Russian Art Research Articles

ROBERT FALK AND ITALY

In the personal fate of the “quiet jack of diamonds”, Robert Falk, his ten-year stay in France played an important role; the innovations of French art influenced his creative passions. Meanwhile, Falk was interested in broad cultural strata. In the proposed article, for the first time, a seemingly marginal topic of his reflection on Italy and understanding of Italian art are highlighted. The journey of 1911, when the young artist, mostly on foot, visited dozens of cities and memorable places in northern Italy, made an unforgettable impression on him, the echoes of which (for example, the Ravenna mosaics) were reflected in his painting. However, we are not talking about direct natural images. The Italian “look” appears only on one canvas by Falk, Sienna. Memories of Italy, painted from memory after this eventful visit. Throughout his life, Falk carefully and analytically observed the masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance classics, sometimes changing his views and assessments, as happened with the great Venetians and Raphael. The first impression of the city was so strong that at the early time of acquaintance with Venice, with architecture, with the special light of the lagoon, the works of its art were out of Falk’s attention, who later appreciated them. The Ravenna mosaics especially attracted the artist’s attention, primarily the individuality of each mini-fragment of the colourful surface, textured complexity. Thus, in Falk’s dense painting, the influences of the foundations of Cezanne and early Byzantine masterpieces were simultaneously present. In addition, the texture attracted him in Titian’s painting, which he appreciated in the Hermitage and Louvre collections. In the Louvre, the interpretation of white in Raphael’s masterpiece Donna Velata attracted the artist’s attention. In the perception of early Falk, “dull” Sistine Madonna at the Moscow exhibition in 1956 struck him with “greatness and beauty”. The “Italian experience” was constantly used by the artist in his analytical and pedagogical work. As a “feedback”, the article gives examples of writer Carlo Levi and film director Michelangelo Antonioni’s high attitude towards painting of one of the greatest masters of Russian art of the 20th century.

A CARVED FIGURE OF SAINT DEMETRIUS OF THESSALONICA IN THE EPONYMOUS AISLE OF THE ASSUMPTION CATHEDRAL OF THE MOSCOW KREMLIN. THE RELIC AND ITS SCULPTURAL EMBODIMENTY

In the article, the author continues her research on the Holy relics and wooden carved sculpture in ancient Russian art in the context of East and West relations. The author draws attention to the current problem of studying the relationship of form formation with the structure of symbolic thinking within the cultural space of the era. Moreover, the author explores historical analytical texts which highlight the problems of sacred synthesis, confirming the author’s conclusions that church space and each object, regardless of its size and sacred significance, originally formed a single whole. In her article, the author proves that the kiot carved statue of St. Demetrius of Thessalonica was made by a Moscow master at the end of the 14th — beginning of the 15th centuries. It was placed in the Demetrius chapel of the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin, signifying, according to Metropolitan Cyprian’s plan, the image of the saint’s “tomb board”, which was brought to Vladimir from Thessalonica in 1197. Restored in the 16th and 17th centuries, the icon of the Thessalonica martyr, from which a golden filigree crown (the end of the 14th — beginning of the 15th century) has been preserved, could have also been commissioned by Cyprian in order to liken the Moscow Assumption Cathedral to the ancient basilica of St. Demetrius, and Moscow to Thessalonica. The only ancient shrine brought to Moscow from Vladimir in the 90s of the 14th century was most likely a Byzantine ark of the 11th century with a particle of St. Demetrius’s “shirt”, which was the main shrine of the basilica. The reconstruction of the “tomb board”, commissioned by Cyprian, in the form of a wooden statue of the saint confirms the opinion that it was a relief. The author draws attention to the polemical problem of interpretation of the phenomenon of Russian church sculpture in the synodal era as a manifestation of pagan beliefs, pointing out that its in-depth study at the end of the 20th — beginning of the 21st centuries made it possible to assert the high spiritual and artistic status of this phenomenon. The author bases her evidence on archival documents, analysis of historical and cultural contexts, and comparative analysis of monuments.

