Journal Description
Arts
Arts
is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal promoting significant research on all aspects of the visual and performing arts, published bimonthly online by MDPI.
- Open Access— free for readers, with article processing charges (APC) paid by authors or their institutions.
- High Visibility: indexed within ESCI (Web of Science), and other databases.
- Rapid Publication: manuscripts are peer-reviewed and a first decision is provided to authors approximately 33.7 days after submission; acceptance to publication is undertaken in 8.6 days (median values for papers published in this journal in the second half of 2023).
- Recognition of Reviewers: reviewers who provide timely, thorough peer-review reports receive vouchers entitling them to a discount on the APC of their next publication in any MDPI journal, in appreciation of the work done.
Impact Factor:
0.5 (2022)
Latest Articles
Tchaikovsky, Onegin, and the Art of Characterization
Arts 2024, 13(3), 82; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030082 - 30 Apr 2024
Abstract
Tchaikovsky enjoyed composing Yevgeni Onegin. He expressed his fulfillment in a famous letter to Sergey Taneyev. What could his enthusiasm convey about the content of the project? Music criticism has taken Tchaikovsky’s words as proof for the thesis that the opera is
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Tchaikovsky enjoyed composing Yevgeni Onegin. He expressed his fulfillment in a famous letter to Sergey Taneyev. What could his enthusiasm convey about the content of the project? Music criticism has taken Tchaikovsky’s words as proof for the thesis that the opera is connected to autobiographical circumstances. In this mode of thinking, the quality of Tchaikovsky’s music is the result of the composer’s identification with the subject matter. Despite the objection of several Tchaikovsky scholars, the autobiographical paradigm remains very much alive in the reception of Tchaikovsky’s music. As an alternative, Tchaikovsky scholarship has explored a hermeneutical approach that would link his music to its context in Russian society and culture. In this paper, I present another possible reaction to Tchaikovsky’s statement: an exploration of the composer’s approach to musical characterization. Analysis of some key scenes reveals that the definition of characters and situations by musical means is more precise than standard interpretations of the opera would concede. This discovery may lead to a new assessment of characterization as a critical tool to refine the definition of Tchaikovsky’s position in European music history. The method may be applied to examples outside his operatic output, such as Serenade for Strings and the Fifth Symphony.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
Open AccessArticle
Testing Textual and Territorial Boundaries in Bulat Okudzhava’s Song “And We to the Doorman: ‘Open the Doors!’”
by
Alexander Zholkovsky
Arts 2024, 13(3), 81; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030081 - 30 Apr 2024
Abstract
This paper contextualizes Okudzhava’s song “And We to the Doorman” (AWD), initially marginal in the Soviet poetic mainstream. It explores its shifts in tone, irregular rhythms, colloquial language, and semi-criminal undertones. AWD’s structure, with uneven stanzas and no clear refrain, reveals underlying symmetry
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This paper contextualizes Okudzhava’s song “And We to the Doorman” (AWD), initially marginal in the Soviet poetic mainstream. It explores its shifts in tone, irregular rhythms, colloquial language, and semi-criminal undertones. AWD’s structure, with uneven stanzas and no clear refrain, reveals underlying symmetry and recurring themes. The meter is predominantly iambic but varies. Unconventional verse endings and various rhyme schemes, including distant chains, characterize its prosody. The narrative touches on social cohesion and class conflict. The style reflects a challenging attitude toward privilege, employing rhetorical devices and indirect threats. The melody aligns with thematic elements, featuring repetitive patterns and a spoken quality. Semantically, AWD presents an ambiguous message on class struggle and moral issues. In sum, this analysis uncovers Okudzhava’s song’s formal complexities, thematic nuances, and stylistic innovations.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
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Was Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto a Hidden Homage?
