Artículos de revistas sobre el tema "Figurative painting, British – 20th century"

The history of 20th century painting conventionally identifies abstraction with modernism and the return of figuration with postmodernism. But abstraction ended much earlier, in a spy operation during World War II, when a British intelligence officer, in a stroke of genius, found abstract paintings to be the perfect carriers for secret messages transported across the ocean. For this purpose, he commissioned a painting to Wassily Kandinsky that included a secret message encoded – in the manner of flag signs or Morse code – into its seemingly abstract visual shapes. This anecdote explains steganography: the clever hiding of messages in other messages. Steganographic messages do not need to appear innocuous. At some point, militant jihadists were reported to run pornographic websites as a cover, using porn images for hidden communication. [...]

The article represents genre-style etymology of Boris Konstantinovich Zaitsev (1881-1972) publicistic legacy (that includes essays, profiles and critical notes). Style-forming expressions of this outstanding representative of 20th century Russian literary abroad are analyzed within the context of his ethical and philosophical principles. Zaitsev’s portrait and landscape sketches are considered for the first time as figurative-poetic and genre-compositional components of the artist's “visual palette”. One of the effective methods of comprehending the style and ethos of the writer is the disclosure of multi-genre subtexts that reflects the creative worldview of B. Zaitsev, in which aesthetics is closely intertwined with metaphysics, and this, in turn, determines the adjacent disciplinary tools for the study of “literary painting”, actualizes parallels with non-verbal art forms (painting, music). The intertextual phenomenology of B. Zaitsev's publicistic texts is not limited to the artful, masterly and technical depiction. The nature of refined subject-figurative “painting”, as follows from the analysis, is based on the spiritual contemplation of the writer and reflects a rare for the art of the 20th century harmony of the artistic and transcendent.

In Russian fine art, portrait painting has been traditionally distinguished by extraordinary variety and depth, reflecting the figurative and stylistic searches of artists of different periods. Russian art historians have comprehensively studied the portrait genre in the history of art. At the same time, the well-established classification of genres does not allow to take into account completely the variety of trends and approaches to the depiction of a person in contemporary art. The understanding of the portrait genre’s boundaries in contemporary art is extremely blurred. Sometimes it means either any image of a person, or even the absence of one at all. It appears essential and important to consider the work of Russian artists in the context of international visual art practices to compose a more holistic picture connected with general cultural development. The article proposes to expand the established typology of the portrait genre adopted in Russian art. The already well-known typology of portrait painting can be updated with other types of portrait based on the semantic and semiotic analysis of artistic works of the late 20th — 21st century. It is important to study contemporary Russian portrait painting from the perspective of a variety of typological models, and to use the new language of contemporary art history to understand the processes taking place in Russian painting of the late 20th — 21st century, in order to facilitate the entry of Russian art into the international cultural context. An idea has been matured to create a National Portrait Gallery in Russia which would collect portraits and self-portraits of the greatest personalities of our era in a real and virtual space.

This article aims at analyzing the genre features of the 20th century animalistic art as a special, original phenomenon of Russian artistic culture. There are highlighted the aspects that make up its content basis. The author considers the issues of human perception of an animal, attitude to it, the system of views on the world of flora and fauna, the methods of interpretation of animals and birds. Together, they form the specific characteristics of animalistic art, which appeared in their organized and integral form in the 20th century. The article is relevant because the relationship between human and nature is being more and more re-evaluated, which is why the ideological features and the system of views of the 20th century artists are getting increasingly important (in particular, in the historical and artistic aspect).Animalistic art, having become noticeable as a genre already in the 18th century, passed through the entire 19th century, and crystallized in the 20th century in the most characteristic, typical features in various types of fine arts (graphics, painting, sculpture and their varieties). There is no doubt that among other genres of fine art, animalistic art is an original visual and plastic phenomenon that is fundamentally different from the art that depicts a person. The article notes that the complexity of animalistic art lies in the properties of human perception, which is prone to subjective evaluation and, accordingly, gives an animal human traits. The principle of “imitation” of nature, the study of nature, being constantly followed by artists, pointed to the overcoming of the subjective moment and became the leading one in composing the figurative concept of an animal.

The article examines the development and features of the industrial genre in Russian fine art in the context of the work of artists on the construction of the Kuybyshev hydroelectric station. The general features of the industrial genre of the mid-20th century are given, the works of painting and graphics dedicated to the construction of the Kuybyshev hydroelectric station are analyzed, reflecting and preserving the history for the younger generation of the following artists: A.K. Vingorsky, V.G. Gremitskikh, G.V. Filatov. In addition to the artistic analysis of the works, the article briefly presents the biography of the above-mentioned artists, reviews the features of their work, highlights the features of the figurative solution of the industrial genre of the 50s.

The article describes the features of the figurative and plastic language of monumental and decorative painting preserved to our time in the churches of Kharkiv region of the modern era. Created by the selfless work of many outstanding artists at the turn of the 19th — 20th centuries, in the wave of the inclusion of Ukrainian art in the European cultural context, paintings of churches in Kharkiv region have come down to us in small numbers: most of them were lost due to the destruction of religious buildings under the Soviet regime; some were considerably mutilated or whitewashed by new owners of the buildings when the latter were not used for their intended purpose; the other ones suffered due to non-professional “restorations” of the second half of the 20th — beginning of the 21st century, when modern artists have made their corrective even in the plot iconographic compositions, relentlessly redefining the work of their predecessors. It is shown that the period of the end of the 19th — the first quarter of the 20th century. Was very fruitful for the development of the architectural industry in the region. Both public, residential and sacred buildings were erected at a very rapid pace. The number of the temples doubled (60 instead of 30). The newest style trends spreading across Europe did not bypass Kharkiv either. It is no coincidence that this is where the style, called Ukrainian Modern, was born. However, during this period, the East of Ukraine, including Kharkiv, was part of the Russian Empire, the state ideology of which was built on the basis of the theory of “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” as the antithesis of the motto of the Great French Revolution “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. The artistic life of the Empire was regulated by the actions of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, which was part of the royal court and the only higher educational art institution in the entire vast state. In such conditions, the creators of the projects of outstanding sacral buildings in the East of Ukraine and interior design were most often graduates of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The canonicity of the sacred Orthodox architecture in the East of Ukraine and the need to adhere to the Byzantine cross-domed scheme, however, did not prevent the penetration of the latest trends into the temple architecture of Kharkiv region thanks to the participation of talented

This article critically reviews the development of painting art and the engineering of bridges in the first half of the 20th century. It shows that the expression of thought is directed towards innovation at a certain historical moment and non-imitation as a professional ethos. The vision is articulated through a multilevel perspective, including the social shaping of technology. The different milestones are chronologically compared following the Artistic Vanguards. It is shown that there was an accumulation of radical, disruptive innovation in the period between the World Wars. New tools to develop creativity were sought, and new figurative solutions and materials, such as concrete for bridge construction, began to be employed. The impressionist Monet and Eiffel and the cubist Picasso and Ribera deeply comprehended the previous techniques and dared to challenge them. The transversality of art and engineering is key to the innovation process.

The purpose of the article is to determine the ways of formation of still life as a genre in the first half of the 20th century and the features of its conceptualization; highlighting the creative output of representatives of the Shanghai school in the field of depicting the objective world. A wide range of visual materials is considered, and a circle of representatives of the Shanghai school who participated in the development of still life as an independent genre of painting is identified. Wu Changshu and Qi Baishi are among the most significant creators of still life. Representative samples and leading approaches to the development of the figurative structure of still life, its understanding as a complete symbolic and artistically expressive composition, as a gift and expression of an individual creative principle are identified. The connection of the Shanghai still life with the previous tradition is shown, and the decisive influence of wenrenhua aesthetics is highlighted; the significance of Shanghai as an artistic center and a cosmopolitan environment for the development of the artistic process is pointed out. It is emphasized that the still life of the Shanghai school became a transitional link to the still life of the Western style. The cultural status of still life as a result of the activity of scientists determined its perception by Japanese artists, the representatives of the Nanga school and ensured its further spread in the art of China, Japan and Korea. The main approaches to the interpretation of pictorial motifs close to still life are determined. Traditional and modern aspects in the depiction of the objective world by representatives of the Shanghai school in the first half of the 20th century are identified. The practical significance of the research results lies in the possibility of their use in the development of the conceptual framework for educational courses, textbooks, as well as in artistic and museum practices.

Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) is considered one of the pioneering Indian writers in English of Anglo-Indian fiction who gained international acclaim. Along with R.K. Narayana, and Raja Rao, he is popularly known as the trio of Indian English novelists. He marked his revolutionary appearance by giving voice to the oppressed section of the society with his novel, Untouchable in 1935. In this novel, he takes a day from the life of Bakha, a young sweeper who is an untouchable because of his work of cleaning latrines in the early 20th century British India. Discrimination based on caste and poverty are the two focal points of this novel. This paper aims at portraying a kaleidoscope of socio-cultural, economic and political spheres of life. It aims at painting the unexplored, and less talked vistas of life. Hence while revisiting untouchability and poverty, this paper offers an analysis to a variety of colours or a collage of varied aspects of human life.

Mulk Raj Anand (1905-2004) is considered one of the pioneering Indian writers in English of Anglo-Indian fiction who gained international acclaim. Along with R.K. Narayana, and Raja Rao, he is popularly known as the trio of Indian English novelists. He marked his revolutionary appearance by giving voice to the oppressed section of the society with his novel, Untouchable in 1935. In this novel, he takes a day from the life of Bakha, a young sweeper who is an untouchable because of his work of cleaning latrines in the early 20th century British India. Discrimination based on caste and poverty are the two focal points of this novel. This paper aims at portraying a kaleidoscope of socio-cultural, economic and political spheres of life. It aims at painting the unexplored, and less talked vistas of life. Hence while revisiting untouchability and poverty, this paper offers an analysis to a variety of colours or a collage of varied aspects of human life.

Статья посвящена исследованию региональных особенностей живописи новой вещественности на берлинской почве. Особенное положение принадлежащего к числу наиболее интенсивно развивающихся столиц мира делало главный город Веймарской республики необычайно притягательным для самых разных слоев населения, в том числе и художников. Актуальность темы определяется возрастающим в современной науке интересом к противопоставляемым авангарду реалистическим и фигуративным образам в искусстве XX столетия. Ее новизна заключается в рассмотрении произведений новой вещественности не как иллюстративной фиксации истории Берлина 1920 – начала 1930-х годов, а как своеобразного зеркала эпохи, преломившего жизнь мегаполиса в самых разных жанрах изобразительного искусства. Цель — выявить особенности «образа мира» в картинах вещественников, творящих в германской столице. Исследование проведено с применением формально-стилевого и социокультурного методов. The article is devoted to the research of regional peculiarities of New Objectivity painting in the Berlin. The special position of the most intensively developing capitals of the world made the main city of the Weimar Republic unusually attractive for the most different strata of the population, including artists. The relevance of the topic is determined by the growing interest in modern science to the realistic and figurative images in the art of the 20th century opposed to the avant-garde. Its innovation lies in the consideration of the works of New Objectivity not as an illustrative record of life in Berlin in the 1920s and early 1930s, but as a kind of mirror of the era, which refracted the life of the metropolis in the most diverse genres of fine art. The aim is to reveal specific features of the "image of the world" in the paintings of the artists creating in the German capital. This was achieved through the application of formal-stylistic and socio-cultural methods.

The subject of the study is the specificity of artistic and visual techniques used by the British creators of animated films, using the example of the paintings "Shaun the Sheep" and "Van Gogh. Love, Vincent." The object of research is the artistic animation of Great Britain at the beginning of the XXI century. The article reveals the trends of British animation in recent years by analyzing the elements of the visual series of cartoons created using the expressive means of classical art. The works considered in the article demonstrate the author's approaches of modern British directors in relation to the artistic and figurative solution of cartoons related to various types of fine art, for example, sculpture in plasticine animation and oil painting. The aim is to identify and characterize the visual techniques in British cartoons of the early 21st century. The research methodology presents the greatest difficulty, since it has not been fully developed in relation to the characteristics of the artistic and visual specifics of animated films, but at the same time opens up opportunities for interdisciplinary analysis. The research uses an art historical analysis, in particular a structural study of the plot and compositional features of animation. The novelty of the research is due to the fact that in Russian science the stated problem remains practically unexplored. For the first time, the paintings "Shaun the Sheep" and "Van Gogh. With love, Vincent" are considered from the point of view of means of artistic expression and in terms of meaning formation. Based on the results of the analysis, it is concluded that modern British animation proceeds by creating films in which visual arts are actively involved. This sets a high level of performance of paintings, because it requires the authors to have impeccable command of visual literacy, which allows them to achieve maximum expressiveness of images. It is likely that in the future, reliance on the artistic language of classical art and the manual labor of animators will continue to form as a specific feature of British animation.

This publication is dedicated to the British Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria of Edinburgh, known after marriage as Marie of Romania. The beautiful, educated, talented, rich Queen not only held the hearts of contemporaries with her achievements in the literary field, painting, and dancing, but also with her sincere concern for ordinary people. During World War I, Marie, who was known as the “mother of the wounded”, took care of the wounded soldiers with cholera, day and night without a break, along with other nurses. As contemporaries believe, Marie’s cause of death was pancreatic cancer, however, due to various circumstances, liver cirrhosis was considered the official cause of the Queen’s death. Unfortunately, medical workers of the 20th century could not significantly affect the course of the disease, but they tried to relieve pain syndrome and maintain the general condition of the national favorite. The last words of the Queen (not only by origin, but also by spirit) vividly emphasize the love of life, resilience and majesty of this woman: “How I loved life!”

Bárbaro Rivas (1893–1967) is considered to be the first ‘primitivist’ and ‘figurativist’ in Venezuela. Local and ludic elements create the central axis of popular and figurative Venezuelan art transformation from the late 19th to the mid-20th century. It was when a sign in painting was redefined – resignified and became an element binding main forms of popular art, reality of artist’s world, simplicity of life transformed into an idea of primitivism. Like other artists of his times (Armando Reverón), Bárbaro Rivas derived his art from life of local society and his own experience. His art is marked with autobiographical elements, which constitute a borderline between common sense and madness. Presented world is permeated with religiousness, magic and superstitions. In visualization, it is important to present reality from a double perspective; his artworks contain twoand three-dimensional grounds embraced in a single depiction. Plastic poetics of Bárbaro Rivas contains contradictory elements, inconsistent prima facie, yet containing in their nature rudimentary elements rooted in popular imagination, religious beliefs, etc. The world, being a mixture of elements, becomes a peculiar metisage expressed through the simplicity of primitivism, in the context of searching and describing new worlds and experience. This article aims not only at explaining how Venezuelan artist imagines and plans his art, but also at describing his approach to popular and local elements in Venezuela, which then spread across the whole Latin America as a form of artistic expression.

The article is devoted to the founding of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and presents an analysis of the process of building this museum of contemporary art in dynamics — from the beginning of the collection within the walls of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum to gaining the status of an independent exhibition giant. The study provides an overview of the collection and its sources, identifies individual significant works of art, accompanied by art history descriptions, and sets out the reasons and the chronicle of the separation of the Museum Ludwig from the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. The museum, established in 1976, presents German art from the first half of the 20th century, American and British pop art of the 1960s, Russian avant-garde, photorealism and contemporary art from the last third of the 20th century. It has departments of painting, sculpture, graphics and art photography. The role of the famous German patrons and collectors of Peter and Irene Ludwig in the formation and replenishment of the museum's funds is noted. Статья посвящена основанию Музея Людвига в Кёльне и представляет анализ процесса построения этого музея современного искусства в динамике — от начала формирования коллекции в стенах Музея Вальрафа-Рихарца до обретения статуса самостоятельного экспозиционного гиганта. В исследовании даны обзор коллекции и источники ее формирования, указаны отдельные крупные произведения искусства, сопровожденные искусствоведческим описанием, а также изложены причины и хроника выделения Музея Людвига из состава Музея Вальрафа-Рихарца. Вновь образованный в 1976 году музей представляет искусство Германии с первой половины XX века, американский и британский поп-арт 1960-х годов, русский авангард, фотореализм и актуальное искусство последней трети ХХ века. В нем созданы отделы живописи, скульптуры, графики и художественной фотографии. Отмечена роль известных немецких меценатов и собирателей Петера и Ирены Людвиг в формировании и пополнении фондов музея.

