An artist who finds themselves in the last days of a war in the enemy’s defeated capital may not just fix its objects dispassionately. Many factors influence the selection and depicturing manner of the objects. One of the factors is satisfaction from the accomplished retribution, awareness of the historical justice triumph. Researchers think such reactions are inevitable. The article offers to consider from this point of view the drawings created by Soviet artists in Berlin in the spring and summer of 1945. Such an analysis of the German capital’s visual image is conducted for the first time. It shows that the above reactions were not the only ones. The graphics of the first post-war days no less clearly and consistently express other feelings and intentions of their authors: the desire to accurately document and fix the image of the city and some of its structures in history, the happiness from the silence of peace, and the simple interest in the monuments of European art.

The article examines Berlin scenes as evidences of the transition from front-line graphics focused on the visual recording of the war traces to peacetime graphics; from documentary — to artistry; from the worldview of a person at war — to the one of a person who lived to victory. In this approach, it has been important to consider the graphic images of Berlin in unity with the diary and memoir texts belonging to both artists and ordinary soldiers who participated in the storming of Berlin. The combination of verbal and visual sources helps to present the German capital’s image that existed in the public consciousness, as well as the specificity of its representation by means of visual art.

The article presents an analysis of the materials of the International Scientific Conference “Dialogue of Cultures in the Era of Globalization and Digitalization” held in Yekaterinburg on the basis of the Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin. The conference was attended by representatives of universities and cultural institutions of five countries: the Russian Federation, the Republic of Belarus, Hungary, the Republic of India, and the People’s Republic of China. The Russian Federation was represented by both the Central District and the regions of the Far East, Siberia and the Urals, as well as a number of autonomous republics: Buryatia, Mordovia, Sakha-Yakutia, and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug. The number of conference participants, despite the difficult situation of the pandemic in which we all found ourselves, was indicative — 78 people, including 38 doctors of science and 25 candidates of science representing various humanities disciplines, ten university teachers, three postgraduate students and two independent participants.

The conference materials were divided into four sections in accordance with the statement of scientific problems: 1. “Sociocultural Issues and State Cultural Policy in the Era of Globalization”, 2. “Issues of Preservation and Representation of Cultural Heritage of Different Peoples”, 3. “The Internet as a Space for Dialogue and Polylogue of Cultures. New Media Technologies”, 4. “Education and Creativity in the Era of the Digital Revolution”. The conference was attended by many famous scientists — representatives of the humanities of leading Russian universities.

All the materials and speeches of the scientific conference show that it resulted in proof that only culture and intercultural dialogue in the era of chaos and contradictions of the globalized world can neutralize international conflicts and lead the world to harmony and mutual understanding.

Research in the field of cross-cultural communications in the context of modern globalization processes is becoming particularly relevant. Each specific case in cross-cultural interaction has a set of specific features that require detailed study. The article discusses the features of Russian-Chinese cross-cultural communication in the field of fine art, which have been especially pronounced since the second half of the 20th century and until now. The analysis of generally accepted types of communication made it possible to show specific forms of interaction between Russia and China.

There is demonstrated that these features are largely related to the fact that the process of cross-cultural interaction occurs not only at the level of communication between representatives of the two peoples, but also in the process of artistic and stylistic exchange at the level of art works perception. Thus, cross-cultural communication refers to the process of information exchange at different levels. Russian-Chinese communication features include the intrapersonal perception of Russian art, style and genre features of the Russian realistic school, that influenced the style of Chinese artists; the interaction between individual artists and students, the unique contacts between a teacher-master and a student studying individually in the art studio. In the period under review, the communications were often unilateral — Chinese students and artists adopting the traditions of the Russian realistic school of painting, both by inviting Russian artists to China and studying in Russia. The specificity is also shown in the interaction between professional creative unions of artists, joint holding of exhibitions, and organization of plein-airs, during which a multi-level exchange of cultures can happen.

