“The accident of the accent”: satiric reflections of contemporary Nigeria in Wole Soyinka’s Alapata Apata

The accident of the accent is the hilarious and artistic device Wole Soyinka employs to portray the societal failings and ways to ameliorate them in Alapata Apata as a writer of national consciousness and global realities. Previous critical studies on this text have focused on the avalanche of satirical elements and their societal manifests in the play with little or no consideration for the accentual mistake (the accident of the accent) and its satirical implications. This is the critical lacuna that this study attempts to fill. The primary text shall be Wole Soyinka’s Alapata Apata which will be subjected to critical textual analysis. Inspirations are drawn from Gerard Genette’s model of Narratology as the theoretical framework to allow for the investigation of the intrinsic visual and auditory images in the text and to undergird the analysis of the findings. It is discovered that there are three prominent strands of accentual representations and their corresponding interpretations of Alapata Apata: Alapata Apata (the butcher on the rock), Alapata Apata (rock spliter) and Alapata Apata (the ruler of the rock domain). This paper concludes that Soyinka’s artistic talent in the play lies largely in the presentation of Yoruba, his mother tongue accent marks to sift out the socio- political faults in his society and by extension in the entire nation of the world.

Artists and Writers for Two Centuries in the Cultural-Religious Context

The history of Georgian painting is closely connected with the name of the 19th century artist Giorgi (Grigol) Maisuradze, who went through the way of demonstrating his artistic talent, from the family of peasants to the Brulov Academy and later working as a teacher of art. Giorgi Maisuradze's paintings are preserved in various museums in Kutaisi, and his following biography with his family and descendants still creates an interesting cultural gallery where famous Georgian artists, writers and scientists are presented. The artist's works has been thoroughly studied by an art critic Shalva Kvaskhkadze, and the present issue is from the history of Georgian culture.

DARI PELUKIS MUDA KE BAKAT MUDA: TINJAUAN 45 TAHUN PERTANDINGAN BAKAT MUDA SEZAMAN

Bakat Muda Sezaman (BMS) merupakan antara pertandingan seni visual paling berprestij di Malaysia. Melalui visi untuk menyediakan satu platform penting yang menjadi pemangkin kepada kemajuan pengkarya muda Malaysia sesuai dengan pertambahan bilangan pelukis muda hasil keluaran institusi pendidikan yang mampan, BMS memenuhi aspirasi dalam meletakkan bakat muda seni negara pada tempatnya. 45 tahun perjalanan BMS memperlihatkan kekuatan pertandingan ini hingga kekal relevan dan terus menjadi acara penting dalam konteks seni visual Malaysia dan seni rumpun (SERUM). Kajian ini merupakan tinjauan awal terhadap BMS dari aspek perlaksanaan, penambahbaikan, format, dan arah tuju BMS kini. Tinjauan ini memberikan pemahaman berkenaan pengalaman BMS dan strukturnya, selain dokumentasi penting terhadap sejarah seni visual Malaysia. Bakat Muda Sezaman (BMS) is one of the most prestigious visual arts competitions in Malaysia. Through its vision to provide an important platform that catalyzes the progress of young Malaysian artists in line with the increasing number of young artists produced by sustainable educational institutions, BMS fulfills its aspirations in putting the country's young artistic talent in its place. BMS's 45 years of travel show the strength of this competition to remain relevant and continue to be an important event in the context of Malaysian visual arts and Seni Rumpun (SERUM). This study is a preliminary review of BMS from the aspects of implementation, improvement, format, and current direction of BMS. This survey provides an understanding of the BMS experience and its structure as well as important documentation of the history of Malaysian visual arts.