Europe turned to Eastern cultures at the stage of oversaturation with its own traditions or at the stage of finding ways out of the crisis in the cultural and artistic life of society. Obviously, the fascination with Chinese cultural traditions - first at the mundane level, and later at the level of art and architecture - during the Baroque and Rococo period testified to the oversaturation that gradually grew in the Baroque and Rococo styles, and therefore the appeal to China became a hidden attempt to find something fundamentally new, non-standard. It is quite clear that without a deep understanding of the foundations of ancient Chinese culture, such citation of Chinese motifs in art and in the architecture of country palaces and park pavilions turned them into simplified theatrical scenery. In the same way, the same fascination with Japanese culture in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries took place against the background of increasing crisis phenomena in society, when the processes of secularization intensified against the background of the industrial revolutions and the rise to the forefront of the bourgeois class, and that is why Japanese culture with its philosophy of Taoism and Buddhism, which penetrated into all spheres of social life, into art and architecture, was perceived as a desirable way out of stagnation. At the same time, once again, external forms were copied, which were transformed on local soil without a deep understanding of the philosophical and religious background. It should be noted the impact on European culture of the opening in 1897 of the unique temple complex of Dunhuang. As a result of the unstable situation in China during the reign of the Qing Dynasty, many unique artifacts from the Dunhuang sanctuaries were bought for nothing by Europeans and ended up in museums in Europe. This caused another stage of interest in Chinese culture and architecture. The use of aesthetic properties of traditional Chinese and Japanese culture made it possible to enrich the figurative concept of European Art Nouveau. The painting techniques of Art Nouveau period originate from the characteristic painting techniques of China and Japan. However, there is a difference in the influence of Eastern cultures on the art and architecture of Art Nouveau period: if in art such analogies can be traced quite clearly, in architecture at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, this influence was a much more complex phenomenon than the "Chinoiserie" style of the 18th century: Art Nouveau architects did not literally reproduce Chinese and Japanese buildings, but instead creatively rethought the principles of their formation, layout, function and decoration.

The article studies the problem of interpretation of literary source in visual creative work of A.N. Benois. There are identified and analyzed new sources of his works — historical novels by A. Dumas, père. The question about the role of the novels by Alexandre Dumas devoted to the history of France of the 17th and 18th centuries in creative work of Alexandre Benois has never become the object of research. The re­levance of this article is determined by this fact. The scientific novelty of this article lies in revea­ling new literary sources of creative work of A. Benois — Dumas’s novels “Joseph Balsamo (Doctor’s Notes)” (1846—1848), “Louis XIV and his Century” (1844), “Louis XV and his Epoch” (1849) — and determining parallels between them and art practice of the artist: painting, graphics and art of book. The author analyses content of the ar­tist’s memories, his literary works, diaries, as well as diaries by E. Lanceray, and complements these information details by a comparative textological analysis of Benois’s memoirs and Dumas’s no­vels in Russian translations. This method allows to deepen the formal analysis of A. Benois’s works (primarily the two Versailles series) and partially reveal the mechanism of complex figurative synthesis in the artistic consciousness at the turn of the 19th—20th centuries, on the basis of which they were created, to expand the existing perceptions about the literary sources of the artist’s creative work. The author concludes that the no­vels by Dumas “Joseph Balsamo”, “Louis XIV and his Century” had an influence on the artist’s perception of the theme of court culture and Versailles in the historical, cultural and natural aspects. It was reflected in the appeal to the plot of “fish feeding” in the late 1890s, in the formation of the images of Versailles and King Louis XIV in old age. The article also finds that the novel “Joseph Balsamo” had an influence on Benois’s creation of Trianon’s everyday image in the past. At the same time, the artist turned to the interpretation of the image of Marquise de Pompadour as “sultana” under the influence of Dumas’s novel “Louis XV and his Epoch”. In addition, the three musketeers — characters of Dumas’s novel with the same name — are placed in the drawing of the title page of Benois’s “Versailles” album. It is important that it does not come about direct illustration of the novels, but about an artistic process of creating a figurative system of images and forming the artist’s stylistics.

The article examines the peculiarities of the color and light atmosphere of the phenomenon of white night in the Far North in the seascapes of the Russian and Northern European art. Attention is drawn to the period from the second third of the 19th century to the first quarter of the 20th century, when scientific and artistic exploration of the Arctic begins to take place on a regular basis. The article shows that the motive of the luminous night at the turn of the century appeared in connection with the appeal of artists to the study of natural contrasts of the Far North. Owing to the comprehending of the monotonous northern landscape, the palette of paintings was enriched with cold light shades of a lightair environment, the artists caught its special glow in the reflections in the water, ice floes and on the snow cover. The article mentions works of art by K. A. Korovin, V. A. Serov, V. V. Perepletchikov, N. V. Pinegin, A. A. Rylov and A. N. Benois, created during their participation in polar expeditions in late XIX and early XX centuries. Attention is drawn to the fact that the painters are branching out from marine pictorial art towards the study of special natural phenomena, such as images of light and dark polar nights, the northern lights, floating ice, fogs and snowy shores. It is carried out an art analysis and comparison of the works of the Russian “artist of eternal ice” Alexander Borisov and the Dutch “winter artist” Louis Apol, who were the first to depict such a phenomenon as a white night in the Far North. But their artistic interpretation of this phenomenon differs. A. Borisov perceives the North as a kind of “living” space in his own experience of figurative-symbolic comprehension of the world order, but at the same time does not lose touch with his realistic painting manner. And L. Apol impartially captures the surrounding nature, remaining in the principles of the features of compositional construction, which are characteristic of late romanticism. The European painter prefers muffled coloring, while on the canvas of the Russian artist, the paints literally ring and glow.

El presente trabajo aborda la obra de Gerhard Richter desde su relación con la representación de la ciudad. Richter trae al frente un tipo de pintura basado en la interpretación de algunas urbes europeas desde la abstracción que traen al frente la presentación en planta, de vistas cenitales, que configuran sus espacios. Esta desfiguración de lo característico de un lugar, conecta la tradición figurativa con los nuevos lenguajes gestuales en la segunda mitaddel siglo XX. Las revisiones de la ciudad a partir de la abstracción e sus planos enlazan con la memoria enterrada bajo sus ruinas, proveniente de los conflictos bélicos de la II Guerra Mundial y se relacionan, a su vez, con lo fragmentario, lo anónimo y lo indiferente que en ellas habita. Forzando una reflexión en términos icónicos en plena reconstrucción de la memoria histórica alemana, sirviendo como una metodología activa para la educación artística de los individuos a favor de una emancipación del alumnado en términos visuales. The present work approaches the work of Gerhard Richter from his relation with the representation of the city. Richter brings to the front a type of painting based on the interpretation of some European cities from the abstraction presented by the plants that make up their spaces. This disfigurement of the characteristic of a place connects the figurative tradition with the new gestural languages in the second half of the 20th century. The revisions of the city from the abstraction of its planes link with the memory of its ruins from the war conflicts of World War II and are related, in turn, to the fragmentary, the anonymous and the indifferent in them live. Forcing a reflection in iconic terms in full reconstruction of German historical memory, serving as an active methodology for the artistic education of individuals, favoring of emancipation of students in visual terms.

