“LUCIFER” AND DEMONIC FIGURES IN THE WORKS OF PUSHKIN AND LERMONTOV

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of demonic images and plots in the works of Pushkin and Lermontov about the Demon and in the series “Lucifer” by Netflix. Perhaps this topic goes beyond the scope of scientific discourse, but now the series enjoys such popularity that it has become perhaps the most binged show. This explains the decision of the author of the article to draw parallels between literary masterpieces and not their film adaptations, but a product of popular culture. Of course, the creators of the series did not read Russian literature, but typological similarities are obvious and can be revealed. As a result of the analysis, the series “Lucifer” can be understood as a completely human story of “the most dysfunctional family in the universe”. Our interpretation throws light on it in the aspects of rethinking biblical motives, the provisions of the Christian faith and literary tradition.

VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGIES: EXAMPLES AND PROBLEMS OF STUDY

The article is devoted to a retrospective analysis of the causes of the appearance of representations of mental diseases in the visual field and the problems of visualization of pathologies on the example of cases and artworks of the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. The problems and points of interaction between art and psychiatry are touched upon, the reasons for the appearance of psychiatric illustration, the commonwealth of psychiatry and photography, and the genre of medical portraits are analyzed. As a result, it can be concluded that psychiatric photography, medical portraits and psychiatric illustrations inherited previously existing aesthetic and representative traditions, as well as cultural and historical ideas about mental diseases, which in turn gave rise to symptoms. Such a visual “dead end” has created a problem of representation, which also exists in contemporary art. Thus, the “objective” representation of psychopathologies in art is still problematic and requires analysis and search for solutions.

THE BODY IN THE HISTORY OF WESTERN EUROPEAN AND RUSSIAN THEATRE: CULTURAL VARIABILITY OF SHAME

Modern scientific knowledge approaches the study of the physical and aesthetic bodies with a considerable body of texts. However, on the territory of the theater, the body is still considered exclusively from the point of view of the actor's artistic tools. Theatrical physicality and the character of physical empathy in the theater are not limited to the boundaries of the performing arts, but exist in close relationship with the visual and empirical experience of the spectator, performer, and director. The aesthetic and ethical aspect of the attitude to the body in the history of theatrical art has repeatedly changed, including under the influence of changing cultural criteria of "shameful". The culmination of the demarcation of theatrical shame, it would seem, should be an act of pure art, independent of the moral restrictions of society. However, the experiments of modern theater continue to face archaic ethical views. The article attempts to understand the cultural variability of such a phenomenon as shame in its historical and cultural extent using examples from theater art from antiquity to the present day.

MIKHAIL VRUBEL IN SEARCH OF THE “STYLISHLY BEAUTIFUL”. THE BIOGRAPHICAL ASPECT

The article is a conceptual exploration of the life and creative path of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910) in the context of the individual characteristics of his personality. The relevance of this study is determined by the need to find new conceptual angles in the field of understanding the idealistic component of M.A. Vrubel's work, i.e. in the field of his iconographic poetics. The visual myth-making of the artist, who drew on authentic spiritual prototypes, defined the leading role of Vrubel not only in Russian Symbolism and Modernism, but also in Modernism as a whole. The linking of the biographical aspect with M.A. Vrubel's poetic thinking, examined through the prism of “pure art”, i.e. in the context of the idea of the legitimacy of the independent existence of the self-contained reality of the work, can give entirely new accents of understanding the deep origins and potential meanings of the artist's work at the present stage of development of art history.

THE ORNAMENT CONCEPT IN THE MANIFESTOS OF THE ARCHITECT B. TSCHUMI

The article elevates the problem of studying ornamental forms in architecture. Ornament in the context of deconstructivism seems to be a paradoxical phenomenon, but, nevertheless, its presence is marked by the conceptual texts of deconstructivist architects. The ornament is studied as a formal aspect, the structure of which is able to involve, link and produce a number of essential characteristics that determine architectural shaping. Ornament is interconnected with form, semantic, communicative, and formal aspects that are integrated and localized in the concepts, form, and space of architecture. The research is based on the concepts, manifestations and theoretical research of the deconstructivist architect Bernard Tschumi. The research is aimed at expanding the subject field of ornamental form in the direction of conceptual and structural aspects. The phenomenon of the ornamental form is revealed as a multiplicity of abstract structural equivalents, where the connections between the subject and abstract aspects of the structure of the ornamental form are paradoxically actualized.

