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51Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 2 (2008 1) 226-244
УДК 700:128
The Artistic Image as a Process and Result of Game Relations between a Work of Visual Art as an Object and its Spectator
Natalia P. Koptseva and Vladimir I. Zhukovskiy*
Siberian Federal University, 79 Svobodny, Krasnoyarsk 660041 Russia 1
Received 10.04.2008, received in revised form 06.05.2008, accepted 15.05.2008
There has always been a problem in understanding the nature of art works through art criticism. Many theoretical schools have appeared which consider a work of art either as an artifact with certain characteristics (size, paint composition, age) - this approach is used by history and archeology - or as a stimulus to the expression of a spectator's emotional or intellectual traits.
Such approaches suggest a condition of separation, a "barrier" between a work of art and its spectator; the communicative process or the powerful domination of one side excludes the comprehension of an artwork as a process and a result of both sides of the relationship.
The authors suggest a special approach to considering the nature of artwork on the basis of an equal relationship of between a work of art (= artistic image) and its spectator.
Research into the model of an artwork and the spectator's meeting/relationship with it allows new aspects of an artistic image ("Artificiality", "Finesse", "Iskus" (temptation), material status, index status, iconic status, symbolic status, compositional formula) to be revealed.
Keywords: Artistic image, artificiality, finesse, iskus (temptation), spectator's subject-language, piece object-language, material status, index status, iconic status, symbolic status, compositional formula.
Methods of the research
Philosophical and artistic critics analysis methods, etymological analysis, formalization, extrapolation, synthesis.
Work of Art as an Artistic Image
The work of visual art is an artistic image as well as a process and a result of the communication between the spectator and the piece («a thing-in-itself» and «a thing-in-the-openness»). The artistic image is not a mirror like reproduction of the piece content in the form of a thing, which is being transformed into the object of «artistic perception», as well as it (artistic image), is not an
equivalent of a spectator intellectual constructs. The artistic image is the result of the game relation of the piece-thing and the spectator, the scheme and their communication procedure, and that is why, it is individually isomorphic both towards the object content (the artistic piece-thing), and towards the subject content (the spectator).
The acting scheme, carried by the piece-thing logograms, is aimed at the acting spectator, who is to play in a certain way. And if he breaks the rules, then the logograms would not work or would spoil the communication process till the artistic image would represent a monster.
* Corresponding author E-mail address: decanka@mail.ru
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
The piece-thing suggests a lot of proper acting schemes (i.e. rules accordant logograms), but all of them are included in a certain range of rules. That very spectator, who tries to go out of the specific diapason limits of logogram instructions in the process of the artistic image creation, has a risk to fail to comprehend the piece, and it, in its turn, not accepting the doer of the action will not give the birth to the artistic image in collaboration with the spectator, and will not allow the finite and the infinite to enter the searched unity with each other.
Etymological Analysis of the "Artistic Image" term
With the help of etymological analysis of the words «hudozhestvennyj» (= "artistic") and «obraz» (= "image"), we comprehend the artistic image importance for the relation creation of the finite and the infinite. The word «obraz» is etymologically disclosed as: a) obraz - a sight, plan, scheme, model, shape, something with a certain image, couched under the allegory; b) obrazit' - to decorate, to work up, to budge something, to give a certain outlook, to clear, to make a pattern; c) ob-raz (ob, o, obo (= "about") by analogy with k (= "to"), cherez (= "across", "per"), iz (= "from", "out of", "ex"), v (= "in", "into"), na (= "on"), za (= "behind" and "for"), dlja (= "for"), pri (= "attached to"), tozhe (= "too"), okolo (= "by", "near"), vokrug (= "around"), takzhe (= "also"), sjuda (= "here"), szadi (= "behind"), pozadi (= "behind" "after")) - used before the words, the action is directed to; to describe some community, a circle; d) ob-raz (raz by analogy with roz, rez, ros (~ "growth", "increasing", "development"), razh, rozh (» "birth"), rod (~ "genus"), rjazh (» "mask", "disguise"), rjad (~ "row", "range" and perhaps "nearness, closeness, intimacy")) - a feature, to cut, to stave in, to tear, to beat, to push, to break; e) ob-roz (ros) - a part, a half, a
side, to part; f) ob-razh (razhij)- a passion, rage, excitement, fervor, striving for something; g) ob-rjad - a rule, law, condition, order, position; h) ob-rjazh (rjazhennyj) - dressed not in accordance with the tradition, queer; to be in the cards; cleared, whipped into shape and so on. Though strange it could be, but it turned out that the word «obraz» etymologically includes in itself the main representative features of ideal relation - «to be accepted» as an object symbol, «to be stated» as a scheme of acting with the object representative and «to be represented», i.e. correlation of the object symbol with the object itself.