‘The wish to paint’: Bowen and the Visual Arts

Throughout her life, Elizabeth Bowen maintained a rich network of artist friends and acquaintances. She often attended exhibitions and was an astute, sometimes caustic critic in letters as well as reviews. Her short tenure as an art student is an often mentioned but rarely, if ever, explored biographical fact, yet it was a key moment in her creative development. It is perhaps unsurprising then that she began to write while ‘still under the influence of … the wish to paint.’ This essay considers Bowen's significant relationship with the visual arts, from her art training and networks to her critical engagement and deeply visual prose. In childhood, Bowen was taught to paint by Elizabeth Yeats and forged a lasting friendship with Mainie Jellett, one of Ireland's great modernists. In 1918, Bowen enrolled at the LCC Central School of Arts and Crafts but, convinced she lacked the requisite artistic talent, she withdrew from her studies after only two terms. This sense of failure plunged her into an artistic crisis from which writing offered a creative way forward. Tellingly, Bowen later reflected that her earliest stories ‘had the character of a last hope’. In describing the best of her writing as ‘verbal painting’, Bowen offers us a lens through which to conceptualise the dynamic dialogue between her more experimental prose and visual modernism. Drawing together aspects of her artistic formation, milieu, and taste, this essay ultimately seeks to provide a series of layered contexts to enrich our understanding of Bowen's fictions, including The Last September (1929) and To the North (1932).

Două tehnici, un singur iconar: Savu Moga

This article brings to attention the work of Savu Moga, a famous icon painter who lived and worked in the 19th century in Transylvania. His artistic talent was native and his greatest skills were revealed by his icons painted on glass, but he also painted icons on wood, a less known fact. Brâncoveanu Monastery from Sâmbăta de Sus, Brașov county, owns 10 icons painted on wood, which are in the process of restoration and research. The technique of painting on wood brings to Moga certain difficulties, which he tried to solve. Although the supports and techniques are different and the order of the stages is reversed, the style of work is very much alike. The colours, the way he writes, the vegetal and architectural elements and the faces of the characters are the same. Also the pigments and the binder used are the same for both types of painting. Regarding the conservation and restoration aspects, the icons that have been properly preserved are generally in good condition, which means he achieved his purpose. Those icons that were used in the church for a long period of time are much more degraded. Every single piece is carefully investigated and treated as a patient. After completing the restoration process of these icons we will have an overview on Savu Moga’s work on wood, compared to his work on glass. Untill then, we are sure of the value of his entire artwork.

«Memories of a Caucasian Officer», the main work of Fjodor Tornau

The article provides an overview of Fjodor Tornau in the context of studying the Caucasus in the 19th century. Special attention is paid to the main book of the writer — “Memories of a Caucasian Officer”, created on the basis of the author’s own experience as a scout. The history of the publication of “Memories ...” testifies to the genuine interest of readers in the exciting story of Fjodor Tornau’s stay among the mountaineers in captivity and several escapes from capture. However, the storyline is far from the main advantage of the book, which has become a tabletop for several generations of Caucasian scholars. Fjodor Tornau managed to collect extremely rare material. Russian ethnography, historiography, physical geography and related branches of knowledge were significantly enriched by unique materials compiled on the basis of personal observations by Fjodor Tornau, with numerous details of military operations in the Caucasus; individual observations of the scout writer have no analogues in the science of the Caucasus. Fjodor Tornau’s undoubted literary talent and natural artistic talent manifested itself in his stylistic manner, which attracts the most sophisticated connoisseurs of the word.

Specialization and the firm in Renaissance Italian art

Renaissance Italian painters are among the most innovative and consequential artists inhuman history. They were also successful managers and business owners, always in search of commissions for their workshops. Indeed, their ability as managers and entrepreneurs were just as important to their success was just as important as their painting talents. This paper develops a theory of the organization of the production of paintings—frescoes and altarpieces—during the Italian Renaissance. I argue that Renaissance artists faced a trade-off between costly delegation and the sacrifice of gains from specialization in the performance of the tasks necessary for executing a painting. Applied to the historical record, the theory accounts for several of features of the organization of this industry: why Renaissance artists dabbled as entrepreneurs; why they performed several duties that did not require any artistic talent; and why they set up firms to aid them in the execution of some tasks while delegating other tasks to independent contractors.

John Updike’s Terrorist: Islamist Misogyny or a Backlash on American Feminist Propaganda?

