Aesthetic Realism Research Articles

Revisiting the Women’s Movement in India (1970s–80s) Through the Women’s Programme

The article charts the evolution of Ghar Parivar or Home and Family (1972-mid1980s) and Ghar Bahar or Home and Outside (1979- late 1980s) two early women’s programmes, from being classified ‘programme for minority’ in TV listings to becoming significant counter-public spheres that effectively mounted national discussions from a ‘women’s perspective’. A historic and contentious Ghar Bahar episode is examined as a media event, including an interview with a session’s judge about the unprecedented verdict in a dowry murder case that served as national testimony and led to significant legal reforms. The final section investigates how, despite rising from its marginal position to prime-time programming in the early 1980s, the women’s programme was co-opted by the state, which now closely monitored women’s issues and appropriated its distinct realist aesthetics to project a progressive image and media autonomy. Given the loss of original episodes, this case study employs textual historicism, relying on interviews, legal rulings, media reports, and a few available fragments of the women’s programme to reconstruct the significance of women’s shows and women producers in early Indian television.

Дискурс декаданса в «Истории византийского искусства...» (1876) Никодима Кондакова

The aim of the paper is to reevaluate the theoretical dimension of the book “History of Byzantine Art and Iconography Based on Miniatures of Greek Manuscripts” (1876) by the leading Russian art historian Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov (1844-1925) within the context of examining the cultural and social problem of decadence. The article provides a new interpretation of the well-known work by N. P. Kondakov. Scientific novelty lies in the following: the terminology of the book (and, above all, such concepts as naturalism, realism and idealism) is considered for the first time in connection with the problems of biological and decadent discourses. Particular attention is paid to the social and cultural aspects of the cyclical theory of decline set forth in Nikodim Kondakov’s book. As a result, this concept of cultural degradation is linked with ideas about social decline that were formed in the culture of the 19th century. The components of the aesthetics of decadence and biological discourse are studied, among other things, through the lens of Russian realistic aesthetics. The article uses methodological complexes that help shed new light on the peculiarities of the functioning of the cultural tradition in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th century, especially in aspects related to the influence of culture on the development of the humanities. The emphasis is on finding those cultural and intellectual sources of Nikodim Kondakov’s scientific activity that turned out to be the most important in terms of the formation of his innovative theoretical and methodological concepts.

Aesthetic Non-Naturalism

Abstract Aesthetic non-naturalism is the view that there are objective aesthetic truths that hold in virtue of sui generis facts. This view is seldom explicitly endorsed in philosophical aesthetics. I argue that many aestheticians should treat it as the view to beat, since (a) their commitments favour aesthetic realism, (b) non-naturalistic forms of aesthetic realism are particularly promising and (c) non-naturalists have reasonable answers to four important objections.

The Concept of “Innovation” in Ukrainian Art Criticism of the 1960s: On the History of the Term

Within the framework of the history of concepts, the term “innovation” as it was understood by Ukrainian art critics and artists during the reign of socialist realism and at the same time the emergence of non-conformist Ukrainian art (1960s) is considered. It was revealed that the encouragement of innovation, so widespread in the art of socialist realism, did not mean giving the artist a creative freedom (which is a fundamental principle of art in general) but was a requirement to observe the stylistics and aesthetics of realism, to search for forms, albeit new, but filled only with socialist content. The terms “realistic innovation,” “formalism,” “tradition,” “modernism,” “artistic skill”, etc., which are related to the term “innovation,” are also considered. The harsh criticism of formalism (“formalistic tricks”) in Ukrainian art publications artificially restrained the innovative experiments of the artists

‘Why Was I Born Among Mirrors?’: Hyper-(In)visibility in Simon Stone’s Yerma

Simon Stone’s adaptation of Yerma, after Lorca, which premiered at the Young Vic in London 2017, reconsiders Yerma as an anonymous twenty-first-century woman known only as HER. Using Lorca’s play, Stone’s production usefully comments on gender and consumption with the understanding that identities are expected before they are formed. HER seemingly finds professional success and a fulfilling romantic relationship, yet gradually dissents and deviates from expectations because of her unique obsession with maternity. Stone’s adaptation additionally recognizes and deliberately magnifies both modernist and realist aesthetics using a late-twentieth-century genre known as ‘hyperrealism’. I argue that this production’s aesthetics thereby extend what Stone has already popularized as a genre of contemporary hyperrealism to posit a state of hyperreal and, more importantly, hypervisible femininity.

