Half-century-long afternoon. The creative worlds of Vera and Sergei Kondulukov: painting 1971–2021

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the work of contemporary Russian painters, Honored Artists of the Russian Federation, professors of painting at Togliatti State University Sergey and Vera Kondulukov. The author uses formal-stylistic and comparative methods, as well as referring to the psychoanalytic tradition of interpreting art in terms of the dichotomy of introversive and extraversive (C. Jung's classification) and the aesthetic-philosophical opposition of Apollonian and Dionysian (F. Nietzsche's classification) types of creativity. The most representative works of the authors in terms of genre and themes are studied, primarily portrait and landscape painting. An important issue of research is the problem of tradition and innovation in the work of the Kondulukovs: the author concludes that belonging to an academic school does not limit, but potentiates the creative freedom of masters, since highly professional mastery of academic techniques allows artists to solve complex and diverse plastic tasks. In the context of Ivan Kramskoy's, Petr Ossovsky's and Ivan Lubennikov's interpretation of the "nationality" of Russian art, the researcher interprets the work of the Kondulukovs as the transmission of a living tradition to new generations of artists of contemporary Russia. The novelty of the publication lies both in the application of these research strategies to the artistic heritage of Sergei and Vera Kondulukov, and in the understanding of the artists' own reflections on the problems of philosophy of art and aesthetics. This article publishes for the first time materials from an interview recorded by the researcher with the Kondulukovs in January 2022 in their workshop in Tolyatti. The publication is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the joint creative path of the artists (1971–2021) with emphasis on the originality of the manner and plastic thinking of each of the masters.