Vbulletin art artistic creativity. Visual arts

Folk art occupies a special place among other types of arts. Different types of art differ from each other in that they use different materials to create works of art: sculpture - marble, stone, wood; painting - with paints; literature - in a word.

Each type of art has its own special means of visual expression. In music, alternation and harmony of sounds are used, in choreography - plastic movements, in literature - the visual and expressive capabilities of words.

Folk artistic creativity dates back to ancient times, when people did not know how to write, so, naturally, it was characterized by an oral form of expression.

But folk art is not only oral poetry, not only the art of words. In some genres, it combines word and tune, as in a song, wood and painting, merges verbal, masterful and musical art, as well as theatrical art (gesture, facial expressions, intonation).

Folk art is a synthetic art that combines the features of several arts. When we say that the people are the creator of all traditions, it is necessary to keep in mind the historicity of the concept of people, to take into account changes in traditions during the development of society, their changes and withering away.

Radishchev saw in Russian folk songs “the formation of the soul of our people.” As Herzen aptly put it, “all the poetic principles that fermented in the soul of the Russian people” received their clearest expression in folk songs. Gorky noted that “proverbs and sayings exemplarily form the entire life social and historical experience of the working people.”

Throughout history, folk art has not only painted bleak pictures of the people’s hard life, but also embodied the people’s dreams of a bright future. The basis of folk art is its progressive ideological essence. Social and historical events in it received a correct assessment from the position of the people.

Folk art is distinguished not only by ideological depth, but also by high artistic qualities. The artistic system is very unique. The difference between folk works is that they are created not in a bookish, literary language, but in a living, spoken, folk language.

1.2. Children's creativity is the first stage of love for traditions

Children's participation in various types of artistic activities begins from an early age. Children sing, read poetry, dance, i.e. perform works. They improvise songs, dances, and embody their ideas in drawings and sculpting. And these are the first creative manifestations.

Children enthusiastically listen to fairy tales, poems, music, look at pictures, i.e. they show great interest in the perception of art, including folk art. At the same time, children ask endlessly many questions, finding out what they do not understand when listening or looking at them. This is how they become familiar with the simplest knowledge about folk art.

All types of folk art - perception of works, their first evaluations, attempts to perform and improvise - arise already in preschool childhood. And the job of educators is to create all the conditions for introducing the child to various types of folk art.

And yet, types of folk art develop differently in the process of raising a child. Back in the 40s, the famous psychologist B. Teplov pointed out the one-sidedness in the approach to the three main types of artistic activity: perception, performance, and creativity.

If, for example, in visual practice, children are taught to draw and sculpt, but little of their perception is developed, then in literary practice, all attention is paid precisely to the process of perception. In musical practice, performance skills are carefully taught, but little attention is paid to improvisation.

Preschool childhood is, first of all, the accumulation of experience in perceiving works of folk art and familiarization with initial performing skills. Only on this basis does artistic creativity develop. In some cases, the source of creativity is considered as the result only of the internal spontaneous forces of the child. The development of creative abilities comes down entirely to a spontaneous moment.

In other cases, the source of children's creativity is sought in life itself, in art. The creation of appropriate conditions is a guarantee of the active influence and involvement of children in folk art, as well as the development of children's creativity.

If a new art is not understandable to everyone, this means that its means are not universal to all mankind. Art is not intended for all people in general, but only for a very small category of people who, perhaps, are not more significant than others, but are clearly not like others.

First of all, there is one thing that is useful to clarify. What do most people call aesthetic pleasure? What happens in a person’s soul when he “likes” a work of art, such as a theatrical production? The answer is beyond doubt: people like drama if it can captivate them with its depiction of human destinies. Their hearts are moved by the love, hatred, troubles and joys of the heroes: the audience participates in the events as if they were real, happening in life. And the viewer says that the play is “good” when it manages to evoke the illusion of vitality and authenticity of the imaginary characters. In the lyrics he will look for human love and sadness, with which the poet’s lines seem to breathe. In painting, viewers will be attracted only to canvases depicting men and women with whom, in a certain sense, he would be interested in living. He will find the landscape "nice" if it is attractive enough as a place to walk.