And what concerns the word «hudozhestvennyj» in the phrase «hudozhestvennyj obraz» (= "artistic image"), so, it is first of all a qualitative characteristic of the content of the word «obraz». «Hudozhestvennyj» is comprehended as «masterfully», «expertly», «skillfully», «wisely», «clearly», «finely», «slickly» performed «obraz» (= "image"). On the other hand, the word «hudozhestvennyj» is a derivative from the words «hudoj», «hudogij», «hudozhij», which mean «wicked», «bad», «unhappy», «bitchy», «mean», «nasty», «wretched», «devilish», «false», and «turnskinish». In this case, «hudozhestvennyj obraz» is presented as something, though even «wisely» and «slickly» created, but definitely individualistic on the way of the-finite-and-the-infinite communication search, and not at all collectivistic, i.e. being out of social or confessional, non- catholic. In other words, the phrase «hudozhestvennyj obraz» itself gives an opportunity of only personal and intimate meeting of the man and the Absolute through the masterpiece representative. Even, when there are a lot of spectators having come for the meeting with the piece, it decisively communicates only personally and intimately with each of them.
Ontological Status of the Artistic Image
The artistic image has an unusual ontological status: it belongs simultaneously to the masterpiece as a thing and to the man as a spectator and it does not belong to either of them in particular. Its ontological status is a visual procedure (processual'nost'): it begins from material predmetnost' ( thingness, the form of objective existence) and ends with the absence of any substantiality in it.
Does it mean that, there appears some «small subject» inside a person that fixes the way «the main subject» participates in the artistic image creation? No, it does not. In order to understand the mechanism of the artistic image formation from the spectator's side, we need to consider the nature of human mentality. Thinking is not a special process, separated from psychiatric experiences and their objects. Vise a versa, both emotional and intellectual activities are nothing else but a form inextricably connected with the content. Moreover, the content of the intellectual activity entirely determines the form. There is no special thinking for the forthcoming of the artistic image, as something separate from the work of art, presenting an object of relation and being in the special process of human thinking. There is neither separate artistic image nor intellectual activity separated from it, where the artistic image, as an object of thinking, would be processed. There is no special intellectual activity, which would be an outcome apart from the artistic image.
In this case, intellectual activity is just a process of the artistic image formation and there is nothing else behind the process or after it.
Moreover, in this case the process of visual thinking is performed, when the sensuous truthfulness of the colourful layer of the picturesque work of art meets the rational thinking of the receiver and there starts a sensual- intellectual process of a special kind, which form is presented
in the artistic image formation as a visual notion. In this case, depending on the thing we subject to abstraction- whether it is thinking activity or scheme of actions with its stages - we may come to paradoxical results.
The adequacy of the artistic image reflection in the process of its generation by the subject-man is provided in the following way. In the process of participation in the artistic image generation, the spectator needs constantly to refer to the object layer of the piece, what allows him to tune correctly into the course of visual notion revelation by each contemplative step. The spectator has to «mind the actions» constantly, assuming elemental cells of a colourful layer, regulating his own perception according to their «requests and suggestions». It is necessary to master the skill «to read off» the schemes of actions imprinted in logograms in every possible way and simultaneously keep under tight rein one's thinking, constantly reflecting and turning it to the object layer of the piece. It is known from the time of Descartes that, genuine thinking is definitely followed by reflection. One cannot solve the problem how «a thing-in-itself» transforms into its sensuous image, belonging only to one's consciousness. But it is enough to acknowledge the sensuous image of the thing. It means that, thinking cognates those forms of self, which the given sensuous image produces.
In contrast to the processes of quasi-mind or pseudo-mind, which are rather numerous, the genuine mind, genuine thinking obligatory implies its own reflection, which inseparably merges with the object of thinking (in this case, the object of thinking is a system-constituting layer of logograms of the piece-thing).
The Work of Art as an Object of Thinking
The work of art is a special object of thinking. As far as the object of thinking is inseparably connected with the reflection work of
thinking itself, sensual-intellectual contemplation of artistic work is necessary in the course of communication between the spectator and the piece-thing. H. Seldmeier wrote in his time about such sort of contemplation, when object of thinking is inseparable from its own reflection. He complained, that, people there are fewer and fewer, people able to contemplate a work of art. These are the people, being able not only, so to say, «consume», but to contemplate in particular, i.e. «to shoot» the scheme of action, that means both to simultaneously comprehend the object of contemplation and to plunge into the essential depths, which could not be captured by ordinary perception.
Thus, the piece-thing initiates the thinking form of self. There is no «observer» inside the contemplating and thinking spectator, who would watch the artistic image generation and verbalize the process. The work of art itself («a thing-in-itself» and «a thing-in-the-openness») provokes the form of its perception and comprehension, and there is no other thinking process, separated from object thinking, where the object is the work of art, and there is no other.