Myth models of the national being in the novel “Do Not Interrupt the Dead” by Salavat Yuzeev

The article investigates the controversial problems of cultural identification of the novel “Don’t Interrupt the Dead” by Salavat Yuzeev in terms of the modern transculturation theory of literature, written in Russian by non-Russian (national) writers. We avoid the term “a Russian-language writer,” which does not seem to be appropriate as it does not reflect mental and aesthetic realities. In the course of the analytical study of the world artistic model in the novel “Don’t Interrupt the Dead”, our main goal is to present the validity and pattern of identifying the writer as a transcultural author who creates a national Tatar model of the world using the means of Russian linguistic culture, but on the basis of mental national and general “Soviet” historiosophical myths.Mythopoetic analysis seems conceptual for the study of transcultural texts, since it allows us to identify generic mythological correlates of the maternal model of the world interrelated with foreign ethnocultural reality. The analytics, emphasized in the article within the framework of apophatic poetics, makes it possible to consider not only the inconsistent multinational constants of the artistic transcultural model (the borderland of the Russian and Tatar ethnicity and ethos), but also multinational ones in a special format of unity - concordia discors. The article underlines that in the case of transcultural literature, not elimination, but expansion of genetic memory takes place due to the acquisition of another culture as one’s own.

The authentic experiences of tourists in Chinese traditional villages based on constructivism: a case study of Chengkan village

Purpose This study aims to examine the role of authenticity in tourists’ destination selection, analyze the factors that influence tourists to form their initial opinions and explore how tourists construct the authenticity of traditional villages. The authors selected Chengkan village in Huizhou district, Huangshan city, as a case. In the study, the authors constructed an attribute-hardware-software research framework and analyzed tourists’ authentic emic experiences from the perspective of constructivism. The findings of this study suggest that tourists’ destination selection is influenced by authenticity. The destination culture brokers who interact with tourists play an essential role in forming authentic experiences. According to differences in how tourists construct authenticity, the study divided tourists into three types: primitive imagination, aesthetic reality and rational cognition. The results of this study provide a deeper understanding of various viewpoints about authenticity research and contribute to the academic discussion on how to understand the authenticity of unique cultural heritage sites such as traditional villages in the context of tourism development.

Phantasmagorical realism in Memoria (Apichatpong Weerasethakul 2021)

This article proposes a close analysis of the film Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul (2021). It begins by situating the film within a broader trend in contemporary East/South East Asian and Latin American cinemas, which incorporates elements of the phantasmagorical into an aesthetics of realism. The combination of these seemingly contradictory concepts gives rise to a sophisticated interplay of temporalities. This interplay comprises the present phenomenological reality, layers of the past and the realm of memory associated with posthumous presences, and the unusual occurrences that may belong to the future. I refer to this phenomenon as ‘phantasmagorical realism’, a recurring theme in Weerasethakul’s cinema. This concept is partly influenced by non-European philosophies and belief systems, such as Thai Buddhism and Animism. In Memoria, this is further accentuated by intermedial connections with Latin American magical realism and Chinese classical literature, both of which are also influenced by non-European philosophies and belief systems, including Amerindian Perspectivism and Daoism.