This means that for most people, aesthetic pleasure is not different in principle from those experiences that accompany their everyday life. The difference is only in minor, minor details: this aesthetic experience is perhaps less utilitarian, more intense and does not entail any burdensome consequences. But ultimately, the subject, the object towards which art is directed, and at the same time its other features, for most people are the same as in everyday existence, people and human passions. And they will call art the totality of means by which this contact of theirs is achieved with everything that is interesting in human existence. Such viewers will be able to accept pure artistic forms, unreality, and fantasy only to the extent that these forms do not violate their habitual perception of human images and destinies. As soon as these strictly aesthetic elements begin to predominate and the public does not recognize the story of Juan and Maria that is familiar to it, it is confused and no longer knows what to do next with the play, book or painting. And this is understandable: they do not know any other attitude towards objects than a practical one, that is, one that forces us to experience and actively intervene in the world of objects. A work of art that does not encourage such intervention leaves them indifferent.

This point requires complete clarity. Let us say right away that to rejoice or sympathize with human destinies, which a work of art tells us about, is something different from truly artistic pleasure. Moreover, in a work of art this preoccupation with the strictly human is fundamentally incompatible with strictly aesthetic pleasure.

This is essentially an optical problem. To see an object, we need to adapt our visual apparatus in a certain way. If the visual adjustment is inadequate for the object, we will not see it or will see it blurry. Let the reader imagine that we are currently looking into the garden through a glass window. Our eyes must adapt in such a way that the visual ray passes through the glass without lingering on it, and stops on flowers and leaves. Since our subject is a garden and the visual ray is directed towards it, we will not see the glass if we look through it. The cleaner the glass, the less noticeable it is. But with an effort, we can turn our attention away from the garden and look at the glass. The garden will disappear from view and the only thing left of it will be blurry spots of color that appear to be painted on the glass. Therefore, seeing a garden and seeing window glass are two incompatible operations: they exclude each other and require different visual accommodation.

Accordingly, anyone who in a work of art seeks to worry about the fate of Juan and Maria or Tristan and Isolde and adapts his spiritual perception precisely to this will not see the work of art as such. Tristan's grief is only Tristan's grief and, therefore, can only excite to the extent that we accept it as reality. But the whole point is that an artistic creation is such only to the extent that it is not real. Only on one condition can we enjoy Titian's portrait of Charles V on horseback: we must not look at Charles V as a real, living person - instead we must see only a portrait, an unreal image, a fiction. The person depicted in the portrait and the portrait itself are completely different things: either we are interested in one or the other. In the first case, we “live together” with Charles V; in the second we “contemplate” the work of art as such.

However, most people cannot adjust their vision so that, with a garden before their eyes, they see glass, that is, that transparency that constitutes a work of art: instead, people pass by - or through - without pausing, preferring to grasp with all passion the human reality , which trembles in the work. If they are asked to leave their prey and pay attention to the work of art itself, they will say that they see nothing there, because in fact they do not see the human material so familiar to them - after all, before them is pure artistry, pure potency.

Throughout the 19th century, artists worked too uncleanly. They minimized strictly aesthetic elements and sought to base their works almost entirely on the depiction of human existence. It should be noted here that most of the art of the last century was, one way or another, realistic. Beethoven and Wagner were realists. Chateaubriand is as much a realist as Zola. Romanticism and naturalism, if you look at them from the heights of today, are moving closer to each other, revealing common realistic roots.

Creations of this kind are only partly works of art, artistic objects. To enjoy them, it is not at all necessary to be sensitive to the non-obvious and transparent, which implies artistic sensitivity. It is enough to have ordinary human sensitivity and allow the worries and joys of your neighbor to resonate in your soul. This makes it clear why the art of the 19th century was so popular: it was served to the masses diluted in the proportion in which it no longer became art, but a part of life. Let us remember that in all times when there have been two different types of art, one for the minority, the other for the majority, the latter has always been realistic.

Let us not argue now whether pure art is possible. It is very likely not; but the train of thought which will lead us to such a denial will be very long and complex... Even if pure art is impossible, there is no doubt that a natural tendency towards its purification is possible. This trend will lead to the progressive displacement of the elements of “human, all too human” that prevailed in romantic and naturalistic artistic production. And during this process, a moment comes when the “human” content of the work will become so meager that it will become almost invisible. Then we will have before us an object that can only be perceived by those who have a special gift of artistic sensitivity. It will be art for artists, not for the masses; it will be the art of the caste, not the demos.

That is why the new art divides the public into two classes - those who understand it and those who do not understand it, that is, into artists and those who are not artists. New art is purely artistic art.

H. Ortega y Gasset. Dehumanization of art

//X. Ortega y Gasset. Aesthetics. Philosophy of culture.

A sick spirit is healed by chants
E. Baratynsky

Art therapy, if understood as the targeted use of certain psychological and medical effects of artistic creativity and perception, seems to be a very recent phenomenon from a historical point of view.

