Summary
Jadaibayev Amir Jalinovich
The Kazakh Portrait Painting of the 1970-80ties
Thesis on the scientific degree competition on the Candidate of Art Studies by the specialty
17.00.04 – Fine and decorative applied arts and architecture
The Dissertation is devoted to the study of the Kazakh Portrait Painting of the 1970-80ties. The actualization of the problem of the personality and its reflection in the Kazakh visual art in last quarter of the 20th century became visible in the process of realization and confirmation of the spiritual and cultural identity of the nation. It was the period when in the Kazakh art had appeared a group of artists who specialized in the portrait genre. The process of development of 1970-80 portrait painting included the interaction of a wide spectrum of objective and subjective factors of traditions and innovations, stipulated by the general situation in the Soviet visual art of this period.
The Dissertation represents the first attempt of the systematic research of the particular aspects of the evolution of the Kazakh portrait painting of 1970-80tes. The work includes two chapters in which studied separately each decade based on the analyses of the most characteristic examples of the portraits. Herewith the typological and imagery descriptions of the portraits are given in relation of the process of formation of the unique conceptual-plastic language of the authentically national art of portrait painting. The research deals with direct and indirect influences of the oriental and western traditions that affected the development of the national portrait painting of the 1970-80s.
The innovative aspects of the research are revealed in the approach to the issues that have never been studied before. The work represents the first attempt of the systematic complex study of the Kazakh portrait painting of the 1970-80s seen from the position of the contemporary scientific knowledge using the methodology considering the particularities of this historical period. For the first time is given the detailed analysis of the portrait genre in Kazakhstan of the late 20th century on the basis of the concrete factors and documental materials concerning the artists who actively worked in the genre of portrait painting.
For the first time was described the stylistic peculiarity of the period, built on the characteristics of the processes of assimilation of the world cultural heritage and the resurrection of the own national self-consciousness. The points and results of the Dissertation permit to look at the Kazakh visual arts of the 1970-80s in a new way and objectively appreciate its significance that contributed to the history of the national culture.
The theoretical significance of the research. The study of the portrait painting of Kazakhstan of the 1970-80s allowed to formulate the theoretical considerations concerning the specific aspects of the development of the genre in the context of search and confirmation of the own cultural identity. The development of the portrait painting of this period in Kazakhstan comprised the conceptual resolution of the actual problem of correlation of the individual and universal perceived in the projection of time retrospection, that serves as a prove of importance of the artist’s searches. From this factor the stylistic modes of the Kazakh painters of the 1970-80s can be determined by the complex of concrete philosophic and aesthetic problems of the generation that stipulated the character and direction of the formal painting – plastic achievements of the artists.
The Kazakh portrait of the 1970s marked the new important stage in the history of the national school of painting. It logically and continually developed the innovations of the 1960s enriching the romantic concepts of the “shestidesiatniki” by decorative expressiveness, plastic energy and symbolic associations of the images. In the portraits created by S. Aitbayev, Sh. Sariev, A. Sidikhanov by the end of the 1970s one can see the elements of tragedy that were produced by the confrontation of the system of ideological conformity and an individual.
This period had not just secured its place in the genre hierarchy but occupied one of the most important and leading positions. All these achievements and innovations of the 1970s in terms of expression and personification of a human personality would later become the basis of the next stage of the development of Kazakh portrait painting of the 1980s.
The portrait genre in the Kazakh visual art of the 1980s represents the complete integrated system including different concepts of image realization in the forms of diverse stylistic and imagery interpretations. In addition we can formulate the general principles of the development of Kazakh portrait painting of the 1980s that personified in the distinct philosophical and symbolical messages of the artworks. The portraits are saturated with grotesque and existential sensations of the tragic fatality of the world and human existence. The plastic forms, color scheme and compositional structure are subordinate to concrete subjective goals of the artists emphasizing the most significant conceptual components of the human individuality.
The portraits of these decades conventionally can be divided into three types in accordance with the methods of the creative expression.
The first type can be characterized by the strict observance of all conditions and definitions of the genre. The artist’s approach to the rendering of the man’s image is built as a rule on the classical scheme. At the same time this type of the portrait is undergone by some changes pertaining to the stylistic methods which were modernized by the authors in some extent. Among the artist who worked in this manner were such painters as Gulfairuz Ismailova, Nagimbek Nurmukhammedov, Kamil Shayakhmetov, Kamil Mullashev etc.
The second type represents the method where prevailed the bold painting experiments and searches, concerning the compositional and narrative character of the artwork. In this type of portraits the artists were busy in resolving the formal tasks of the innovative ways of expression. The painters such as Leonid Leontyev, Kanaphia Telzhanov, Tokbolat Togusbayev, Aisha Galimbayeva, Sabur Mambeev sought to use new creative methods and in a certain degree it were they who had initiated the process of the disintegration of the genre canons that was the phenomenon characteristic for the Soviet Art on the whole.
The third type of the portrait demonstrates the deep philosophical perceiving and penetration into the soul of the personality through the drastic color and plastic transformation of the painting’s structure as well by personification of the wide range of the associative links of the image the thoughtful attitude and application of the innovative approaches in painterly creation of the portrait.
The results of the research and the principal thesis were presented in a number of scientific publications (4) and reports at the international scientific-practical conferences (3). The dissertation was discussed and recommended to be defended at the session of the Department of Fine Arts and Academic Counsel of the Institute of Kazakh Literature and Arts named after M. O. Auezov MES of the RK Science Committee.
