Modern Art History Research Articles

Theoretical Dimension of Modern Designers’ Conceptual Forms of Creativity

The aim of the article is to identify key characteristics of artistic and design practices interaction; to define directions of conceptual design development based on the results of analysing scientific and theoretical foundations of conceptualism as a special form of the artists’ creativity in the 20th century. Results. It is demonstrated that the focus of modern designers on conceptual forms of creativity is explained by the fact that they contribute to forming unique authors’ projects of aesthetic and value content, innovative searches in the context of cultural and civilisational shifts. A conceptual costume of the beginning of the 21st century is a kind of mediator between art practices of conceptual art and design practices in the sphere of project culture, synthesising social and psychological aspects of fashion, social and symbolic functions of clothing. A conceptual design narrativises philosophical, artistic and technological aspects of design, enriching design products with an expressive metaphoricity. It is revealed that in modern art history a clear definition of the term system of the conceptual direction in design has not been formed till now. The research of this complex phenomenon, synthesised by fashion and artistic clothing design, requires a complex interdisciplinary approach. The conceptual costume is studied as an art-design object from the standpoint of global and local tendencies in the society development, which declare certain worldview values in the form of a visual metaphor. Scientific novelty. For the first time, the theoretical understanding of the conceptual costume grounds on the interaction of design with culture and art as a special space of its direct functioning, which makes it possible to form project conceptualism as a special methodology. Conclusions. The authors’ concepts in the costume are extrapolated in different ways: as visual quotations or metaphors; as a transformation of the art object idea into the form of the costume. Actually, they need in-depth and detailed studying.

The Final End of Man: Reading the Moralist Aesthetics of Fr. Alfredo Panizo, O.P.

Alfredo Panizo was a philosopher who served in various capacities at the University of Santo Tomas (UST) during the twentieth century. In 1954, he gave an address at the university that was also published in book form as Art and Morals. In his address/book, Panizo systematically laid out his aesthetics, which offers a criticism of modern art during a time when Edades and other modernists received institutional support from UST. Unfortunately, scholars have neither provided a comprehensive explication of Panizo’s aesthetics nor situated it in the broader history of Philippine modern art. This paper aims to address this problem. By employing Gadamerian hermeneutics, the author of the paper offers an interpretation of Panizo’s aesthetics that (1) forms a connection between his ideas and S. P. Lopez’s thoughts on proletarian art, (2) explicates Panizo’s views on beauty and transcendence, and (3) investigates Panizo’s position on modern art. Through this paper, the author hopes to add more nuance to the story of modern art in the Philippines. Although much has been written about the modernists, who made UST a springboard for spreading their ideas, scholars have barely looked at what the Dominicans at the university thought about modern art.

Russian Magazine Illustration of the First Third of the 19th Century in the Works of D. A. Rovinsky

Dmitry Aleksandrovich Rovinsky is familiar to every researcher of printed graphics. His scientifi c heritage forms the basis of classical literature on the history of Russian engraving. Nevertheless, the full potential of the researcher’s works has not yet been exhausted. In modern art criticism, new research topics are emerging, allowing us to look at D. A. Rovinsky’s works from new points of view. This article is devoted to the work of the scientist in the fi eld of Russian magazine pictures of the fi rst third of the 19th century. The problems of scientifi c development of this material are identifi ed. The directions of research and scientifi c approaches used by D. A. Rovinsky are analysed. The results of the work of the engraving expert and its value for modern art history are determined.