The artistic image content formation represents a dialectic process. Mutual shooting of the piece-thing essence and the man-spectator, which begins from the peripheral object contact of their borders and then going deeper into the virtual existence, synthesizes two contents of the artistic image- the content of the piece (the object) and the content of the spectator (the subject). That is why the spectator sees the work of art not always in the way, as «a thing-in-itself», but the way, it turns out to be fixed (shot) in the existing process of communication of the recipient and the piece. So, the spectator turns out to see the work of art the way, he was taught, and the study of the painting eventually depends upon the spectator's action scheme character. The essence of the entire artistic image is an operational mutual identification of
the contents of the work of art and the spectator in a virtual new formation, in an ideal emergent as a new quality of a visual notion. The visual notion (artistic image), shooting the contents of the piece-thing and the man-spectator, does not destroy these contents but defines the essence of the whole in the form of possibilities. The visual notion is a shot existence of the subject and the object components (an operational content of the existence). We may say that operational mutual shooting of qualities of the work of art and the spectator in the process of their communication is a self-sufficient and a creating foundation of the artistic image, its concrete substance, a demiurge and a bearer.
Operational approach to the artistic image generation problem underlines here the role and significance of operational invariant. Every artistic image in its uniqueness initially appears from rather accidental and imperfect schemes of actions, undertaken by the piece-thing and the spectator. But if operations multiply and become specified, then there is probability of various operations of an invariant in the system, the invariant which on the recipient's side is saturated more with the content of the piece as an object and depends less upon the content of the spectator as a subject. The shot material content coincides with the operational one within the limits of such an invariant. Synthesis of various action schemes in operational invariant is the condition of quality improvement of the sides' knowledge of mutual interaction.
Operational invariant as an artistic image is purposefully carried by the spectator out of his inner world sphere into the space of the piece-thing, and is experienced by the recipient as a pure content of the proper work of art, where everything dependant on the spectator is illusory and seems to be eliminated. Such an illusion is the result of abstracting and generalizing activity of human brain: even if operational invariant is
not yet adequate to the essence of the work of art, being in contact with the spectator, it transforms into the form of artistic image, as something isomorphic to the piece-thing. If this or that operation, performed by this or that game partner, is inadequate to the essence of the piece-thing or the man-spectator, then it forms an inadequate artistic image. If it satisfies the specific nature of the piece-thing and the spectator, then the artistic image quality can be rather high.
The Forming Process
of the Artistic Image
There is a very important question: who «starts» the artistic image generation, who makes the first «step» in its creation - the piece-thing or the man-spectator? The piece-thing with its logograms always initiates game communication in the process of artistic image creation. On the other side, the artistic image generation is always a brainwork, being a synthesis of the perceiving spectator rationality and those schemes, which come out from the illusory-finite thing itself.
An artistic image that could fully answer the action scheme, imprinted in the logograms of a concrete work of art can appear. The artistic image is constantly analyzed by means of the spectator's reflection over both his own thinking and the correctness of the action scheme reading, the scheme being imprinted into the flesh of a concrete piece-thing. The artistic image does not appear suddenly, but is gradually crystallizing in the continuation of a dialogue game of the piece and the spectator: the illusory-finite thing is opening logograms and initiates an operational move-utterance. The spectator makes a counter move, following the given action scheme. In this interaction it is important for the spectator not to manifest himself, but to display the very gamerelation, by addressing and performing constantly this or that operational step to the thingish layer of the work of art.
The artistic image always appears only in the process of communication between the piece-thing and the spectator. The artistic image is imperatively a fruit of two «parents'» coupling -the spectator as its «father» and the piece-thing as its «mother». But sometimes, the share of the spectator's role in the artistic image generation is supposed to be limited to the feasible minimum. For example, the piece-thing can entirely dominate in the process of artistic image generation within the art history research of this or that masterpiece. Otherwise, the visual notion would be certainly «clouded» by the spectator's subjectiveness. What is good for a common spectator is bad for a professional art historian.
The process of artistic image forming is a movement along the steps of signs constituting its peculiar «body». Logograms have a complicated structure of potential signs. According to Joseph Charles Pierce we can distinguish three levels of signs in logograms: signs-indexes, signs-icons and signs-symbols.
Revealing itself, the piece-thing changes not the sign body, but its meaning: a sign changes its meanings, fulfilling them by index, iconic and (or) symbolic contents in the process of artistic image generation.
"Artificiality" of the Artistic Image
«Artificiality» of artistic image can be expressed in the following statements.