Glazovo estate and other estates of the Bazhenovs near the town of Kashira in the first third of the 19th century.

The Glazovo estate in Kashirsky uyezd, Tula province (now the village of Staroye Glazovo, Venyevsky district, Tula Oblast) holds a special place in the biography of the great Russian architect and painter Vasily Ivanovich Bazhenov (1738-1799). It was here that the architect regularly lived during his disgrace after his removal from the construction of the Tsaritsyno estate in the second half of the 1780s and in the early 1790s, and it was in the village of Glazovo that Vasily Ivanovich was reburied from the Smolensky cemetery in St. Petersburg in 1799 according to his will. In the present article the author continues the study of the estate's history and aims to highlight the history of the Bazhenov's estates near the town of Kashira in the first third of the 19th century until their complete sale in 1837, finally clarifying a number of important issues of the Glazovo estate's history. The novelty of the study lies in the publication of many previously unknown facts and documents, which the author discovered during his work in the archives of Tula, Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg. For example, for the first time an inventory of the Glazovo estate's buildings (1823) is given, the fact of V. I. Bazhenov's burial in the Glazovo cemetery is finally confirmed and the fate of the estate stone St. Nicholas Church, which the architect founded in 1784 and could not complete, is also clarified. Clarification of these issues is important both for the study of Bazhenov's life and work and for the history of Russian art and architecture.

Verbal representation of the central conceptual signs of male fidelity in German and Russian literary texts

The purpose of the article is to identify and establish common and distinctive central features of the concept of Male fidelity based on the material of German and Russian literary texts of the first half of the twentieth century. The object of the study are lexemes representing the value representation of the linguistic and cultural concept of Male fidelity in the Russian and German languages. The subject of the proposed research is the lexical and semantic explication of the conceptual component of the concept of Male fidelity in German and Russian literary texts, the direction of realism in the first half of the twentieth century. The study used such methods as: definitional analysis, component analysis, comparative method, as well as the reception of quantitative calculations. In the work, as a scientific novelty, it is proposed to study for the first time the verbalization of the conceptual component of the concept of Male fidelity on the material of literary texts in a comparative aspect. The analysis allows us to conclude that the conceptual component of the concept can be verbally represented in the form of specific central features of the concept under study. Also, as a result of the conducted research, the presence of one common central feature of the concept of Male fidelity was established, namely: loyalty to the profession. However, there are also distinctive signs. In German art texts – constancy in the chosen style of clothing, and in Russian art texts - devotion to their ideas, constancy in the noble behavior of men, practicality as a manifestation of the constancy of a man's behavior.

Studies of Art of the Russian North at the State Russian Museum (1940—1970)

The article reflects the actions of the central bodies of the country, overseeing the art activities in the area of study, preservation, conservation, restoration and promotion of Russian medieval art in the 1940s—1970s as an indicative system of a comprehensive integration approach.The relevance of the work is to activate information on the formation of the rhetoric of the scientific community of the 1960s on the problem of studying monuments of Karelia and the Russian North, unknown until the specified time or registered, but did not have the status of a protected monument. By the exhibition “The results of the expeditions of the museums of the RSFSR on identification and collecting works of the Old Russian art” (1966), the consolidation of museum forces and capabilities of the governing bodies for the study of works of art in the complex of restoration, protection, scientific, educational potential increased.The purpose of the article is to show the result of joint efforts of representatives of the RSFSR cultural departments and members of the museum community in the study, preservation, replenishment and presentation to the public of a number of materials of the culture of the Russian North. The author considers the coordinated actions that led to a landmark event — the reveal of a gap in the national art studies and its filling by means of expeditions, conservation of art monuments on the ground, restoration work in workshops in Moscow and Leningrad, exhibition activities, scientific discussions, participation in conferences and congresses, publication activity.The events successfully implemented in the designated thematic plan — the study of the culture of the Russian North, determined the vector of development of the study of the art of icon painting of Novgorod and Moscow lands in the 1970s and 1980s. The author notes, that in the subsequent period, such large-scale and fruitful events were not held. The close-knit work of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, several departments of the State Russian Museum, and other museums of our country lasted throughout the period of 1940s — 1970s. Thus, this example can be regarded as the only indicator of a large-scale project in the history of Russian art, including scientific research, expeditions, restoration, educational activities and conferences.

