Evgeny Kibrik’s Unknown Artworks in the Context of Pavel Filonov’s Natural Philosophy

This study focuses on the development and changes in the visual language of E.A. Kibrik in the conditions of co-participation in the system of philosophical values of P.N. Filonov and his school. There is explored the process of sign interpretation in illustrations of graphic and symbolic art language of E.A. Kibrik as a component of P.N. Filonov’s natural philosophy doctrine. The notion of “analytic art” or “analytic method” can be considered primarily as an innovative development of P.N. Filonov, which is characterized by the concept of artist-researcher based on the disclosure of the “purity” of forms by analytical means.

In the context of studying the creative thinking of E.A. Kibrik during the Filonov period, it seems significant to consider the conjunction of problems in illustrating literary works with the method of natural philosophical pictorialism and technical expressiveness of details. E.A Kibrik’s works allow us to identify the themes, psychological and social motivations that are characteristic of Filonov’s doctrine, as well as to raise the question of the incompleteness of the search for style and artistic language in that period of time.

The ideology of the new time, identical to the innovative content of the Russian avant-garde, was also manifested in the works of E.A. Kibrik in the late 1920s — early 1930s. His role in the general process of creating a paradoxical art reality is defined primarily by the influence of P.N. Filonov, a theorist and master of analytical art. The study is especially relevant because it analyzes previously unexplored and unpublished works by E.A. Kibrik of the Filonov period (1930) from the family collection of art historian A.A. Agamirova and Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts B.F. Belsky. The article presents E.A. Kibrik’s unknown drawings that are the result of the artist’s first creative business trip. The unexplored graphic sheets reveal the multi-variant nature of the artist’s method and his experimental approach, which has largely remained unknown to a wide audience.

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