1. «Artificiality» of the fruit, obtained in the result of coupling of the man-spectator and the piece-thing. There are merged together: on the one hand, «a picturesqueness» of the external object of art as a separate material thing with the spectator's speculation products and, on the other hand, objective-expressive «artificiality» of the sign with the subjective designative capability of an individual in the artistic image. The artistic image turns out to be of a new quality, within which there are always two combined and mutually
identified contents of the playing parts. But, as far as both the human (the spectator) in a shot form, and the non-human (let us say, paint clots on the canvas) in the artistic image are available, it would be incorrect to reduce the quality of the artistic image, being born in the game dialogue of the artistic image itself and the essence of whether human or non-human components. The artistic image is presented not as a simple relation of one game dialogue part to another, but as a relation of the human and the non-human, taken in the spirit of Hegel reflection theory. Another thing is that the proportion and the harmony of the essence of the spectator and the piece-thing in their concrete ideal equation, within which they shoot each other, producing the quality of the artistic image, can be different. Sometimes there is domination of either the piece-thing essence, or, visa verse, the man-spectator's visualized essence in the appearing artistic image. It depends upon the criteria, which the spectator is oriented on in his activity position, whether he aims at the piece-thing essence study, or at his own essence. Besides, it is important that, in the course of artistic game the spectator, while apprehending the piece-thing signs meanings, unnoticeably penetrates into the depths of his own essence.
2. «Artificiality» of the artistic image existence as of a system quality of all the relation of the spectator and the piece-thing. The artistic image, as a relation disclosure method , starts from the material representation and ends with a nonmaterial construct, not containing even a grain of the reality reconstructed with the help of the constructs. Moreover, in the formation process, the artistic image loses its own «uniqueness» more and more, getting farther and farther from the prose of concrete thingishness, and, at the same time, widening the sacral measure of «common» and «universal» in the visual notion sphere.
3. «Artificiality» of a complicated role of the artistic image as a representative of the-spectator-
and-the- piece-thing relation, as a parent of the piece-thing (an artist, plot, style space, school, method, artistic material and so on) and as a transactor between the finite man and the infinite Absolute.
"Artificiality" of the Artistic Image's Material Status
4. «Artificiality» of the artistic image material status. At the initial stages of its formation, the artistic image exists as an abstract undifferentiated initial unity of elementary cells, for example, a unity of a colourful layer captured by the frame of a picturesque painting, watched by the spectator (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1
So, the work of art as «a thing-in-the-openness» is inseparable from the materiality of the painting and is developing in the bowels of «a thing-in-itself» under the condition of its game dialogue starts with the spectator. On the spectator-observer's appearance and, consequently, on the interaction space occurrence of subject-object relation parts, the colourful layer of elementary cells transforms into «visualization» of a globally diffusive integrity of material symbolic bodies, later each requiring personal signification. The
artistic image in its material status is characterized by symbolic materiality or reality (late Lat. realis - «material»).
5. «Artificiality» of material status manifestation of spectator's special thinking effort, constituting the essence of man's visual thinking, in the artistic image.
"Artificiality" of the Artistic Image's Index Status
6. «Artificiality» of the artistic image index status. Growing from «a thing-in-itself» during the dialogue with the spectator-observer, the visual notion makes mutually exclusive material possibilities (material as «might» and material as «matter») coexistent. The artistic image in its index status is both something mighty impenetrable, hard, overall, and something symbolic, called to serve a matter of, who is materially absent at present moment. The essence of index signs is their bilateral structure, an inseparable unity of the signifier and the signified. As a finger of the hand points at a definite object, so the index signs mark their adjacency in the artistic image index field. For example, a livid-coloured «form» of the colourful layer in the piece-thing of V. Surikov's «Boyarinya Morozova» is simultaneously
Fig. 2
nothing else, but a heel of «the God's fool» as an element of the painting artistic image; and a white-blue clot of paint, on which «background» livid «form» is placed at the colourful surface, is a fragment of snow, whereon the frozen human heel is presented in the artistic image index space. A picturesque «form» of yellow- ochroid is a gold cupola of the church; a black-coloured «form» is a fur coat of Morozova, a red «form» is a head cloth of the boyar and so on and so forth. The artistic image in its index status is a set of signified parts of diffusive unity, which has appeared in the result of game relation partners' operational actions with the signifying symbolic global integrity of the artistic image in its material status (Fig. 2).
