Mongolian painters — graduates from the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute and their role in the development of theatrical and decorative painting of Mongolia (using the example of the creative work of Luvsangiin Gavaa)

Abstract

This article poses a question of the role which Mongolian painters — the graduates from the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture played in the development of the theatrical and decorative painting in this country in the second half of the 20th century. Extensive pictorial material is considered, many important details of the masters' creativity are clarified here. The relevance of the research task is due to the fact that the whole history of Mongolian theatrical and decorative painting also hasn't yet been treated until now in satisfactory way. Along that, there is another reason to study this topic, because one of the leading Mongolian theater painters was Luvsangiin Gavaa who is now credited to be the greatest representative of the local artistic tradition. This article deals with a number of theater production sketches and various pieces executed by Gavaa in this field.

In order to understand rightly his role in this process we have to study in brief the previous development of the theatrical and decorative painting in Mongolia. This process and its various stylistic stages can be traced on the example of Gavaa's artworks which he had been creating since the time of c.1940. His contacts with Russian art played a very important role in this process which started in Mongolia in the studio of Gavaa's teacher's K.I. Pomerantsev and later continued in the Repin's Institutes in Leningrad. There Gavaa graduated from the department of the theatrical and decorative painting led by M. Bobishev.

Along with his primary concern which was to organize the spatial structure of the scene, Gavaa tended to achieve two important goals executing his stage designs. On the one hand, he tried to re-create on the stage a specific spirit of a certain time basing on the imitation of the original stylistic provided by its artworks. On the other, it was necessary to evoke certain emotional mood in the auditorium. On the base of studying some of his sketches we tried to demonstrate Gavaa's striving for the new pictorial conditions and expressive means in his late works of the 70s. They are characterized by the more general treatment of scenic decorations in spite of the realistic depiction of every-day life objects which was very typical to the earlier period of the 50s and 70s.