Ekes konventa epitāfija laikmeta dekoratīvās tēlniecības kontekstā

Author(s): Anna Ancāne / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 22/2019

Ecke’s Convent epitaph is among the most renowned monuments of decorative architectural sculpture in Riga’s early modern-period art history. This article aims to draw attention to the chronological problem of the epitaph’s sculptural part and ornamental frame, the iconographic content of the composition and printed samples as well as the formal analysis and stylistic influences. In 1589, Burgomaster, Burgrave and one of Riga’s best educated and influential patricians of the time, Nicolaus von Ecke, founded a home for the widows of the Small Guild poor craftsmen in a 15th century travellers’ shelter, undertaking the renovation of the house. Reconstruction of the main building took place in 1594–1596. In 1618, a stone epitaph was installed in the central part of the convent building; it became the compositional and thematic accent of the façade. The frame of the epitaph is shaped as an ornamental cartouche, using Mannerist expressive means – scrollwork, strapwork and floral motifs. The central part of the relief features a sculptural group illustrating the New Testament subject of Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery. The artist has represented the human figure in both low and high relief, in places approximating sculpture in the round. Background figures are made in the technique of rilievo schiacciato, achieving a painterly, vanishing effect. The figures have slender proportions and small, classically shaped heads with finely elaborated details. The high artistic level indicates the significance of some active European centre. The latest inspection (2018) has shown that the material used is most likely limestone. Since the 1930s, there had been a deep-seated assumption that different artists authored the epitaph’s frame and relief, the frame being made in Riga while the relief – imported from abroad. However, the inspection proved that the sculptural relief and the decorative frame are made of the same material. This allows us to hypothesise that both parts belonged to a unified compositional structure from the start, subjected to certain principles of proportioning. Initially the surface of Ecke’s Convent epitaph was probably polychrome, painted over many times later. Similarly to other places in Northern Europe, Hans Vredeman de Vries’ examples were decisive in the ornamental plasticity of the Riga epitaph. The composition “Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery” was derived from specific printed examples but does not copy any particular engraving. The image of Christ resembles an engraving from Maarten de Vos’ drawing NVDVS ERAM ET OPERVSTIS ME (“I was naked and you clothed Me...”) included in the illustrated Bible edition Thesaurus Sacrarum historiarum Veterus et Novi Testamentum (1585) issued by Gerard de Jode in the series “Christ’s Seven Works of Mercy”. The overall composition references other printed versions inspired by De Vos’ interpretation of the subject, such as the engraving “Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery” in the publication Vita, Passio et Resurrectio Jesu Christi (1598) by Adriaen Collaert as well as Hieronymus Wiericx’s engraving for some of the printed sheets series issued by the Sadelers. Bustling Flemish sculptors’ workshops along with the period’s typical tendency of artists’ migration created favourable conditions for the export of artworks and northward transfer of knowledge. Ecke’s ambitions and financial resources meant he was probably among the principal individual commissioners of art in Riga back then. Boris Vipper once noticed a stylistic connection to the Netherlandish School, naming a hypothetical author – the master of Flemish origin Wilhelm Barth van der Meer Jr., one of Danzig’s leading sculptors. However, this hypothesis lacks substantiation; also, no analogies to the circle of other popular Danzig workshops have been found. No documentary evidence has survived on the works carried out in the convent at that time. The formal aspect of Ecke’s epitaph demonstrates an Italianate style and prompts looking for a classically oriented workshop, unrelated to either van den Blocke dynasty active in Danzig or the adaptations of Floris’ style in Northern Germany. Classicising facial features and body proportions are rather similar to the Antwerp sculptor Willem van den Broeck’s all’antica style. Researcher Fritz Scholten for his part points out that the relief could be related to the leading Walthers’ dynasty of sculptors in Dresden. In line with this theory, the closest analogies to the Riga high relief emerge in Sebastian Walther’s and Christoph Walther’s reliefs and sculptures for the Nosseni altar (1606). At the turn and in the first quarter of the 17th century, the influx of immigrant masters and more active circulation of artistic innovations fostered the development of stone sculpture in Riga. A prolific workshop was headed by the sculptor and stonemason Berent Boddecker, originally from Lübeck, who held the post of the city master builder since 1608. His workshop specialised in stone epitaphs, coinciding with the works of late 16th century Netherlandish masters active in Mecklenburg, for example, Philipp Brandin and his assistants. In the last quarter of the 16th – first decade of the 17th century, Flemish master Robert Coppens’ workshop was also active in Lübeck, revealing closer analogies. In general, Boddecker can be linked to direct followers of the “Mecklenburg Renaissance” imported by Flemish masters. The Riga epitaph was probably made in the period from 1612 to 1618 after Ecke’s return from exile. Some means of working out details are similar to Caspar von Tiesenhausen’s and Maria von Effern’s epitaph in Riga Dom Cathedral (1611) as well as Franz Ringenberg’s epitaph in St. Peter’s Church (1611), possibly related to Boddecker’s workshop. However, the connection has not been proved. Both the material and geometric structure of the epitaph demonstrate that its relief and frame were commissioned at the same time and were most likely made at the same workshop. The epitaph is also not an isolated, imported example, as it shows links to other monuments of Riga’s memorial sculpture of the time. Petrographical and mineralogical analysis of the epitaph remains a task for the near future to establish the geographical origins of its material and thus widen the knowledge about the contacts between Riga’s early 17th century sculptural workshops and other Northern European regions and their major sculptural centres.