The Spectator's Subject-Language and The Piece Object-Language
7. The language, the spectator performs the operational interaction with the piece-thing, differs from the language, the piece-thing talks to the spectator («a thing-in-itself» and «a thing-in-the-openness»). In order not to mix up «an artist's subject-language» and «an artistic material object-language», we shall define here one system of signs as «the spectator's subject-language», and the other as «the piece object-language». «The spectator's subject-language» is a form of individualized existence of signs means during the communication of an individual with a product of fine art culture. The person, knowing «the spectator's subject-language», plays a role of signs integrator, the signs, traditionally appealed to full fill a general spectator's communication with a general piece-thing, and the signs, appearing in the process of unique and unrepeatable relation-game of a separate spectator with a special masterpiece of fine art. «The piece object-language» - is a symbolic form of the process of making an object and the result of the artist's relation with the artistic material, i.e. sensuous phenomenon in the form of a visual image-emergent piece-thing as
a «language text». «The piece object-language» is a new quality, combining «the artist's subject-language» and «the artistic material object-language». In this case the interaction of «the spectator's subject-language» with «the piece object-language» within the artistic game space should be comprehended as a personal individual's interpretation of the Book of Nature by means of a spectator's study of the Book of Revelation, created as a result of the artist - artistic-material relationship. On the other side, if there is not only «the object-language of the artistic material», there is always «an artist's subject-language» in a shot form in «the piece object-language», then the spectator, acting operationally with the signs of his «subject-language», turns out to be under the condition of ideal interaction with «the artist's subject-language» through the representative of the artistic image in its «material», «index» and other statuses. Moreover, «the artist's subject-language», being present in a shot form in the piece-thing, is simultaneously good and bad for the spectator in his communication with the substantiality of the work of art and their conjoint formation of the artistic image. It is good, because the artist manages to enter the communication with the artistic material and to reveal the text of the Book of Revelation in the piece-thing only because of good knowledge of «the subject-language». But it is also bad, because the signs of «artist's subject-language», being invisibly present in the piece-thing, are constantly tying to turn by their activity the artistic image formation, being an ideal relation of the finite spectator with the infinite Absolute, away into the direction of the artistic image, representing the ideal relation of the finite spectator with the finite author-artist.
its iconic status is presented by the integrity of symbolic elements, their relative entirety. Separate fragments of the artistic image exist as elements of the whole and are considered here from the position of the whole. The artistic image, starting its formation from the global, undifferentiated, roughly diffusive integrity (material status) and then passing through the stage of differentiation of signified «forms» and «background» of the painting (index status), finally crystallizes as an operational invariant. But, sooner or later, it comes to the summarized (Fig. 3), and then to integral (Fig. 4) levels of the artistic image iconic status. Overcoming the ambiguity in some visual notion
"Artificiality" of the Artistic Image's Iconic Status
8. «Artificiality» of the artistic image iconic status. The artistic image attributive quality in Fig. 4
areas is accompanied with the ambiguity increase in its other areas. The artistic image development moves from steadiness to unsteadiness, and then to steadiness again and, thus, it goes repeatedly, so, in the result, it brings to significant restructuring of the visual notion iconic status. The iconic status gets cutting and limitative qualities of a specific integral, shooting an abstractly general component of the material status and a definitely singular component of the index status in itself.
9. If «artificiality» of the artistic image material status is illustrated by reality, then «artificiality» of index and, more over, of iconic status of the artistic image are characterized by actuality (dejstvitel'nost') as an operational activity of the game interaction partners, their cooperative actions towards each other (Lat. dei -dejatel'). Actuality is a unity of the creator and the created, the action and the result, the substantial and the material.
10. Not only the work of art under the guise of «a thing», but also the spectator under the guise of «an observer» take part in the artistic image creation of material and iconic statuses, while for the artistic image iconic status creation the spectator and the work of art put on the game masks of «an interlocutor».
11. The artistic image of iconic status, shooting material and index situations in itself, appears as specific text, i.e. ideal (representative) connection of the finite (the spectator) with the finite (the parents of the work of art: author, plot, school, stylistic space, time, individual and actual-historical artistic ideas and so on).
"Artificiality" of the Artistic Image's Symbolic Status
12. «Artificiality» of the artistic image symbolic status. According to the ancient Greek definition, symbol is a separation of the single and an integration of the dual. On the level of iconic status, the artistic image has reached the limit of
the spiral turn completeness, has learnt its own borders by the ideal relation of the finite with the finite, has brought to a break of the artistic relation as the artistic one, and has made the spectator come with the work of art out of the game space and comprehend sharply his own finiteness. But symbolic status is a new spiral turn in the artistic image development. This turn is in demand, as far as the coupling problem of «id» of the finite man with the «ID» of the Absolute has not been solved within the limits of the artistic image iconic status, but it has been replaced by an ideal game of the finite man with another or other similar finite creations. So, it turns out, that on a certain level the process of the artistic image formation creates a sort of deadlock situation of entire finiteness by itself and again by itself suggests a way out from the circle. So, thus the main fundamental principle of dialectics is developing - negation of negation. As far as it has been reached the negation of what ever relation with the infinite on the level of the artistic image iconic status, so, in order to overcome the dead-lock, it is necessary to address to the thingish surface of the work of art once again and to perform the negation of negation on this very base.
