Ideological style of god-awful postsovka, instructions for making bezvkusytsy

Exclusive. In every cultural space, history leaves its traces - in architecture, painting, sculpture, in the very logic of the artistic image. It is from these traces that one can judge not only the tastes of the era, but also the internal state of society. At the borders of different historical periods, the contrast sometimes becomes so striking that it turns into an independent object of research, allowing us to see the deep mechanisms of the formation of aesthetics on specific examples.

Let's consider one characteristic episode - the collision of two aesthetic positions, which clearly conveys the situation in the artistic environment of several post-imperial spaces.

Researchers who from childhood had the opportunity to see genuine masterpieces - in the museums of Kyiv and Odessa, in the palaces of Vilnius, Krakow, in the ensembles of Tbilisi and Mtskheta, in the ancient temples of Lviv, Chernihiv, Kutaisi, in the Hermitage and even in the Russian Museum - early noticed the same thing: until the beginning of the 20th century, the artistic tradition in these regions preserved depth, variability and the desire for genuine craftsmanship. And later, more and more works appeared in which the artistic image gave way to an ideological scheme and a simplified symbol.

A typical example can be an episode that is often found in oral reminiscences of that time. Colleagues have repeatedly informed me about this, including at various conferences. The stories I heard really became typological, they were repeated with different variations, but in general they were identical.

So, for example, an elderly woman (it would be difficult to call this being a lady or a woman), a former mistress of a Soviet feudal lord (of course, of proletarian origin), a personal pensioner, wonders why a young artist turns to Antiquity, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, to Egyptian and ancient Russian motifs, but does not depict "modern reality". From her point of view, there is "beautiful" in this reality: pilots, equipment, missiles, portraits of leaders of the era. However, for an outside observer, such plots do not hide the main thing - the lack of artistic depth and internal content.

Hence the simplified belief, as if, then arose art created outside of a religious worldview is by definition superficial. However, later this thesis was clarified: the problem is not in the absence of faith as such, but in the ideological dictate that supplants creative freedom. There was no room left for the master to search, and any attempt to go beyond the limits was perceived as a violation.

This became especially striking later, at the stage of the formation of a kind of "neo-ideological" art, when official structures began to mechanically borrow church symbols. In several countries of the post-Soviet space, aesthetics arose in which traditional visual language was mixed with state pathos, turning into a set of simplified, technically reproduced images: digital mosaics, installation panels, accelerated decorative imitations. A real artistic gesture was replaced by a technological process.

Such a phenomenon showed the main thing: genuine art is destroyed not by the absence of religious themes and not belonging to a certain culture, but by the intervention of incompetent and aesthetically undeveloped leaders who replace creative thought with an ideological template. Their worldview comes down to primitive statism, and aesthetic perception — to the level of a propaganda poster.

As a result, any interference leads to the degradation of the artistic environment, where instead of internal culture, administrative pressure is offered, and instead of creativity, there is a scheme.

Soviet art was thoroughly neutered by the "leading role of the CPSU." At that time, I developed a thesis for myself: "Unbelieving people are not capable of creating anything worthwhile in art." After all, the vast majority of genuine art that I saw was religious, and the works of atheists most often left a feeling of emptiness and tastelessness.

With the arrival of Putin's neosovka arose the phenomenon of Soviet-church "art". Modern "masters" easily assimilated the symbolic series of the Orthodox Church, synthesizing it with modern anti-aesthetics (it's not about high categories, but about low ones - ugly, vulgar, lowly, and so on), which gave birth to a new ugliness. The ugliness is not in the idea, but in the implementation: sloppiness, clumsiness, mechanical printing and stretching. Mosaics in yes called the "Temple of the Sun" were created as collages from photographs and film footage, then "picked up" by craftsmen. Thus, there is actually no genuine artistic creativity there.

Over time, I realized that my initial thesis was too simplistic. The problem is not in religious faith or its absence, but in the ideologization of art. Under the leadership of party "comrades" who consider themselves experts in everything, it is inevitably castrated. The color of the party ticket does not matter here.

For a visual comparison, it is enough to refer to the Renaissance orders at the court of Pope Julius II.

These projects also had a pronounced ideological character, but their initiators were distinguished by education, sophisticated taste and a clear understanding of the limits of their own competence. Their ideas were based on Christian humanism, and aesthetic education allowed them to distinguish between genuine genius and simple craftsmanship. Thanks to this, ideology did not suppress art, but became the source of new heights and forms.

A typical example is Raphael's paintings in the Vatican. This is also art, created in line with the church's message, but performed with majestic freedom of spirit. Julius II and his commissions scrupulously discussed every plot, every symbol, striving for the most accurate implementation of the plan, but at the same time reverently giving priority to craftsmanship. Those compositional techniques, precisely then, in the light of the Renaissance, however, there they were alive and ingenious, because the ideological task only guided the artist, not destroying his inspiration.

Raphael's genius was revealed naturally and powerfully, while Perugino, venerable but artisan, was noticeably inferior to him - and this difference was obvious to anyone who understood the power of true talent. Modern ideological "curators" in a number of post-Soviet regions are often deprived of that intellectual and aesthetic school, which once allowed church princes to inspire art, not suppress the ego.

The modern "leadership" of the god-awful Shvabrostan is mostly uneducated, often aggressively ignorant cattle, and, as the war against Ukraine showed, morally degraded to the limit. Their ideology is primitive: statism, the slogan "be ready to die for the glory of the state", and the level of aesthetic perception is below the level of urban sewage. At the same time, they consider themselves undisputed experts in all fields, including science and art. Hence the widespread and permanent degradation, where only their "influence" reaches.

So it becomes obvious that the fate of art is determined not by the slogans of the era and not by external attributes of religiosity and/or statehood. It is determined by the depth of the human spirit, the level of education of those who guide the artistic process, and the ability of society to distinguish between an original and a replacement. Where respect for culture is preserved, where there is a living tradition and a responsible attitude to aesthetic heritage, art continues to develop, finding new ways of expression.

But where the power replaces the meaning with a scheme, where the artistic image turns into an instrument of suggestion, the very possibility of creative growth disappears. And this inevitably leads to simplification, to the loss of flavor, to the decomposition of the visual language.

The task of distinguishing true mastery from superficial imitation, protecting the space of freedom and supporting forms of culture in which the dignity of the individual and the height of the human mind is preserved becomes more significant. Because only in such a space can art remain what it is meant to be - a testimony of the truth, beauty and inner strength of a person, of his faith in the Creator of the Universe.

Martin Skavronsky, for Newsky