Archaeology and Art in Latvia

Author(s): Zenta Broka-Lāce / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

The correlation between art and archaeology in Latvia can be traced in various ways. First, despite all technical innovations there are still professional artists that work on field with archaeologists and are directly involved in the recording of archaeological evidence. Furthermore, art-related work is being done in reconstructions, book illustrations and museum exhibitions. In addition to those who devote their artistic skills to scientific and educational purposes under the supervision of archaeologists, we can see quite a lot of artwork that represents something archaeological while being the free fruits of artistic imagination. Archaeological science is of the opinion that inaccurate stylisations of archaeological costumes in movies or arbitrary depictions of some archaeological period in literary or any other work of art can very easily lead to false impressions and misunderstandings that endure for decades. On the other hand, scientists have no right to restrain the public from interpreting its own past as it deems fit. The aim of this paper is to discuss the relations and crossroads between art and archaeology by examining how they historically have developed, coexisted and influenced one another in the territory of Latvia from the 19th century till nowadays.

Skatuves runa latviešu teātrī. Definīcija, funkcijas un terminoloģijas aspekti

Author(s): Zane Daudziņa / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2015

Although it is a defining phenomenon in the holistic perspective of stage acting, stage speech has hardly been researched in Latvia from a theoretical point of view. The American theatre director and theatre semiotician Jon Whitmore (1945) describes the basic term stage speech as a specific wholeness of the speaker’s linguistic and paralinguistic expressive means that form the influence of what the actor says on the spectator [Whitmore 1994: 176]. Language is the dominant factor which influences stage speech. In the theatre, as a separate sign system stage speech most vividly expresses what is different and what belongs to national culture. In Latvia, stage speech had been closely connected with the Soviet theatre theory for 50 years, hence the term which was characteristic of the Russian theatre сценическая речь [Петрова 1981], i.e., stage speech. Since the beginnings of the Latvian theatre it has always been influenced by historically and territorially different schools; and innovations in the field of stage speech have not been introduced by creating them ourselves, but mostly by testing, adapting and compiling foreign experience. In the theatre, stage speech manifests itself as the quintessence of silence, noise and verbal music, in separate cases as a precise reflection of the lexical meanings of words, while most often as a variation on the idea offered by the author of the play, interpreted by the director and embodied by the actor. The aim of the article is to show the necessity of an extended study on stage speech as a whole system of signs in the Latvian theatre and to outline the first steps towards it.

Jura Karlsona dejas teātris. Balets “Karlsons lido...”

Author(s): Andris Vecumnieks / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2015