13. «Artificiality» of the artistic image symbolic status is formed relatively independently from the previous «artificiality» of the visual notion, while negating one another. But this negation is not useless, but dialectic, the negation as a moment of connection, a moment of development and capture of the best in a shot form, that has been got by the dialogue-relation partners on the previous stages of the artistic image formation. The artistic image generates its own symbolic status just directly on the material one, building its main content - a compositional formula, in a close cohesion.
Compositional Formula of the Artistic Image
14. Compositional formula of the artistic image is a carrier of symbolic signs unity; the signs, which having been dissolved in the colourful layer and shining through its every elementary cell (simultaneously belonging and not belonging to the layer), they geometrically reveal, open the text of the Book of Nature, and, thus, contribute to the desired coupling of the finite and the infinite. Reflexion over the symbolic of the artistic image compositional formula is a special type of communication of the spectator and the Absolute with a help of the universal, commonly used language of geometric forms. The learning of compositional formula «secondary sensuality» suggests that the singular presents itself as an emphatic aspect of the general in visual notion, and the general - as something figuratively concrete and singular. The artistic image in its symbolic status is a sort of long expected particle of «umbilical» character, able to open the Truth to the spectators' world-relation in its need to unite, to assert itself and to co-operate in order to prove the Fulfillment of Existence. By the way, the ancient world symbol initially meant a purposefully roughly broken potsherd, whose first part was taken by one individual while parting with somebody, and the other was given to another person. Thus, the symbol, gave an opportunity to enter the relation with another person through an intermediate integration of the potsherds- go-betweens.
15. The creation of the artistic image of symbolic status involves not only the work of art under the mask «text», but the spectator under the game mask «co-creator».
16. «Artificiality» of the artistic image symbolic status, shooting in itself «artificiality» contents of material, index and iconic statuses, discloses itself as a model of Existence. Existence
is an absolute Fulfillment (Lat. ess - to be, truth, true), when all possible contradictions are solved, making a specific integrity.
"Finesse" of the Artistic Image
«Finesse» of the artistic image can be expressed by the following content.
1. Finesse of the artistic image is the fruit of the man-spectator and the piece-thing relation.
2. Finesse of the artistic image exists simultaneously in a thingish (material status) and a prophetic condition (index, iconic and symbolic statuses).
3. Ability of the artistic image to change signs meanings, transforming them according to status needs now into index signs, then into iconic signs, and then into symbol signs in the process of the artistic image crystallization, and, at the same time, preserving sign essence unchangeable («elementary cells», «forms», «background»).
4. Finesse of the artistic image is the text, integrating the finite and the infinite, and the text, constructing the ideal relation of the finite and the infinite.
5. The artistic image's task is to bring
the spectator-interlocutor into a state of sharp finiteness and to suggest the spectator-co-creator itself as a sort of umbilical cord for virtual integration of the man's «id» with «ID» of the Absolute.
6. Finesse of the artistic image is a signs integrator of «the spectator's subject-language» and « the piece object-language».
7. The artistic image is able to join «artificially» reality, actuality and Existence in itself.
8. Finesse of the artistic image is and becomes a visual notion in the form of sensually presented essence (the phenomenally-exemplary «particular» in the form of the «concrete-general»).
"Finesse" of the Artistic Image's Material Status
9. The material status artistic image helps to simulate a nonorganic layer of Existence by its thingishness. Here, we need to wander from the subject. German thinker Nicolay Hartmann discovered, that there was a sort of stratification in Existence organization; a philosophic view could hardly fail to detect it. And this stratification had actually been noticed long before. Now, it is used to distinguish four great layers of Existence -nonorganic, organic, soul and Spiritual. And it is fixed that there are certain main phenomena, separated according to qualitative differences in the step-shaped or stratiform Existence organization. For example, organic life significantly differs from physical-material nonorganic existence, and the emotional is not qualitatively equal to the organic. But notwithstanding the organic being different from the nonorganic, one depends upon the other. Organic life contains the nonorganic and is based on it. The laws of physical world spread far deep into organisms. But nevertheless, the organic autonomy is not only the result of the nonorganic, it, in its turn, transforms universal physical laws. The organic nature dominates over the nonorganic. Though, it cannot be independent, but it implies relations and regularities of material world; it is based upon them, though they are not at all sufficient to compound the alive. Just the same way soul forms its own layer over organic existence, and, at the same time, it is dependant upon organic existence as the layer being carried on. Existence does not know any soul life, which would not have an organism as a carrier. This way, soul existence is something through being carried, but, notwithstanding its dependence, is quite autonomic by its originality. On the other side, the ancient views on the Cosmos, as an animate unity (hylozoism), pointed at eternally alive world order, consisting of ascending classes