The re-construction of urban space in the place between art and architecture: Selected paradigms of in situ art of the period 1950–2000


 This study investigates in situ art of recent art history and its potential regarding the reconstruction of public space and its meanings. Paradigms of art and architecture conjugation in site specific interventions are examined with a view to answer questions such as the transformative role art can play when it constitutes a plastic phenomenon functioning in a complementary or reactive way as a part of the urban and social space. In situ’s art sculptural objects, due to their transitional form, serve as metaphors for space and time and their condition of constant change in the everyday life of the city. They constitute a physical input in the urban space that seeks to redefine its material boundaries and highlight the interaction between the individual and the city seen as an incomplete entity in a constant re-casting. Through the practice of repetition and movement, sculptural objects are put in dialogue with the objects we come into contact daily, taking part into a new aesthetic reality. It is about a process of re-configurating of the everyday aesthetics of the city, challenging the relationship between art and architecture and thus offering new modes of spatialisation. By examining specific paradigms from the in situ art of the second half of the twentieth century (e.g. Aldo Van Eyck, Daniel Buren, Rachel Whiteread), this paper, seeks to unveil the process of activating the coexistence of the visible and the invisible, the inside and the outside, the private and the collective that this specific artistic process offers in material terms. The main question that this paper seeks to answer is how in situ art- e specially when oscillating between art and architecture- affect the everyday flow of the undifferentiated space and time? How does it shape the coexistence and interaction between city’s objects and subjects? Which alternative – discursive – reality does it offer?

Geopoetic Image as a Cultural Token, Process and Result of Aesthetic Reality Modeling

The research field of geopoetics as the theory of studying creative forms and ways of human interaction with the geographic space, the multidimensional concept shaped by the syncretic perception of reality, is expanding dynamically in the aspect of space interpretation and modeling. Such research prism facilitates addressing projective meanings of the modeled reality, studying geopoetic image as a cultural sign, process and result of aesthetic display and representation of reality. Taking into account the relevance of the problem, the authors of the article set a goal to investigate the semiotic triad of St. Petersburg, the emotional component of the axiological model and its semantic transformations: Petropol’ - Petrograd - Leningrad, that permits to present a multilateral description of geopoetic image modifications. The research logic is dictated by the fact that the conceptualization of space in its various manifestations is associated with the study of the territory as an object of aesthetic reflection. The study analyzes creative embodiment of a particular toponym in its dual rational and emotional essence as a fact of verbal art. Transformation and treatment of geopoetic image meanings of St. Petersburg based on the spheres of urban semiotics are analyzed in the aspect of giving new meanings and semantics to the place in the context of spatial and cultural historical relations and models. The authors argue that geopoetic image is a special representation of geographical space in its historical and cultural, value and semantic nature and fusion in their unity. The existing territory can be presented as a compact axiological model through the “prism” of socio-cultural values, signs and symbols. Actualization of the palimpsest concept based on the combination of textual layers, research of peculiarities of structural meaning modeling enable addressing the reconstruction of the semiotic system and variant semantics of “city mirror” texts.

Традиции русской и советской культуры в повести Лу Яо «Судьба»

The study aims to shed light on the peculiarities of interpretations of Russian and Soviet culture traditions in Lu Yao’s story “Life” (1982), which became a classic of the Chinese literature of the xúngēn movement in the last third of the XX century. It is the first time that this work by the Chinese prose writer has become the subject of a separate study, in addition, the paper defines the range of works by Russian writers and artists whose traditions are reflected in the story, reveals the role of images and motifs of Russian art in its ideological and artistic singularity, which accounts for the scientific originality of the study. The artistic images of Russian and Soviet art direct references to which are contained in Lu Yao’s work served as the subject of comparative analysis. As a result of the study, it was determined that Lu Yao uses a very wide context of Russian and Soviet culture, including novels by I. A. Goncharov, N. A. Ostrovsky, stories by Ch. T. Aitmatov, V. G. Rasputin, Soviet paintings, and demonstrates adherence to the principles of realistic aesthetics in the story “Life”. The images created by the Chinese author significantly complement the gallery of typological heroes of the Russian literature of the XIX-XX centuries (the hero of the time, the ideal female image, the wise old person), bringing new artistic interpretations in keeping with the Chinese national cultural and historical tradition.