by
Marina Ritzarev
Arts 2024, 13(3), 80; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030080 - 29 Apr 2024
Abstract
Shostakovich’s direct quotation from the Odessan street song “Bagels, Buy My Bagels!” (Bubliki, kupite bubliki!) in his Second Cello Concerto Op. 126 (1966) featured an unusual style, even in relation to some of his other compositions referencing popular and Jewish music. The song
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Shostakovich’s direct quotation from the Odessan street song “Bagels, Buy My Bagels!” (Bubliki, kupite bubliki!) in his Second Cello Concerto Op. 126 (1966) featured an unusual style, even in relation to some of his other compositions referencing popular and Jewish music. The song is widely known as one of the icons of the Odessa underworld. Shostakovich’s use of this melody as one of the main leit-themes of the Concerto can be compared to the use by the non-Jewish Andrei Sinyavsky of the Jewish pseudonym Abram Tertz, a bandit from the Odessa underworld—the only locus of freedom to tell the truth in a totalitarian society. The time of Shostakovich’s address to this song remarkably coincided with the famous Soviet trial of Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuly Daniel in the fall of 1965 and their final sentencing (February 1966) to years in a Gulag camp. The dramaturgy of Shostakovich’s Concerto, written in the same spring of 1966, demonstrates the transformation of the theme of “Bagels” into a tragic image. The totality of circumstantial evidence suggests that this opus could be the composer’s hidden tribute to the feats of Russian heroic writers.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
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Performance, Art, Institutions and Interdisciplinarity
by
Rob Gawthrop
Arts 2024, 13(3), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030079 - 29 Apr 2024
Abstract
How have funding, art education, and politics affected the development of performance and interdisciplinary art? In England in particular, performance as an experimental and radical art practice developed largely from underground activities, political action and a range of art forms. Funding bodies, colleges
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How have funding, art education, and politics affected the development of performance and interdisciplinary art? In England in particular, performance as an experimental and radical art practice developed largely from underground activities, political action and a range of art forms. Funding bodies, colleges and art institutions eventually accommodated, albeit to a limited extent, this activity. As financial circumstances were sometimes difficult, artists often provided their own support structures and organisations. Some of these became established as they became successful. Performance art split from the theatrical and became defined as live art. In more recent times, conditions shifted again, and critical, experimental, or avant-garde theatre, film, music, etc., found refuge within contemporary art. Performance however, became increasingly confined and restricted by: the regulatory and academic requirements within universities; the need for evidence for some form of public or social purpose by funding bodies; and the increasingly hostile social and political circumstances. This research draws partly from personal experience and reflects on cultural conditions since the 1970s.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Art and Performance)
Open AccessArticle
Reflection and Refraction: Multivalent Social Realism in the Work of Joaquín Sorolla
by
Rachel Vorsanger
Arts 2024, 13(3), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030078 - 29 Apr 2024
Abstract
Joaquin Sorolla’s Social Realist work Sad Inheritance! provides the grounds for this cross-sectional case study into Social Realism in Spain, Spanish politics at the turn of the twentieth century, and affect theory in art. By formally analyzing this work, presenting its differing receptions
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Joaquin Sorolla’s Social Realist work Sad Inheritance! provides the grounds for this cross-sectional case study into Social Realism in Spain, Spanish politics at the turn of the twentieth century, and affect theory in art. By formally analyzing this work, presenting its differing receptions in France and Spain, and discussing the identity crisis that Spain experienced at the end of the twentieth century, all within the frame of Jill Bennett’s conception of practical aesthetics and affect in art, this article will show how Sorolla produced an image that had differing valences of affect depending on the context in which it was viewed. Through his singular pictorial strategies, Sorolla successfully created an image that was political and sentimental, controversial and appealing, fraught with emotion, and ultimately affective.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)
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“Sirens” by Joyce and the Joys of Sirin: Lilac, Sounds, Temptations
by
Andrey Astvatsaturov and Feodor Dviniatin
Arts 2024, 13(3), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030077 - 26 Apr 2024
Abstract
The article is devoted to the musical context of the works of James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov. Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the most important literary texts of the twentieth century, is filled with musical allusions and various musical techniques. The chapter “Sirens”
