The Artist Petar Dachev in Plamak Magazine

The article has a cultural-historical character, aiming to briefly present the biography and the first steps in art of an unfamous Bulgarian artist - Peter Dachev, as 2021 marks 125 years since his birth. What is taken into consideration are the reviews for his debut solo exhibition in Sofia in 1924, which impressed the art critics of the time with its originality and modernity. Special emphasis is placed on the artist’s presence on the pages of Plamak Magazine – an issue not previously taken into account. Based on archival information, it became known and commented that Peter Dachev made an attempt at fiction writing in Geo Milev’s edition, where the artist wrote under a pen name. The study is richly illustrated, with some of the images being published for the first time.

Dark Corporeality: Blood, Vampires and Erotics in the British TV Series “Dracula” 2020. Part 1.

The article analyzes the plot tropes of the British mini-series “Dracula”, produced by screenwriters S. Moffat and M. Gatiss, creators of the even more popular TV series “Sherlock”. The new “Dracula”, a mixture of black comedy and body horror, was produced by the BBC and shown on the streaming platform NETFLIX in 2020. The mini-series received the most controversial appraisals from viewers and art critics: from very enthusiastic to sharply negative. The author of this article examines the plot of the series “Dracula” and offers her own version of decoding its meanings. The article sequentially examines the artistic techniques used by famous British screenwriters to create visual and emotional effects, such as black humor, hypertext, queerbaiting, sexual seduction, the “defeated expectancy” trop etc.

Era Modenisme dan Pascamodenisme: Suatu Transformasi Seni Visual dalam Konteks Sosio-Budaya

This paperwork discusses some theories between modernist and post-modernist thinking that have been evolved in society. The presence of post-modernist thought is said to be anti-modernist. Thus, the question is whether it emerges as anticipation or the occurrence of a transformation shift at its pace in driving the development of art and culture. The objective of this study is to discuss the changing trends of art practitioners in the context of visual art and culture phenomenon today since the era of modernism. However. to what extent is the presence of post-modernist thinking that is said to be anti-modernism put into practice or is modernist thinking dead? The statement also dissects various notions or is it true that there is no precise and clear interpretation or understanding between "modern art" and "postmodern art"? This is also marked by the emergence of various interpretations and the existence of polemics or discussions among scholars, especially in the discourse of art and culture. This study is using secondary research based on various theories of disciplines and conducting an interview with art critics and art historians in resolving this question. Although there are various doubts in the separation between "modernism" and "postmodernism" but it provides an interesting input that is often associated with the emergence of some characteristics of the postmodern era thought and style that differs in terms of ideas, concepts, approaches, materials, appearance, presentation, ideas, interpretation and it is meaning that leads to the transformation of visual arts in the current socio-cultural context.

Alexander Samokhvalov's picture frames : tradition and innovation

In recent years, two contradictory trends related to the study and display of picture frames have emerged in Russian museums. On the one hand, these works have at last caught the attention of scholars leading to publications on the evolution of art framing in Russia. However, the framing of paintings in museums is still not carried out on the basis of conducted research. In the light of a rapidly developing frame market, art historians and art critics have been increasingly replacing historical frames with massproduced ones, while disregarding historical reliability and authenticity of the frames, or the need to follow the author’s conception. Meanwhile, it is known that artists of different eras, as a rule, paid great attention to the selection of picture frames, with some among them, like A. N. Samokhvalov, creating their own. Thus, the purpose of the article is to examine the frames made by Samokhvalov, as well as to draw attention to the question of the author’s original picture framing. Samokhvalov’s frames are characterized by their unique design, which greatly affects the perception of the painting. Despite the fact that there exists a considerable body of art historical studies dedicated to the artist’s work, none of the researchers took notice of the problem of the picture framing. The article is the first to provide a scholarly introduction of designs and drawings of Samokhvalov’s frames, as well as works of art created on their basis. The artist’s frames from the collections of various museums have been attributed according to a comparative analysis. Likewise, traditional and innovative features in the works of Samokhvalov have been revealed as a result of stylistic assessment and comparison of frames produced by the artist with picture frames of the 17th – 20th centuries. The article illuminates the unexplored facet of the artist’s work presenting it in a new light. The research will not only allow to further preserve the unique frames of Samokhvalov in Russian museums, but also exhibit his works in accordance with the author’s intention.

TRANSFORMATION OF TRADITIONAL CRAFT INTO MODERN ARTISTIC BLACKSMITHING

The subject of the study is the author's special culturological approach to the development of modern domestic artistic blacksmithing, that is based on specific examples of the use of traditions and the involvement of innovative components in the development of blacksmithing. The article highlights the historical stages of development of blacksmithing as a craft of the past and its transformation into modern art. The purpose of the study is to try to determine the factors that directly influenced the overall formation of the state of modern Ukrainian blacksmithing.The methodology of the study is based on the principles of creative activity of blacksmiths, the study of scientific works of modern blacksmith theorists, art critics, culturologists and is aimed at comprehensive awareness of the specialized link of fine arts - artistic blacksmithing of Ukraine in the last third of the twentieth century to the present day and the factors that influenced the process of destruction and revival of ancient craft. Methods that were applied in the course of the study are comparative-historical, typological, systemic, analytical, source-critical. The author also used an interviewing method involving audio recording to create a database.Key words: Artistic blacksmithing, blacksmith, art, traditions, innovations.