Статья посвящена творчеству якутского живописца Зинаиды Курчатовой. Цель работы — изучение творчества, выявление особенностей пластического и образного языка художника, работавшего в таких жанрах, как портрет, пейзаж, тематическая картина. С помощью искусствоведческого анализа были установлены композиционные и колористические приемы, трактовка образов автором. Особое внимание уделено пейзажу: колоритный, лаконичный, наполненный эмоциональной глубиной, лирико-эпичным содержанием, он повествует о красоте северной земли и открывает мировидение автора. Обзор выполнен на основе монографической коллекции З.К. Курчатовой, хранящейся в собрании Национального художественного музея Республики Саха (Якутия). Данная статья приоткрывает практически забытую страницу о творчестве члена Регионального отделения Союза художников Якутии, Союза художников России Зинаиды Курчатовой. Работа впервые публикует и вводит ее наследие в научный оборот. Материал актуален для осмысления творчества живописца и для представления более полной панорамы якутского изобразительного искусства второй половины ХХ века. The article discusses the work of Yakut painter Zinaida Kurchatova. There was no specific focus on studying her legacy in art criticism. The goal of this article is to study the painter's works, to identify the features of her plastic and figurative language considering all the different genres she worked in, such as portrait, landscape, and themed based painting. The study was carried out in accordance with art review principles, which helped to identify compositional and coloristic techniques of the author, as well as her interpretation of images. Particular attention was paid to landscapes. Colorful, concise, full of emotional depth and lyrical-epic content, they recount the beauty of the Northern Land and open up the author's worldview. The study was based on the monographic collection of Zinaida Kurchatova, stored in the collections of the National Arts Museum of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia). This article reveals an almost forgotten page in the creative work member of the Artists Union of Yakutia, Regional Branch of the Union of Artists of Russia, of Zinaida Kurchatova. This is the first work to publish and introduce her legacy into scholarly discourse. The article is relevant for understanding the painter's work and presenting a more complete picture of Yakut fine arts of the second half of the 20th century.

The year 2022 marks the 100th anniversary of Juri Lotman’s birth. On this occasion, I propose to return to one of Lotman’s concepts, namely that of frame. The term was proposed in The structure of the artistic text (1970/1977), in the traditional understanding of a limit that separates a text produced in any kind of medium from extra-textual structures (other texts) or non-text (real-life contexts). This notion of frame comes close to its understanding in literary studies, as well as the theory and philosophy of art and should not be confused with a well-known concept of frame propagated in AI Studies (Minsky 1975; Petöfi 1976) and which refers to a global cognitive pattern of storing common-sense knowledge about particular concepts and situations in memory. Lotman returned to the discussion of the textual frame in Universe of the mind (1990), mainly in application to the fine arts. He also elaborated there a more inclusive concept of boundary (proposed in Lotman 1984/2005) as a demarcation of the semiosphere and of its internal subsystems, which necessitates constant translations between particular codes and languages. Lotman dubbed transgressions of textual borders transcoding, which in contemporary parlance is a clear manifestation of transmediality. Therefore, I propose to analyse the concept of frame in relation to Intermedial Studies (cf. Elleström, 2014). Such crossings of boundaries between different media/modes/modalities are simultaneously creative and potentially confusing, in that they display a semiotic collision of artistic codes and require a heightened processing effort on the part of the addressee. My vantage point is basically semiotic, with the focus of interest going less to verbal texts and more to the issues of frame in the visual arts. Semiotic considerations on the problem of boundaries are complemented with brief phenomenologically-oriented ponderings on aesthetic and cognitive import of framing devices (Crowther, 2009) that emphasize their antithetical function as: a) devices with their own artistic value, even complementing the text vs. b) “defences against the exterior” and hindrances to creative liberty. First, I turn to two areas of interest of Lotman himself: 1) the extension of artistic media in Baroque art and 2) collages, which I treat as transmediality through surface. Lotman perceived collages as a collision of the fictitious with the real, referring to their doubly figurative nature (metonymical and metaphorical). Next, I complement this discussion with examples taken from 20th-century painting and sculpture, e.g. Spatialism, Minimalism, and Hyperrealism. Of particular interest is the situation in which the frame becomes a text commenting on its content or plays a metatextual function. Another game worthy of attention is embedding of frames. The discussion closes with the case of transmedial effects between painting and theatre, illustrated by Polish painter and stage-director Tadeusz Kantor’s theatrical experiments in Cracovian Cricot 2 Theatre: a) Velázquez’s Infanta Margarita entering Kantor’s self-portraits and a photo-portrait frame in the performance Today is my birthday (1990); b) Kantor stepping out of the frame of his own self-portrait on the illusory boundary between real life, painting and theatre. The article posits to treat frame and multiple ways of transgressing it as an integrational phenomenon that opens a path for further interdisciplinary studies across the borders of artistic semiotics, Intermedial Studies, literary theorizing and the theory and philosophy of art.

Dear readers, We are pleased to present to you Issue 4, 2022, of the scientific and analytical journal Burganov House. The Space of Culture. Upon the recommendation of the Expert Council of the Higher Attestation Commission, the journal is included in the List of Leading Peer-reviewed Scientific Journals and Publications in which the main scientific results of theses for the academic degrees of doctor and candidate of science must be published. The journal publishes scientific articles by leading specialists in various humanitarian fields, doctoral students, and graduate students. Research areas concern topical problems in multiple areas of culture, art, philology, and linguistics. This versatility of the review reveals the main specificity of the journal, which represents the current state of the cultural space. The journal opens with articles by Chinese researchers devoted to the art of Ancient China. In the article "The Heaven-and-Man Oneness Concept and the Style of Funerary Plastic Art During the Han Dynasty", Xiang Wu analyses the idea of heaven-and-man oneness, which was important for the art of this period. It was based on the Confucian view, the rituals of a strict social hierarchy and Taoist metaphysics. Qiu Mubing’s scientific research topic is “Objects of the Funerary Cult in the Han Dynasty. Gold and Silver Items. Aesthetics of Gold and Silver in the Han Dynasty”. Examining archaeological sources, the author concludes the high achievements of Chinese artisans during the Han Dynasty on examples of works of arts and crafts made of precious metals. In the article “Aesthetics of the Song Dynasty. The Origins of the New Style of Furniture Design in China", N.Kazakova and Qiu Qi analyse the vector of development of the furniture industry through the prism of the industrial design evolution. The reasons for the emergence of the New style in furniture design in China are studied. They are analysed in detail against the background of changing economic, political and cultural realities. The issues of the influence of Ancient China aesthetics on the formation and development of a new language in furniture design are touched upon. In the article "Problems of Colour Harmonisation of Composition and Development of Associative and Imaginative Thinking in the Environmental Design", N.Bogatova reveals the potential of colouristic graphic two-dimensional modelling in artistic and imaginative thematic compositions. On the example of the compositional laws of colouristics, the author traces the path of ascent from the concrete to the abstract, pictorial to the expressive, and emotional to the figurative. P.Dobrolyubov presents the text “Sculptor Alexander Matveev’s School and His Students”, which includes many archival documents and photographs. The author describes the process of learning from teacher and sculptor A.Matveev, names the main dates in his creative work, reveals the details of the sculptural craft, talks about the variety of moves in the master’s plasticity, analyses the methods and principles of work in sculpture, shows the attitude of students to their teacher, and highlights the entire course of historical milestones in the sculptor’s creative biography. In the article "The Golden Age of PRC History Painting (1949–1966): Origins, Searches, Achievements”, K.Gavrilin and L.Xiaonan consider the issues of the formation of the modern Chinese art school. Its foundation was laid in the framework of the creative and educational dialogue between China and the Soviet Union at the beginning of the second half of the 20th century. The authors believe that the characteristic features of the golden age of Chinese historical painting were, on the one hand, the popularisation of painting as an art form and, on the other hand, the predominance of the dominant position of realism over the traditional styles of Chinese painting. It is noted that during this period, two main plots became widespread: scenes of socialist construction and historical events of the revolution. S.Zubarev considers theoretical and practical aspects of the activities of military musicians in the article "Academic Music in the Practice of Russian Military Bands of the 19th - early 21st Centuries". In the process of studying military bands, special attention is paid to the study of the features of military band service development in the 19th and 20th centuries. Factors revealing the role of Russian composers in the history of military musical culture are highlighted, and several works of academic music performed by military bands are analysed. In conclusion, the author notes that in the national culture, unique conditions for the development of military musicians’ arranging activity were created. They made it possible to preserve the traditions of the military band service and form the value principles of academic art. The publication is addressed to professionals specialising in the theory and practice of the fine arts and philology and all those interested in the arts and culture.