Conceptualizing ‘Chinese surrealism’ through translation: a case study of the China independent fine arts association’s cultural identity and its translation of surrealism in 1930s

ABSTRACT This paper examines the questions of cultural identity in the surrealist related translation practices led by the China Independent Fine Arts Association (CIFAA) around 1935. It was the first time in the history of modern Chinese art that a group of artists translated ‘surrealism’ together and that an art association independently translated a modern Western art genre into China. Accordingly, the CIFAA’s work evidences that translation has played a vital role in the modernization of Chinese art. In this translation movement, the young artists-as-translators expressed their pioneering art concepts through translation, expressing their desire to be both ‘reformers’ of Chinese art and ‘mediators’ of Chinese and Western modern art. As reformers, the artists attempted to innovate Chinese art by introducing surrealism, while as mediators they sought to reconcile the contradiction between their desire for innovation and the mainstream left-wing Chinese expectations of realistic art by adding ‘realism’ to the Chinese semantic meaning of ‘surrealism’. This paper thus argues that the CIFAA’s translation of surrealism reflects a complex relationship between translation and the artists’ cultural identity, which ultimately conceptualizing an unprecedented ‘Chinese surrealism’ that is very different from the original Western surrealism.

Theatre art: Conceptual and categorical problems

Theatre art is a fundamental component of modern culture and requires a detailed analysis of the problems of a set of interrelated concepts, which will reflect the key substantive and functional aspects concerning theatre art. The research relevance is determined by the description of the problems of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of theatrical art for the first time is subjected to a complex structural and semantic analysis, which is necessary to determine the study of ways of forming new terms, which will make it possible to present the system of modern theatrical terminology in a holistic form. The study aims to analyse and describe the contemporary problems of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of theatrical art. General scientific methods of art history were used: method of analysis, comparative analysis, synthesis, analogy, and classification. The article investigates the whole stage space as one of the components in the context of the conceptual categorical apparatus of modern art history. Contemporary theatre art is undergoing an active evolution, with artists striving for innovation, using interactive elements, multimedia technology and art installations to create a deep and rich experience for the audience. An important aspect is to involve the viewer in the experience, where the traditional boundaries between actors and audience are blurred and the viewer becomes an active participant. Theatres also emphasise diversity, aiming to reflect different cultures and identities on stage. However, there are problems with the conceptual and categorical apparatus, requiring the development of new terms to accurately describe contemporary phenomena in theatre. Sarcasm and irony prevail, artists seek new directions, and all this happens in the context of the diversity of theatre traditions, creating challenges in the exchange of experiences between cultures. The materials discussed in this article can be applied by both theorists and practitioners of contemporary art history in their writings and as material for teaching in the educational process when training specialists in the field of contemporary art

Sofonisba Anguissola: “Celebre”, “Forgotten” or “Great”? The Main Problems in the Historiography of Creativity

Every year the women’s art becomes more and more relevant issue: interest to the women’s art in common and to its individual representatives is growing. Sofonisba Anguissola, due to a lot of documentary evidences and a fairly large pictorial heritage, is an important figure for understanding the general problems of female creativity in the 16th century. In Russia, the artist is still little known, and information about her in works is mostly very general and often contains inaccuracies and errors, which determines the relevance of the study. The purpose of this article is to analyze the historiography of S. Anguissola’s work, which would allow to define the current state of affairs in the issue of understanding of the topic, as well as to identify problems and prospects related to the consideration of her art, which has been evaluated in different ways since its first mention in the literature. The 16th and 17th centuries biographers talked about her mostly in a rather high tone. Art connoisseurs, without detracting from her skills, noted that she adopted too much from other artists. With the rise of feminist art studies, the perspective of S. Anguissola’s work has changed towards greater appreciation. In modern literature there are scientific works that demonstrate new aspects and approaches to the study of the artist’s art, such as pedagogical view of her works, the degree of influence of various masters, her staying in Spain, the artistic specificity of self-portraits. Comprehensive study of the S. Anguissola’s art allows not only to identify the artistic features of her works, but also to consider the socio-cultural context in which she lived and worked. In the conditions of the development of modern art history, marked by a growing popularity of gender studies, the balanced approach to the artist biography and to her art is a necessary quality for a scientist to correctly understand her place in the history of art.

