Visualizing Narrative: Lutheran Theology in the Engravings of Lucas Cranach

The early stage of the Reformation in Germany was marked by an iconoclastic movement inspired by radical reformers. In the scientific literature, iconoclasm is often interpreted as a phenomenon that became a catastrophe for German art, as it halted its renaissance progress. The purpose of the article is to prove that the Lutheran Reformation did not become an event that stopped the development of German art, but, on the contrary, gave a new impetus to its development, especially the art of engraving. Throughout the history of Christianity, there have been discussions about what church art should be, in what form it should exist and what function it should carry. In the days of the Reformation, these discussions flared up with renewed vigor. Most reformers held the view that the church needed to be cleansed of works of art that were seen as a legacy of Catholicism. The iconoclast movement that transitioned into church pogroms and the destruction of works of art in Wittenberg in early 1522 prompted Martin Luther to publicly express his disagreement with the radical reformers and to express his own position on the fine arts in the reformed church. In a series of sermons from March 9 to 16, 1522 (Invocavit), Martin Luther recommended the destruction of images that became objects of worship, but considered it appropriate to leave works of art that illustrate biblical stories or reformation ideas. For Luther, the didactic significance of images became a decisive argument. The main points of the series of Luther’s sermons (Invocavit) show that he not only condemned the vandalism of iconoclasts, but also argued that the presence of works of art in the church does not contradict the Bible, but, on the contrary, helps to better understand important truths. It is noted that the result of Luther's tolerant position was the edition of the September Bible (1522) illustrated by Lucas Cranach's engravings. The reviewed narrative and visual sources prove that due to Reformation the art of engraving received a new impetus, and Lutheranism was formed not only as a church of the culture of the word, but also of the culture of the eye. It was established that the main requirement for art was strict adherence to the narrative, which is observed in the analyzed engravings of Lucas Cranach. It is considered that the engravings to the book of Revelation are characterized not only by the accuracy of the text, but also by sharpened polemics, adding a new sound to biblical symbols, sharp criticism of the Catholic Church, and visualization of the main enemies of the Reformed Church. It is proved that the polemical orientation of the engravings spurred interest and contributed to the commercial success of the September Bible. The rejection of traditional plots by protestant artists did not become overly destructive, and in some cases, it even led to the enrichment of European visual culture.

White Innocence / White Supremacy

This article starts from the observation that current debates about race and racism are often couched in soteriological terms such as guilt and forgiveness, or confession and exoneration, and it argues that this overlap calls for theological analysis. Using the debate about Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from the German art festival ‘Ruhrtriennale’ 2020 as a case that is typical of a specifically Western European discourse on race, it first sketches a brief genealogy of the modern/colonial history of religio-racialisation and its intersections with Christian tradition, in which racial categories were forged in soteriological discourses, and in which, in turn, soteriological categories were shaped by racist discourses. It proposes that in this process, Christianity, Whiteness and salvation were conflated in a way that has sponsored White supremacy, disguised as innocence. Engaging with performative race theory, the article concludes by making a constructive proposal for a performative theology of race that can account for the profound intersections between racism and soteriology, but also opens trajectories for transforming hegemonic discourses of race and their theological underpinnings.

Сult and Critique of Raphael in the Late Nazarene Movement

The cult of Raphael is an important part of German romantic culture of the beginning of the 19th century. There were the Nazarenes who developed the cult of the Renaissance genius, and Raphael’s modern reputation is based on these romantic tradition. The article reveals special features of late romantic cult of Raphael, which caused the critique of the Italian master in the second half of the 19th — 20th centuries. The article discusses the art works of the Nazarenes (Franz Pforr, Peter von Cornelius, Franz and Johann Christian Riepenhausen). Special attention was paid to the art works and texts of the founder of Nazarene movement J.F. Overbeck of the 1830–1840s. This material was compared with the German art criticism of the same years, dedicated to the Düsseldorf Academy, an art school considerably influenced by the Nazarenes (A. Fahne, H. Püttmann). Typical for the Nazarene movement is the cult of Raphael as the main Christian painter, whose art is characterized as pure and harmonious. Other features of Raphael’s works, such as dynamic and emotional expressiveness of the form, were ignored or criticized. Such approach was firstly used in the J.F. Overbeck’s comment to the program painting The Triumph of Religion in the Arts (1829–1840) and developed in his later works (The Marriage of the Virgin, 1834–1836; The Lamentation, 1840–1845). This simplified image of Raphael became the subject of criticism for the next authors’ generation who supported the realistic searches of the masters of the mid-19th century. Nevertheless, Raphael’s works continued to be used as a standard for discussing of modern religious paintings.

Zur Rezeption deutscher Musik in der japanischen Musikpublizistik während des Pazifischen Krieges - eine Zwischenbilanz

This article analyses the reception of German music in the music press of Japan during the Pacific War, against the bakdrop of the German-Japanese policy of alliance and a twofold centralization of the Japanese music press. In the first half of the 1940s the number of journals dealing with European music was reduced and an official cultural association, subordinated to the ministries for culture and propaganda, was founded. A close reading of Japanese music journals from between 1941 and 1944 establishes that German music was re-interpreted several times within a relatively short period of time, depending on its use for propaganda or social conformity. At first music journals demonstrated great interest in the restructuring of cultural life in Germany and compared German art music favourably with Russian, French and American music, particularly jazz. From 1943 onwards official control of the music press tightened and, in the wake of calls for a genuinely Japanese music independent of European traditions, anti-European rhetoric became more prominent, although German art music continued to be invoked against jazz and the vulgarization of art through popular music.