This article reveals the features of the artistic embodiment of the image of the “living earth” in the chapter “The Trinity Day” of the novel The Summer of the Lord by the writer of the Russian émigré of the first half of the 20th century Ivan Sergeevich Shmelev. The Summer of the Lord is the pinnacle work in the author’s oeuvre. The book is based on the autobiographical material. In the chapter “The Trinity Day” the author depicted his own childhood memories of celebrating the Orthodox holiday of the Trinity. In the picture of the lush Russian summer nature shown in the chapter “The Trinity Day” and filled with special value and meaning semantics, the image of the blessed “living earth”, correlated with the image of Russia, becomes the leading one. The artistic technique of color painting dominates in revealing the figurative and motif text range, which acquires a symbolic meaning. The motif of the “revival” of the earthly world on the day of the holy celebration reveals the connection of Christian ideas about God as a life-giving principle, the source of real life. Images of birches, motifs of light, brilliance, fragrance, and spiritualization of the earth receive the important symbolic and spiritual significance in the narrative structure of the chapter “The Trinity Day”. The image of the “living earth” in the text of the novel The Summer of the Lord acquires a universal, comprehensive meaning, includes not only images of nature, but also the home space surrounding the main character of the work – a seven-year-old Vanya, as well as images of the temple, Moscow, the Kremlin. The main idea of this chapter of the novel is the belief in the direct descent of the Lord Jesus Christ on the day of Trinity onto the earthly world in order to bless it. The nostalgic intonation of the adult narrator sounding in the chapter “The Trinity Day”, introduces in the text the idea of making the image of Russia sacred. The bygone childhood and Homeland, forever lost in terrible historical cataclysms, acquire a sacred character, appear in the author’s understanding as the blessed world of Holy Russia. The Russia of his childhood turns out to be included in the single circle of Christian Eternity and existential being.

Inspired by the work of the Irish-born British figurative painter, Francis Bacon, Gilles Deleuze, one of the most influential French philosophers of the 20th century, wrote a book titled, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. In this book, Deleuze creates novel concepts of coloring sensation that rely on relations between colors or the juxtaposition of tints and hues in relation to feelings or perceptions, resulting from something that happens to or comes into contact with the body. Deleuze illuminates how Bacon uses the figure, colors, contours, and broken tones to show raw and dark motifs such as horror, vulnerability, and brutality. Using loosely connected scenes, narrative interruptions, storyline turns, recitations, and pedagogical moments, I show a tissue of coloring sensations among children in a primary school that will not be stilled, calmed, or dimmed. In this way, I pursue a desiring, political aesthetics of pedagogical, scholarly, and life-wide meanings.

Shadow, a physical phenomenon that we experience every day and is intuitively easy to understand, does not seem to hide great mysteries. However, through the study of texts and works of Western figurative art, a different reality linked to its use can be observed. In fact, the presence of shadow in Western art and representation is profoundly discontinuous and non-linear, and it does not become more frequent with a greater mastery of representation techniques. There are authors who were knowledgeable about and studied the phenomenon in detail but nonetheless advised against its use or avoided it altogether. For these reasons, we have decided to delve into the use and representation of shadow in figurative art and its significance, focusing specifically on two distinct artistic techniques. The objective of this article is to demonstrate: 1) that the use of shadow in figurative art and representation is not simply a coincidental fact or a mere attempt to imitate reality, but rather reveals a specific conscious intention of the artist to represent; 2) that there is a difference in the use of cast shadow, particularly regarding the presence or absence of the subject casting the shadow within the framed and represented scene. To support this thesis, an interdisciplinary analysis of two examples is conducted, one from painting and one from cinema. However, due to the vastness of the time span and examples, it was necessary to narrow down the scope of research by limiting the analysis to two examples from the 20th century in painting and cinema: Giorgio de Chirico (1888 – 1978) and Ingmar Bergman (1918 – 2007).

The purpose of the article is to analyse and systematise the figurative structure of artworks from two series of symbolist paintings by Mykhailo Sapozhnykov in the light of Slavic and ancient mythology, Christian religion. The methodology of scientific research is based on use of systematic approach in combination of general scientific and special methods of cognition, such as analytical, formal-stylistic, systematisation, and generalisation. The application of these methods and approaches contributed to the thorough processing of the identified issues and made it possible to formulate reasoned conclusions. The scientific novelty of research consists in a comprehensive approach of consideration and synthesis on range of issues regarding the influence of Slavic and ancient mythology, the Christian religion on aesthetics and figurative style symbolist painting of M. I. Sapozhnykov. This issue was considered for the first time. Conclusions. The artwork of Mykhailo Sapozhnykov (1871–1937), as a consistent symbolist artist, occupies a special place in the history of Ukrainian fine art. Range of the artist's works presented in the research proved his ultimate interest in ancient and Slavic mythology, as well as the Christian religion, which together become a specific keynote of the paintings from two symbolist series. The artist's interest in mythology is reflected in the presented images, in the titles of artworks, and in pantheistic mood of most symbolist paintings. Animism is an obligatory element of the symbolist painting’s aesthetics by M. Sapozhnykov. According to the results of scientific research, two types of figures are allocated according to their function and status: personifications of natural forces, where elements and earthly matter itself, appear in anthropomorphic and zoomorphic forms and figures of folk demonology, among which the figure of Pan stands out – the key character of the artist's symbolist paintings. Following the results of research, it was found that 18 symbolist paintings have thematic quotations from the Bible selected by the author as a kind of epigraph, what are artist by himself called "keys". Keywords: Mykhailo Sapozhnykov, symbolism, painting, mythology, pantheism, the first quarter of 20th century, Dnipro Art Museum.

Modern painting was a new ideology that was brought in from Western countries in the 20th century. The art form, which was pioneered by renowned artist Paul Cezanne, can be identified through its own unique style, characterised by bold brush strokes and strong colours that represent self-expression. The influence of the modern painting movement was first introduced to the Malay Peninsula in the early 1900s by the British, who had colonised Penang at the time. This influence resulted in the emergence of three prominent local painters, who became local leaders of the modernism ideology, namely, Abdullah Ariff, Hoessein Enas and Syed Ahmad Jamal. Their indomitable spirit and efforts to develop the local painting scene succeeded and this is evident in their establishment as painters that are regarded as being of high calibre both nationally and internationally. They must therefore be categorised as leaders and visual guides to encourage Malay youth to participate in the world of painting. Therefore, an analytical observation must be carried out to show that these three prominent painters possess characteristics of leadership, creativity, critical thinking and efficiency, as well as advantages in various aspects whether in art creation or administration. Among these aspects are a dominant personality, painting through touches of colour on a canvas that can influence the viewer, the ability to move their peers and students to take part in the arts and to effectively convey a theme through painting. In order to consider these matters, the writer used the qualitative observation method, with a cultural approach, specifically by collecting written data and visuals from the National Visual Art Gallery. The existence of this research paper provides us with a picture of a sincere and persistent struggle, which succeeded in guiding local youth to join the effort in further elevating the nation's visual art field.

Vorticism was a London-based avant-garde movement of art and literature in the early 20th century. Launched by Wyndham Lewis with “The Vorticist Manifesto” in 1914, Vorticism employed the depiction of an image’s movement and exalted the dynamism of the wartime machine age. Inspired by Futurism and Cubism, Vorticism is often considered masculinist, excluding women from the textual and visual canons. The British avant-garde poet and artist Jessica Dismorr (1885-1939) was one of the two female members of Vorticism. She contributed to the movement with her textual and artistic representations from its commencement to its demise; however, she was long overlooked by literary and aesthetic critics. This article, from intertextual, aesthetic and feminist perspectives, investigates how the textual and visual narrators in Dismorr’s prose-poems “June Night” (1915) and “London Notes” (1915) and her painting, Abstract Composition (c.1915) problematize the exclusion of women in London’s male-dominated city and public spaces and argues the relationship between urbanization and “Female Vorticism.”