Alongside with theatre, a bright feature of Karlsons’s music is choreography and the corresponding space of dance theatre because ballet is a dance theatre. Karlsons’s contribution to the genre of ballet is laconic in quantity while substantial in quality. All ballets have been composed at different stages of his creative life, and their themes differ in style, genre and imagery. Another title of the ballet “Into the Fire” (a play by the Latvian playwright Rūdolfs Blaumanis Ugunī) is “A Concerto for Orchestra in Five Movements after Reading Blaumanis”. The first artistic achievement of the genre lies both in the field of ballet and concert. It can be considered a substantial and qualitative impulse for his future creative work, as the symbolism of this ballet lays ground for the next ballet that was created as a result of studying the writings of the Latvian poetess Aspazija and her play “The Silver Veil” (Sidraba šķidrauts). This ballet is the quintessence of Karlsons’s symbols and signs. The composer’s success (and that of the whole creative team) lies in the fact that the national and creative ideas are not presented in a declarative and conspicuous manner; they are presented as a national generalisation in a subtle language of symbols and subtexts. “The Symphonic Pages of the Ballet “The Silver Veil””, which followed nine years later, can be viewed as the quintessence of the ballet “The Silver Veil”, and it can be compared to a film adaptation or staging production of a literary work. We can feel an individual autobiographical tone in the musical message of the ballet “Karlsson Flies …”. Karlsons lays special emphasis on the meaning of fairy tales in the life and consciousness of a human being, and he offers another conception of theatricality. We observe a synthesis of acts and a continuous development of musical dramaturgy. The principle of acts has allowed the composer to accomplish vivid scenes and effective fragments of music whereas the continuous dramatic development has filled the ballet numbers with leitmotifs since the composer has performed very thorough work in directing the musical material. A special type of theatre that the composer offers in the second act is a discovery. The fashion theatre is synthesised with the dance theatre. In the composer’s creative work, this ballet is truly crowned with success in children’s music, as the dance genre is an essential means of expressing genre personification.

Cilvēka atveidojums Latvijas aktierkino. Padomju periods

Author(s): Agnese Surkova / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2014

The objective of this paper is to characterise, compare and analyse the depiction of the human being in Latvian feature films during the Soviet period – after World War II (in the 1950–60s) and the 1970–80s. In the centre of the world created by films of each of these periods there is a person of a different type who (directly or indirectly) offers a message about his/her time: it is obviously depicted in the value systems of the characters, as well as the models of actions and their visual images. When taking into account the influence of visual images created by the cinema and, frequently, its direct participation in transferring the message to the audience, special attention is paid to the visual aesthetics of the films: the positioning of the camera, lights, assembly, the composition of the film frame, and the placement of actors in it. Another essential theme that requires particular attention is the choice of actors/types of personalities, that is, the correspondence of the visual images (appearance) of film characters or, on the contrary, there is a contrast with the official concepts, stereotypes and/or canons of the particular period. The paper highlights films and actors that are typical of the respective periods, providing an analysis of vivid screen images and a series of films.

Krusts un tā simbolika Latvijas teritorijā: starpdisciplinārie aspekti

Author(s): Otto Ķenga / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 1/2008

A close study of the cross and its system of symbols in the territory of Latvia examines the visual development of symbolism using specific exanij pies of the use of the symbol. The research contains a wide range of material which contains the symbol of the cross from archaeology, ethnography, the arts and architecture. Methods are investigated which help to order, classify and find a common approach to the dynamics of the symbol of the cross in the territory of Latvia. Although classification methods have been developed in archaeology (G. Zemitis) and ethnography (S.I. Rizhakova), the author has created a new, combined method, which is based on theories of cultural history and semiotics originating from Jung, Lotman and Eko. In this way miscellaneous material (from archaeology, ethnography and the history of art has been consolidated utilising the various philosophical ideas of the above-mentioned authors, which is also useful in viewing the differing viewpoints in history, philosophy, archaeology and history of art, aesthetics and semiotics.

"The Message of Protest”: Artistic Expressions of Punk / Hardcore Subculture Ideas

Author(s): Reda Šatūnienė / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2008

Nekomerciālā panku / hārdkora subkultūra izveidojās no britu pankiem un amerikāņu hārkora 20. gadsimta septiņdesmito un astoņdesmito gadu mijā. Galvenās panku / hārdkora subkultūras iezīmes iemieso pankroka brīvības, kritiskās domas un vienlīdzības principus. Lietuvā daudzas jauniešu subkultūru paražas ienāca pēc valsts neatkarības atjaunošanas 1990. gadā. Raksts pievērš uzmanību nekomerciālās panku / hārdkora subkultūras idejām un vērtībām, kādas ietvertas lietuviešu trafaretu mākslā. Raksta empīriskais materiāls ir savākts, pateicoties atbilstošai metodoloģijai un kvalitatīvam (etnogrāfiskam) lauka pētījumam, kas veikts 2005.-2007. gadā. Raksta autore secina, ka panku / hārdkora subkultūras idejas - protestēšana pret "Sistēmu", ekonomisko un politisko uzkundzēšanos, patērētājfilozofiju, konformismu un starptautiskajām aliansēm - izpaužas trafaretu mākslā. Tā atklāj globālās un vietējās sociālās, politiskās un ekonomiskās aktualitātes.