В поисках утраченной традиции: к истории церковной живописи 1840-х - первой половины 1850-х гг.

The last decade of the reign of Nicholas I (1845 - 1855) was the time when the projects of renewal of church paintings in Russia appeared. Public discussion of the problems of the tradition of the Russian art started with the publication in 1845 of a brochure "On Icon-paintings" by the Ostrog bishop Anatoly, who wasn't, however, a zealous adherent to the traditional icon-paintings, his "theory" of icon-paintings tending towards neoclassicism. In difference from the Right Reverend Anatoly's approach in his brochure, the Rev'd Grigoriy Debolsky argued for the inseparable connection between the national spirit (narodnost') of the church paintings and the tradition of icon-painting in an article published in the same year. Russian Academic school did not respond to the new attitudes in society: propelled by the Emperor, this school acknowledged the tradition in symbolic terms only - in the Byzantinine golden impressions in the paintings in St Isaac's Cathedral. On the whole, the ensemble of these paintings promised to become a brilliant legacy of Bologna academism. 1848, the year of a wave of revolutions in Europe that were perceived as a direct threat to the Empire, opened a period of Nicholas's reign marked, on the other hand, by the intensification of censorship, and, on the other hand, by the two projects of renewal of national church art: those by Duke G.G. Gagarin and by I.P. Sakharov, an archaeologist. The first project, which had at its base the idea, taken from French artists, of christianising ancient art, was an attempt to adapt the Byzantine tradition to the framework of the academic artistic paradigm. Sakharov's project, on the contrary, presupposed complete rejection of this academic paradigm and going back to the icon-paintings that were not yet "spoiled" by Western influences. On the eve of the Crimean war the government made an attempt to expand the national tradition by including in it the ancient paintings from the Mount Athos, in particular, the wall-paintings by Panselinos, which, as A.N. Mouravyov claimed, "are on a par with the works by Rafael and Michelangelo in colouration and modest comportment of the figures". In the new era, marked by the Great Reform of Alexander II, the attempts at a renewal of church paintings that flourished in Nicholas's times, become, for the most part, a thing of the past.

The Wall Paintings in the Russian Church St. Nicholas in Sofia: a Technological Study by Integrated Analytical Approach

For the first time, wall paintings of 20th century Russian artists in Bulgaria were analysed by means of complementary analytical methods. Representative samples collected from the Russian church St. Nicholas in Sofia, decorated by the famous Russian artists Vasily Perminov, Michail Maletski and Nikolay Shelehov during different periods of time, were examined by means of micro-Raman spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy and X-Ray fluorescence (XRF). The results of the study reveal that colourful palette was achieved by using various pigment mixtures of traditional and modern synthetic pigment as titanium white, barium white, calcite, chrome green, green earth, hematite, ultramarine, madder lake, carbon black, vermilion, Naples yellow. The analysis of the paint binders allow to conclude that Maletski and Shelehov have used egg tempera as painting technique, while Perminov has worked in two painting techniques - oil and egg tempera.

Image of a sage in Russian art of the late 19th, beginning of the 20th century: features and cultural significance of the visual image

The article examines the image of the sage as archetypal for Russian painting of the 19–20th. In addition to the developed plots about the self-determination of Russian culture during this period, the search for a visual component of national culture, the author is interested in the internal logic of the choice of plot by artists. The topic of searching for and creating a national visual tradition is touched upon in the article, but is not the main one. The work analyzes the canvases of several artists who have been significant over a number of decades: V.M. Vasnetsov, M.V. Nesterov, N.K. Roerich. The author addresses their common theme, namely, the image of a sage, compares the plot and pictorial features of the images and draws conclusions regarding their cultural significance. According to the author, the appeal to the image of a sage (real or collective) reflects the work of self-determination and the search for a way out of a sense of crisis.