But we would hardly be mistaken in saying that it is, not in name, but in essence, the same age as art itself. And that means a person. After all, what we now call art is the original sign and indisputable evidence of human existence in the world. No matter how far into the past knowledge extends, we see that the being confidently and without reservations called man has always created certain spatial or temporal forms that contain and express something greater than themselves. And because of this, they retain in the person himself an unconscious, and sometimes even conscious, sense of belonging to another, greater, enduring, to some deep, invisible dimension of the world and himself. Looking ahead, I will say: such an experience is vitally significant and healing in the most generalized, undifferentiated sense of the word.

Indirect confirmation that art therapy is rooted in immemorial antiquity can be found in the practices of so-called traditional or “primitive” societies, which psychologically and physically influence people through the rhythmic-intonation, motor-plastic, color-symbolic aspects of rituals.

The arts in the more modern sense of the word, which emerged from the primary ritual-magical syncret, have also demonstrated therapeutic potential since ancient times. In particular, the legends about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans indicate that the purposeful use of one or another musical mode changed the internal state, intentions and actions of people. Plato clearly saw the educational and therapeutic potential of the arts. True, he also saw that under certain conditions their effect could become destructive - but what healing agent could not say the same? No matter how mysterious the full meaning of Aristotelian catharsis remains, there is no doubt that it means a certain renewal and purification of the soul under the influence of stage action, etc., etc.

Let's return to art therapy today, which is becoming an increasingly visible, even fashionable, component of psychological practice. It branches and gives rise to new directions: music therapy, animation therapy, bibliotherapy, choreo-, puppet-, color-, fairy-tale therapy, therapeutic modeling, therapeutic theater... The widest range of mental and physical ill-being of a person is covered by art therapy practice: a tendency to depression, anxiety, disorders sleep, pressure, speech, sensorimotor sphere, communication abilities, problems of correction, rehabilitation, support for people with disabilities... The actions of the art therapist are “targeted”, sometimes even prescription in nature. Thus, lists of musical works are created, the listening of which is indicated in a particular case; plays are specially composed, the collisions of which should help performers resolve similar traumatic situations in their home or studio life.

Let me note: this approach to art, although justified by a good purpose and effectiveness, is of a utilitarian-applied nature: the therapist uses individual, essentially peripheral features of types of art and specific works, correlating them with the equally specific circumstances of the client’s life. The universal essence of art, the artistic transformation of existence, that which, according to M. Prishvin, encourages the writer to “seriously translate his life into words,” remains in the background. Below I will consider the possibility of a different approach, which I almost “let slip” at the very beginning of the article.

The wonderful teacher-animator and art therapist Yu. Krasny called one of his books “Art is always therapy” (3). The book is about seriously ill children and extremely specific methods of working with them in an animation studio, but the title eloquently suggests that immersion in the sphere of artistic exploration of the world is healing and beneficial in itself. And not only for a person recognized as sick.

This is confirmed by both science and pedagogical practice. Thus, domestic and foreign research in the field of musical psychology reveals the beneficial effects of music in personal and intellectual terms ((4); (5)), and speaks of its holistic positive impact on the child, starting from the prenatal period (6). Intensive visual arts classes not only intensify the general mental development of adolescents, but also correct distortions in the value sphere (7), increase mental activity and overall academic performance of schoolchildren (8). It is well known that in those educational institutions where at least some type of artistic creativity is given worthy attention, the emotional tone of children increases, they begin to have a better attitude towards learning and school itself, they suffer less from the notorious overload and school neuroses, they get sick less often and learn better.

So it’s time to talk not only about art therapy for those who already need it, but also about general “art prophylaxis” - and prevention, as we know, is in all respects better than treatment. In anticipation of the time when something similar will become possible in domestic general education, we will try to figure out how the experience of artistic creativity and communication with art can have a healing effect on the human personality.

We'll have to start from afar. But first let's make some important reservations.