Rethinking the 20th-Century Korean Embroidery from Gender Perspectives

The rupture in the history of Korean embroidery is generally perceived as a severance from the traditional embroidery, made due to the Japanese colonial rule. However, it cannot be denied that the narrative of modern and contemporary Korean art history, mainly constructed around artistic movements and groups, also played a major part. The dispute encompasses the fundamental question of whether embroidery can be seen as a form of fine art from the perspective of modernist aesthetics, and the matter of hierarchy between different crafts. Also inherent are the tensions between contradictory values such as tradition and modernity, Western or Japanese and Eastern or Korean, abstract and figurative, and others peculiar to Korea, and the effects of such binary oppositions are closely related to gender problems. This paper re-examines, from gender perspectives, the chronological history of embroidery since the late 19th century, which had been placed on the periphery of Korean art history until now. In the traditional society, embroidery was produced and enjoyed privately, but moved into the public sphere through education and exhibitions for women during modernization. In the process, in order to be recognized as a form of pure art, embroidery gave up its unique characteristics as craft and took on the formative language of paintings. In the years immediately after liberation from Japanese colonial rule, which was the era of eradication of Japanese influences, establishment of national identity, and industrialization, embroidery was divided into abstract embroidery understood as more masculine, and traditional embroidery considered more feminine. Korean embroidery artists in the 20<sup>th</sup> century, as women experiencing particular historical contexts, worked with confidence in the artistic value of embroidery due to or despite their specific circumstances.

1960년대 미니멀리즘의 공간 개념과 공간 재인식을 위한 설치 미술 교육 프로그램 개발

In the history of modern art, the concept of 'space' has been emphasized and treated as a very important element. Among the various artistic trends that emerged in the 1960s, this research focuses on minimalism, analyzing the various interpretations of space in minimalism. Minimalism replaced the pure space of mod-ernism with an experiential space, inviting the viewer to experience the artwork through their bodies. Furthermore, this research examines the installation art works of two Korean artists, Park Yeojoo and Kang Eunhye, and proposes an installation art education program for spatial reawakening. The significance of this research is to examine and interpret the changing perception of 'space' in American art in the 1960s, and to specifically identify the contribution of minimalism to the redefinition of the concept of 'space' in art history.

Without Nature

This essay examines two late landscape paintings by Peter Paul Rubens that are characterized by an intense engagement with the wetland in which his property Het Steen was located. On the one hand, the large Rainbow landscape from the Wallace Collection in London offers the chance to inquire about the relevance for Rubens’s landscapes of the Stoic imperative of a ‘life in accord with Nature’. On the other hand, the approximately contemporary Flat landscape with clouds from the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, which powerfully evokes the fragility of landscape painting’s bond with an understanding of Nature as an abstract quantity, makes it possible to illuminate the ecological sensibility with which Rubens approaches terrestrial interconnections even beyond prevailing orders of Nature and their implicit hierarchies. In sum, this paper proposes to sound out fresh perspectives that early modern art history can contribute to recent ecocritical discourses.

No Country for Old Men: Australian Art History’s Difficulty with Aboriginal Art

The subject of this article is the absence of Aboriginal art during the period that established the idea of a distinctively Australian modern art. It is intended as a contribution to the historiography of modern and contemporary Australian art history. The period discussed is the two decades between 1962, when Bernard Smith published Australian Painting, 1788–1960, and 1988, the year of the Australian Bicentenary. The article explores what changed in these years when art historians, critics, and curators, albeit belatedly and reluctantly, finally began to acknowledge the great contemporary Aboriginal painting that had long been in many artists’ sights as inspiration and model, and in plain view on display in the so-called primitive cultures’ sections of state museums. It argues that this was because it did not seem part of the national story of art.

