Plastic Arts Research Articles

The value of lithography in artistic creation

In the carried out research is highlighted the role and contribution of lithography as an original technique of multiplication, which contributed to the development of graphic art. Focusing on the presentation of the technical characteristics, the author pleads for bringing back the interest of plastic artists and graphic design students towards this technique, which offers various possibilities for creative expression. The evolution of lithography in historical circumstances is being traced, as well as its impact in artistic creation, highlighting both the advantages of lithography and its utilitarian and aesthetic role. At the same time, are mentioned the most representative plastic artists who have approached the lithographic technique in their works, which influences and helps the contemporary artist in his own work, marked by the active interaction of technology, science and art. Only by mastering the various techniques professionals will be educated with a developed visual perception and a high creative potential.

Musicological reflections on a ceramics exhibition

The history of music knows multiple creations inspired by works of plastic art, exhibitions, tendencies initially asserted in painting. The musical texture reflects the shades of colors, undulations of the sculptures, ideas and conceptions. Similarly, in various paintings or sculptures we will discover images directly related to the field of music: subjects, musical instruments, personalities, etc. An exhibition of ceramics, which suggests through the theme and the ideas promoted, through the subtle links between the visual arts and music, whether of an academic or popular nature, creates musicological reflections and genuine associations, is the one recently presented (January 27 – February 26, 2023) by plastic artist Oleg Dobrovolschi with the title Between Heaven and Earth.

Public space and poetic living. The case of Museo Experimental El Eco

This article, inscribed within a broader investigation of public space and poetic living, analyzes Museo Experimental El Eco, one of the masterpieces of modern architecture in Mexico, where the architectural space participates actively in the presentation of diverse artistic manifestations and the public’s emotional, aesthetic, and sensitive experience. “El Eco,” a project embedded in the San Rafael neighborhood in Mexico City, was designed and built between 1952 and 1953 by Mathias Goeritz, a grand plastic artist whose work ranges from the field of graphics to urban sculpture. With his great recognition as an artist and a critical vision of modern architecture, Goeritz is presented with the opportunity to shape an architectural project with few programmatic constraints, his understanding of architecture, which, in turn, condenses in his famous manifesto of emotional architecture. The article presents an analysis of the architectural spatiality of this work, focused on the experience of the place and supported by the compilation and study of the background information, visits, tours on different days, photographic shots, and preparation of the respective plans. Goeritz, like the great artist he was, is able to approach architecture as the result of the meeting of emptiness and matter so that the body’s emotions and sensations in the space flow to structure the very meaning of architectural creation.

Architecture and Spanish art in the second half of the 20th century. Disciplinary transfers and collaborations

Spanish architecture experienced a revival of modernity in the 1950s and 1960s. The stripping away of the historicist and vernacular forms of the early Franco regime marked this revival; also, due to the disciplinary interaction with the plastic arts, which at that time moved towards abstraction as modernity. This paper traces the lines of transfers and collaborations between architecture, painting and sculpture in a complex moment of interdisciplinary relationship through an analytical reading of different works and events of the moment. It is about outlining an environment of collaboration and interaction between singular architects and artists, who learned from each other and proposed other ways of building the common ‘plastic space’ of the arts.

Towards an Experimental Creation of the Printed Image for an Active Reception

This article proposes a reflection on how contemporary experimental practices in the printed image can encourage the viewer towards active reception. My practice-based research project has been instigated by questions raised through my fine art practice, concerning how reality is perceived within a photographic printed image and how chance in creation helps the possible development of the photographic reference.
 The discovery of photography in 1839 triggered a mode of reproducing images that challenged traditional forms of visual representation. Its characteristic of mimesis of reality, unlike painting, drawing or engraving, forced artists to change their patterns of behaviour. With the arrival of Impressionism, artists recognised the influence of photography on their work, and the “photographic gaze” emerged, which provided a new way of contemplating and representing. As Coronado writes in his text on photography and Impressionism, “The photographic gaze extends beyond and beyond the limits of vision allowed to the painter’s eye” (Coronado, 1998, p. 310).
 During the first half of the twentieth century, in the context of the avant-garde, the connection between photography and the plastic arts arose, leading to the conception of new photography in which the symbiosis of the verbal and the visual became evident. The period was marked by a type of innovation that produced a change in expressive resources by breaking with the mimetic condition, ceasing to be the mirror of the world to create another independent narrative, becoming the new reality.