“Seeing” into the future: Anchoring strategies in future-oriented Twitter visuals

How do public actors visualize the future? Mediations of the future often construct audiences’ prospective actions, and offer insights into society’s imagination of desirable and undesirable futures. In the visually-saturated environment of social media, projections are often visual. Unlike their textual counterparts, future-oriented election visuals have remained understudied. Thus, our paper explores how public actors substantiate their future-oriented, multi-modal claims and the rhetorical outcomes of different strategies. Building on the notion of technologies’ “temporal affordances”, we utilize an inductive qualitative approach to visual rhetoric and analyze projection anchoring strategies using a sample of 400 future-oriented multi-modal tweets. We find that anchoring is carried out in two layers: evidential (the validity of the future-oriented narrative), and visual (the level of aesthetic realism in the image). Examining recurring patterns of anchoring strategies across the sample result in a rhetorical typology of future-oriented visuals, in two modes (consumerism and competition). Overall, our findings highlight the rhetorical pliability of visual anchoring, through which actors utilize an interplay of temporal and technological strategies to generate alternative anchoring in sharing their projections, and to remain authentic in visualizing the unknown.

India's Daughter: It Is Time to Retire the Realist Rape Documentary

Abstract This essay links the historical figure of Phoolan Devi, infamously known as the “Bandit Queen,” a vigilante and the subject of several articles, news stories, books, and a biopic, with the more recent figure of Jyoti Singh Pandey, the victim of a brutal gang rape in 2012, who similarly became the subject of news stories, films, performances, and a TV series. It examines the BBC's commissioned documentary film India's Daughter (dir. Leslee Udwin, 2015) as an example of how the aesthetics of realism can sensationalize sexual assault, engender a spectatorial complicity, and, in this case, scaffold damaging cultural narratives.

The Play “Mother” by M. Gorky – B. Brecht on Broadway (1935): World Fame and Failure

The author examines the only production of Maxim Gorky’s novel “Mother” in the USA, which was adapted by Bertolt Brecht and staged by the leading Left-wing theatre of New York – Theatre Union. A brief description of the Union’s stage activity is given. The process of exporting the work to the USA and the role of the Communist International (Comintern) structures in this process are investigated. The history of artistic confrontation of American authors of the production and German playwright, who arrived from over the ocean to supervise it is considered in the paper. As a result of the research of how the production was being made, as well as how it was perceived by Broadway spectators it is possible to conclude that the realistic aesthetics and psychological insight of Gorky was more recognizable to the American producers than Brecht’s epic theatre. The analysis of the “Mother” production is aimed at expanding the views of Russian writer’s works as well as to consider the problem of familiarization of epic theatre, the Brecht’s dramatic composition by American theater-lovers. This research is based on archival materials and hard-to-access foreign sources.

Kroppens mening

“Embodied Meaning. Materiality, Representation and Money in La Peau de Chagrin, À rebours and Le Jardin des supplices” This article presents readings of three French novels from the nineteenth century, namely Balzac's La Peau de chagrin, Huysmans' À rebours and Octave Mirbeau's Le Jardin des supplices. It examines issues of representation and meaning in relation to debt narratives and the use of bodies as a motif in relation to debt, and it argues that, in these novels, literary language and monetary representation displays parallel developments, exemplified through the shift from realist aesthetics to decadent literary style. The article ends by connecting a shifting representative function and related issues of meaning, to modern tendencies in literature, and the function of the human body in these narratives.

Manifested World of Fedir Nedoshovenko, Artist and Teacher

The purpose of the study is to examine and analyse the creative heritage of Fedir Nedoshovenko, the painter and teacher, whose works represent the Kyiv school of Ukrainian painting of the second half of the 20th century. The artist’s activity, his artistic practice – both in painting, teaching – is inextricably linked with a deep understanding of the laws of fine art in the context of the European artistic culture. The methodology of the article is formed by a set of methods such as art history and structural axiological methods. The methods of empirical research of works of art are used: observation, comparison, and experiment. Abstraction, analysis and synthesis are applied at the empirical and theoretical levels of research. Historical method and systematic approach are used as methods of theoretical generalisation. Scientific novelty consists in understanding the artist’s creativity, his artistic and pedagogical activity, which is determined by the principles of artistic genres. For the first time, achievements in the genre of portrait, still life, easel painting, specific features, means and methods of artistic expression of each genre in the artist's work are analysed. Conclusions. The activity of Fedir Nedoshovenko was in the pre-war and post-war period within the boundaries of the Kyiv State Art Institute, on the territory of which the artist lived with his family and taught. The content of the artist's work in a broad sense was a man, diverse nature, human life. The practice of the history of world art confirms that the true reflection of reality, announced by realistic aesthetics, is an important objective law of realistic art, which the artist taught and studied.
 Key words: memories, ancestry, origins, school, war, pedagogy, easel painting, artistic and stylistic features, composition, painting, artistic image, colour, colouring.