The first of these is necessary to prevent one too obvious objection. Many phenomena of art of recent times, especially of our day (I’m talking about art of a serious professional level), to put it mildly, are not carriers and “generators” of mental health; As for the internal state and fate of some talented people of art, you would not wish this on your children and students. What are the grounds for asserting that mental health is so closely related to artistic creativity? I will say right away: the shadow sides of modern culture, including artistic culture, are quite real, but their discussion must be conducted starting, literally and figuratively, “from Adam.” We cannot undertake anything similar within the framework of this work, and therefore, keeping this aspect of the matter in mind, we will talk about the unconditionally positive aspects of human artistic creativity, which undoubtedly prevail on the scale of cultural history. In addition, the above objection applies exclusively to the professional artistic environment of a certain historical period. We are now talking about art in general education, and here its positive role is beyond doubt and is confirmed by the examples given above. As for the differences between “universal human” and professional artistic experience, this topic also requires a special in-depth discussion. Let us limit ourselves for now to a brief hint: in modern secularized and extremely specialized culture, these two spheres differ almost in the same way as physical education classes, which are beneficial for everyone, and elite sports, fraught with psychological and physical injuries.

And the second disclaimer. The considerations presented below do not pretend to be conclusive in the traditional, “strictly scientific” sense of the word. Like everything in the “foreign scientific”, humanitarian sphere of knowledge, they strive not for “accuracy of knowledge”, but for “depth of penetration” (9), and are addressed to the holistic, not fully verbalized experience of the reader as a partner in dialogue.

So, first of all: what are the most common, deep-seated and non-situational causes of our psychological distress and potential mental ill-health? Figuratively speaking, one of them lies in the “horizontal”, the other in the “vertical” dimension of existence, while man himself, with his conscious and unconscious difficulties and contradictions, is constantly at the point of their intersection.

Trouble “horizontally” is rooted in the fact that our conscious “I”, standing out at the beginning of life from the primary undifferentiated integrity, necessarily opposes itself to the surrounding world as some kind of “not I” and, in the conditions of modern rationalized culture, “solidifies” in this natural, but one-sided opposition; “fences” his territory, as if enclosing himself in a transparent but impenetrable psychological shell of alienation from the world, as if initially external and alien to him. It excommunicates itself from participation in the unified being.

Both intellectually and emotionally, a person develops an image of a beginningless and endless world, living according to its own, purely objective natural and social laws and indifferent to its fleeting existence. A world of impersonal cause-and-effect relationships that determine a person, to which it is only possible to temporarily adapt. In this regard, theorists reflect on the “ultimate atomization of the consciousness of the modern individual” or (like psychologist S.L. Rubinstein) they say that in such a world there is no place for man as such; Poets come up with the image of the “desert of the world,” which (let’s remember for later!) creativity helps us get through.

Of course, not every person, much less a child, will indulge in such reflection. But when a person’s unconscious memory of his own integrity and universal nature, of the original ontological unity with the world, his need to make sure that “in the desert of the world I am not alone” (O. Mandelstam) do not receive a response and confirmation, this creates a constant common basis for psychological ill-being , irreducible to specific everyday problems and situations.

The remarkable ethnographer W. Turner described an archaic but effective form of overcoming, or rather preventing, this disease as a cyclical, regulated change in two ways of existing in a traditional society, which he defined as “structure” and “communitas” (i.e. community, inclusion (10) For most of his life, each member of a strictly hierarchical and structured society lives in his own age, gender, “professional" cell and acts in strict accordance with the system of social expectations. But in certain periods this structure is abolished for a short time, and everyone is ritually immersed in direct experience a unity that embraces other people, nature, and the world as a whole.Having touched the single fundamental principle of being, people can return to everyday functioning in their dismembered social structure without a threat to mental health.

It is obvious that in other historical and cultural conditions the phenomenon of communitas in this form cannot be reproduced, but it has many analogues: from the culture of carnival to the traditions of choral singing, from ancient mysteries to participation in religious sacraments (however, in this case the “vertical » dimension of the problem under discussion, which will be discussed further). But now it is important to emphasize something else: a person, without realizing it, seeks involvement in something “greater than himself.” And the absence of such experience - positive, socially approved - turns into absurd, sometimes destructive and pathological breakthroughs of the blocked need of the “atomized individual” to break out of the “flags” of his individuality and join a certain “we”. (Let us recall the impact on listeners of certain types of modern music, the behavior of football fans and many much darker manifestations of crowd psychology, and on the other hand, depression and suicide due to psychological loneliness.)

What therapeutic or, better yet, preventive significance can the experience of artistic creativity have in this matter?

The fact is that the basis of its very possibility is not individual sensory or any other abilities associated with the implementation of activities in one or another form of art, but a special holistic attitude of a person to the world and to himself in the world, which is highly developed among artists , but is potentially characteristic of every person and is especially successfully actualized in childhood. The psychological content of this aesthetic attitude has been described many times by representatives of different types of art, different eras and peoples. And its main feature is precisely that in aesthetic experience the invisible barrier that isolates the self-enclosed “I” from the rest of the world disappears, and a person directly and consciously experiences his ontological unity with the subject of aesthetic attitude and even with the world as a whole. Then the unique sensual appearance of things is revealed to him in a special way: their “external form” turns out to be a transparent carrier of the soul, a direct expression of the inner life, related and understandable to man. That is why he feels himself, at least for a short time, involved in the existence of the whole world and its eternity.