of the living bodies' lives. Thereby, the forms of life were differentiated in accordance with the forms of souls. Mineral, plant, animal and human souls were differentiated. The sphere of Spiritual existence is also not identical to the sphere of soul existence and its regularities. Richness and variety of Existence Spiritual layer can be compared to none of the underlying layers. But the highest existence relation towards the lowest one remains still in force here as well. Spiritual life is a layer carried by the one of soul existence, but being carried not the way the soul life is carried by the organic one, and the organic - by the nonorganic. So, it turns out that, in the sphere of Spiritual life we are also speaking of the highest existence autonomy in relation to the lowest one, whith the highest being dependant upon the lowest. The dependence of the highest Existence layers upon the lowest ones does not influence their autonomy. The lowest layer is only a carrying base for the highest one, and it is an obligatory condition. Thus, for example, the organic, though being carried by the nonorganic, the richness of forms and wonders of life are not originated from the nonorganic, but added to it as something principally new. Just the same way, soul existence overtops as something new to the organic layer, and Spiritual - over the soul one. Thus, the lowest Existence layers are though «stronger», but in comparison to them, the highest layers have more «freedom». The law of strength and the law of freedom make up together an indissoluble Existence unity - a synthesis of dependence and autonomy. There is the dependence «from above» and the dependence «from below». The dependence «from below» cannot be total, as far as the meaningful fullness of the highest Spiritual existence leaves far behind the meaningful fullness of the lowest layers and cannot be at all covered by their content. Just the same way, the dependence «from above» is lack of totality, observing the autonomy principle for underlying layers. So, though the lower Existence
layer (nonorganic) defines the upper layers, as it is their carrier, but the upper Existence layer (Spiritual) also defines the lower layers, as far as it is their creator. Qualities immanation of dependence and autonomy from the lower level up to the upper level of Existence together with qualities immanation of dependence and autonomy from the upper level down to the lower level of Existence are actually the integrity of Existence, having been unrevealed together with its disclosure. Such detailed study of Existence layers has been required in order to present more clearly the relationship of «finesse artificiality» of the artistic image and «naturalness» of Macrocosm. Visual notion in its «meta-finesse» appears itself as a representative Existence model, i.e. it plays the role of auxiliary (by the ideal relation of the finite and the infinite) «quasi-object», which being in a sort of correspondence with such an extremely abstract and mystic object, as the Fulfillment of Existence, and being able to replace it to a certain degree and give some information about the simulated object essence.
"Finesse" of the Artistic Image's Index Status
10. The artistic image of index status «masterfully» simulates the organic Existence layer, and we may approximately consider, for example, the relation process between the spectator-observer and the work of art, created in historical genre painting. The first stage: materially-symbolic paint clots of «forms» and «a background» of the piece-thing system-forming layer transform into illusory embodied organisms, possessing movability, having been provoked by the place and the location of «elementary cells» multitude on the painting surface. The second stage: - movability of plastic organisms brings to appearance of «full of life» humane personages, generated by the visual notion and represented in the artistic image field, being relational (but
not equal) according to their characteristics to sensually perceived objects of «the first» nature.
"Finesse" of the Artistic Image's Iconic Status
11. The artistic image of iconic status «super-masterfully» simulates soul Existence layer. Soul is a special energy, a force, inhabiting organisms and structuring them from the inside. It is a sort of organism's system quality. Such system quality is virtual, non-metric. Being everywhere and nowhere, i.e. some how existing in every system element and being in connections between the elements, and, at the same time, soul is concentrated in none of the positions of organic unity. If the soul system quality disappears, the individual organism is being destroyed; it is dying, turning into the organic, which dissolves in the nonorganic. Ontologically, soul is inevitably connected to a concrete organism, whether it is a separate creature or the whole nature organism. Soul preserves the project and the inner form of its organism, and is responsible for its life.
12. The artistic image soul layer in its finesse is carried by the visual notion organic layer, and the organic layer is carried by the nonorganic layer of operational invariant of material status. Thereby, being aspects of the artistic image common «finesse», the nonorganic, organic and soul layers differ qualitatively from each other.