“SEMIOTICS OF DISTINCTION”: THE ANALYSIS OF FASHION DISCOURSE IN THE “KOMMERSANT” NEWSPAPER (CASE STUDY, TEXTS PUBLISHED IN 2009)

The article analyzes the reviews of female and male fashion collections published in the “Style” supplement of the “Kommersant” newspaper during the year 2009. The “Kommersant”, the leading quality publication in Russia in the 2000s, positioned itself as a media for the financial, political and cultural elite of the country, and thus presented a case extremely interesting for discourse analysis. Namely, the world financial crisis of 2008 turned out to be a threat situation to the status quo of the elites of the moment. The situation required articulation of the belonging to the group (elite), more intense than before the crisis. I examined how the system of status markers – the discursive “semiotics of distinction” proposed to the target audience as a strategy for group identification – was constructed in the “Kommersant. Style”: the “consumption of restraint” as a metaphor for “resilience” in the face of the crisis becomes the leading recommendation of the discourse. Putting the results into the context of the 2010s, it can be realized that the idea of “restraint” in consumer behavior transcends the elitist discourse and is popularized in the field of mainstream publications.

THE TYPOLOGY OF FEMALE IN THE REAR IMAGES IN “BEANPOLE” FILM BY KANTEMIR BALAGOV

In May 2019, the premiere of the film “Beanpole” by Russian director Kantemir Balagov, took place at the Cannes Film Festival and it became a notable event both on the French Riviera and in Russia. The drama tells the story of two young female front-line soldiers who defend their right to a decent peaceful life in post-blockade Leningrad. This movie also reveals the fate of the women in the rear who found themselves in a conflict with the returning female front-line soldiers. With the use of the descriptive-functional and comparative research methods, the authors of the article make the first attempt of scientific classification of the “women in the rear” images in “Beanpole” film from anthropological and psychological perspectives – a peasant woman Tatyana Belova and a highly-placed party worker Lyubov Petrovna. An analysis of secondary characters images helps to determine the severity of the consequences of the war, the parallel with the main heroines and adoption of the “military rules” in the post-war months, according to which, Soviet women were in the fiercest competition for men and family happiness.

STRATEGIES AND METHODOLOGICAL SCHEME OF CINEMA RESEARCH. THING AREA

In the second article from the cycle of works devoted to the analysis of existing and potentially possible algorithms of the research of cinematography, firstly, the logic of identifying an ontological scheme of the thing area of cinema studies, which for cinema studies itself is an unproblematic given, is described, and secondly, a theoretical model of one of the components of this scheme is constructed - material - available in the thing area of cinema studies regardless of the cognitive activity in relation to it. The resulting construction is a kind of “coordinate system” that fixes the key components of the researched and establishes the main functional connections between them. This scheme can be used both to introduce novice researchers into an understanding of the specifics of disciplinary cinema studies, and to unify of cinema studies researches. Also this construction is an important additional tool for thing-elimination of any existing representations in relation to cinematography, their coordination in relation to each other and systematization.

THE QUESTION OF FEMALE BODY IN ARCHITECTURAL THEORY IN THE LATE 20TH CENTURY

This article is devoted to the phenomenon of female body in the foreign theory of architecture in the 1980‑s–90‑s. The works of D. Agrest, E. Grosz, D. Bloomer and D. Fausch are examined in the present paper. There are two perspectives on the problem of female corporeality: poststructuralist and phenomenological. Jennifer Bloomer and Diane Agrest adopt a poststructuralist critical strategy in which the notion of the feminine is considered as the “Other” of the logocentric architectural discourse. Elisabeth Gross notes that women have always been displaced from the realm of architecture. This is indicated not only by the absence of female architects, but also by the fact that the inherent attributes of female corporeality have been completely disregarded. Diane Agrest suggests that these attributes were appropriated by male architects. The phenomenological perspective on the female corporeality is reflected in Deborah Fausch's concept of “feminist architecture”. “Feminist architecture” brings back the value of concrete, sensual bodily experience in the perception of architecture. The subject's perceptual experience through the body allows the semantic dimension to unfold in the building.

THE HISTORY OF THE CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART ON YAKIMANKA. ARCHIVE OPTICS

The history of the Center for Contemporary Art on Yakimanka is analyzed through the prism of archival documents that are stored in the Media Library of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts. The investigation of the all types of the archival documents allows us to consider the Centre for contemporary art not as an art institution but as the embodiment of the “artistic tusovka”. This term was suggested by Victor Misiano. The magnitude of the exhibition and other art projects that were created in the Center (the newspaper of contemporary art “Vernisage”, the magazine “Artograph”, the Curators’ workshop, Visual Anthropology workshop, etc.) confirms this hypothesis. Despite the weak institutional ties that characterize artistic tusovka, the Centre became one of the important milestones in the development of contemporary Russian art.