Through the Colonial Lens: Images of Alaska Native Peoples in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

In the late twentieth century Alaska Native people became politically involved in a major land claims movement, leading to a renaissance in traditional music and dance practices. Today, in the twenty-first century, there are two strong revitalization movements – Indigenous languages and body art. As Alaska Native people shed the Western neoliberal and neocolonial vestiges of the past, the use of body art and regalia are central to the Indigenist postcolonial twenty-first-century lived experience. As Indigenous scholars revisit eighteenth- and nineteenth-century documents written during the colonial period, it is evident that major changes took place due to colonization. In particular, the erasure of body art and traditional body decoration and clothing. The collection of paintings, engravings, and etchings of Indigenous peoples made by Russian artists such as Mikhail Tikhanov (1789–1862) illustrate the body art, clothing, and hairstyles from the early nineteenth century. The colonial portraits provide a window onto the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century visual images of several different Alaska Native communities. After the 1867 Treaty of Cession, in which Russia “sold” its Alaskan holdings to the United States, American Christian missionaries, epidemic diseases and boarding schools began to further erase language(s), body art, and ceremony. The paper incorporates the impact of colonialism on Alaska Native people and how this impacted cultural practices, such as body art, and the current re-emergence of traditional body art in the twenty-first century.

Коммуникативный вектор паблик-арта: глобальный масштаб в региональном локусе

This paper examines the dynamics of public art in Russia, explores specific features of the phenomenon that distinguish it from other new art forms and genres. The authors focus on the historical and cultural aspects of the interaction between Russian artists and urban space, their fruitful communication strategies and successful projects of service, art, PR communications reflecting the communicative behaviour of the artist-viewer-power in the modern information-saturated urban environment of Russia, new turns of instrumental development of territories, conceptual shifts of public art caused by including the impact of digital transformations on the culture of the city. 
 A review of various foreign and domestic studies provides a retrospective look at the interpretation of public art as a creative process, a system of communicative interaction and changes in urban space, and, at the same time, the harmonization of the environment and the person, creative understanding of the involvement of the individual to his place of residence with its cultural codes and meanings. 
 This paper will broadly trace the evolution of public art in Russia and its current scope that was enhanced by the sharp increase of the curatorial projects that deal with public art. 
 On the one hand, the demand for public art in Russia is exacerbated by the growing number of curatorial projects aimed at working with space and environment in the context of the festival and biennial movement and art residencies, and on the other hand, the increased interest of the municipal and government officials in public art as a driving force for territory and urban development.
 The article provides a comparative analysis of successfully implemented projects in various regions of Russia, which gave a new impetus to the development of public art, bringing the space closer to the population, expanding the communicative capabilities of a smart city and its creative resident.

РУССКОЕ ИСКУССТВО КАК ОТРАЖЕНИЕ РУССКОЙ МЕНТАЛЬНОСТИ

The article shows the specifics of the Russian mentality and Russian art. It is noted that Russian art as an original cultural phenomenon is a reflection in the essential features of the Russian mentality: the desire for the sacred, the Absolute, universality, catholicity, cosmism, the search for social truth, sacrifice, irrationality, turning to open "heart" truths, justice, mercy.

Polski Teatr Ludowy we Lwowie – fenomen radzieckich czasów

The Polish People's Theater in Lviv is an extraordinary stage in many respects. It was founded in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1958 by a retired Polish language teacher, Piotr Hausvater. He gathered around him a group of enthusiasts, amateurs who over the years managed to create a team that played not only in the Soviet Union, but also outside its borders. There were no professionals among the actors, but the Theater reached a fully professional level and won numerous awards, presenting plays in Polish in the difficult conditions of a totalitarian state. Pupils, students, workers, engineers, teachers and intellectuals - all devoted their private time to create art for charity. The effect of their work was for many Poles in the USSR the only contact with their native language. It was also a way to become acquainted with the cultural heritage of the country with which they still felt a bond. Interestingly, the band was made up not only of people with Polish roots, but also Ukrainians and Russians. It was the Russian artist Valery Bortyakov who managed the Theater after its director, Zbigniew Chrzanowski, had to leave the Soviet Union due to repressions for laying flowers at the monument to Adam Mickiewicz in Lviv. The theater managed to survive the communist repressions and successfully operates to this day, in free Ukraine.