Aesthetic of Light and Time: An Intellectual History of Pictorialism from India

Pictorialism emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth century as a global aesthetic movement that argued for photography’s artistic status on par with other plastic arts more powerfully than ever. Archives from South Asia demonstrate the movement’s thriving life in the subcontinent with Calcutta emerging as a centre and its bilingual amateur photographer-writers as major participants simultaneously engaging in globally circulating specialist discourses on pictorialism and popular discussions of their practice aimed at public pedagogy. By looking into Bangla periodical press this paper investigates how Bengali pictorialists used popular Bangla magazines in the early twentieth century to establish their distinct voice regarding what counted as artistic photography as they engaged with a non-specialist mass readership. Mass-circulated Bangla articles were not vernacular translations of knowledge and practices produced in metropolitan locations and disseminated in transregional languages like English. Vernacular was an extension of Bengali amateur photographers’ participation in global photography, as they remained grounded in their historical specificity. These amateur photographers were bilingual intellectuals who wrote in English for a global public and in Bangla for a Bangla-reading publics and refraining from translating culture as they moved across languages. Indeed, articulations in vernacular didn’t mean a venularization of practice; they indicate plurality of belonging and affiliation that crafted the pictorialist aesthetic of the Bengali amateurs. By unpacking this intellectual history, this paper decenters the Euro-US-centric history of pictorialism towards writing an interconnected history of the artistic movement, while also complicating the category of modern Indian art.

مختبر مادّة التربية التّشكيليّة فضاء للتّدريس والتّجريب ومطيّة للتّواصل والإبداع في المدارس التونسية

The paper aims to highlight the problem of the space of teaching the subject of plastic arts in Tunisian schools and its engineering structure. In addition, it intends to identify differences between technical practices at the applied stage based on several variables related to the Learning workshop and to explore possible answers to the whole range of questions associated with research. Besides it tries to discover the different teaching and learning methodology based on the study space variable and the study share laboratory space which provided research comparison through the observation and corresponding mechanism during field visits and defined the features of the space dedicated to the exercise of a formative activity. The results of the research revealed the inadequacy of applied technical practice in the plastic arts when associated with the school’s traditional space and classroom for success and creative take-off when changing the features of the learning space to match the laboratory’s specifications. The research underscored the importance of changing the school’s engineering and technical specialty hall to become a predominant, capable of accommodating experimental exploratory curriculum stages in plastic activity from observation and mediation to experimentation and retraining.