The purpose of the article is to introduce into scientific turnover the little-known drawings of the outstanding Ukrainian realist painter of the mid-20th century, professor of the Kyiv State Art Institute, Karpo Demianovych Trokhymenko, made during the evacuation to Ufa in the period of the Great Patriotic War. The methodology of the work is based on the principles of art history, figurative and stylistic, systematic and comparative analysis, as well as historical and contextual methods. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the definition of the role of drawing in the creative heritage of Karpo Trokhymenko of the period 1941-1944. In the portrait sketches made by Karpo Trokhymenko for the picture “Meeting of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in Ufa”, the difference in relation to the expressive means of art destroyed at the time of the avant-garde and finally formed social realism are clearly traced. The point, line, and plane as the leading artistic elements of the avant-garde are losing their significance, remaining to a certain extent only in the arsenal of graphic artists. Tone, light and shade gradations and energy of light acquire a special significance in the drawing of the easel painters. Conclusions. By analyzing the figurative and stylistic structure and technique of the portrait works, the peculiarities of drawing in the artist’s asset, in particular, the attention to creating an air environment, are revealed. In the drawings of Karpo Trokhymenko, the line has no intrinsic value and is perceived only as of the part of light and shadow, dissolving in the overall tone spot. The color plays an important role in the drawings of Karpo Trokhymenko. The works made within the complex warmth and coolness of colored paper, silver graphite pencil, colored pencils and chalk and acquire the significance of independent works. A set of portraits of outstanding Ukrainian scientists - academicians, artists, writers created by Karpo Trokhymenko, has not only documentary, historical and cultural value, but is a significant monument of Ukrainian easel drawing of the Great Patriotic War period.

The professional career of 20th Century British surgeon and artist Henry Tonks provides a unique perspective into the complex balance of technique, creativity, and empathy necessary to heal both body and soul. For Tonks, the skills of surgery did not suffice to address his intense emotional attachment to his suffering patients. For that reason, he turned to painting as an expression of deeper efforts to demonstrate human suffering to which he was so sensitive and which engulfed him at times in the tragedies of mankind. Nevertheless, his appreciation of the fine details of surgery and surgical manipulations of the body never diminished. His anatomic sketches proved invaluable in reconstructive surgery. Yet, his preference remained to display the entire dimensions of his world through brush and colors. In the process, concern for the personal imperfections of both of his chosen professions enabled Tonks to continually analyze his artistry and to instill that same discipline in his students. This, too, made him a revered teacher and effective interpreter of humanism.

Abstract In the early 20th century, Orissa, a province in British India, was marked by dismemberment and fragmentation. Nationalist leaders in colonial Orissa often portrayed the province as a disfigured mother to evoke nationalist sentiment among the Odia people and garner support for the unification of the Oriya-speaking tracts in adjacent provinces to form a separate and complete Orissa province. One painting from the period depicts a woman representing “Mother Orissa” being dissected on a table by an Englishman and surrounded by wolf-headed figures representing Bengal, Madras, and Bihar, who were opposed to the idea of Orissa’s unification. However, these leaders were careful not to create an environment of coercion and sought to allow for expressions of difference to foster a healthy national life. One way they did this was by trying to unite intrareligious groups in Orissa while also calling for the need to bring together people of different regions living in Orissa. Additionally, they balanced their allegiance and devotion among three mothers: Mother Orissa, Mother India, and Mother Victoria.

The purpose of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of the artistic interpretation of W. Shakespeare's drama by the British theatre director Peter Hall and to develop a periodisation of his interpretive strategies in the second half of the 20th century. Research methodology. The research is based on the achievements of the domestic school of theatre studies and the principles of study and analysis of the play, in relation to the historical and cultural context, as well as in relation to the worldview and individuality of the director. The research methodology is based on the traditions of domestic theatre and art studies and modern approaches that combine the methods of related humanitarian disciplines – cultural studies, philosophy, and aesthetics. A complex theatre analysis of the features of the artistic interpretation of W. Shakespeare's plays by P. Hall determines the logic of the research: Through the identification of the director's orientation of the drama, the formation of the principles of play theatre in the director's reading of W. Shakespeare's plays, to the definition of the aesthetic foundations of Peter Hall's direction. The bibliographical method, the method of art analysis, the stylistic method, the systematic method, and the method of comparative analysis are applied. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that, for the first time, it attempts a comprehensive art analysis of the interpretive strategies of the British director Peter Hall in the context of W. Shakespeare's theatrical discourse of the second half of the 20th century (on the material of the performances “Coriolanus”, “War of the Roses”, “Henry VI”, and “Hamlet”); little-known facts from the life and work of P. Hall were introduced into domestic scientific circulation, and an art analysis of the director's most resonant performances was carried out; for the first time, the periodisation of P. Hall's work is proposed, based on the analysis of his performances from the perspective of the given theme, the study of the specifics of the artistic interpretation of W. Shakespeare's drama and the evolution of the master's philosophical and aesthetic vision. Conclusions. The figure of Peter Hall is one of the most significant in the history of British theatre of the 20th and early 20th centuries. The famous theatre director changed the situation and, in many ways, determined the direction of the development of the British theatre by creating repertory troupes based mainly on the works of W. Shakespeare. Based on the art analysis of Peter Hall's work from the perspective of the given topic, the periodisation of his interpretive strategies was developed in accordance with the specifics of the artistic interpretation of W. Shakespeare's drama and the evolution of the director's philosophical and aesthetic vision in the second half of the 20th century. The first period, 1955–1959, is characterised by high creative activity and the ease with which the young director masters the theatrical language, the system of stage thinking of the English theatre of the 1940s–1950s, develops an author's handwriting, emphasising devotion to traditions; performances are distinguished by the delicacy of the reading of W. Shakespeare's drama, aesthetic perfection and the presence of meaningful and verified innovation (for instance, “Twelfth Night”, 1958). The second period, 1959–1968, is characterised by mastering and rethinking the problematics and poetics of W. Shakespeare's drama; in the performances of the 1960s, the aesthetics of the deromantic Brechtian style of P. Hall was formed; the emphasis in productions shifts to the problem of repetition of historical patterns, to the de-aestheticization of events and historical figures; the stylistics of interpretative thought and modern theatrical vocabulary receive a new development. The third period, 1968–1970s, is characterised by the desire to preserve the theatrical tradition from excessive conceptualisation of direction; the strengthening of the importance of protecting W. Shakespeare's drama from modernist interpretations and P. Hall's desire to convey to the viewer the full content of the world's masterpieces due to an in-depth study of the classical text. The fourth period, 1980–1990, marked by the creation and development of a new style of Shakespearean productions, caused by the rethinking of approaches to the figurative translation of classical drama into stage language in accordance with the trends of postmodernism. Key words: Peter Hall, theatre direction, dramaturgy, W. Shakespeare, interpretive strategies, Royal Shakespeare Company.

Исследование посвящено разработке модели, характеризующей внутренний баланс национальной культуры, функционирующей в условиях глобализации между противоположными полюсами идентичности и диверсификации. Материалами послужили исследования азербайджанских и российских философов, культурологов и искусствоведов, произведения художников ХХ в. В процессе исследования на основе принципа бесфоновой организации изобразительных форм (БОИФ), разработанного Х. Мамедовым и С. Дадашевым, визуализирована мультикультурная модель. Отмечено, что язык БОИФ обладает свойствами комплементарности и полиэйконичности, то есть бесконечно интегрирует элементы в систему. Модель устойчива и структурно отражает идеи мультикультурализма. Комплементарность организует внешние формы культур, не затрагивая их содержания, что отвечает формуле «моя свобода заканчивается там, где начинается ваша». Баланс внутри национальной культуры достигается кристаллизацией этнических особенностей и внутренним разнообразием системы. The article is devoted to the development of a model that ensures the internal balance of national culture, which, in the context of globalization, functions between the opposite poles of identity and diversification. The materials are results of the studies of Azerbaijani and Russian philosophers, culturologists, and art historians, works of artists of the 20th century. The methodology is based on a comparative approach using analogies and parallels. The authors define identity as the gathering, concentration, crystallization of all the characteristic features of a given ethnic group with the uniformity, similarity of the totality of its properties. In this case, diversification is understood as diversity, dissimilarity, difference and even diversity of features within one system. It is noted that researchers often projected the laws of cultural development onto the art system as a whole, but they never inverted this scheme, trying to model the processes in culture with the help of art. The article examines the crisis of figurativeness in art expressed in the works of Kazimir Malevich, non-figurative art and works of Maurits Cornelis Escher, which are characterized by a special type of symmetry interpreted as the fundamental basis of the visual language. In the authors’ opinion, this phenomenon corresponds to the global identity crisis that resulted from the collapse of all empires (except for the British one) following the results of World War I. The parallelism of the discussed phenomena made it possible to use the pictorial language studied by Kh. Mamedov and S. Dadashev for modeling cultural processes. Based on their concept of a backgroundless organization of pictorial forms (such as an image in which the drawing is equal to the background), the authors of the article created the visualization of a multicultural model. The model’s properties and features are described, among which stability, complementarity, and polyiconicity (infinite equal integration of elements within an integral system) are distinguished, after which this model is projected by analogy on culture and various aspects of intercultural interaction. The authors note that this model, in terms of its structure, reflects the ideas of multiculturalism. The principle of complementarity organizes the external forms of cultures without affecting their internal content. This corresponds to the formula “my freedom ends where yours begins”. It is concluded that the balance within the national culture is achieved, on the one hand, by the crystallization of ethnic characteristics with which the culture identifies itself and, on the other, by the diversity that is preserved within the system.