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The article is devoted to the musical context of the works of James Joyce and Vladimir Nabokov. Joyce’s Ulysses, one of the most important literary texts of the twentieth century, is filled with musical allusions and various musical techniques. The chapter “Sirens” is the most interesting in this context as it features a “musical” form and contains a large number of musical quotations. The myth of the singing sirens, recreated by Joyce in images and characters from the modern world, encapsulates the idea of erotic seduction, bringing threat and doom to the seduced. Joyce offers a new version of the sea world filled with music, creating a system of musical leitmotifs and lexical patterns within the text. Developing the themes of temptation, the danger that temptation entails, doom, uniting with the vital forces of the world, and loneliness, Joyce in “Sirens” reveals the semantics of music, showing the specific nature of its effect on listeners. Vladimir Nabokov, who praised Ulysses and devoted a lecture to “Sirens”, is much less musical than Joyce. However, he, like Joyce, also refers to the images of singing sirens and the accompanying images of the aquatic world. One of the central, meaning-making signs in his work is the “Sirin complex”, his pseudonym. This sign, which refers to a large number of pretexts, refers in particular to the lilac (siren’) and to the mythological “musical” sirens. As in Joyce’s work, sirens are present in his texts as mermaids and naiads, or as figures of seducers who fulfil their function and bring doom. Joyce and Nabokov are also united by the presence of recurrent leitmotifs, lexical patterns, and the presence of auditory impressions in their text that are evoked by the sound of the everyday world.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
Open AccessArticle
Through the Eyes of the Beholder: Motifs (Re)Interpreted in the 27th Dynasty
by
Marissa Stevens
Arts 2024, 13(3), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13030076 - 23 Apr 2024
Abstract
This paper aims to highlight examples of artistic motifs common throughout Egyptian history but augmented in novel ways during the 27th Dynasty, a time when Egypt was part of the Achaemenid empire and ruled by Persian kings. These kings represented themselves as traditional
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This paper aims to highlight examples of artistic motifs common throughout Egyptian history but augmented in novel ways during the 27th Dynasty, a time when Egypt was part of the Achaemenid empire and ruled by Persian kings. These kings represented themselves as traditional pharaohs within Egypt’s borders and utilized longstanding Egyptian artistic motifs in their monumental constructions. These motifs, however, were manipulated in subtle ways to send targeted messages to audience(s) of this art. Art historians tend to situate visual styles and motifs within the longue durée of artistic tradition and pick a singular, official, and centralized perspective to narrate the history and reception of that art. In the case of Egypt, this perspective is often that of the king, and there is an assumption that there was a monolithic message sent to his people. But we are not dealing with a homogenous people; a diverse population would have had varied reactions to and interpretations of this visual signaling. By highlighting both the augmentation of traditional motifs undertaken by the Achaemenid administration and the multiplicity of perspectives they held for their audience(s), we can better understand ancient art as being dynamic in function and interpretation, rather than as a static snapshot of carbon-copied royal authority.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ancient Egyptian Art Studies: Art in Motion, a Social Tool of Power and Resistance)
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Resonating Reflections: A Critical Review of Ethnosymbolic Dynamics in Les Six’s Music Nationalism Movement
by
Xuewei Chang, Marzelan Bin Salleh and Jifang Sun
Arts 2024, 13(2), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020075 - 22 Apr 2024
Abstract
Les Six and their mentors stirred a debatement of French nationalist music in the early 20th century. However, this movement faced serious criticism and mockery from various quarters and eventually fell apart amid challenges. This critical review explores the ethnosymbolic dynamics within the
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Les Six and their mentors stirred a debatement of French nationalist music in the early 20th century. However, this movement faced serious criticism and mockery from various quarters and eventually fell apart amid challenges. This critical review explores the ethnosymbolic dynamics within the nationalism music movement of Les Six, and drawing upon ethnomusicological perspectives, the study examines how their compositions reflected and resonated with French national identity and cultural heritage. By analyzing primary sources, scholarly literature, and musical compositions, this article meticulously uncovers the chain reactions generated in the process of constructing national identity and cultural identity within this movement by examining the French societal backdrop, musical traditions, as well as the relationships and attitudes among relevant figures in this movement. The conclusions highlight the multifaceted nature of ethnosymbolism in their work, shedding light on the complexities of national identity construction through music.
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(This article belongs to the Section Musical Arts and Theatre)
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“Only in The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul Did Bugaev Reveal His Ideas about Music”: Music in the System of Andrei Bely
by
Mikhail Odesskiy and Monika Spivak
Arts 2024, 13(2), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020074 - 19 Apr 2024
Abstract
Symbolism distinguished itself in world culture in that its representatives were inclined to a dialogue and intersection of different types of art. In Russian literature, one of the brightest examples of such a synthesis is the work of Andrei Bely (Boris Bugaev; 1880–1934).