Connections between 18th-Century Russian and European Culture

Connections between 18th-Century Russian and European Culture Ivan A. Abramkin I. M. Marisina, Ocherki po istorii mezhdunarodnykh sviazei Imperatorskoi akademii khudozhestv vo vtoroi polovine XVIII–pervoi treti XIX veka (Essays in the History of the Imperial University of Art's International Contacts in the Second Half of the 18th and the First Third of the 19th Centuries). 440 pp. Moscow: BuksMArt, 2021. ISBN-13 978-5907267473. M. A. Pozharova, Evropeiskie kontseptsii iskusstva v russkoi kul´ture XVIII veka: Ocherki (European Concepts of Art in 18th-Century Russian Culture: Essays). 240 pp. Moscow: BuksMArt, 2022. ISBN-13 978-5002030019. Both of the books reviewed here share commonalities not only in their essay-collection format but also in their subject (cultural interactions between Russia and Europe in the 18th century). Russian-language scholarly work on this problem in the field of art history owes much to the pioneering research of D. V. Sarab´ianov, who studied 19th-century Russian painting in the context of European schools.1 Before this book, scholars of art tended to consider Russian and European art in isolation from one another. Sarab´ianov aimed both to identify the general features of artistic processes common to both and to reveal the national specifics of concrete phenomena; in the process, he uncovered a variety of links among different traditions, inaugurating a methodologically novel approach. He considered not only general problems (the specifics of Russian Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, and Modernism in the European context) but more specific ones as well (comparing artists of A. G. Venetsianov's circle and German Biedermeier art, A. A. Ivanov and the [End Page 403] Nazarene movement, V. I. Surikov and European historical painting, V. E. Borisov-Musatov and Les Nabis). Sarab´ianov did not analyze 18th-century art in detail, but applying his approach to that period became a hallmark of the Moscow school in the field of art studies. This tradition was associated with the name of O. S. Evangulova—a professor at Moscow State University and a leading specialist of the last decades on 18th-century Russian art—and actively developed two thematic areas: the study of Russian-European artistic relations of this era and the consideration of the customer's role in the development of national culture and the creation of art collections. In the 1990s and 2000s numerous dissertations were written on issues of French influence in the field of painting under Evangulova's guidance: the work of Jean-Louis Voille in Russia, the activities of French artists at the court at the beginning of the 18th century, the art of Jean-Laurent Mosnier in Russia, and the interaction of Alexander Roslin with the Russian artistic environment.2 In 2007, Evangulova wrote a monograph on 18th-century Russian travelers' perceptions of European art schools, which highlighted the most important aspect for understanding the cultural dialogue between Russia and Europe.3 The development of sculpture was already being actively investigated in the Russian Academy of Art; in the 2000s, several dissertations examined the work of Marie-Anne Collot in the context of the Enlightenment era and style formation in the art of Étienne Maurice Falconet.4 These researchers paid special attention to the role of English art in the development of 18th-century Russian culture: the interest of researchers in Moscow and in St. Petersburg was drawn both to general aspects of interaction in the field of painting and the work of certain masters—John Atkinson and James Walker.5 [End Page 404] ________ Marisina's book aligns with the contemporary trend in art studies in Russia, which is characterized by close attention to the history of art education: if S. V. Moiseeva's research is devoted to the establishment of the Academy and the educational organization of various painting classes, then this work is her international relations counterpart.6 The introduction of the book highlights the background of the academic project in Russia, which already in Peter the Great's plans assumed a focus on Europe and attention to Russia's international reputation (8). The purpose and objectives of the book are not specified in the introduction, but in the abstract the problems of the work are associated with the...

