and as a manifestation of the personal preferences of artists whose place in the hierarchy of creative importance took into account such factor as artistic taste. The specificity of 'aesthetic taste' as a theoretical problem and as a personal assessment of works of art, which has its own place in modern humanities, is highlighted. It is shown that in the second half of the XX century, the tendency to analyze taste as an aesthetic and artistic phenomenon was outlined in the theoretical aspect. The standpoint of R.G. Collingwood, a famous English philosopher, aesthetician, art critic and historian of science, who attributed 'taste' to the cornerstones of aesthetic and artistic concepts, is highlighted, at the same time emphasizing the meaning of taste as a manifestation of the artist professional culture. It is argued that the actualization of the theoretical views of R.G. Collingwood is important in terms of the use of the interdisciplinary approach by modern cultural studies, which appeared in English humanism in general, and in the standpoint of the author of monograph 'The Principles of Art'. R.G. Collingwood's attitude to the historical and philosophical, aesthetic and artistic tradition of understanding of the 'taste' has been analyzed and the differences that took place in the interpretation of the 'taste' in the logic of the formation of both aesthetic and artistic approaches are emphasized. The concept of 'taste' is an integral part of the aesthetic and art theory, while preserving the 'artistic' aspect for the evaluation of works of art, as well as the 'aesthetic' aspect, when it comes to non-artistic space, for the evaluation of which the interaction with the entire 'sensual' human nature is necessary: from 'senses' that form 'base' aesthetics (senses of vision, hearing, touch, odor), to 'feelings', for example, sense of beauty, sublime, tragedy, shame. The group of artists whose work allows to 'illustrate' their personal preferences and conceptualize a number of issues related to the use of the theoretical and practical potential of existing modifications of 'artistic taste' is outlined.

Editors’ Introduction

In the fourth issue of Index Journal, the polyvalence of the word secession extends across six art historical papers of diverse style and subject matter. For some contributors, secession is inseparable from dominant narratives of modern European art history. Others take the term as a starting point for writing non-European art histories; these papers examine the complex receptions of Australian Indigenous art, posit anti-nationalist trajectories of artistic development and ruminate on attempts to create new governance models in Australian community arts organisations.

Ukrainian Paradigm Of Avangard Art In Artistic Creativity

The study of the Ukrainian aspects of the European avant-garde movement of the first third of the twentieth century became possible with a radical reassessment of values in the late twentieth century. During this period, the term "Ukrainian avant-garde" appeared in Western European art history discourse. The emergence of such a term in Ukraine during the Soviet period was impossible, because creativity was viewed through the prism of socialist realism and nothing else. However, art researchers were aware of the national aspects of the avant-garde. In the Ukrainian academic discourse, the problem of the contribution of domestic artists to the development of the avant-garde begins to become relevant with the acquisition of state independence. The state-building process stimulated the revival of cultural processes and the emergence of scientific interest in the avant-garde. Researchers have studied the problem of conventional and authorial, philosophical and aesthetic foundations of the Ukrainian avant-garde, its artistic and stylistic features, creative and theoretical heritage of artists. For a period of time, avant-garde revolutionary art and political revolution in the first quarter of the twentieth century were united in a single burst of influence on the masses. Avant-garde art for some time became part of the revolutionary process. The Ukrainian paradigm is marked by a territorial feature, the affiliation of artists of eidetic creativity of folk self-expression. With the acquisition of independence, the Ukrainian avant-garde emerged from oblivion and organically entered the national artistic space and became part of Ukrainian art.

Painting for Fools

Manuscripts and notes by Michel Foucault on the visual arts recently deposited at the Bibliothèque Nationale reveal a reliance on canonical oil paintings by the ‘old masters’; a respect for the primary sources in the history of European art; an understanding of the necessity of research in both literary and visual sources, particularly self-portraits; and a sense of the value that a certain philosophical milieu – beginning with Sade and Nietzsche and expanding to his near contemporaries, Bataille, Blanchot, and Klossowski – could offer to an understanding of paintings. The essay argues that Pierre Klossowski’s monumental drawing La Nef des fous (1990) provides an essential key for understanding the place of Hieronymus Bosch’s painting of the same title in History of Madness and the centrality of theories of similitude to Foucault’s thinking about visuality ca. 1960–74. The later significance of the figure of the artist for Foucault can be traced to these earlier writings on painting and madness.

African Modernism in America, 1947–1967

African Modernism in America, 1947–1967

CULTURAL RAMIFICATIONS OF THE FOUND OBJECT IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART

Arguably Found Object genre represents the most dominant form of contemporary artistic expression with unlimited possibilities of material exploration and conceptual ideation. However, Found Object discourse institutionalized in European art history is exclusively western and dismisses those of other cultures as mimesis and time-lag. This paper aims to prove that the dominant contemporary discourse of „Recyla Art‟ which many African sculptors have been absorbed into, problematically blurs the conceptual and ideological differences in European and African exploration of discarded objects in art creation. Using a triangulation of Formalism, Iconography and Interviews as methodologies, this paper subjects the works of El Anatsui, Delumprizulike, Nnena Okore, Bright Eke, Olu Amonda and others to formalistic and interpretative analysis to establish the postcolonial context of the found object in contemporary African art. Findings demonstrate that European and African appropriation of discarded objects in art differs according to societal context in form and content. The paper therefore concludes that found object art is culturespecific and defined by unique cultural ramifications, thus, to fully understand the dynamism of this art genre, a culture-specific or localized reading is required because the context of its emergence in Europe stands in contradiction to its conceptualism in contemporary African art-space.