The article examines the trend, widespread in modern art and design, to draw inspiration from preceding styles and directions that have remained in one form or another as historical memory and as artifacts existing in the same cultural and information space. The design culture reached its highest level in the field of prototype design during the last phase of modernism in the middle of the 20th century. The postmodern era has broken this tradition. The rejection of modernism as an outdated artistic and creative approach and the search for new ways and methods of design were reflected in the alternative areas of design of the second half of the 1960s, such as radical design and anti-design, which later resulted in redesign and banal design. Rejecting the achievements of modernism with its cult of aesthetics and functionality, and relying on self-expression, designers of the new generation have abandoned attempts to form and develop universal models with a high degree of subordination to aesthetic norms and values, but nevertheless turned to modernism and earlier styles and eras as sources of inspiration. Therefore, it is no accident that a characteristic feature of the design of the turn of the 20th—21st centuries is the endless self-repetition, while redesign and retro design can be considered the key methods of modern design and creation of artworks. In the near future, this situation may, probably, lead to the fact that art and culture will no longer produce original products and ideas. In this regard, the attractiveness, especially for the younger generation, of forms, genres, and techniques that have existed for decades is a cause for concern. Appropriation, reference, and recursion have become typological features of design. Giving opposing opinions on this issue, this article suggests to reflect on the question: should the constant reversion of culture to its past and the related substitution of the novelty of genuine innovation be considered as a positive or negative phenomenon?.

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”.

The article considers the emergence and development features of the symbolic and emblematic system of children’s portraits in the 18th century. Children’s portraits, as well as the history of childhood in general, attract more and more attention of Russian and Western researchers; the largest museums of the country and the world devote their exhibition projects to this subject. This paper shows, for the first time, how symbols have been “reinterpreted” in accordance with the changes in the attitude of Russian society to the nature of childhood and in the artistic environment at that time, the “formulas” of its presentation in art. The article considers in detail the specifics of using a number of attributes by Russian artists in the context of children’s portrait images: books, floral symbols, animals and birds, toys and other items. As examples, there are considered the works of “capital” and “provincial” artists of the 18th century: I.Ya. Vishnyakov, F.S. Rokotov, D.G. Levitsky, V.L. Borovikovsky, as well as a number of authors whose names remain unknown. Special attention is paid to the issue of borrowing symbols, signs and metaphors from Western European art, their adaptation and transformation in Russian painting, taking into account national ideas about children and their subject environment. The article concludes that the children’s portrait symbolic sphere went through a difficult path during the 18th century, from a tool for personifying the male or female adulthood of a young model to creating the image of a child as a romantic symbol of the world of childhood, an elusive ideal.

This article investigates the development of the 20th century ballet genre on the example of the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881—1945). The study aims to reveal the features of B. Bartók’s ballets in the context of trends in Western European art of the 20th century and to show the composer’s innovative techniques. The article identifies specific musical formative means that reflect the genre definition of “pantomime”, and emphasizes his innovation. The early 20th century ballet art is an extremely bright phenomenon associated with the active search for new ways of developing the genre, which took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Classical ballet, which had reached its peak in the works of the Russian ballet school and the works of M. Petipa, was suddenly recognized as outdated and unviable. The new generation of choreographers sought to refute, to a certain extent, the genre’s old laws. The idea of searching for new means of expression became the leading one, and the canon of classical choreography was replaced by pantomime and a new unusual dance technique, which later became known as modern dance. B. Bartók’s ballets “The Wooden Prince” (1917) and “The Miraculous Mandarin” (1919) are examples of the new type of ballet performance of the early 20th century. The article shows that the composer focused on creating a symphonic score corresponding to the ideas of pantomime. His appeal to this had been primarily dictated by the librettos themselves, in which B. Balázs and M. Lengyel had defined the work character in this way. Naturally, the rejection of classical ballet’s traditional forms influenced the works’ compositional features. The article demonstrates that the scores of “The Wooden Prince” and “The Miraculous Mandarin” are distinguished by a new approach to the musical structure, in which the principles of instrumental forms play a significant role. At the same time, each of the ballets expresses the dialectical pair of “canon and heuristic” in its own way: “The Wooden Prince” retains to a certain extent the flair of classical ballet; in “The Miraculous Mandarin”, this genre pattern is violated almost ostentatiously. In this work, B. Bartók’s appeal to such an anti-classical subject reflects the era’s new trends associated with the artistic movement of expressionism. In the Hungarian composer’s ballets, the dualism of the traditional and the innovative gives rise to a different type of ballet score itself.