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Symbolism distinguished itself in world culture in that its representatives were inclined to a dialogue and intersection of different types of art. In Russian literature, one of the brightest examples of such a synthesis is the work of Andrei Bely (Boris Bugaev; 1880–1934). The aim of the present article is to consider the writer’s ideas about music itself. As the main source we use Bely’s treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul. Bely in his Symbolist articles of the 1900s laid down the idea of musical art as an antinomy, which emphasized the troubling importance of the problem, but did not principally imply any positive answer. However, in his anthroposophic treatise The History of the Formation of the Self-Conscious Soul (1926–1931), enormous in volume and scale of the material, the author’s antinomical understanding of music was transformed into a structure which is extremely complicated, but consistent. That is why Andrei Bely does not apply the word “antinomy” to music, but he extensively uses the musical term “counterpoint” (together with other musical terms). Whereas the word “antinomy” pointed at some irreconcilable conflicts, on the contrary, a “counterpoint” introduces these clashes into the frame of a single structure of a system, thus reconciling them. Accordingly, the romance “It is so sweet to be with you” by Mikhail Glinka (called in The History “the greatest genius”) contains, in Andrei Bely’s texts, the message of a wide spectrum.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
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Yes, It Is Polyphony and a Map: Revisiting the 72 Verses of St. Martial
by
Laura Steenberge
Arts 2024, 13(2), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020073 - 17 Apr 2024
Abstract
The enigmatic 72 Verses for St. Martial is one of the many works by Ademar de Chabannes (989–1034) crafted to promote the false narrative that St. Martial of Limoges, rather than being a third-century bishop, was actually a first-century apostle. The composition is
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The enigmatic 72 Verses for St. Martial is one of the many works by Ademar de Chabannes (989–1034) crafted to promote the false narrative that St. Martial of Limoges, rather than being a third-century bishop, was actually a first-century apostle. The composition is visually striking due to the acrostic formed from the first letter of each tercet, MARCIALIS APOSTOLVS XRISTI, and its two overlapping melodies, one in black ink and the other in red. The relationship between the two notations is the subject of debate: Paul Hooreman’s conclusion that they are two variations of the same monophonic chant is countered by Manuel Pedro Ferreira, who argues that Hooreman’s reasoning is insufficient to rule out polyphony. I use Ferreira’s assessment as a jumping-off point for the current analysis, which investigates the compositional processes underlying the creation of the 72 Verses. Hooreman describes many details in the chant as subject to disorganization, scribal error, lack of ability, etc., but when the chant is analyzed polyphonically, these problems resolve. Beyond the music itself, the chant’s unusual polyphonic structure features reveals that the chant is structured around medieval maps, moving between a mappa mundi and the celestial spheres.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Medieval Art and Music between Heritage, Modernity, and Multi-Media)
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Queer Nightlife and Contemporary Art Networks: A Study of Artists at the Bar
by
Joseph Daniel Valencia
Arts 2024, 13(2), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020072 - 10 Apr 2024
Abstract
This article positions queer nightlife as a central vehicle in the lives and practices of queer Latinx artists working in Los Angeles over the past decade. It highlights how queer nightlife has provided a generative space for art making and community building in
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This article positions queer nightlife as a central vehicle in the lives and practices of queer Latinx artists working in Los Angeles over the past decade. It highlights how queer nightlife has provided a generative space for art making and community building in LA and considers how the usage of queer nightlife as a frame of study ruptures existing art historical and curatorial methodologies relative to Latinx art. I closely analyze works by artists rafa esparza, Sebastian Hernandez, and Gabriela Ruiz drawn from the gay bars and streets of downtown and East Los Angeles to underscore the radical and sophisticated ways by which these artists create art, community, and opportunity. By critically examining three case studies—Escandalos Angeles (2018), a performance by Hernandez and Ruiz at Club Chico in Montebello, California; Nostra Fiesta (2019), a storefront mural by esparza, Ruiz, and friends at the New Jalisco Bar in downtown; and YOU (2019–ongoing), a queer party directed by Hernandez and launched at La Cita Bar in downtown—I reveal how queer nightlife has served as an incubator for these artists to come together, express themselves, and generate a sense of joy and freedom from the struggles of everyday life.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Queer Latinx Artists and the Human Body)