The United States of America launched its war on terror in October, 2001. The war was declared both as a fight againstterrorism and a mission to liberate the powerless, oppressed Muslim women. The Orientalist representation of Muslimwomen as a victim of their misogynistic culture is observed to have been re-invented by this twin rhetoric of war on terror ofthe American Government. Following the assumption that American literary artists would devote their artistic talent insupport of their government, critics and scholars have excessively approached post 9/11 literature through Edward Said’stheory of Orientalism. While it is true that some American artists represent the conflict to be between two civilizations(modern vs backward), but the theory affect has made it difficult to imagine a western literary depiction without anOrientalist lens. Consequently, western texts become vulnerable to misunderstanding or biased reading. John Updike’sTerrorist (2006), for example, has been read as an Orientalist text in which women are used to depict Muslim frustrationtoward women liberation. Focusing on the representation of women, this article explores Updike’s text as a backlash onAmerican feminist politicized discourse, a new strategy of narrative to encounter the dominant narrative and challenge thetradition of Orientalism.

Memoirs of Serge Hollerbach (USA): Bright portraits of contemporaries by the outstanding artist of the second wave

Живописец, эссеист и мемуарист Сергей Голлербах является автором уникальных мемуаров о мастерах культуры второй волны эмиграции, преимущественно поколении ди-пи. В поле внимания рассматриваемых мемуаров – мир Русского Зарубежья послевоенного Нью-Йорка и его ярких представителей: Михаила Вербова, Ивана Елагина, Владимира Одинокова, Леонида Ржевского и других известных литераторов и художников. Мемуары Голлербаха приоткрывают тайну его становления как художника, знакомят читателя с его пониманием основных принципов искусства. Painter, essayist and writer Serge Hollerbach is the author of unique memoir essays about artistic talent of his time, the Russian emigration’s «second wave», primarily DP generation. The monograph is focused on the Russian diaspora of post-WW2 New York and its bright representatives: Mikhail Verbov, Ivan Elagin, Vladimir Odinokov, Leonid Rzhevsky and other famous writers and artists. Hollerbach’s memoir essays also unveil the mystery of his development as an artist and introduces the reader to the author’s understanding of art’s general principles.

Beyond the severity: portrait of the 1990s in the painting of Igor Simonov

Поздняя живопись уральского художника Игоря Симонова, известного зрителю картинами «сурового стиля», менее всего отмечена как публикой, так и критиками. Статья посвящена описанию трех картин художника этого периода творчества, определивших его основные мировоззренческие и художественные установки. «Аллегория» 1988 года открывает другой этап вчерашнего мэтра «сурового стиля», став картиной-предтечей новых форм искусства в 1990-е годы. Картина «Наш паровоз…» показывает человека в общественной жизни после перестройки, выведенного на холсте до портретного образа. «Автопортрет 1997 г.» дает представление о широте живописного таланта И. Симонова в условиях самоощущения художника в совершенно иной обстановке для жизни и работы. Это квазипортрет эпохи и трагедия ее современника в зеркале истории. Другие картины этого времени упоминаются в статье эпизодически, дополняя наше знание о творческом наследии художника, жившего большую часть жизни на Урале, в Свердловске-Екатеринбурге, до 2019 года. The late paintings of the Ural artist Igor Simonov, known to the viewer with paintings of the “severe style”, are least noted by both the public and critics. The article is devoted to the description of three paintings by the artist of this period of creativity, which determined his main ideological and artistic orientations. The “Allegory” (1988) opens another stage of the recent master of “severe style”, becoming the forerunner of new forms of art in the 1990s. The painting “Our Locomotive...” shows a person in public life after perestroika, displayed on canvas to a portrait image. “Self Portrait 1997” gives an idea of the breadth of the artistic talent of I. Simonov in the conditions of the artist's self-awareness in a completely different, unusual environment for life and work. This is a quasi-portrait of the era and the tragedy of its contemporary in the mirror of history. Other paintings of this time are mentioned occasionally in the article, supplementing our knowledge about the creative heritage of the artist, who lived most of his life in the Urals, in Sverdlovsk (later Ekaterinburg), until 2019.