The Art Of Detachment:Creative Methods Of Metaphysical Painting By Artists In The USSR's Unofficial Art Movement In The 1960's

At the end of the 1950s,there was a dualism in artistic life within the USSR.On one side,we saw"official art"supported by the government that used exclusively the socialist realist style,and on the other side,there was "unofficial art" that arose largely under the influence of Western contemporary art,which was seeking to explore new visual languages.Many artists from this"unofficial art"movement sought to return Soviet art to a modernist paradigm and they set themselves the task of restoring the cultural continuity what was artificially lost in the years of Stalinism.The focus of this study is one of the early trends in unofficial art,which in Russian art history has been called "Metaphysical Painting".Many of these paintings from the unofficial artists of this"Metaphysical" style may have been criticized as secondary to Western modernism,especially in the consideration of early examples.However the artists developed a particular style,which stands out and represents a special approach to art and life in the Soviet Union during this time.Soviet artists of this "Metaphysical" movement were not fundamentally interested in being modern in the ordinary "Western" sense of the word and their work is often best described as"Silent".This "Silence" is perhaps expressed not in their open opposition to Soviet culture,but in their self imposed exclusion or detachment from it This detachment from society is described by their deepening interest in self-reflection and this is also emphasized by the enclosed spaces of the small apartments,where they worked hidden away from society itself.So the study of their worlds,portrays a different "Silent" reality,exploring internal experience and a somewhat deeper dialogue with:existence,time and belief.The paintings of "Metaphysical" artists are always more than "just pictures",they represent the ontology of an existential and metaphysically interpreted universe.In this study,I will define what I consider to be the place of "Metaphysical Painting" in Soviet art of the 1960s and explore the situation in which this movement took place.Here I will focus primarily on key examples of work by three of the leading "Metaphysical" artists:V.Weisberg,D.Krasnopevtsev and D.Plavinsky.Also in this study,I will analyze the creative methods of these"Metaphysical" artists in the context of Russian religious philosophy and Eastern European theology.I believe this is an important aspect as the "Metaphysical" movement in USSR as it continues a line of development of Russian religious and philosophical ideas,which began in the early 20th century.This is not only an exploration of common Russian traditional thinking,but also a search for the ideal and certain universal truths.