Islamic art and visualities of war from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

AbstractThis article explores how Islamic art was produced and used in Turkey within the context of modern warfare during World War I, the War of Independence, and the nascent Republic – a subject still relatively understudied in Turkish history, as well as in international cultural histories of modern warfare and histories of modern art in the Middle East. Drawing on previously overlooked visual and textual sources such as calligraphic panels, miniature paintings, war posters, and religious timetables produced during the years 1914–1924, we examine the ways in which Islamic arts were articulated with the experience of war through both individual actions and official policies, revealing how Ottoman artists tried to make sense of war and how Islamic genres and motifs were appropriated, and sometimes subverted, in the service of the nationalist cause. We show that far from exhibiting a sharp discontinuity, the transition from Ottoman–Islamic to Republican–nationalist artistic content was gradual, involving the reappropriation and repurposing of Islamic motifs and techniques in a manner that reflected the religious mindset of the elites and masses in the early twentieth century.

Theatre art: Conceptual and categorical problems

Theatre art is a fundamental component of modern culture and requires a detailed analysis of the problems of a set of interrelated concepts, which will reflect the key substantive and functional aspects concerning theatre art. The research relevance is determined by the description of the problems of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of theatrical art for the first time is subjected to a complex structural and semantic analysis, which is necessary to determine the study of ways of forming new terms, which will make it possible to present the system of modern theatrical terminology in a holistic form. The study aims to analyse and describe the contemporary problems of the conceptual and categorical apparatus of theatrical art. General scientific methods of art history were used: method of analysis, comparative analysis, synthesis, analogy, and classification. The article investigates the whole stage space as one of the components in the context of the conceptual categorical apparatus of modern art history. Contemporary theatre art is undergoing an active evolution, with artists striving for innovation, using interactive elements, multimedia technology and art installations to create a deep and rich experience for the audience. An important aspect is to involve the viewer in the experience, where the traditional boundaries between actors and audience are blurred and the viewer becomes an active participant. Theatres also emphasise diversity, aiming to reflect different cultures and identities on stage. However, there are problems with the conceptual and categorical apparatus, requiring the development of new terms to accurately describe contemporary phenomena in theatre. Sarcasm and irony prevail, artists seek new directions, and all this happens in the context of the diversity of theatre traditions, creating challenges in the exchange of experiences between cultures. The materials discussed in this article can be applied by both theorists and practitioners of contemporary art history in their writings and as material for teaching in the educational process when training specialists in the field of contemporary art

Themes of Chinese painting and their evolution in the process of development of pictorial art

In the process of interpreting works of pictorial art, it is easier to understand not the "style", but the "theme", that is, not how to write, but what to write. In the history of modern art, which attaches more importance to "style", the problem of "theme" is not fundamental and is among the primitive issues worthy of the attention of amateurs who do not understand art. However, sometimes it is in simplicity that the essence lies. The simplest questions that interest almost everyone are the link between works of art and society. When analyzing the "topic", the subject under study is not confined to one work of art, since an integrated approach to the consideration of the problem should be used. The author's main contribution to the study of the history of the development of Chinese painting is a new perspective – the analysis of works based on the "theme". The results of the study revealed the main themes of Chinese pictorial art, identified the main reasons for referring to them, and also established their symbolic meaning, connection with philosophical and literary traditions. The important role of literary scientists in determining the directions of thematic development of Chinese landscape painting is revealed, the significance of the images of the fisherman and the traveler as carriers of the spiritual content of the landscape is determined. The conclusion is made about the prominence of certain themes in the pictorial art, depending on the processes of social development of China.