Вестиментарная стратегия фильма и этические ценности времени

Introduction. The intensity of the visual media influence in the format of films and TV series on cultural life, reaching its peak in the era of streaming television, poses the task for the humanities to study the visual type of thinking, visual consciousness, which is different from the classical visualization of verbal thinking in the plastic arts. If a researcher intends to derive from a film or TV series, a value system, a cognitive strategy that is relevant for its time, the visual environment may turn out to be no less eloquent for him than the dramatic action taking place in it. The character and quality of this environment are made up of many sensory elements: light, color, movement and its choreography, sound, space, subject referents, etc. Taken together, they represent not so much an articulation of the author’s thought, but a way of specifically visually thinking through this thought. The complex structure of visual-mental environments requires extensive and systematic research work. In this article we take one of the most obvious substantive aspects of the visible: the vestimental strategy of the film. The purpose of the article is to identify patterns marked by subject (vestimentary) characteristics that are redundant in relation to the dramatic action by comparing the visual environments of films from different decades of the 20th century; using the code of cultural universals that assign the function of sociocultural and ethical regulation to the concept of “clothing” [1; 3; 5; 10; 15], to identify the meaning of these patterns in the context of the ethical thinking of the era. Methods. During the study, the authors use general scientific methods of analysis and synthesis; the method of phenomenological reduction, which makes it possible to record the sensory qualities of object-spatial screen environments; a hermeneutical method that allows, on the basis of visible sign structures, to identify the essential intentions of a visual image. In view of the task, it turned out to be necessary to involve some concepts of narratology (in particular, the concept of focalization) and methods of corpus analysis adopted in linguistics. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that we approach the visual source from a philosophical and cultural perspective, considering the visual environment of the film as a form and method of actual sociocultural or philosophical thinking, which has specific (visual) tools. This approach allows us to draw conclusions based not only on individual films, but also on large source databases. Results. During the analysis, the authors applied the tools of modern visual studies and the conceptual basis of socio-philosophical ethics to cinematic texts of the 20th century. This made it possible to discover visual patterns common to films of some decades of the 20th century, namely: the 1930s, 1950s, 1990s, and connect them with the ethical issues of time. Conclusions. Analysis of source databases that include cinematic texts can be carried out through a systematic analysis of the visual environments presented on the screen. At the same time, dominant visual patterns characteristic of a particular era can be identified and described. Such a dominant determines the emphasis in the figurative whole and reveals important aspects of philosophical and cultural thought relevant for its time, including ethical thought.

Doubling matter (notes on architectural motifs in the lyrics of F. I. Tyutchev)

The paper focuses on the range of lyrical works by F. I. Tyutchev, which involve architectural images and motifs. Tyutchev’s interest in these motifs and images — from the “ruins of Ilion” to the “Tsarskoe Selo palaces” and Moscow churches — has been observed for more than half a century. Tyutchev’s poems discussed in the paper are studied taking into account their connections with the “architectural” poetry of their predecessors. First of all, the connections with G. R. Derzhavin and P. A. Vyazemsky are traced. Among the heirs of this tradition, the author singles out O. E. Mandelstam. A special place in the work is given to the comparison of architectural images and motifs in Tyutchev’s lyrics with those of A. S. Pushkin, possible Pushkin sources of a number of Tyutchev’s works are found. The author’s special attention is devoted to a group of poems (“Dream at Sea”, “Morning in the Mountains”, “Unexpectedly and Brightly...”), in which the presence of architectural images is involved in solving completely different lyrical and philosophical issues that are not related to direct poet’s impressions from works of architectural art. The specific Tyutchev’s distrust towards the plastic arts (architecture, sculpture), in contrast to the poet’s always benevolent attention to music, is associated with the most profound, fundamental features of Tyutchev’s personality and worldview. The author argues that the distrust of the plastic arts is caused by the poet’s more general skeptical attitude towards the objects of the man-made world (in this respect, Tyutchev is close to N. V. Gogol).

Biopolitica, anatomía, y dolor social

This article reflects on the ways of representing Picasso’s human anatomy in relation to the biopolitical and, above all, thanatopolitical development of fascism during the 1930s and 1940s in Spain and Europe, according to the theoretical proposals of Arendt, Foucault and Esposito. To this end, we have chosen three works: Guernica (1937), Woman Weeping (1937) and The Ossuary (1945), which make up the Malaga painter’s analytical and aesthetic line around his process of deconstructing the human anatomy from a Cubist viewpoint, but, from 1937, with a clearly vindictive function, of international struggle and denunciation against fascism. On the other hand, we have attempted to approach these works by Picasso from the point of view of the plastic art of Grünewald, Bosch, Goya and, much more closely, the painting of the expressionist Otto Dix, that is to say, we have looked at the pictorial tradition that has dealt with the human body, pain and war, in order to establish possible threads linked to Picasso’s work. In this sense, our objective has been to analyze the relationship between totalitarian power and the ways of understanding the representation of the human body, deconstructed anatomy, monstrosity, and collective suffering through the different aesthetic interpretations of Pablo Picasso.