“I strove,” says V. Goethe in his autobiographical work, to look with love at what is happening outside and to expose myself to the influence of all beings, each in his own way, starting with the human being and further downward, to the extent in what way they were comprehensible to me. From here arose a wonderful kinship with individual natural phenomena, internal consonance with it, participation in the chorus of the all-embracing whole” (11, p. 456)

“And only because we are related to the whole world,” says our great writer and thinker M.M. Prishvin, with the power of kindred attention we restore the general connection and discover our own personal in people of a different way of life, even in animals, even plants, even in things” (12, p. 7). Creators of art, who lived in different times and often knew nothing about each other, testify that only on the basis of such experience can a truly artistic work be born.

Thus, aesthetic experience, which - we emphasize! - in appropriate pedagogical conditions every child can acquire, helps to heal the ontological crack and restore the unity of a person with the world “horizontally”. In any case, to give a person to experience the possibility, the reality of this unity. And such an experience, even if it is rare, is not fully reflected, is not retained in consciousness, will certainly remain on the unconscious, or rather, on the superconscious level, and will constantly support a person in his no matter how complex relationships with the outside world.

Note: we needed to mention superconsciousness, and this means that we have come to the line beyond which our thoughts move to the “vertical” plane of the issue under discussion.

The ultimate expression of the aesthetic experience that has been discussed so far can be considered the famous line of F.I. Tyutchev: “Everything is in me, and I am in everything!..” It is not difficult to understand that these words express not only a certain special attitude towards the world, but better to say - with the world, “horizontally” spread around us. Here, a different level of self-awareness and self-awareness of a person is discerned, the presence of a different, larger “I”, commensurate with “everything”, capable of containing “everything”, and thanks to this, the reason for our internal troubles, which lies in the “vertical” dimension of existence, is clearly outlined.

In religious and philosophical literature, in the works of many psychologists, in the spiritual and practical experience of people of different times and nations, as well as in the experience of self-observation of numerous creatively gifted people, we find evidence that, along with the empirical “I” of our everyday self-awareness, something else really exists, “the higher self”, which carries within itself the fullness of possibilities, which we partially actualize in the space-time of earthly life and in the conditions of a limited socio-cultural environment. Without being able to discuss this topic in detail within the framework of this article, I will only note that without such an assumption it is impossible to talk seriously about creativity; phenomena such as self-education, self-improvement, etc. become inexplicable.

This supreme “authority” of individual human existence is called differently: the higher “I” - in contrast to the everyday, “true” - in contrast to the illusory and changeable, “eternal” - in contrast to the mortal, transitory, “free” - in difference from determined by a set of biosocial or any other “objective” factors, “spiritual” “I” (13), “creative “I” (14), etc.

Coming into contact with this “I” of superconsciousness on the paths of spiritual self-improvement, or in the process of creativity in one area or another, or receiving it as if “for free” in the flow of everyday life, a person feels himself with a previously unknown clarity, intensity, certainty and completeness . Of course, such peaks, like the experiences of unity with the world that we talked about earlier, cannot become our permanent state, but the absence or deep oblivion of such an experience - this, figuratively speaking, “vertical gap” - becomes the cause of deep internal disorder of a person, irreparable by any changes in his external life or private recommendations of a psychologist consultant that do not affect the essence of the matter.

The philosopher will define this gap as “the discrepancy between the essence and existence of man”; humanistic psychologist - as a lack of self-actualization, as “deprivation of higher needs” (A. Maslow); a psychotherapist can with sufficient reason see in it the reason for the loss of meaning in life - the root of all diseases (V. Frankl). In any case, we are talking about the fact that not only are we not actually “ourselves,” which may not be achievable in its entirety, but we live on the distant periphery of ourselves, not trying to restore the lost connection with our own true “I” ", approach him. We live not only in an alien world, but essentially aliens to ourselves.

And again the same question arises: how can early (or even not only early) experience of artistic creativity help a person in this situation?