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A Child Burial from Kerch: Mortuary Practices and Approaches to Child Mortality in the North Pontic Region between the 4th Century BCE and the 1st/2nd Century CE
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Joanna Porucznik and Evgenia Velychko
Arts 2024, 13(2), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020071 - 10 Apr 2024
Abstract
This article discusses a poorly studied child elite burial discovered in 1953 at the necropolis of Panticapaeum, situated near the modern city of Kerch, Crimea. A reassessment of previous research is urgently needed since it did not offer an analysis of Bosporan society
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This article discusses a poorly studied child elite burial discovered in 1953 at the necropolis of Panticapaeum, situated near the modern city of Kerch, Crimea. A reassessment of previous research is urgently needed since it did not offer an analysis of Bosporan society from the perspective of childhood studies in general and local approaches to child mortality in particular. This fresh approach sheds new light on social structures and transformations within the northern Black Sea region. A broad chronological and geographical perspective is provided in order to detect changing mortuary rituals regarding deceased children in relation to shifting socio-political situations among North Pontic Greek and non-Greek societies. A survey of current social interpretations concerning the (in)visibility of children in the mortuary customs, particularly between the 4th century BCE and the 1st/2nd century CE, is followed by a detailed description of the history of research in the Panticapaeum necropolis. A comprehensive analysis of the grave goods that accompanied the deceased child is also provided. The discussed material suggests that a new form of elite self-representation, expressed through mortuary rites, appeared around the turn of the first millennium. This included a different approach to deceased children, whose ascribed status and expected, yet unfulfilled, social roles were frequently displayed by the family through the funerary ceremony.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Situating Eurasia in Antiquity: Nomadic Material Culture in the First Millennium BCE)
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Social Choreography as a Cultural Commoning Practice: Becoming Part of Urban Transformation in Une danse ancienne
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Johanna Hilari and Julia Wehren
Arts 2024, 13(2), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020070 - 09 Apr 2024
Abstract
This article examines social choreography as a cultural commoning practice that is embedded within a relational structure between different institutions, the people involved, and specific socio-cultural contexts. The artistic research project Une danse ancienne by French choreographer Rémy Héritier and their team is
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This article examines social choreography as a cultural commoning practice that is embedded within a relational structure between different institutions, the people involved, and specific socio-cultural contexts. The artistic research project Une danse ancienne by French choreographer Rémy Héritier and their team is presented as a case study of this practice. This collaborative choreography is based on a dance performance and social gathering that is reactivated every year by the same dancer in the same peri-urban site in a metropolitan area of Lausanne, Switzerland. Une danse ancienne holds strong relationships to temporalities, to the changing urban space, and to communal processes of documentation. Its relational choreographic structure and sharing practices are analyzed against the concepts of ‘expanded choreography’ and ‘cultural commoning’. This article, therefore, discusses social choreography as a cultural commoning practice that involves interactions with different social groups and institutions and practices of sharing and communal documentation. This article shows how, as social choreography, Une danse ancienne reflects upon urban transformation through cultural commoning practices.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Choreographing Society)
Open AccessCorrection
Correction: Peña Torres (2024). La Liga de la Decencia: Performing 20th Century Mexican History in 21st Century Texas. Arts 13: 47
by
Jessica Peña Torres
Arts 2024, 13(2), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020069 - 07 Apr 2024
Abstract
In the original publication (Peña Torres 2024), (Belliveau and Lea 2016) was not cited and its related reference was also omitted [...]