Феномен реализма как объект исследования. К истории вопроса

The article examines the complex process of critical and encyclopedic comprehension of the concept of realism during the late 19th–20th centuries. In the second half of the 19th century, the declarative style of defining this concept dominated, represented mainly by the journalism of V.V. Stasov. However, already in the encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron, articles appear that claim to seriously comprehend the phenomenon of realism in the plastic arts. Traditionally relying on Courbet's position, serious authors attempt to objectively determine the features of this phenomenon, its origin and evolution. All three editions of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia also contribute to this process. The authors of the relevant articles, although they give priority to the literary aspects of the problem, are also beginning to mention the plastic arts. They are gradually moving away from orthodox sociologism towards a truly art criticism analysis of the subject. The remaining high degree of uncertainty in the theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of realism has become an incentive to carry out a research project with the participation of the author of this publication. With all the scale of the analysis undertaken, the grandiose topic allows us to state the need to continue work in this direction, which calls on representatives of the art history community.

New communication strategies of modern classical artists

Relevance of the study: Along with the crisis of the "aging audience" of classical music in concert halls, which is noted by researchers and performers, in the last two years there has been a tendency to increase listening to classical music on digital platforms. The fact that, on the one hand, we are talking about the crisis of classical music audience reduction and, on the other hand, there are opposite trends indicating an increase in its popularity, actualizes the study of the communication mechanisms of classical music performers with the audience through digital tools.
 Main objective of the study: To identify the trends, principles and mechanisms that have led to the recent increase in the popularity of classical music, particularly through digital tools on social media platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.
 Methodology: Using the concept of "communication strategy" from the field of strategic management, we analyze the trends observed in the process of transformation of the way classical music performers communicate with the audience in the context of the evolution of media technologies. The study also used empirical (data collection, observation), general scientific (analysis) and theoretical (generalization, systematization) methods.
 Results and conclusions. Modern media platforms have become a great resource for the promotion of a cultural product. They offer opportunities to reach a multi-billion audience composed of different segments, analytical tools and feedback. The mediatization of cultural space and changes in the psychology of perception of cultural products among new generations require new strategies of communication of classical music performers with the audience. The answer lies in the tendency to create audiovisual content that can be broadly divided into those in which classical music is the central object and those in which it is the background. Reels and Shorts, short videos that use classical music as a background, have become a means of expanding audiences by attracting listeners who were not previously interested in classical music. Audiovisual content featuring classical music is evolving from the traditional concert video to the visualization of music through electronic means, plastic arts (photography, painting) and the creation of videos with a storyline (cinematography). An important trend contributing to the growth of classical music audiences is the combination of classical repertoire with more popular film or cartoon music.
 The study of communication channels and methods of modern classical music performers with the audience is important in connection with the development of the classical music industry in Ukraine and the development of a strategy for the promotion of Ukrainian classical music products in the world market of music production.

“...seems to be built not of stone”: Without Foundation by V. Petrov (Domontovych) as an Architectural and Pictorial Novel-Ekphrasis

Intermedial analysis remains one of the leading interpretive strategies of contemporary literary studies, which determines the relevance of the study. The aim is to read the novel Without Foundation (1948) by V. Petrov (Domontovych) through the prism of intermediality. The research methods are determined by the objective. The method of intermedial analysis, contextual analysis, hermeneutic, comparative and semiotic methods are used. It is indicated that the writer transports a number of codes of plastic arts into the word: composition, colour and linear ratios, volumes, light and shadows, texture, etc. Verbal descriptions of works of art as visual objects in a novel often become a self-contained main narrative with extensive reflections on artistic phenomena. Certain episodes of the novel are a kind of verbal extension of the characters depicted in the paintings. Masterpieces of world and national art, as well as precedent-setting names of artists, provide the writer with the opportunity to find motives, moods, and images that are in tune with his or her own, and enrich the arsenal of visual and expressive means. The main basis of the artistic narrative is the architectural structure, which, determining the unity of the thematic and poetic design of reality, determines the subject, type of hero, system of characters, problematics, plot and compositional structure, chronotope, and type of narrative. Built not of stone, but in the writer's imagination, the Varangian Church becomes an architectural prototype that models a literary work, partially structuring it. Thus, the multifaceted verbal visualization of the Cathedral, in its artistic concept, tends to be similar to the artistic solution of C. Monet with regard to the Cathedral of Rouen. The author also devoted a "series of paintings" to the Varangian Church, which depict the urban space associated with the architectural object. Conclusions. The complex system of visual codes and their multiplicity testify to the originality and novelty of the Ukrainian writer, whose novel, in its language directly related to plastic arts, became a "prologue" to contemporary novels-ekphrasises.