How artworks modify our perception of the world

Many artists, art critics, and poets suggest that an aesthetic appreciation of artworks may modify our perception of the world, including quotidian things and scenes. I call this Art-to-World, AtW. Focusing on visual artworks, in this paper I articulate an empirically-informed account of AtW that is based on content-related views of aesthetic experience, and on Goodman’s and Elgin’s concept of exemplification. An aesthetic encounter with artworks demands paying attention to its aesthetic, expressive, or design properties that realize its purpose. Attention to these properties make percipients better able to spot them in other entities and scenes as well. The upshot is that an aesthetic commerce with artworks enlarges the scope of what we are able to see and has therefore momentous epistemic consequences.

The Uncanny Mirror: Der Student von Prag (1913)

The first German film to excite art critics was simultaneously a milestone in the history of special effects. Der Student von Prag was co-created by some of Germany’s most ardent early cinephiles with the goal to demonstrate the feasibility of film art. Proceeding from techno-romantic assumptions, they construed artistic filmmaking as the articulation of ideas and feelings through the imaginative application of the medium’s technological assets, specifically location shots and trick effects. Consequently, Der Student von Prag depicts the intrusion of an uncanny doppelganger into a real-life setting, the mystical city of Prague. As a vehicle for abstract notions, the horrific double thus bore witness to cinema’s ability to convey figurative meaning and participate in the life of the mind.

‘Mirages and visions in the air’

Around the year 1900, European discourse on art was becoming increasingly ‘esotericized’. The 1890s saw esoteric art salons create a sensation in Paris, and art critics and theorists painted a picture of the true artist and the esotericist as overlapping figures. There was also at the time a conflict regarding mediumistic art, a phenomenon initially made popular through Spiritualist mediums. This debate, as we shall see, had interesting gendered dimensions. In what follows, I will discuss how the Swedish female esotericist and artist Tyra Kleen (1874–1951) attempted to situate herself in connection to the concept of the artist as a magus, and the tensions between the positive view of mediumism in Spiritualism and the more negative or cautious approach to it in Theosophy, as well as in relation to the attendant gender issues.

Beware the Semmelweis Reflex

The tendency to reject new information that contradicts prevailing norms has haunted the field of medicine, sometimes with deadly results. It took decades to adopt the practice of handwashing between physicians’ conduct of human autopsies and attending to women in labor. Something similar has happened with art critics, says Michelle Marder Kamhi. The idea that the fine arts are primarily representational has been a bitter pill for academic philosophers of art to swallow.

RUSSIAN ARTHOUSE FILMS OF THE EARLY XXI CENTURY: FEATURES OF ARTISTIC STYLE

Contemporary Russian theater and cinema are approving a new aesthetic paradigm that implements such principles of postmodernism as deconstruction, relativism, a mixture of various types, genres, and stylistic devices. The purpose of this article is to identify the most characteristic stylistic features of Russian arthouse films of the 21st century. The author’s task was to show that this style is not something radically new, as some art critics and cultural experts try to present. Using the methods of hermeneutic, art history and comparative analysis, the author identifies the methods and techniques of creating a special art space that are characteristic of modern Russian arthouse. These are combining real and conditional, concrete and symbolic, psychology and parable, recognition of everyday realities and explicit functionality of the characters. Based on the idea expressed by a number of scientists that there is much in common between the state of the modern world (that is, what is now called postmodernism) and the public consciousness of the Middle Ages, the author of the article puts forward a hypothesis about the similarity of the stylistic techniques of the Russian arthouse with the aesthetics of the Middle Ages. First of all, arthouse films bring closer to the literature and art of the Middle Ages such a characteristic as hybridism, i.e. combining different styles in one work, in particular, combining a realistic image with a parable form and symbols and an artistic interpretation of space as a background that weakly interacts with characters. First of all, Russian arthouse films brings closer to the literature and art of the Middle Ages such a characteristic as hybridism, i.e. combining different styles in one work, using, along with a realistic depiction of the parable form and symbols and artistic interpretation of space as a background that weakly interacts with characters. One of the reasons for the emergence of a new aesthetic interpretation of art space in modern Russian literature and cinema was the radical changes that took place in Russia in the 1990s. The disappearance from the world map of a huge country called the USSR and the loss of familiar landmarks and stereotypes could not but affect the worldview of artists, writers and filmmakers trying to artistically comprehend what is happening. The conclusion that follows from the analysis is that many principles of the aesthetics of postmodernism were reflected in the style of the arthouse films of 21st century, with the exception of such traits inherent in the best postmodern examples as humor, irony, game element and non-linearity of narration. The coexistence of real and clearly conditional art space in such films contributes to the fact that the cinematic texture contradicts conditional situations and characters, causing the viewer to feel art inorganic. Analyzing the perception of art films by experts and the audience, the author concludes that the assessments of art critics and viewers are largely diverging for the same reason: viewers mostly perceive author films as works of a realistic style but can not find in them psychological characteristics of the heroes and the motivation of their actions, i.e. the traits inherent in realism; experts evaluate these films based on the presence of the elements of symbolism and metaphorism and metaphysical and universal image of reality.