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)
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From Leonardo to Caravaggio: Affective Darkness, the Franciscan Experience and Its Lombard Origins
by
Anne H. Muraoka
Arts 2024, 13(2), 68; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020068 - 06 Apr 2024
Abstract
The function of affectivity has generally focused on post-Council of Trent paintings, where artists sought a new visual language to address the imperative function of sacred images in the face of Protestant criticism and iconoclasm, either guided by the Council’s decree on images,
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The function of affectivity has generally focused on post-Council of Trent paintings, where artists sought a new visual language to address the imperative function of sacred images in the face of Protestant criticism and iconoclasm, either guided by the Council’s decree on images, post-Tridentine treatises on sacred art, or by the Counter-Reformation climate of late Cinquecento and early Seicento Italy. This essay redirects the origins of the transformation of the function of chiaroscuro from objective to subjective, from corporeal to spiritual, and from rational to affective to a much earlier period in late Quattrocento and early Cinquecento Milan with Leonardo da Vinci. By tracing the transformation of chiaroscuro as a vehicle of affect beginning with Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks, it will become evident that chiaroscuro became a device used to focalize the viewers’ experience dramatically and to move viewers visually and mystically toward unification with God under the influence of the Franciscans.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Affective Art)
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The Power of Convening: Towards an Understanding of Artist-Led Collective Practice as a Convener of Place
by
John David Wright
Arts 2024, 13(2), 67; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020067 - 05 Apr 2024
Abstract
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in artist-led collectives with high-profile recognition within contemporary art mega festivals, prizes, and biennials. Yet, these amorphous entities and initiatives tend to be framed either through their politically motivated actions or as a critique
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In recent years, there has been a growing interest in artist-led collectives with high-profile recognition within contemporary art mega festivals, prizes, and biennials. Yet, these amorphous entities and initiatives tend to be framed either through their politically motivated actions or as a critique of the notion of the single author or ‘artist-as-genius’ mythology. This article builds upon this discourse to shift the emphasis onto both interpersonal and socio-political relationships that constitute artist-led collectives in order to explore their complex role in convening and placemaking and what this might mean for both policymaking and research.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Visual Arts and Design: Practice-Based Research)
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“Spaces of Silence” and “Secret Music of the Word”: Verbo-Musical Minimalism in the Poetry of Gennady Aygi and Elizaveta Mnatsakanova
by
Olga Sokolova and Vladimir Feshchenko
Arts 2024, 13(2), 66; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020066 - 31 Mar 2024
Abstract
Two major poets of the Russian Neo-Avant-Garde—Gennady Aygi and Elizaveta Mnatsakanova—created textual works that transgressed the limits of language and the borders between the arts. Each pursued their own method of the visualization and musicalization of verbal matter, yet both share a particular
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Two major poets of the Russian Neo-Avant-Garde—Gennady Aygi and Elizaveta Mnatsakanova—created textual works that transgressed the limits of language and the borders between the arts. Each pursued their own method of the visualization and musicalization of verbal matter, yet both share a particular musical sensibility, which guarantees the integrity of the linguistic structure of their verse, despite the fragmentation and logical incoherence of its elements. The atonal (serial) musical tradition has a special significance for these experimental poetics of minimalism. Mnatsakanova, herself a musicologist, who was friends with Dmitri Shostakovich, not only used the techniques of contemporary music composition in her visual and sound poetry, but also collaborated with electronic musicians in her recorded poetry performances. Aygi experimented with language, not only crossing the boundaries between music and poetry, but also between sound and silence. For him, music was a way of expressing pre-verbal subjectivity and reproducing signs of meaning that are hidden from ordinary perception. In his poems, Aygi brought together Chuvash folk music with experimental techniques of minimalism, correlating his own work with such Soviet unofficial composers as Andrey Volkonsky and Sofia Gubaidulina. This paper will address the issues of transmutation between verbal, visual, and sound art in poetic minimalism of the Soviet-era underground.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Music vis-à-vis Other Arts in Eastern and Central Europe: Performance, Literature, Theatre, Art/Architecture and Visuality)
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The Protection of Monuments and Immoveable Works of Art from War Damage: A Comparison of Italy in World War II and Ukraine during the Russian Invasion
by
Cathleen Hoeniger
Arts 2024, 13(2), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020065 - 31 Mar 2024
Abstract
This article compares the safeguarding of monuments and immoveable works of art in Italy in the first years of World War II to the on-site protection undertaken in Ukraine during the Russian invasion and explores whether traditional or more innovative methods are being