Let's go back a little. In aesthetic experience, a person, sometimes unexpectedly for himself, crosses the usual boundaries of his “ego”, lives a common life with the larger world, and this creates fertile ground for a kind of revelation about himself, for a “meeting” with the larger self, commensurate with this to the world. A man, in the words of the poet Walt Whitman, suddenly discovers with joy that he is bigger and better than he thought, that he does not fit “between his shoes and his hat”...

This kind of “meeting” is experienced and recorded in the memories of many masters of art. Then they come up with ideas that clearly go beyond their usual capabilities, and, nevertheless, come true. In the process of creating or performing a work, a person feels like an “instrument” in the hand of “someone” much more powerful and insightful, and sometimes perceives the result detachedly, as something to which he has no direct relationship. Such self-reports are usually characterized by trustworthy sobriety and lack of affectation. The level of awareness of this experience is different - from the experience of emotional and energetic upsurge, creative daring, transcending one’s own boundaries to a conscious, almost at the level of methodology, attraction of the “creative self” to cooperation - as, for example, in the practice of the great Russian actor M. Chekhov (15) . I will not try to interpret in any way these psychological phenomena, the very existence of which is beyond doubt. Something else is important for us now: artistic and creative experience (and, probably, any truly creative experience) is, to a certain extent, the experience of “being yourself.” It allows you to overcome, at least temporarily, the “vertical gap”: to experience the moment of unity of the everyday – and the higher, creative self; at least - to remember and experience the very fact of its existence.

Let me note: when talking about creativity, I do not mean “creating something new”; it is only a consequence, external evidence of the creative process, and the evidence is not always clear and indisputable. By creativity, I understand, first of all, the manifestation of “internal activity of the soul” (16), which is realized as the free (not determined from the outside) generation and embodiment of one’s own plan in one or another area of ​​life and culture.

There is a lot of evidence, from theological to experimental and pedagogical, confirming that man - every person - is a creator by nature; the need to create in the most general sense of the word, “to live from the inside out” (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh) most intimately characterizes the very essence of man. And the realization of this need is a necessary condition for mental health, and its blocking, which is so characteristic, in particular, of modern general education, is a source of implicit but serious danger for the human psyche. As modern researcher V. Bazarny says, a person can be either creative or sick.

Returning to the figurative and symbolic coordinates of our presentation, we can say that true creativity is born precisely at the crossroads of the horizontal and vertical axes - the restored relationship of a person with himself and with the world. When a person sees the related world around him through the eyes of a higher, creative self and realizes the possibilities of the creative self in the images, language, and materiality of the surrounding world. This harmony is embodied in any truly artistic work (no matter how complex or tragic its specific content may be) and directly affects the viewer, reader or listener, awakening in him the memory, albeit unclear, of the original unity with the world and of the great “inner man.” "in himself.

This is where a question naturally arises. It is obvious that creativity and artistic creativity are by no means synonymous, that creative self-realization is possible in all areas of human activity and in all of his relationships with the world; Why do we so emphasize the importance of art and artistic creativity for the mental health of a person, and especially a growing person?

We are talking, first of all, about the age priority of art. It is in this area that almost all children of preschool, primary school, and early adolescence can, in favorable pedagogical conditions, acquire an emotionally positive and successful experience of creativity as such, the generation and implementation of their own ideas.

Further. Is there another area of ​​culture in which children of 9, 7, 4 years old can create something that is recognized as valuable by society and the highest professional elite? Valuable not because a child did it, but valuable as an independent fact of culture? And in art this is exactly the case: outstanding masters of all types of art for more than a hundred years have seen in children their younger colleagues capable of creating aesthetic values, and are not even averse to learning something from them. One more thing. A young (but still not a 4- or 7-year-old!) physicist or mathematician does, in principle, the same thing as an adult scientist, only many years earlier: there is no “children’s science.” But children's art exists: being artistically valuable, a child's work at the same time bears a pronounced age mark, easily identifiable and inseparable from the artistic value of the work. This speaks, from my point of view, about the deep “natural conformity” of artistic creativity: a child acquires full-fledged creative experience in the most age-appropriate forms for him.

There are, however, difficult-to-explain phenomena when a child creates a text or a drawing that does not bear any age mark either in the emotional and meaningful sense, or even from the point of view of the perfection of the implementation of the plan, and could belong to an adult artist. I am not ready to discuss and explain this amazing phenomenon in detail - I will only remind you that even an adult artist in his work can be “bigger than himself.” Or better yet, it can be “oneself.”