For this issue of M/C Journal we were inspired to select the theme of ‘technique’ by the intersection of the critical discourses around technology and the praxis of everyday life that has been a preoccupation of late-20th and early-21st century cultural studies. We wanted to revisit, rupture, and reconstruct the foundational terms that give this journal its name—media and culture—by using the common nexus of technology. This special issue enlivens the idea of technique within the gamut of technology, media, science, culture, and creativity. The idea of technique is itself an intriguing prompt for the authors in this issue. It has inspired their pursuit of ideas of processes and procedures, methods and makers, habits and hacks, routines and rituals, and knowledge and know-how. Sharing a common etymology with technology, technique builds upon the ancient Greek term techne that describes the arts and mechanical crafts. If we connect technique and technology to this genealogical inheritance, we are presented with an insistence upon understanding how we craft not only objects but also the world. Throughout history we can find plenty of examples of tools and devices all increasing in technical complexity over time to meet the needs of human societies as they unfold across time—from axes and spears, drawing and writing implements, and clockwork mechanisms to telescopes, eye-glasses, and time-keeping and counting machines. As technical objects have become more complex, the cultures that produce them have produced increasingly specialised knowledge and fragmentary perceptions of the world in which they exist. Technology is thus the study of how to apply techne, craft; when people employ technology they are not just making use of a tool or device, they are also generating and employing techniques constitutive of a world view. While this might seem high-minded, the above reflection is based on the recognition that humans make use of techniques every day. Marshall McLuhan famously described this everyday relation with technologies and their techniques as extensions of the human body, notably of the senses. For McLuhan (1964), media are the substance of these extensions, and these extensions include a range of things beyond the tired trio of newspapers, radio and television, such as those engaged with by our authors in this issue. There is a long cross-cultural genealogy of ideas about technology and technique, which is far too large to discuss in sufficient detail here, it may suffice for us to summarise our focus by turning to the work of the influential British Cultural Studies scholar Raymond Williams. For Williams (1974), technology is used by people, and in this use people create meaningful exchanges of information structured by techniques and know-how. Used in this way, Williams argues, technology becomes a medium of communication that interacts with a social context. More strongly, Williams suggests that it is from a social necessity first and foremost that people develop techniques that make use of technology that is available in their milieu. The insight of Williams is that technology is frequently a (or the) material basis for late capitalist culture, and that techniques are a culmination of the knowledge of what technology is used for and, significantly, how to use it. Media are thus the applied use of technology as forms a social link, a mediation, between ourselves and the world. As history has demonstrated however, there are always unintended consequences that come with each new medium. Sometimes it is as simple as unintended uses that go beyond anything the original creator dreamed of. People routinely test the limits and boundaries of a new medium by examining what is already possible. Creativity is key to these experiments. For instance, the classic definition of ‘a hacker’ has very little to do with computer crime. Instead, the word ‘hacker’ defines someone who is motivated to solve problems through playful creativity and, often, displays of wit—and, of course, proficiency with techniques. It just so happens that the techniques uncovered by computer hackers also have applications elsewhere in society, a trend that continues to this day with the increase in interest in a range of 'hacker-esque' activities. Whether it's the political activist group Anonymous who directly employ techniques of subversion to further their varied agendas (Coleman 2014), or the more benign 'Maker' movement that champions a Do-It-Yourself approach to technology and hardware. The articles included in this issue of the M/C Journal explore a variety of techniques as they manifest through a specific medium. Each article presents a case study that answers Katherine Hayles' (2004) call for more "media-specific analysis" in cultural and critical theory. Liam Cole Young anchors this issue with his discussion of the relationship of technology to culture. Young charts the origins and history of a branch of German media studies that informs what we now call ‘cultural techniques’ or Kulturtechniken. Young invites his readers to reconsider the technology-culture relationship by rethinking Kulturtechniken so often misappropriated as techniques of audience and content analysis. Specifically, Young seeks to reposition the frame of institutional media studies, thus providing an alternative to the fetishisation of audiences and content in favour of a view that is sensitive to the intellectual history of ‘cultural techniques’, bringing them in dialogue with an understanding of the material specificity of media formats and the material realities of logistical media. Peng Liu draws our attention to the bodily techniques and responses of the artist structured by Chinese painting and the Confucian perspective. Liu argues that his memories and experiences of the Forgotten City and Chinese culture impress themselves upon his mapping of the aesthetic as he paints. Focusing on the interrelation and resistances of the body-as-artist and the conceptual structures that inform his sense of self, Liu imagines and reflects upon himself as a Chinese-artist. César Albarrán Torres and Justine Humphry delve into the cultural politics and labour of ‘self-care’ and ‘self-control’ in relation to the expansion of gambling enabled by Internet-enabled mobile devices. Torres and Humphry suggest that recent policy decisions enacted by neo-liberal governance in Australia has resulted in attempts to regulate or interrupt gambling addiction. In so doing, they argue that these policies have reconfigured the self-discipline of the subject-state relation in the Australian context. Nicole Pepperell and Duncan Law take us into the recent history of the faith in Internet technology as a progressive force of economic, legal, political and social emancipation. Examining the politics of the Internet’s divergent potentials, Pepperell and Law suggest that rhetorical, social and politics techniques have proven themselves decisive in the success or failure of realising the Internet’s emancipatory potential. They note that it is not without irony that recognising the limitations of politicised technologies may have a positive impact on the manifestation of private freedoms. To close this special issue, Jamileh Kadivar turns her gaze to the case of techniques of surveillance and counter-surveillance in Iran during the non-violent protests of the Iranian Green Movement in 2009. Kadivar argues that the centrality of surveillance for a convergent media environment cannot be understated, and its operation and function served to target and repress protest and dissent in Iran during the northern hemisphere’s late autumn of 2009. Yet Kadivar notes the important role of visibility in the contestations of surveillance in Iran and other dissenting movements such as Occupy. The editors of the 'technique' issue of M/C Journal wish to thank the M/C editorial team for the opportunity to gather articles under the theme. Thank you also to the scholars who provided constructive feedback during the peer-review process. And, most importantly, thank you to our authors without whom this issue would not be possible. References Coleman, Gabriella. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: the Story of Anonymous. United Kingdom: Verso Books, 2014. Hayles, N.Katherine. “Print Is Flat, Code Is Deep: The Importance of Media-Specific Analysis.” Poetics Today 25.1 (2004): 67-90 McLuhan, H. Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Berkeley, Calif.: McGraw-Hill, 1964. Williams, Raymond. Television: Technology and Cultural Form. London, UK: Collins, 1974.