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This article compares the safeguarding of monuments and immoveable works of art in Italy in the first years of World War II to the on-site protection undertaken in Ukraine during the Russian invasion and explores whether traditional or more innovative methods are being employed in Ukraine. Both the planning in advance of war and the implementation of protective measures amidst substantial obstacles are considered. The focus is placed on fixed works of art in churches and public statues. Special attention is given to the vulnerability of churches and their ornamentation during war.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014)
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Taking the Deer by the Antlers: Deer in Material Culture in the Balkan Neolithic
by
Selena Vitezović
Arts 2024, 13(2), 64; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020064 - 30 Mar 2024
Abstract
Prehistoric communities had strong ties with the animal world that surrounded them—animals were prey, sources of food, and raw materials, but also threats and mysteries, and certain animals often had an important place in the symbolic realm. With the process of domestication and
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Prehistoric communities had strong ties with the animal world that surrounded them—animals were prey, sources of food, and raw materials, but also threats and mysteries, and certain animals often had an important place in the symbolic realm. With the process of domestication and the switch to animal husbandry as the main source of animal food, these relations changed considerably, and a certain dichotomy between “the domestic” and “the wild” may be noted in numerous past communities. When it comes to the Neolithic period in the Balkans, domestic animals had an important place in subsistence and economy, and it seems that cattle had a particularly prominent symbolic role. Wild species preserved some of their significance in both subsistence and symbolic realms, especially cervids (red deer, roe deer, and fallow deer). In this paper, the place of deer in the material culture of the Neolithic communities in the Balkans will be analysed: skeletal elements of deer were used for the production of diverse items, including non-utilitarian ones, or were part of ritual depositions, and deer representations are encountered in other materials, such as clay figurines. The symbolic meaning of deer cannot be reconstructed with certainty; however, it is probable that deer were tied with territoriality and the landscape.
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(This article belongs to the Special Issue Animals in Ancient Material Cultures (vol. 3))
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Applied Theatre: Research-Based Theatre, or Theatre-Based Research? Exploring the Possibilities of Finding Social, Spatial, and Cognitive Justice in Informal Housing Settlements in India, or Tales from the Banyan Tree
by
Selina Busby
Arts 2024, 13(2), 63; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13020063 - 29 Mar 2024
Abstract
This article draws on a twenty-year relationship of short-term interventions with Dalit communities living in informal settlements, sub-cities and urban villages in Mumbai, that have sought to create public theatre events based on research by and with communities that celebrate, problematise and interrogate
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This article draws on a twenty-year relationship of short-term interventions with Dalit communities living in informal settlements, sub-cities and urban villages in Mumbai, that have sought to create public theatre events based on research by and with communities that celebrate, problematise and interrogate sustainable urban living. In looking back over the developments and changes to our working methods in Mumbai, I explore how the projects priorities the roles of the community as both researchers and artists. I consider where a specific applied theatre project, which focuses on site specific storytelling with Dalit communities in Worli Koliwada and Dharavi, functions on a continuum of interactive, participatory, and emancipatory practice, research and performance. Applied Theatre practices should not and cannot remain static, they need to be constantly reformed and as practitioners and researchers we need to constantly re-examine the ways in which we work. This chapter poses two central questions: firstly, can this long-term partnership between practitioners, researchers and artists from the UK and India working with community members genuinely be a space for co-creating knowledge and theatre? And secondly, if so, is this Theatre-based Research or Research Based Theatre? I interrogate Applied Theatre’s potential to create a space of cognitive justice, which must be the next step for applied theatre, along-side its more widely accepted aims of searching for social and spatial justice and which places the community as both artists and researchers. The Dalit social reality is one of oppression, based on three axes: social, economic and gender. The chapter explores how working as co-researchers and the public performance of their stories has been a form of ‘active citizenship’ for these participants and is a key part of their strategy in their demand for policy changes. In looking forward I ask how working in international partnerships with community members can promote cognitive justice and go beyond a merely participatory practice. I consider why it is vital for the field that applied theatre practice includes partners from both the global south and north working together to co-create knowledge, new methods of practice to ensure an applied theatre knowledge democracy. In doing so I will discuss if and how this work might be considered to be Theatre-based Research.
Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Exploring Research-Based Theatre within Contemporary Theatre Education)
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