Love for Sale: Representing Prostitution in Imperial Russia, by Colleen Lucey

In her insightful analysis of literary and visual images of women who engaged in commodified sexual exchange in nineteenth-century Russia, Colleen Lucey shows that the very notion of women’s love being ‘for sale’ confounded the cultural elite. Increasing awareness of the slippery slope between engaging in commercial sex and marrying for money resulted in disorientation, inspiration, imitation and horror, all of which can be seen in late imperial Russian art and fiction. In the context of debates about gender, class and sexuality, the theme of prostitution served, writes Lucey, as a ‘metaphor to explore shifting economies of desire founded on transaction’ (p. 14). Starting with St Petersburg, ‘Russia’s Babylon’ (p. 19), Lucey demonstrates how the most Westernised city in the Empire functioned in the popular imagination as the most debauched. She analyses the way mid-century writings and drawings imagined commercial sex in the capital, both in terms of its erotic promises and perils. Redemption narratives, so common in Russian literature as to inspire parodies, reflected men’s fantasies of saving (and often having sex with) ‘fallen women’. Male writers, according to Lucey, got tangled up in their own confusion about sex and gender, especially when they tried to make sense of how encounters in urban spaces such as St Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospect blurred the lines between outright commercial and casual sexual encounters.

The specifics of the methodology of teaching contemporary art to art teachers in Russian and Chinese universities

The subject of the study is the peculiarities of modern art and pedagogical education in Russia and China. The aim is to determine the specifics of the methodology of teaching contemporary art to Chinese and Russian students – future art teachers in Russian and Chinese universities. The article discusses the features of teaching this discipline in the largest art and pedagogical universities of Russia and China at the beginning of the XXI century. The research methodology is based on the provisions of pedagogy and psychology, the specifics, theory and methodology of art and pedagogical education. To achieve this goal, methods such as theoretical analysis of sources related to the teaching of contemporary art in universities in Russia and China, comparison of curricula and programs in them, pedagogical observation of students' activities were used. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that it highlights and summarizes specific features in the teaching of contemporary art in Chinese and Russian art and pedagogical institutions of higher education based on the analysis of curricula and projects of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University and Moscow State Pedagogical University, as well as Beijing Pedagogical University and Peking University. As a result, the process of integrating contemporary art into the practice of Chinese and Russian pedagogical universities is shown; the features of interaction of students in educational activities with current artistic practices as a way of mastering the world art experience and its reflection. The conclusions of the author of the publication are that in order to optimize the process of acquaintance of students with contemporary art, both Russian and Chinese art and pedagogical universities offer them to conduct creative experiments with new materials, forms and means of expression as part of their independent work, as well as interact in specially organized spaces with the work of current artists.

Visual Accounting on the example of Boris Kustodiev's Merchant

Introduction. This study explores the link between accounting and art using an example of a painting by renowned Russian artist Boris Kustodiev - The Merchant, or an Old Man Counting Money. Aim of the work. This work aims to develop the provisions of visual accounting on the example of Russian painting as, hermeneutically, ‘every painting is an increment of being and subject to the essential definition as a representation, its formation' (Gadamer, 1988, p. 196). Methodological approach. The paper is based on an indepth review of the central character in the painting - a merchant - and provides a detailed description of the objects that surround him, which feature the second dominant element complementing the figure of the merchant - a traditional Russian mechanical abacus. The study also includes a brief biography of the artist and an overview of his creative milestones as well as some facts about the life of the accountant that served as a model for the merchant character. Main findings. This study unveils the use of accounting tools in works of art and demonstrates how actors and users perceive accounting. Originality. The originality of the study lies in its first attempt to provide a detailed review of accounting through the prism of Russian art by using a methodology that can be adopted to analyse the creations of other artists dealing with subjects related to accounting, as well as to explore the works of accountants who contributed to art.

О формировании культурного кода русской культуры (исторический экскурс)

Arguing on the Russian cultural code it is worth remembering that on a historical extent of time CODES which are provided to us as peculiar "hints" which at competent and correct application are able to allow us were born not only not to forget the historically developed culture, but to develop today's — modern. In the history of Russia after all there is a problem of continuity of spiritual and social experience, inheritance and broadcast of the values and meanings developed by the previous experience of culture. However the Russian cultural code consists of such concepts as: Rus — Russia, Russian, the Russian art, the Russian outstanding names and many other things. It should be noted that the Russian people gave to the world a set of cultural values of enduring value.