100 години професионален оперетен театър в България. Постановъчно-изпълнителски опит и репертоарни тежнения

Author(s): Rumyana Karakostova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 4/2018

This paper intends to sum up, from a contemporary critical perspective, the cultural significance of various periods of the centenary history of Bulgaria’s professional operetta theatre, focusing on the social function, the institutional and aesthetic physiognomy of Sofia-based leading private operetta companies in the interwar period and its only genre-profiled National Musical Theatre as their direct successor, which this season marked its seventieth anniversary. The main problematised assumption is that the marked trends in the repertoire polices, stage and performing practices in the centenary development of operetta art on Bulgaria’s professional stage can only be correctly brought forth on the basis of a scientifically objective, rationalised both by the dynamism of historical events and the respective shifts in the sociocultural paradigm and the topical critical reflection.

Эрмитаж между "музеем нового искусства" и "музеем быта": проект И.И. Жарновского в контексте проектов революционной эпохи

Author(s): Vitaly G. Ananiev / Language(s): Russian Issue: 3/2018

The revolution of 1917 caused changes in the field of museology. The problems of reform and management of the country’s main museums were widely discussed. One of these museums was the Hermitage. The paper considers the projects of its reforming. Based on the archival materials, which did not previously attract the attention of researchers, the positions of authors of these projects have been analyzed. The emphasis has been laid on the project of Ivan Ivanovich Zharnovsky, the young art historian, assistant curator of the Painting Gallery of the Hermitage. This project was presented at the meeting of the Subcommittee on Museum Work and Preservation of Monuments established at the Institute of Art History (Petrograd) on March 1917. The Subcommittee had the goal to prepare for the establishment of the Ministry of Arts as the main governing body in the museum field. Several reports were devoted to the fate of the Hermitage. In his report, I.I. Zharnovsky insisted that a representative collection of the 19th-century Western European paintings should have been housed in the Hermitage. In many respects, these ideas stemmed from the experience of Germany that was familiar to this young art historian. His suggestions reflect the general spirit of the era and allow us to view the transformations that the Hermitage underwent in the first years of the Soviet government from a new perspective. This report is additional evidence that the museum politics of the first post-revolutionary years cannot be perceived as pure voluntarism of the Bolsheviks. The representatives of the intelligentsia from pre-revolutionary generations played an important role in developing its foundations.

Авторски издания за деца − иновативни словесно-визуални наративни модели, тематична ангажираност и стилистично многообразие

Author(s): Regina Dalkalacheva / Language(s): English,Bulgarian Issue: 1/2019

Author’s editions for children that have evolved into a special type of editions, published between 1970 and 2010, are a specific art form of picture books for children, where the illustrator is the sole author. Artistic freedom in the process of their conceptualisation and realisation allows independence from the existing pedagogical constraints, marketing or commercial considerations, which permits taking completely innovative experimental approaches to the generating and use of the narrative and pictorial mediums typical of the genre. The dominant authorship of the illustrator goes beyond any traditional worn-out clichés, placing the picture book completely in the dynamism of contemporary art processes. The innovative verbal and pictorial structures of the narrative in such editions have established themselves as alternative narrative models in contemporary picture book, developing and building on dramaturgic techniques inherent to the book composition, placing the text and illustration in unconventional semantic dependencies and narrative interdependencies. The illustrator of such books makes remarkable artistic interpretations of problematic, universally significant subjects, thus overcoming their tabooing in the field of publishing of children’s books. The stylistic relevance of contemporary illustrations for children is concentrated primarily in author’s editions. Defined by the artist’s personal aesthetic preferences, they naturally display the trends in fine arts.