The main idea of the article is to address the phenomenon of dancing as a type of creative activity in the modus of self-identification. Sociocultural (self-)identification within the framework of art is taken as the process and space of forming an outline — personal and collective — in relation to certain groups of values, norms and traditions, as a way to discover the boundaries of reflexivity and the possibility of their representation in an artistic act. Basing on the interpretation of reflection as self-directed thinking, this article solves the problem of showing the potential of art in general, and dancing in particular, in the aspect of formation and preservation of identity parameters. The identity is considered as the result of constructing metaphysical supports and methods of self-representation in the widest range: national, religious, ideological, gender, but above all — the actual artistic-stylistic one. In addition to the obvious value of beauty and harmony, the article highlights expressiveness and authenticity as the main axiological guidelines for the art of choreography. The author analyzes the high communicative potential of dancing as a type of artistic activity both at the professional and amateur levels. The article focuses on the specifics of self-identification procedures in the space of modern dance, interpreted in this context in a wide chronological field — from the emergence of “free dance” by Isadora Duncan to current trends in postmodern dance, “contemporary dance” and performative practices. The study concludes that dancing has a high axiological potential as an artistic activity that combines physical and metaphysical practices.

The article is devoted to the history of Antwerp printed books, which, in the first half of the 17th century, underwent a profound transformation caused by the influence of the Baroque style emerging in the Netherlands, with its characteristic contrast, dynamism and intensity of images, and combination of reality and illusion. The author demonstrates the Baroque book development by the example of the sources that she first introduces into scientific circulation: books stored in the Research Department of Rare Books (Book Museum) of the Russian State Library (RSL). The article gives examples of the formation of a new allegorical thinking of the Baroque, in which allegory became the norm of artistic vocabulary. The new allegorical imagery is noted in the title pages and illustrations of books that characterize the printing of that period. The Antwerp printer Balthazar Moretus (1574—1641) was an excellent master of this new Baroque book. By using leading artists to design his books, he took an important step in the development of book design. There are well known publications by B. Moretus featuring beautiful title pages designed by his friend Peter Paul Rubens (1577—1640). The typical appearance of text sheets is also the result of the use of elegant fonts, rich design and abundance of decorative elements. The article analyzes the influence of Rubens on the Baroque book formation in Antwerp.

The Russian piano school is a unique phenomenon in the global cultural space, a multifaceted and creative phenomenon, a source of creative insights and vivid interpretations. The history of Russian piano performance is deeply and comprehensively studied and is characterized by a wide semantic range. A special place in it is occupied by educational and methodical literature produced by major music publishers in Moscow and St. Petersburg during their formation and development.

The appeal to this topic is connected with the need to create a primary idea of the activities of music publishers for the production of educational materials in the historical dynamics and perspective. This complex process can be perceived as a synthesis of European traditions and Russian experience — a multidimensional multifunctional landscape of the era, illustrative reflection of important events in the cultural life of the country.

The specificity of the problem has an impressive demonstration volume. It includes the strategy and tactics of development of Russian music publishing companies, production of educational and scientific-methodical literature by Russian and foreign authors, stages in the development of piano art, increase in the production output, achievements of the Russian piano school and its unique pedagogical experience.

“P. Jurgenson” company’s catalogues, stored in the Russian State library, reflect the trends and directions that were dominant in the educational literature for piano. They include well-established, tested methods of piano playing, collections of exercises, and anthologies that enriched the pedagogical repertoire with compositions to develop of the technical base of students and expand the arsenal of its expressive means. The study aims at a primary classification of “P. Jurgenson” publishing house’s educational resources recorded in its catalogues of the late 19th — early 20th century.

Index of the Materials

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