EXPERIENCE OF READING GABRIELA KLEIN’S BOOK “PINA BAUSCH. THE ART OF TRANSLATION”

This article reviews a book by the German art historian and dance researcher Gabriele Klein, Pina Bausch. The Art of Translation, one of the first monographs on Pina Bausch to be published in Russian (see also the book published by Garage in 2021). The key concept of the book is the praxeology of translation, which addresses not the subject of translation, but the way it is performed. Thus translation is understood in a broad way as the transfer of the Wuppertal Dance Theatre event into the languages of the audience and critics, into other technical media, into other cultural and historical contexts. Particular attention is paid to the mechanisms of this transfer. The author of this book does not analyze the dramatic narrative of dance, as it is common in theatre studies, but explores dance as gesture delivered with the help of the latest technologies.

Gennady Gorbaty's painting: crypto-realism as overcoming imitation of reality

The purpose of this article: analysis of Gennady Gorbaty's painting, in the work of which the transition from a realistic reflection of the world to the art of postmodernism, characteristic of Ukrainian art of the late 20th century, was reflected in a peculiar way. The methodology is the application of art analysis, methods of comparison and generalization, biographical and historical approach. The scientific novelty lies in the discovery of the peculiarities of the transformation of the traditional for Soviet art reflection of reality into visual practices of the late 20th – early 21st centuries on the example of the work of a particular artist. Conclusions. Gennady Gorbaty studied at the Kyiv State Art Institute (1981–1987), so his formation was significantly influenced by the traditional school of painting with a mostly realistic reproduction of the world around it and a purely academic hierarchy of genres. The socio-political situation in Ukraine in the late 1980s and early 1990s not only contributed to the liberation from such a view of art, but also intensified attention to the development of both contemporary world art and modernist manifestations that existed in the culture of the first half of the 20th century. At the same time, many artists became interested in the history of Ukraine, especially in its tragic or dramatic pages, which led to the emergence of numerous compositions with a complex system of symbols and associations, elements borrowed from the paintings of past eras. In the work of Gennady Gorbaty can be consistently traced a variety of influences, which demonstrate his search for his own plastic language, the gradual departure from the conditionally realistic art of the Soviet era and the formation of a peculiar manner of performance. This was facilitated by an acquaintance with Western European art of the late 20th century, as the artist has been working in Germany since the early 1990s. It was one of the German art critics G. Beck who defined the stylistics of G. Gorbaty's works as crypto-realism, in which the emotional beginning, reflected in the color scheme and expression of picturesque textures, is combined with supposedly hidden motives of visible reality. In the works of this author, the blurring of genres, the synthesis in one picture of elements of different artistic epochs – from the Middle Ages to postmodernism – is also noticeable.

Untranslatable: Gottfried Kinkel, Kulturgeschichte, and British Art Historiography

In 1934, Edgar Wind claimed there was no English equivalent for the word “kulturwissenschaftlich” and the method it denoted: it was untranslatable. Although German art history had been widely read in England since Victorian times, certain methods, as well as the discipline itself, were only hesitantly received. This article focuses on a decisive moment in this entangled history—an attempt to establish in Britain both art history as an academic discipline and a cultural-historical approach to the subject. The key figure is the dashing art historian Gottfried Kinkel, a close friend of Jacob Burckhardt (and archenemy of Karl Marx), who fled Germany after the 1848 revolution. In 1853, he gave the firstever university lecture in art history in England, the manuscripts of which were recently discovered. Kinkel’s case is a prime example of both a socio-historical approach to art history in Victorian times and an exile’s only partially successful attempt to transmit his methodology to a new audience.

The landmark nature of visual art in of Weimar Germany and the principle of visual narrative

The subject of this research is the art practices of Weimar Germany, first and foremost displayed in photomontage works of the Dadaist artists, as well as paintings and photographic compositions of the representatives of “New Objectivity” since the early 1920s until coming to power of the Nazi in 1933. The relevance of this topic is substantiated by the heightened interest of modern researchers in the cultural processes of the early XX century, which had a significant impact upon the establishment of modern visual imagery system. Within the framework of study, the author also touched upon the problem of assimilation of modern art practices associated to the integration of art into all spheres of social life. The interpretation of this trend is one of the most relevant vectors of modern art history. The novelty of this work lies in the use of complex methodology that implies the unity of socio-analytical and philosophical-anthropological approaches, as well as the method of structural-semiotic analysis that leans on both classical theories and works of the contemporary art historians and culturologists of post-structuralism (P. McBride, R. Krauss, B. Buchloh, P. Stettler, and others.). The result of the conducted research lies in determination of interinfluence of photomontage practices of the Dadaists and the art of “New Objectivity”, which clearly demonstrate the “landmark” nature of the works created during the indicated historical period. The acquired conclusions may be valuable for further research of the German art of “New Realism”, reflected in the works of the artists of “New Objectivity” and “Magic Realism”, and as well as the upcoming trends in art of the XX century.