The structure of the iconic text in plastic art and contemporary architecture (Erbil governorate as a model)

The structure of the iconic text in plastic art and contemporary architecture (Erbil governorate as a model)

The Role of Public Policy in Gender Inequality in the Arts in Israel

Abstract This article deals with Israel's cultural policy and public funding for the arts—a nascent, under-developed research field in Israeli scholarship. The article focuses on the plastic arts and film, presenting data about the system of budget allocation and the structure of relevant Ministry of Culture and Sports decision-making committees. The discussion takes a gender perspective, focusing on obstacles women artists face in accessibility to public budgets for the arts. These challenges, we argue, are compounded when considering additional and overlapping identity categories. We apply intersectional analysis—a perspective that considers positionality and social background, including gender, class, race, nationality, and religion—and conclude with suggestions for improving public policy for the arts.

Güell Pavilions of Antoni Gaudí as an example of new mythology

The Güell Pavilions are known for being the first work that Antoni Gaudí built for the person that would become his main patron, Eusebi Güell. For years, these buildings have been considered to have some functional roles, and to contain some sporadic references to the L’Atlàntida, a poem written by Jacint Verdaguer. In this paper, however, I will argue that this work of Gaudí is more than this, since L’Atlàntida was already a good example of the idea of a new mythology, and Gaudí intertwined these literary references with “aesthetic geometry”, which had been reconstructed by the German artist Peter Lenz. I will show where and how this geometry is present in the Güell Pavilions. As a result, these buildings will reveal as an organic work, and a good example of the idea of a new mythology applied to plastic arts.

The problem of media coverage of contemporary Arab formation

Deciphering the codes of contemporary plastic art requires an intellectual effort, so that communication between the artist and the media outlet can strip away the ambiguity to reach a clear reading such that the achievement can be understandably presented to the recipient. The first chapter serves to identify the problem, the scope of the study. As the issue stems from the ambiguous nature of an artist's piece for media publication, it would derive several questions: What is the level of interest of the Arab press in the field of plastic arts? How willing is the Arab press to actively contribute to the field? And are they open to enhancing the process of understanding or receiving it? The author(s) further elaborate upon the importance and aim of the research that is quantified by the objective and temporal metrics of the study along with relevant, defined terminology. The second chapter covers the two concepts of information and receiving through its design of the study's theoretical framework and the author(s) acknowledgment and citations of prior relevant works. Its third chapter details the procedures by which the researcher(s) would identify a sample populace consisting of chosen relatives and relevant works of art. The fourth chapter, in providing its analysis of the results and the drawn conclusions of the study, gave insight into how media and art can influence an audience's opinions about community issues. Such a connection would notably contribute to the decision-making process and shape the convictions of the individual..

Монументальное искусство в контексте исторической памяти: судьба работ Хуана де Авалоса в Испании и Парагвае