Between illusion and reality in the post-pandemic experience: Theatricalities of Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels on stage

This paper draws a critical analysis of the performance of Esu and the Vagabond Minstrels in post-pandemic experience. This is a play written by Femi Osofisan and directed by Adeyemi Oresanya, performed on the stage of the Pit-Theatre. It actually brings reflections of the undying past effects of corruption, oppression and social dysfunction from the military era to the new democratic dispensation in Nigeria to define compassion in order to revitalize humanity in post-pandemic. I argue that the fusion of illusionary reality of theatre in the nature of performance intertextuality is to evince the nature of man and how the myth of Esu implants the kernel of compassion in characters through dialogue—using songs and dances for aesthetic realization and sustainability. Besides, it examines indices of creative visions in the melting pot and departures between the playwright and the director in the nature of performance intertextuality. This researched paper is recommended for both students, teachers and practitioners of Performing/Theatre Arts to find importance of technological innovation in theatrical production as engendered in the COVID-19 experience.

РОМАН «ГЛУБОКИЕ РАНЫ» П. ПРОСКУРИНА: ИДЕОЛОГИЯ, ВЫПРАВЛЕННАЯ БИОГРАФИЕЙ. СТАТЬЯ ВТОРАЯ

The article examines the formation of the creative individuality of P. Proskurin, a writer-statesman in the novel «Deep Wounds». The impact of the canon of socialist realism and its simultaneous overcoming under the influence of the «thaw» paradigm by the artist of the word in the work is noted. The aesthetic reality of the novel, organized by the autobiographical component and fiction, is analyzed. The dominant of the mythological projection of Abel-Cain is emphasized in the embodiment of the confrontation between Pavel Kirilin (the prototype of P. Proskurin’s father - Luka ZakharovichProskurin) and his brother FaddeusGrigoryevich, which acquires a leading significance in the works about the Great Patriotic War.

РОМАН «ГЛУБОКИЕ РАНЫ» П. ПРОСКУРИНА: ИДЕОЛОГИЯ, ВЫПРАВЛЕННАЯ БИОГРАФИЕЙ. СТАТЬЯ ПЕРВАЯ

The article examines the formation of the creative individuality of P. Proskurin, a writer-statesman in the novel «Deep Wounds». The impact of the canon of socialist realism and its simultaneous overcoming under the influence of the “thaw” paradigm by the artist of the word in the work is noted. The aesthetic reality of the novel, organized by the autobiographical component and fiction, is analyzed. The dominant of the mythological projection of Abel-Cain is emphasized in the embodiment of the confrontation between Pavel Kirilin (the prototype of P. Proskurin’s father - Luka Zakharovich Proskurin) and his brother Faddeus Grigoryevich, which acquires a leading significance in the works about the Great Patriotic War.

The Marriage Plot, Again: A Feedback Loop

Abstract: The bigamy plot—the courtship's evil twin—involves characters marrying, then marrying again, a phenomenon rife across Victorian novels. This repetition creates redundancy, both in terms of spouses and, from an informatic perspective, reinforcing the marriage plot's importance. In contrast to a regulated feedback loop that generates stasis, the bigamy plot accumulates more of the same, emphasizing the ongoing centrality of marriage plots in the Victorian novel. This essay argues that this redundancy within the bigamy plot mirrors the emerging imperial information systems and realist aesthetics of the time. With the rise of data management systems like censuses and registries, both literature and empire wrestled with representing individuals both as unique entities and as interchangeable units. Through a reading of the proliferation of records in Jane Eyre (1848), this essay demonstrates how bigamy and its imperial records emerge as a way to understand the struggle for representation, a brief moment in which personhood is extended across the system while also being retracted.