Edith and John Power were a wealthy expatriate Australian couple who lived in England and Europe from the early years of the 20th century until their deaths. In 1915 John Power married Edith Lee in London before serving as a surgeon on the Western Front in the Royal Army Medical Corps. After the war Edith and John left Britain to live in Paris and Brussels in the centre of a large international group of avant-garde artists. Edith, who was twelve years older than her husband, and had been married twice before (once widowed and once divorced), was to all accounts the driving force behind John's success as an artist -- he exhibited alongside Picasso, Braque and Kandinsky -- and the great love of his life. The following comes from a book-length fictionalised biography of their lives, narrated by Edith in the early 1960s when she was ninety-two years old. This extract comes from the part of the manuscript dealing with the Nazi Occupation of the Channel Island of Jersey in the second world war; the 'safe haven' to which the Powers had fled in 1938 when war threatened. The first winter under the Germans was very hard and there were reports of old people dying of starvation and exposure. Jack had terrible chilblains and we were both very thin. Cooking fat was only available for doctors to give to invalids, and one poor chap was so desperate that he used sump oil from his car to fry up some gull eggs, and poisoned himself. Sitting down to a plate of boiled potatoes I couldn't sometimes help but reminisce about the wonderful meals we had eaten in Paris and Brussels. How decadent they seemed -- oysters, poached salmon, grilled tournedos with asparagus or a roasted duck, then a glass of champagne, a slice or two of Ange à Cheval and some wild strawberries to finish off with. I also realised how petty all our worries had been up 'til then. We would be upset if the hotel we fancied was booked out for the summer, the bath water cold or a soufflé heavy. When the stock market dropped a point or two we were devastated, and Jack used to sulk for days when he had trouble with a painting or if his frames were not exactly as ordered, the moulding wrong, the gilding scratched or too bright. Such concerns seemed absurd when we faced death every day and misery and fear were all around us. Then the prisoners-of-war arrived from Russia, dressed in rags and even thinner than us. They suffered terribly, working impossibly hard every day on the railway and underground hospital, with nowhere proper to sleep and very little to eat. We felt so sorry for them, and admired those Islanders who, although it was a serious crime, sheltered them if they managed to escape. We had another dreadful reminder of just how awful the Germans could be when they started shooting anyone caught with a crystal radio set. By the summer of 1942 Jack was very ill, although he continued to deny anything was wrong. He finally confided in me just how dire things were one afternoon when we were sitting on the terrace. We were drinking the last of our English tea and discussing how wild the garden had become. One minute Jack was saying how much he enjoyed watching everything return to its natural state, the next he was telling me that he thought he had a cancerous tumour in his kidneys and should see a doctor. I listened in a daze as he detailed the possible treatments and his prognosis, which he anticipated to be poor. Then he stood, drank the dregs in his cup, kissed me and said he had to return to the studio. He had salvaged a piece of wood from somewhere to paint on and didn't want to lose the last light. I was stunned, not wanting to believe what he had told me. I never found out whether Jack suspected the cancer before the Occupation, but if he did, I can't understand why he didn't tell me. We could have gone back to England or over to Switzerland and seen the best doctors. This still puzzles me for Jack was never reticent to seek medical treatment. Tony even laughingly called Jack a hypochondriac, he was so careful with his health, but then again, I know Jack's father had hidden the same condition from his family some forty years before. For many years after the war Ceylon tea only ever tasted of trouble and dismay to me. Nowadays everyone wants to give me tea all the time, especially the nurses. I tell them I'd really like a stiff gin and tonic, but alcohol is another of life's pleasures denied to the elderly. If I could only get out of this bed, I'd get one for myself -- a big one. I have forgotten the name of that doctor we consulted a few days later, but I remember exactly what he said. He confirmed what Jack thought, that the tumours were in his kidneys, but added that they had possibly settled in his lungs as well. In a last (but futile) effort, my poor darling was operated on by this old fashioned surgeon who had to work in the most primitive conditions; without the drugs, anaesthetics or antiseptics he needed. By that time it was difficult to find soap whatever price you were willing to pay, and I gave him some fancy little rose scented tablets to wash up with before he cut Jack open. Jack had never been a fast healer and all the odds were against him; the strain of the advancing cancer, the inadequacy of our diet and the lack of proper medicines. The only foods we could obtain were quite coarse, there was no lean meat to make beef tea or eggs for milk puddings. Jack once said to me something to the effect that the ghastly jokes of fate are not always in the best of taste but they could be extremely witty. I never, however, found anything except the most savage cruelty in his situation, that such a highly trained surgeon had to endure such a crude assault on his body, and that a wealthy philanthropist could suffer so for the want of the most basic requirements of food, firewood and pain killers. My darling, who had been so dreadful when struck down with the slightest illness, was a model patient. It took a long time, but eventually he was able to leave his bed, and the first thing he did was to boil up his own analgesics, potent narcotics which he followed with a stiff whisky. When his condition deteriorated and I had to tend to all his most intimate needs, he was always good tempered and never made me feel I was humiliating or demeaning him. We grew closer than ever, but I knew our time was running out. In another cruel twist of fate Jack was only exempted from deportation to a German internment camp by the sick certificate. An order of 1942 decreed that all the British men not born on the Channel Islands, from the young boys of sixteen to poor old men of seventy, would be transferred to Germany. Thinking about it now, it seems bizarre that such a reasonable bureaucratic rule could regulate the Germans' inhumanity. My darling's last days are as clear in my memory as if they were yesterday. He lay in our yellow bedroom, looking out over the garden to the sea. I only left his side for the briefest periods, and slept in a chair by his bed. Early one morning I woke from an uneasy doze. I looked over to Jack. His face was grey and much too old for his sixty-two years, he was no longer the boy he had always been in my heart. Lying stiffly in the middle of the bed, arms by his side, eyes and lips closed, his breathing was so shallow that his chest hardly rose or fell. I wondered if he felt the weight of the blankets or heard the wind outside. Did he even know how I sat with him? I looked out over the garden. The vegetable patches dug in the chamomile lawn were flourishing, but the grass was long, the roses run to briars, the pond filled with sludge and rotting weeds. I wanted to lie beside my darling and hold him, just as I had each night for so many years, so after I had removed my shoes and placed them together under the bed, I pulled back the sheets and lay on my side facing Jack. He didn't move. I traced my finger across his cheekbones and down his nose to the mouth I had kissed so often. His skin was cool and very dry. I moved over and pressed my body close to his and as he made no sign that this was uncomfortable, I began to relax. The house was quiet and, for the first time in weeks, I sank into a peaceful sleep. When I woke, the soft light of late afternoon was filtering through the curtains. The breeze had dropped outside and I heard a lone bird calling for its mate. Most of the birds had been killed and I thought I would put out some potato bread for him. What depths we were reduced to in those days, eating the gentle creatures around us. It was rumoured that some desperate soul had roasted and eaten a hedgehog, but I still can't believe that was true. There were so many dreadful stories in those days, you never knew what to believe. My hand found Jack's. It was icy. I willed myself not to think of it, but I knew he was gone. I touched his cheek, my fingers slightly warming the cold flesh, then I put my arms right around him and pressed my face into his neck. We lay like that for a long time. Eventually I got up, tucked the blankets around him and closed the window. Downstairs I washed in cold water and dressed in black stockings, black slip and my best black dress. My black shoes were still under Jack's bed, so I laced on my tan brogues. I found my veiled black hat and put it on the sideboard. Even though I knew it was ridiculous, I felt uncomfortable wearing brown shoes with black and returned them to the cupboard. I looked around for my pearls, and realised I had left them upstairs too. I stood outside the bedroom door for some time before I could enter. Then I went in, raised the window and sat on the chair. I don't know what I thought about, but after some time the chirping of the little bird brought me back to the present. I bent and retrieved my shoes from under the bed and placed them beside the door. I could see my pearls lying in a shining mound on top of the blankets just below his hip. As I was picking them up I finally looked at Jack properly. His eyes were closed and his face was relaxed as if in a deep dreamless sleep. He looked years younger. He wore his favourite blue striped pyjamas from Jeremyn Street, but he was a stranger to me. I kissed him for the last time, then lifted the linen sheet to cover the face I had loved so much. I turned away, picked up my shoes and left the room, closing the door behind me. Although I hadn't noticed, that dreadful Sunday, the 1st of August 1943, had been a beautifully hot summer's day, just the sort of day Jack had always loved. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Donna Lee Brien. "Just the Sort of Day Jack Had Always Loved." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php>. Chicago style: Donna Lee Brien, "Just the Sort of Day Jack Had Always Loved," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Donna Lee Brien. (1999) Just the sort of day Jack had always loved. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/day.php> ([your date of access]).