Vol 1, No 1 (2020)

The logic of the modern era prepared the way for the birth of “non-classical” art as it was a part of the growing distrust of rationalism. Skepticism of the classics came as a consequence of the crisis of classical rationalism that erupted in European culture starting in the 1830’s. The new art focused on ways of expression that cast doubt on the absolute norms of classical art. In painting, this was manifested in the prevalence of pictoriality (color-light relations) over plasticity (the primacy of the line, drawing), the dynamic over the static, atectonics over tectonics, and a shift from the central axis of the picture in favor of so-called “landscape vision,” in which the painting has several centers at once. Artists of the post-classical age (including the present) understand that life presents a completely different picture of the world and their works reflect a contradictory era, expressed by colors, lines, complex composition, deformed space, and displacement of the painting’s fixed center. The language of painting dramatically changed. The tried and tested elements of classical art were unsuitable for depicting the dramatic and tragic collisions of modern times. In the sharp, painful, depressing images of Egon Schiele, Rene Magritte, Francis Bacon, Anselm Kiefer, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, modern philosophical art captures the conditions of unhealthy eroticism, loneliness, acute anxiety-an existential impasse, almost an anthropological disaster. Nevertheless, all of the creators listed have a powerful style. The works of these twentieth-century artists do not fit into any expected, familiar format but are full of hidden vitality. A number of examples of non-classical art demonstrate that in their own unique ways these painters are not afraid to confront the problem of good and evil.

This paper examines opera drama in Mozart’s oeuvre. The individuality of Mozart’s style; the “poly-generic” quality of his works for the stage; and the presence of devices to portray characters common to different types of opera (buffa, singspiel); make it possible to talk about the composer creating a special genre of opera. This paper proposes to define this as “Mozartian drama.” It considers the genre of dramma giocoso (playful drama) to be its dramaturgical basis. The paper analyses the musical and dramatic material of the opera “Cosi fan tutte,” considering its composition and features of its musical language, and comes to a conclusion about the composer’s new understanding of its genre. In the course of the research, the author notes that Mozart transformed traditional operatic features. He establishes a special type of relationship between the performative and lyrical-psychological spheres of the operatic text and thereby generates a number of dramatic and compositional innovations. Comparing “Cosi fan tutte” to Mozart’s stage works of the 80-90s, the article also outlines the formation of the basic principles of “Mozartian drama.”

The article is devoted to the current state of interdisciplinary research in the field of intermediate (“synthetic”) arts, in which one of the expressive linkages is the artistic word. The author focuses on the arts in which one person creates all of the “subtexts” (subsystems) of the artistic intermedia text. Such instances occur in literature and song lyrics. The song combines word, music and “speech theater” of the performer, but research into the synthesis of these three “subtexts” is rare. Most researchers do not study phonograms (video recording), but rather the interlinear (paper) text. Much meaning is lost due to this methodological approach. The author of the article demonstrates the multidimensionality of song and poetic texts using examples from Vladimir Vysotsky and Alexander Bashlachev. The songs by these authors are semantically rich and markedly performative, where part of the meaning derives from articulation and voice modulation. Articulation creates at least three semantic effects that complement the verbal text. These are: the creation of a system of speech characters; the materialization of the poetic text (for example - sound imitation); and plot correction. Recipients will miss a number of meanings important for understanding the song if they sight-read the song and do not listen to the phonogram. The author of the article believes that for the study of artistic objects of mixed semiosis it is necessary to create a special branch of knowledge (intermediology).

The article examines the notion of “information war” and the possibilities of the manipulative effect of titles in the English language press on readers’ perceptions. Information war is a combination of communicative practices meant to influence people’s consciousness by specific use of linguistic units in order to acquire information supremacy for strategic purposes. Titles in the press produce an initial impact on readers thanks to visual perception and eye-catching features. Manipulative linguocultural influence is often realized in titles through using linguistic units with negative connotations, particular phraseological units and their transformations, as well as by employing various stylistic practices and rhetorical figures. The most widely used means are metaphors, hyperboles, puns and rhetorical questions. The pragmatic effects include: a shift in the processing of reality; shaping and developing recipients’ emotional, illogical attitude toward facts and events; transformation of their linguocultural picture of the world in an ideologically targeted direction; and constructing a new social reality and changing public opinion on the basis of distorted information.

In this article, problems of development of the art of illustrating children’s books are considered for the first time in a chronological framework, from the end of the 18th - early 20th century. The main milestones of its formation--the unique “handwriting” of individual authors and associations, and vectors of aesthetic influence that allow us to find a complex synthesis of traditions in graphic images--are outlined. The article uses archival materials and studies little-known examples of book graphics. A children’s book may rightfully be considered one of the foundations of a child’s spiritual education. The illustrations are no less important than the text - they contribute to a deeper perception and awareness of the book’s material and introduce young readers to the world of fine art. However, understanding the importance of illustrations in a book for children’s reading did not come immediately to Russian artists, writers and publishers, and only developed at the end of the 19th century, when views of child psychology and pedagogy changed. A turning point for Russian culture, the turn of the 19th-20th centuries was also a time for changes in children’s book design. Many masters, often already known for their paintings and graphic art, now tried their hand in this area. Children’s book illustration has a special artistic language, different from images for books designed for an adult audience. The appearance of “picture books,” where illustrations predominate over the text, reflects this difference. The authors note that at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, Russian design of children’s books achieved a high professional level. Artists made use of older traditions of book illustration starting from the 17th century and created striking examples of domestic graphic art.

Предисловие к интервью с философом, филологом, культурологом, заслуженным профессором теории культуры и русской литературы университета Эмори (Атланта, США) Михаилом Эпштейном