Russian Animalism in Relation to Other Genres of Fine Art in the History of Russian Culture of the 18th—19th Centuries

The article deals with the historical-cultural topic of relations of the Russian animalism with other genres of fine art of the 18th and 19th centuries. When the features of animalistic art were identified as a peculiar and characteristic phenomenon open to interaction, animalism became an original page of Russian culture. The author refers to this topic in connection with the small number of complex studies in the field of animalism. The purpose of the article is to consider the specific features of animalism, as a characteristic original phenomenon of Russian artistic culture, in the context of the existing genre system of the two designated periods. The relevance of the article lies in the fact that the issues of interaction and integration are very significant in historical and modern artistic practice. The demonstration of such “communications” on the example of Russian animalistic painting, graphics, and sculpture further enriches and diversifies the sphere of Russian art, giving it the character of integrity and national color.The article presents a review of Russian and foreign literature on this topic, indicates that animalism entered the system of genres of Russian art of the 18th—19th centuries as a special “genus” of it, showing an independent status. For two centuries, artists set their task to create an animal’s image in the sphere of the natural reality they observed. The nature they perceived and the animals in it were reflected in different genres of fine art. In the 18th century, when the Academy of Arts and related classes were organized in Russia, animals and birds began to be depicted in historical, battle, landscape paintings, and still lifes. Wild and domestic animals appeared in paintings by foreign and Russian masters. In the 19th century, the horse became one of the most preferred characters in portraiture and sculpture (along with the historical and landscape genre). The author concludes that the historical realities of that time highlighted that image and determined the formation of a separate “hippic genre”.

Genus Six Curves, K3 Surfaces, and Stable Pairs

A general smooth curve of genus six lies on a quintic del Pezzo surface. Artebani and Kondō [ 4] construct a birational period map for genus six curves by taking ramified double covers of del Pezzo surfaces. The map is not defined for special genus six curves. In this paper, we construct a smooth Deligne–Mumford stack ${\mathfrak{P}}_0$ parametrizing certain stable surface-curve pairs, which essentially resolves this map. Moreover, we give an explicit description of pairs in ${\mathfrak{P}}_0$ containing special curves.

Soft-body preservation in the leaiid clam shrimp (Branchiopoda, Diplostraca) and its palaeoecological implications

Leaia is a special genus of extinct “conchostracan” branchiopods; its soft parts have not been known until now. The leaiid specimens with soft bodies reported in the present paper came from two localities: the Upper Carboniferous Canso Group of New Brunswick, Canada, and the Permian Mount Glossopteris Formation of the Ohio Range, Holick Mountains, Antarctica. They include head, biramous antennae, mandible, shell gland, male claspers, and digestive tube. These parts together fully demonstrate that the leaiid clam shrimp indeed should be attributed to the crustaceans, instead of Mollusca. Based on the ribbed valves and structure of soft parts it should be placed in the branchiopodan Diplostraca. We believe that this group, which went extinct at the end of the Permian, is quite different from those of Laevicaudata, Spinicaudata, and Cyclestheriida. Hence, it should have its own higher taxon, Leaiina. The well-developed and sharply pointed head, delicate and short biramous antennae, in concert with the radial ribs on the valves probably indicate a burrowing in-faunal habit.

Niethammerella Eichler, a senior synonym of Kaysius Price & Clayton (Phthiraptera: Amblycera: Menoponidae)

Eichler (1954: 52) briefly described the new genus Niethammerella to include two morphologically similar species of lice: Machaerilaemus cotingae Carriker, 1949 and M. tityrus (Carriker, 1903), designating the former as the type species. Carriker (1949: 298) had already commented that M. cotingae and M. tityrus “… may warrant the erection of a special genus for their reception.” and that prompted Eichler (1954) to erect Niethammerella. The bird hosts of these two louse species belong to different, though closely related passerine families, that of M. cotingae to the Cotingidae, and M. tityrus to the Tyrannidae.