A. Melik-Pashayev

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16. Zenkovsky V.V. The problem of mental causation. Kyiv, 1914

, A. T. Matveev , P. V. Miturich , V. I. Mukhina , I. I. Nivinsky , N. I. Niss-Goldman , P. Ya. Pavlinov , K. S. Petrov-Vodkin , A. I Savinov, M. S. Saryan, N. A. Tyrsa, N. P. Ulyanov, P. S. Utkin, V. A. Favorsky, I. M. Chaikov.

Members and exhibitors: I. P. Akimov, M. M. Axelrod, M. A. Arinin, M. S. Askinazi, V. G. Bekhteev, G. S. Vereisky, A. D. Goncharov, M. E. Gorshman, L D. Gudiashvili, E. G. Davidovich, E. V. Egorov, I. D. Ermakov, I. V. Zholtovsky, L. K. Ivanovsky, V. I. Kashkin, I. V. Klyun, M. V. Kuznetsov, N. N. Kupreyanov, S. I. Lobanov, K. S. Malevich, Z. Ya. Mostova (Matveeva-Mostova), V. M. Midler, V. A. Milashevsky, B. V. Milovidov, A. P. Mogilevsky, P. I. Neradovsky, A. P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, N. I. Padalitsyn, I. A. Puni, V. F. Reidemeister, M. S. Rodionov, N. B. Rosenfeld, S. M. Romanovich, V. F. Ryndin, N. Ya. Simonovich-Efimova, N. I. Simon, M. M. Sinyakova-Urechina, A. A. Soloveychik, A. I. Stolpnikova, A. I. Tamanyan, N. P. Tarasov, M. M. Tarkhanov, V. P. Fedorenko, N. P. Feofilaktov, A. V. Fonvizin, V. F. Franchetti, R. V. Frenkel-Manusson, I. I. Chekmazov, N. M. Chernyshev, V. D. Shitikov, S. M. Shor, I. A. Spinel, V. A. Shchuko, A. V. Shchusev, V. M. Yustitsky, B. A. Yakovlev and other.

Exhibitions: 1st - 1925 (Moscow) - 3rd - 1929 (Moscow); 1928 (Leningrad)

Founded on the initiative of former members of the Blue Rose and World of Art associations. The artists declared the priority of high professional skill and emotional content of the work. The Society's task included studying the specifics and interaction of various types of art, as well as developing urban planning principles, monumental propaganda, and interior design of public buildings.

At the organizational meeting, P.V. Kuznetsov was elected chairman of the society, V.A. Favorsky was elected as his deputy, and K.N. Istomin was elected as secretary. In 1928, a charter was adopted, which stated: “With the goal of active participation in socialist construction and the development of revolutionary culture, the Society of the Four Arts unites within the RSFSR artists working in the field of painting, sculpture, architecture and graphics, with the goal of promoting the growth artistic excellence and culture of the fine arts through the research and practical work of its members and the dissemination of artistic and technical knowledge.”

The society did not have its own premises; meetings were held alternately in the workshops of its members. In addition to solving current issues, they held meetings with writers and poets, organized literary readings and musical evenings. A stamp (based on a sketch by A. I. Kravchenko) and a banner of the Society (based on a sketch by E. M. Bebutova) were developed. An exhibition jury has been formed.

The first exhibition was opened in April 1925 at the State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow with the support of the State Academy of Agricultural Sciences. 28 artists presented 215 works (a catalog was published); People's Commissar of Education A.V. Lunacharsky spoke at the opening. At the opening and on Sundays the exhibition featured performances by musical ensembles.

The second exhibition was organized with the support of the Art Department of the Main Science in November 1926 in the halls of the State Historical Museum; 72 artists presented 423 works (a catalog was published). The exhibition received generally favorable reviews in the press. The critic I. Khvoynik wrote: “The specific weight of a group in a formal artistic sense is determined by the presence in it of a fair number of great masters who form the core of this association. The participation of these masters, fully established and visible even before the revolution, is perhaps the main interest of the group. The graphic “sector” of society is especially strong in this sense.” He, then noting the best masters of the exhibition (P.V. Kuznetsov, V.A. Favorsky, A.I. Kravchenko, L.A. Bruni, P.I. Lvov, P.V. Miturich, P.Ya. Pavlinov , I.M. Chaikov), summed up: “Thematically, the entire exhibition creates the impression of an overly “Parnassian” attitude of the entire group to life. Of the nearly 400 works, the overwhelming majority testify to immersion in the landscape, admiration of nature and great sympathy for still life... With very few exceptions, the entire exhibition is thematically linked to our time with very weak hints, devoid of the sharpness and brightness of a densely scooped up everyday life" ("Soviet Art", 1926, no. 10. pp. 28–32). F. Roginskaya gave a similar description: “If you approach the “4 arts” as an artistic association, it can be characterized as a grouping, although it has a fairly high degree of artistic culture, but stands somewhere apart from modernity, outside it. This is determined not only by the plot feature, i.e. by the lack of connection in the plots with current life, and not only by the basic mood... but even by formal features that do not contain any visible elements capable of creatively rising and moving the association "(Pravda, 1926, November 6).

