Painting and sculpture by Bato Dashitsyrenov: the unity of national and general cultural images

Abstract

The article is about the work of a modern Buryat painter, sculptor, stage designer Bato Dashitsyrenov. The exhibition of his artworks took place in 2019 at The Buryatia Republican Art Museum named after Ts.S. Sampilov (Ulan-Ude). The artist’s works were previously presented at numerous exhibitions in Russia, France, the USA, and the Netherlands. The  purpose of the study is to determine the correlation of national and general cultural meanings in the creative heritage of Bato Dashitsyrenov. For this, the author notes images, motives, plots rooted in the national culture, traditions, customs of the Mongolian peoples, the ancient culture of Central Asia in the painting, graphics and sculpture of the master. On  the other hand, the author defines elements of technology, means of artistic expression, characteristic of European expressionism and symbolism or metahistorical expressionism. The master’s manner includes the experience of a theater artist, commitment to musical themes and intertextuality, the connection of the sign and archetype, the originality of plastics, palettes, figurative features (for example, emphasis on the character’s head, where, according to Buryat ideas, the source of the human soul is concentrated), and freedom of transition from painting to plastic images. The results and conclusions of the study are significant in the  context of studying contemporary art processes in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia and Central Asia.