Blacks in the Middle Ages – What About Race and Racism in the Past? Literary and Art-Historical Reflections

Undoubtedly, racism is a deeply-anchored problem that continues to vex our world. There is a long history behind it, which can easily be traced back to the Middle Ages and beyond. This article, however, takes into consideration a number of medieval narratives and art works in which surprisingly positive images of Blacks are provided. The encounter with black-skinned people tended to create problems even for the best-intended white intellectuals or poets during the pre-modern era, but the examples studied here reveal that long before the modern age there was already an alternative discourse to embrace at least individual Blacks as equals within the courtly and the religious context. Since Europe did not yet know the large-scale form of slavery, as it emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there were much less contacts between Blacks and Whites. Nevertheless, the evidence brought to the table here clearly signals that we would commit a serious mistake by equating modern-day racism with the situation in the Middle Ages, as much as modern research (Heng) has argued along those lines. It would be more appropriate to talk about the encounter of races within the literary and art-historical context. Even the notion of Black diaspora would not fully address the issue because the evidence brought to the table here engages mostly with black or half-black knights and other individuals who enjoy considerable respect and appear to be integral members of courtly society both in the East and in the West. Instead of working with theoretical models developed for the analysis of racism in our own times, such as Critical Race Theory (CRT), this study offers close readings of literary examples of personal encounters between members of different races in medieval German and Dutch literature, and of the representation of Blacks in late medieval and early modern art history, concluding with some comments on the first Black philosopher in eighteenth-century Germany.

Exploring Students’ Experiences of Virtual Learning Environment for Art History Classroom

During the Covid 19, students and instructors experienced double-way synchronization distance classes. Recently, the metaverse was drawn much attention to the online virtual world as a channel for social interaction. It has received renewed interest as a new method of surmounting the limitations of external activities after the pandemic. A few studies have focused on the usability of metaverse in a classroom, but no attention was paid to its applicability to Art History as well as to the higher level of education. In order to compensate for the limitations of two-way synchronized remote learning in university art history classes, Gather.Town was adopted as a metaverse platform in both Western modern art history classes and art history methodology classes. In this study, we surveyed and interviewed students who used both WebEx and Gather.Town. This study examines students’ experiences in accessibility, social presence, convenience of interaction, interest and immersion, and satisfaction when the students use the metaverse platform, Gather.Town. The examination of this study confirms that the virtual space of metaverse was more helpful in making students feel a sense of presence, interaction, and engagement than WebEx and demonstrates the possibility of this platform as a sustainable and valid tool in Art History Education.

RECYCLED METAL WASTES: A PEEP INTO THE WORKS OF SEGUN OKEWUNMI

Wastes are everywhere in the world and they exist in different forms. They are discarded objects waiting to get a new life or further degraded. Improper disposal of these wastes causes flooding, environmental pollution and catastrophe because most of them end up in the environment and ocean life. The environment, man, animal and plants suffers from this menace and one of the major pollutant in this discuss is metal. The world is polluted with metal wastes caused by humans. Metal pollution and health is one of the most issues, which has not been given adequate attention to by both the government and the public. When these metal wastes materials are not re-used or recycled, they create a major threat to the eco-system. The history of contemporary or modern art in Nigeria, has connection with the western world especially in the use of foreign materials which are found objects such as metal, fibers, plastics, paper, glass etc. to replace Nigerians media such as calabashes, earth colours, gourds and so on. Artists throughout history have given much preliminary thought to content and devoted a great deal of time to studying methods by which their new ideas can communicate powerfully. This paper aims to address environmental metal wastes pollution in the environment and to document selected works of a unique sculptor, Segun Okewumi, a young, contemporary, Nigerian metal sculptor by examining his works, materials and his ideology. The paper relied on oral interviews with the artist, documented observation of his works, review of published books, journals, articles, published & unpublished thesis, newspaper and essays on the subject matter as well aesthetic artistic analysis.

Chinese Oil Painting Nationalization from the Perspective of Traditional Culture

"Nationalization of oil painting" is an important phenomenon in the history of modern Chinese art. As a practice of Chinese oil painters actively establishing and integrating Chinese and Western artistic expression with cultural consciousness, it began at the beginning of the 20th century and ran through most of the history of Chinese oil painting in the 20th century. It promoted the development of Chinese oil painting itself, especially expanded the expression of realism, and created oil painting morphology with the characteristics of The Times and China. The nationalization of oil painting reflects the changing process of the integration of Chinese and Western cultures in a concrete form.