In response, the 4 Arts Society published a declaration in which it defended its own principles: “The artist shows the viewer, first of all, the artistic quality of his work. Only in this capacity is the artist’s attitude to the world around him expressed... In the conditions of the Russian tradition, we consider pictorial realism to be the most appropriate to the artistic culture of our time. The content of our works is not characterized by plots. That's why we don't call our paintings anything. The choice of subject characterizes the artistic tasks that occupy the artist. In this sense, the plot is only a pretext for the creative transformation of material into an artistic form...” (Yearbook of Literature and Art for 1929).

After the second exhibition, it was decided to show the best works from the first two exhibitions in Leningrad, supplementing the exhibition with works by Leningrad artists. After negotiations with the director of the State Russian Museum P. I. Neradovsky, the lower halls of the Museum were provided to the Society. On March 3, 1928, the opening of the exhibition took place; 51 artists participated, 284 works were exhibited (a catalog was published). Leningrad artists (A.E. Karev, V.V. Lebedev, P.I. Lvov, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, N.A. Tyrsa) also represented the Society at the exhibition “Modern Leningrad artistic groups” (1928/ 1929).

The third (last) Moscow exhibition “4 Arts” was held in May 1929 in the halls of Moscow State University on Mokhovaya Street; 49 artists participated, 304 works were exhibited (a catalog was published). She received a number of sharply critical assessments in the press. Thus, the AHR magazine “Art to the Masses” (1929, Nos. 3–4. P. 52) wrote: “The “4 Arts” society is one of those that, more and more isolating themselves from public influence, are becoming a narrowly guild , with features of aristocratic isolation in the organization... a characteristic feature of the latest exhibition “4 Arts” is a significant strengthening of the mystical and non-objective wing of society... What is the result of this exhibition? Firstly, this exhibition confirms that artists who do not draw their strength from effective social impulses will inevitably fade... The “4 Arts” Society, having set as its motto the struggle for quality and a new style, within the limits of a narrow guild and complete disregard for social political installation of the country of the Soviets, speculates on this, presenting its achievements as a universal quality and method.”

Despite the criticism, the Society took part in large group exhibitions “Life and Life of Children of the Soviet Union” (August 1929), two traveling exhibitions organized by the Head Art of the People's Commissariat of Education (1929, Moscow; 1930, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Sverdlovsk, Perm, Ufa, Samara , Saratov, Penza). However, criticism intensified. In April 1930, the magazine “Art to the Masses” published an article “Artistic smuggling, or who and how are served by the “4 arts”” (1930, No. 4, pp. 10–12), in which the Society’s members were accused of “bourgeoisism” “social passivity”, “idealistic formalism”, predilection for “decadent and regressive forms of Western European art”.

The resolution of the arts sector of the People's Commissariat for Education on the report of Moscow art societies, adopted in the late 1930s, called for a “radical restructuring” of the Society and “purging its ranks.” Under the influence of harsh criticism, the Society self-liquidated. At the beginning of 1931, a group of its former members (K.N. Istomin, V.M. Midler, M.S. Rodionov, V.F. Ryndin, A.V. Fonvizin, N.M. Chernyshev and others) applied for membership in AHR.

Sources :

1. The struggle for realism in the fine arts of the 20s: Materials, documents, memories. M., 1962. pp. 230–235.
2. Exhibitions of Soviet fine art. Directory. T. 1. 1917–1932. M., 1965. S. 153–154, 179–180, 261, 294–295.
3. Kotovich T. V. Encyclopedia of Russian avant-garde. Minsk, 2003. pp. 389–390.
4. Omega I. Art smuggling or who and how “4 arts” serve // ​​Art to the masses. 1930, No. 4 (April). pp. 10–12.
5. Severyukhin D. Ya., Leykind O. L.. The Golden Age of Artistic Associations in Russia and the USSR. Directory. St. Petersburg, 1992, pp. 341–343.
6. Khvoinik I. E.. “Four Arts” and their exhibition // Soviet Art, 1926, No. 10. P. 28–32.