Monumental art is a special sphere of plastic art, a fusion of architecture and sculpture, which is closely related to the ideological guidelines of the era. In the second half of the 20th century. monumental art began to be expressed not only in individual sculptural and painting works, but also embodied in ensembles bearing the corresponding ideological qualities. Acting in synthesis with sculpture, architectural ensembles reflected the ideological content of the era and became an example of visual fixation in the public space of the key elements of the ideology of the ruling regime. One of the striking examples in the Ibero-American space was the Valley of the Fallen (el Valle de los Caídos) in Spain. One of the creators of this project was the Spanish sculptor Juan de Avalos, whose name became a kind of bridge connecting the monumental sculptural traditions of Spain and Latin American countries. When the Paraguayan dictator A. Stroessner visited the Valley of the Fallen, the complex impressed him greatly by the synchronization of the Spanish and Paraguayan ideological narratives. The result was an invitation from J. de Avalos to participate in the creation of the Victorious Peace Monument (A la Paz Victoriosa) in Paraguay. Turning to the sculptor’s work and the fate of his projects, one can see semantic parallels in the monumental sculpture of the authoritarian periods in Spain and Paraguay, as well as the metamorphoses occurring both with the works of J. de Avalos themselves and with the attitude towards them. The transformation of his Paraguayan sculptural group by Carlos Colombino created a new meaning in the Square of the Missing, and the monument itself, instead of the triumph and glory of the leader, paradoxically acquired a new decolonial meaning - the memory of the Indian peoples. In Spain, in debates about memory, the state of conflict becomes more important than memory itself, which cannot but cause concern for the future of the legacy of J. de Avalos in his homeland.

СВІТЛО-ПРОСТОРОВА КОМПОЗИЦІЯ САКРАЛЬНИХ БУДІВЕЛЬ ЛЕ КОРБЮЗЬЄ

The article discusses the ways, methods and means used by architect Le Corbusier to organize the light environment in his sacred buildings: the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Roncham; the church of the Dominican monastery complex Notre Dame de la Tourette; the Catholic church of Saint-Pierre-de-Firmin. The churches were built in France in the 50s and 70s of the last century, with the exception of the church in Firmin, which was completed in 2006. In these sacred buildings, built in the modernist style, the architect abandons the traditional architectonics of sacred buildings of the past and declares the renewal of artistic principles, the novelty of architectural forms and structures. The architecture of the churches, which speaks the language of pure form, found in precise proportions, reveals Le Corbusier's characteristic fusion of architecture and the plastic arts, their interdependence and mutual enrichment. By shaping the light-spatial composition of the interior of these churches, the architect tried to achieve an atmosphere of concentration and "silence" so necessary for contemplation, reflection, and common prayer. To create this atmosphere, Le Corbusier chose the twilight that prevailed in the interior of his churches, the austere and dry aesthetics of the wall surfaces, which compared to churches built in the Romanesque period. It was important for him to have a very refined, dosed natural light entering the sacred space of the buildings. He achieves this effect using different methods in each of his sacred projects. By controlling the amount of light, through a combination of direct, reflected and diffused natural light entering through skylights, the architect creates a changing light-spatial composition that differs from the light environment of traditional churches. According to the architect, the skylights, selectively and carefully placed in the spatial structure of the churches, should create an atmosphere of mysticism and focus the attention of the parishioners on prayer. The requirements of religion had little influence on the architect's plan. The shape of the temples and the light and space composition of the interior space were a response to the psychophysiology of the senses. The choice of an ascetic interior for his buildings, without any decoration, leaves room for the changing natural light that illuminates the magical, mystical, indescribable space, and is perhaps the only symbol of its sacredness.

“Egyptian Statue”, Revealed in the South-Eastern Region of Azerbaijan, in the system of Ancient Cultural and Trade Relations

Ancient Egypt, being one of the developed centers of the East, had close ties with Western Asia and the South Caucasus, both from a political and commercial point of view. This country, which had not been conquered until the VII century BC, was in the forefront as a political and military power of the period. It was from this viewpoint that many countries sought to establish political union with it, as well as the trade relations. As a result of this relationship, various works of art related to Ancient Egypt also spread to the South Caucasus through the Western Asia. No doubt that Egyptian art items found in Egypt itself are more than samples from other countries where similar finds are common. The paper deals with the archaeological finding – an Egyptian figurine. This artifact, which is so far the only example, found in Azerbaijan, testifies to the existence of ties between the South Caucasus and Egypt. The discovery also contributes to the creation of certain ideas about the small plastic art of that period. It is possible that complex archaeological studies in the region will reveal new artifacts of such art