REALIST SCULPTURE IN CHINA - DISCOVERY AND FORMATION OF ART METHOD

Chinese sculpture has a long history and is a world-renowned art treasure and cultural heritage. With the changes in the global political structure and China's internal social system in the past two hundred years, they have directly affected the development direction of Chinese sculpture. The traditional Chinese sculpture system has gradually weakened. In line with the trend of 'learning from the West' at the end of the Qing Dynasty, students, policymakers, and practitioners of sculpture-related industries began to reach a tacit agreement, with many factors contributing to a new choice for Chinese sculpture, which had long been closed to the outside world and self-development. During the Republic of China period, the popularization of Western theories of sculpture and the cultivation of Westernized talents made Chinese sculpture present the budding trend of realism in this period. These include the enlightenment of European sculpture, the establishment of art schools and the self-cultivation of talents, and the staged upsurge of studying abroad. This article explores the origin and development of realism art in China by describing the history of modern Chinese sculpture art in the context of a specific historical period from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Of course, Chinese realism has its special presentation and historical significance. There is no necessary connection between the birth of realism consciousness and the germination of Chinese realist sculpture. The realist sculpture from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China was the natural choice of artists who learned from the West and met the needs of society. Therefore, this article will not cover a broader discussion of the origins of realism.

Text-mining metadata: What can titles tell us of the history of modern and contemporary art?

The use of statistical text-mining to investigate the linguistic structure of textual resources has received limited attention in digital art history. In this paper the question I address is that of what text-mining titles as given in metadata can tell us about the history of modern and contemporary art. To investigate this question I constructed a dataset from the metadata for over 170,000 artworks, drawing on the online collections of 133 art museums in 30 countries. The use of topic modelling, parts-of-speech tagging and word counting allows me to identify large-scale and long-run patterns in the language used in the titles of those artworks. I set out an art historical reading of those patterns in which artistic interests signalled by the language used in titles come and go and are re-inflected, epistemic perspectives on the kinds of knowledge art can or should engender change, and artists engage with the ways that the title functions. My ‘distant’ reading is consistent with the canonical history of modern and contemporary art and cuts across the particularities of artist, period or movement which often feature in such accounts, providing a fresh perspective on that history. It also complements and extends the scholarship on the history of titles in the visual arts. The analytical framework and the dataset I have developed are not limited to answering the question addressed in this paper, and I consider some of the possibilities for future work.

TRADITIONS OF OUTERWEAR OF VOLYN

The aim of this paper is to prove the hypothesis: the main traditional characteristics of the formation of outerwear reflecting regional peculiarities are reflected in the modern ethnic costume of Volynians. The following tasks are set: to analyze the fragmentary life evolution of Volyn folk outerwear; to specify and identify features in the formation and formation of ethnic outerwear of Volyn; to show that it is on the archaic cultural basis of the Ukrainian people that it is possible to consider the transformation processes in the ethnic outerwear of Volyn. Methods used in the study: Among the research methods used, we paid special attention to the following: historical retrospectives, structural-functional, descriptive, and systemic methods (in particular, third-generation systemic methods), etc. Research methodology. The evolution of certain fashion trends, the emergence and development of various fashion trends cannot be imagined without the influence of ethnic identity. Therefore, in the scientific discourse of modern art history, the problem of the formation and development of ethnic Volyn outerwear, its characteristic identical features and distinctive features of forming occupies a special place. Therefore, the study of the transformation processes of Volyn folk costume is relevant in highlighting the spiritual culture and art of the ethnic group, as well as in terms of the evolution of rituals and customs in the regional aspect. The relevance of the study is highlighted in the work of contemporary Ukrainian fashion designers, as ethnic clothing is an important component of modern Ukrainian culture today, combining ancient folk traditions with modern technologies. Ethnic clothing style is always relevant and favorably perceived at fashion shows.