„Предстоящата единна история на изкуството” на Джеймс Елкинс

Author(s): Ivan Popov / Language(s): Bulgarian Issue: 1/2019

A tudásközvetítés történeti példája: Hubert Sattler kozmoráma-bemutatói

Author(s): Katalin Teller / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2025

This study focuses on a specific group of “image exhibitors” who played a prominent role in the dissemination of knowledge and the popularization of science in the 19th century, taking as a point of departure two documented appearances of Hubert Sattler in Pest. Alongside the operators of dioramas and panoramas, entrepreneurs presenting cosmoramas also regularly visited the capital during the century. Their programs aimed to mediate contemporary geographical and ethnographic knowledge in a manner that required minimal language and reading proficiency from the audience. These exhibitions, typically timed to coincide with annual and seasonal fairs, were held in specially designed venues and featured paintings that depicted architectural and geographical landmarks of both distant and nearby countries. Spectators could access visual information through optical devices that created an illusion of spatial depth, often supplemented by explanatory texts. Drawing on paintings and accompanying booklets preserved in the legacy of the Austrian world traveler Hubert Sattler, as well as contemporary press materials, this study examines, on the one hand, the strategies of guiding the spectators’ attention and the implied modes of reception that emerged from the interplay of visual and textual elements. On the other hand, through an analysis of periodical press sources and relevant research in cultural history, the paper seeks to reconstruct those aspects of mid-19th-century popular culture that may have shaped the reception of cosmorama images in Hungary – particularly among the urban lower-middle and middle-class audiences.

A kép lelke, a film szelleme, a hang képe

Author(s): Miklós Peternák / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2025

This essay is a spectroscopic experiment, to explore the spectres around the absolutely not unexpected migration of the technical media into the Carpathian basin, during approximately fifty years, from the 1860s till the late 1920s, early 1930s. The pictures, these vehicles of thoughts are trying to prove this unbelievable fact, showing that it has really happened, although this Pathosformel, all the symbols, logos, allegories were found in-transi state almost at all cases. However, the explanation of this depravation might be found in the textual part, framing them and divided to twelve small chapters and 130 footnotes.

A Túr torkolatától a horpácsi birtokig: A Vasárnapi Ujság mint képes folyóirat

Author(s): Tamás Lénárt / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2025

The paper examines two issues of the Vasárnapi Ujság, primarily from the point of view of the relationship between images and text. In one of the first issues of the magazine, which existed between 1854 and 1921, Sándor Petőfi’s poem A Tisza was published, accompanied by a pictorial illustration; in the much later issue of October 1905, a photo report on Kálmán Mikszáth’s house in Horpács was published, accompanied by a commentary by the writer. The two issues, published nearly 50 years apart, illustrate the evolution and development of the illustrated magazine, illustration techniques and visual culture of the time, as well as its dilemmas.

Standard modern absztrakció: Statisztika és adatvizualizáció a 19. században

Author(s): Lívia Barts / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2025

The study examines the beginnings and nineteenth-century rise of data visualization, the graphical method of statistical science that emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. First, I focus on the methods that relate to nineteenth-century modernity’s changing thinking, vision, and practices of notation and observation, which point towards decentralization, functionality, organization, and abstraction. I also examine how the graphical method borrowed and later departed from cartography; the method’s forms of visual abstraction, its basic types still used today; the diversity of data collected and represented, from more primary demographic data and the analysis of economic processes to the mapping of social issues and the analysis of cultural and consumption habits; and the issue of the acceptance of the graphical method and the efforts to standardize its use during the nineteenth century.

Alternatív modernitás: Steampunk retrovízió Karel Zeman Az ellopott léghajó című filmjében

Author(s): Péter Gerencsér / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 2/2025

Using a combination of live-action and various animation techniques (paper cutouts, drawing and puppet animation), the sci-fi film The Stolen Airship (Ukradená vzducholoď) was made in 1966, but under the guise of an airship stolen by children, it offers an (imaginary) panorama of the social effects of modern inventions of the late 19th century. The paper explores how the retrovision of the Czech steampunk film represents the perception of a metropolis, as well as the parallel stories of the revolutions of transportation and mass communication, and how they relate to the debate on ’modernity-thesis’ coined by David Bordwell and to the power methods of modern discipline. The film offers an encyclopaedia of alternative modernity of travel (railway, automobile, tram, airship, submarine, etc.) and media (fairground attractions, printed press, photography, telephone, poster, gramophone), which are examined by the study in terms of the early form of society of the spectacle, the Habermasian transformation of public sphere, and of surveillance techniques described by Michel Foucault and modified by Tony Bennett. Zeman, by imitating the style of early film, especially Georges Méliès (proscenium arch, stop-motion, cardboard sets, optical illusions, tinting), and by the metaleptic remediation of Jules Verne’s novels The Mysterious Island and Two Years’ Vacation, views the magic of technology ironically, in the spirit of affirming the power of imagination, interpreted on the basis of imagination emphasized in the modern Czech intellectual history.