Landscape in Russian Art in the Second Half of the 19th – the Beginning of the 20th Century. Evolution of a Genre: Range of Issues

The article is devoted to the conceptual analysis of the multifaceted evolution of the landscape genre in Russian art in the second half of the 19th – early 20th century. The author poses and investigates in detail the key question of interrelationship of landscape poetics with the artists’ world view and aesthetic guidelines of the time influencing the perception of nature and its reflections in art. The academic and practical foundation of the article consists of the tasks, results and development prospects of the topic of the international conference with the same title “Landscape in Russian Art in the Second Half of the 19th – the Beginning of the 20th Century. Evolution of a Genre” (May 16–17, 2022, Russian Academy of Arts, Moscow), curated by the author.

Japonisme in Russian Printed Graphics at the End Of the 19th – the Beginning of the 20th Century

Japonisme is a complex phenomenon, based on the pervasion of Japanese culture into Western culture. Russian artists comprehended it mainly in Europe at the same time as the latest trends in Western art. In their memoirs, the names of Hokusai, Hiroshige and Utamaro are often found: The acquaintance with the engravings of these masters had a great influence on the visual language of a generation of artists in Europe and Russia. Immersion in the technique of Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts led to experiments, the result of which was the reception by Russian artists of several principles of graphic interpretation of depicted objects, spatial structure, and composition. One of the first Russian artists, who began to work in color engraving was M. V. Yakunchikova. In her works a fusion of various trends is noticeable, among which are the innovative ideas of European artists, and the influence of Japanese woodcuts, and the aestheticism of the “Mir Iskusstva”. The main features of Yakunchikova’s etchings are the conciseness and restraint of the compositions, the absence of excessive detail, the smoothness of the lines and the silhouette of the construction. A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva enriched Russian woodcut with color and abandoned the stroke, putting the silhouette and the generalized line in the first place. Her works are characterized by subtle lyricism at the same time as a strictly built composition. V. D. Falileev also worked in the technique of linocut. He created several talented works that demonstrated her wide visual capabilities. Along with recognized masters such as Yakunchikova, Ostroumova-Lebedeva and Falileev, lesser-known masters such as N. N. Zeddeler and A. P. Somova-Zeddeler. Until recently their works did not attract the attention of researchers, but at the beginning of the twentieth century their work was an integral part of artistic life. Despite the presence of a fairly large number of publications devoted to Japonisme and its influence on European art, this topic remains insufficiently studied in Russian art. Japonisme has become one of the important features of the Art Nouveau style, which is characterized by spatial convention, silhouette construction, the rhythm of color spots and other techniques aimed at creating laconic and decorative artistic images.

НИМБ ПОЯВЛЯЮЩИЙСЯ И ИСЧЕЗАЮЩИЙ: СЕМИОТИКА ОБРАЗОВ В РУССКОЙ ИКОНОПИСИ

The article discusses the ways of using halos in Russian iconography. The sign of holiness was borrowed from ancient art is among the most frequently used and important in Christian painting. In different parts of the Christian world, many variants of the halos appeared; they were used in many situations. The halo could be depicted in various colors, different shapes (crossshaped, eight-pointed, with letters, geometric patterns), sometimes marking the characters depicted in that way. The halo distinguished not only saints, also representatives of a certain stratum, and rank (monks, bishops, priests) or characters occupying a high position on the hierarchical ladder, up to and including Lucifer and demonic characters of the Apocalypse. In Russian art, such examples remained rare. However, halos had another important role: they helped to display the dynamics of events in a visual story. Appearing or disappearing from the characters, the halos indicated the moment of the acquisition of holiness or the loss of righteousness (the latter was primarily associated with the fall of Adam and Eve). The paper discusses examples of using the halos in non-obvious situations, ways of working with that sign, and the roles that it played in Russian art