Unofficial art of Kostroma in the second half of the 1950s–1970s: features of existence and artistic orientations

Abstract

This article analyses the emergence of “other” art in Kostroma during the period of the late 1950s to the 1970s. The motivation of the research was the lack of a comprehensive analysis of the artistic process taking place in the context of the unofficial culture of this provincial city. The study of “provincial nonconformism” is relevant because it expands the established definition of “nonconformist art”, which is more commonly applied to the work of artists from Moscow and Leningrad. The research aims to identify the characteristic artistic features of the “other” art of Kostroma during the mentioned period and determine the key conditions of its existence. The article's author employed various methods of analysis, including stylistic, formal, comparative, historical, and biographical. The analysis was based on published documentary materials, catalogue articles, and works from the collections of the Municipal Art Gallery of Kostroma (now the Centre of Russian Art) and the Kostroma State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. As a result of the study, two generations of artists were identified, whose creative strategies were formed during the periods of the 1950s-1960s and the 1970s, respectively. It describes the distinctive features and differences in their world-views and attitudes towards artistic practice. During the research, it was determined that the Kostroma Art College played a significant role in the development of artists. Additionally, the main cultural events of the period related to the activities of art historian V.Ya. Ignatiev were identified. The analysis of the unofficial art of Kostroma revealed its key stylistic directions, which combine realism, post-impressionism, and primitivism. The research concludes that there is typological proximity between the character of “other” art in Kostroma and other provincial cities of the Soviet Union, where unofficial works rather than whole creative biographies become unofficial. In conclusion, the author of the article put forward a hypothesis about the specific social detachment and the manifested attachment of artists to their small homeland as the key features of their worldview that allowed Kostroma art of the 1950s–2000s to form a single cultural phenomenon.