Shaping the Perception of Reality: An Interview with Nele Wynants and Kurt Vanhoutte

Author(s): Kornélia Deres,Nele Wynants,Kurt Vanhoutte / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2025

Nele Wynants is an art and theatre scholar at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on the interactions among performance, media and science and their overlapping histories. She received an ERC Starting Grant for the project ‘Science at the Fair: Performing Knowledge and Technology in Western Europe, 1850-1914’ (www.scifair.eu). As editor in chief of FORUM+ for research and arts, she is also involved in contemporary practice-based research and research in the arts. Kurt Vanhoutte is an expert in theatre and performance studies with a strong background in literature, based at the University of Antwerp. He coordinates a Master’s program in Theatre and Film Studies. His research focuses on the performance of science and knowledge in the nineteenth century, adopting a media-archaeological approach to rediscover forgotten or extinct technologies and the dreams that continue to shape public perception and cultural narratives today. Kornélia Deres is Associate Professor at the Department of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University. Her current research project focuses on nineteenth-century performative knowledge transfer and scientific spectacles in Central and Eastern Europe. She is author of two books, and published articles at Theatre Research International, New Theatre Quarterly, Art East Central, Multicultural Shakespeare, Global Performance Studies, and Theatralia. She is also a poet and writer, having published four volumes.

Krytyk filmowy w Telewizji Polskiej

Author(s): Adam Wyżyński / Language(s): Polish Issue: 129/2025

Janusz Gazda – film critic and editor of film magazines – in1973-1979 also worked at the Polish Television as an editorresponsible for film production. This interview, conduc-ted in 2006, focuses on issues related to the behind-the--screens production of the most important films and TVseries of the time. Janusz Gazda talks about his attemptsto cross the boundaries of social discourse in his projects,which often came into conflict with censorship. The in-terview is accompanied by information about his extensiveeditorial work, including as the editor-in-chief of Kwartal-nik Filmowy. (Non-reviewed material).

Gudea Dönemi Tanrılarının İkonografisi

Author(s): Hilal Kutlu Alanci / Language(s): Turkish Issue: 1/2025

Gudea, as a member of the Second Dynasty of Ur, ruled the Lagaš city-state in southern Mesopotamia between the end of the Akkadian Empire and the rise of the Third Dynasty of Ur (c. 2144–2124 BC). The rich material, both written and archaeological, belonging to his period consists of various inscriptions and various carved artifacts, which were gifts dedicated by Gudea to celebrate the (re)construction of a god's temple or to declare his devotion to a particular god. Rather than their depictions in the written corpus, which typically have a cultic character, this study focuses on the iconography of the gods in the art of Gudea's period, which is not very apparent in the first appearance represented on various archaeological artifacts such as stelae, door plaques, basic building forms, lion gates, stone vessels, column bases and seals. Since the role of iconography is very important in expressing cultural values and religious concepts and since not much of the research on this subject is done in Turkish, this study will guide those who will do research on iconography, stele, sealing art and history of religion.

AVANGARDA - POJAM, TEORIJE, KONTEKSTI

Author(s): Milorad B. Pantelić / Language(s): Serbian Issue: 11/2015

This paper aims to identify and shed light on some of the terminology definitions of the avant-garde as modern art. We must admit that the critics did not pay much attention to its essence, let alone its manifestations, and that is why there were rare attempts to interpret the concept of the avant-garde in the aesthetics collections and art history textbooks. It should, above all, be admitted that so far, there has been a few philosophers, historians and art critics who have deigned to study one of the most typical and most important phenomena of modern culture: the avant-garde art. This paper will specifically refer to the Russian avant-garde, where it penetrated very easily and quickly as a concept and a term. In addition, the theories of distinguished scholars and art historians will be considered: a professor at Harvard University, Renato Poggioli who pointed out the complicacy and the complexity of the matter. The following theoreticians of art also gave their contributions in defining the term of the avant-garde: Jose Ortega y Gasset, Peter Burger, Adrian Marino, Boris Arvatov and others.