13. The sequence of «super-masterfully» formative stages of the visual notion soul layer can be once again considered on the example of relation between the spectator-interlocutor with the piece-interlocutor, written on a historical plot. The first stage: - gestures, mimics, eyes expression, complexion, colour of clothes, dress pleats and other, for the first sight, rather insignificant details in the sphere of the artistic image, express emotional (soul) condition of this or that personage of the painting, disclose his character. The second stage: - the visual notion
crystallizes main and secondary dramatis personae of the historical scene, reveals the emotional (soul) centre of visually presented event. The third stage: -emotionally (soul)-personal essence of the artistic image main personages, the backbone individual idea of operational invariant heroes is revealed. The fourth stage: - composition, coloration, rhythm, perspective and others create a general sensually-emotional (soul) ensemble of the artistic image, merging separate emotional (soul) manifestations of the visual notion personages into an organic unity. The fifth stage: - a relatively integral visual notion, as something facet and finished, is placed upon the artistic - extra-artistic foundation: the truth of the crystallized visual image is co-placed with the truth of the piece-thing finite parents (artist, historical facts, stylistic space, method, artistic material in a broad sense, school and so on.). The sixth stage: - emotional (soul) essence of the artistic image is extrapolated into emotionally (soul)-personal essence of the spectator-interlocutor, initiating in him an edgy condition of his own finiteness.
"Finesse" of the Artistic Image's Symbolic Status
14. The artistic image of symbolic status, «meta-masterfully» simulating spiritual Existence layer, is formed in a relative independence from the previous «finesse» layers of the visual notion, but, nevertheless, including in itself a shot form finesse contents of nonorganic, organic and soul layers. Soul layer masterfully defines «from above» the integrity of the artistic image «finesse» layers, as far as it is their creator. While nonorganic layer of the artistic image defines «from below» a «finesse artificial» integrity of the visual notion layers, as it is their carrier.
15. Though the words soul and Spirit are often equated, they are written and sound differently in many languages. For example, in Sanskrit soul is «prana» and spirit is «atman»;
in ancient Greek soul is «psyche», and spirit is «pneuma»; in Latin soul is «animus», and spirit is «spiritus»; in Arabic soul is «nefs», and spirit is «rukh» and so on. In explanatory dictionaries Spirit is described as a bodiless substance, an inhabitant of not a material, but of a substantive world. Spirit is ethereal and it is some how out of bodies. Soul is created by Spirit, and consequently, has common features with it. In comparison with soul, being limited by flesh, Spirit has been initially considered as a free creative principle of Macrocosmic and of any concrete creature. In his work «Philosophy of Spirit» Hegel points out, that Spirit is not something, staying in rest, but sooner, visa verse, it is something absolutely restless, a pure activity. From the formal point of view, the essence of Spirit is freedom. The substance of Spirit is free, i.e. independent from some other, correlating with itself. Spirit itself is an essence for itself, having itself as its own object, it is a materialized notion. Spirit may stay in itself or in any certain existence, in any quality. Wherever it penetrates, everywhere its own modus is created. The feature of omnipresence lets Spirit, firstly, reach the very altitudes of Macrocosmic and be perfect; secondly, it allows creating any ultimate entirety and, thirdly, allows being involved in ultimate entireties in every present existence, also including the willing-to-be-involved man-spectator.
Is it possible that every person, entering the relation with the work of art, is capable to reach the level of spiritual existence? Of course, by no means all, but only the selected are capable to reach the condition of integrity with the infinite and the Absolute. But, everybody who is able to enter an ideal relation with the illusory-finite artistic thing, has a possibility, at the elementary level, to ascend to Spirit with a help of the work of art.
Iskus (~ "trial", "temptation") of the Artistic Image
«Iskus» (trial) of inner dialectics of the artistic image existence can be expressed in the following main statements.
1. Tempting features of the artistic image disclose themselves through the etymological analysis of the word «iskus». Most dictionaries name the word «probation» to be number one in the list of the word «iskus» explanation, comprehending «iskus» as a strict, severe probation. «Iskushat'» means to probe, to learn, to experience through actions, feelings and thoughts. Special etymological dictionaries attribute the word «iskus» origin to the verb «kusat'», which, in its turn, is understood in the meaning «to experience», «to probe», «to try», «to will». The verb «raskusit'» is explained as «to learn», «to understand». In the same row with the word «probation», dictionaries name the words «seduction», «temptation», «enticement», «enchantment» as synonyms of the words «iskus» and «iskushenie». In its turn, «to seduce» means to dispose to something by a bait, to confuse, to involve, to provoke, to pervert; «to tempt» means to captivate, to infatuate, to lure, to conquer, to seduce; «to entice» means to lure, to call, to involve, to lead, to possess, to capture. Etymology of the word «to enchant» goes from the word «charms», being explained as «means», «help», «deceit». The initial meaning of the word «charms» was «action», «magic power». In the spell technique «charms» is used for something unrevealed or closed, what is wished and must be revealed or open in the result of a spell. One more explanation of the word «iskus» is «contagion», and «iskushenie» is given as «contamination». «To contaminate », in its turn, means to affect, to kill, to strike to death, to render an invisible poison, something pernicious. In medicine the contamination analogy is the term «infection»,
which is understood as a penetration of a specific (for each illness) germ into an organism and a peculiar kind of reaction of the organism. The main idea is that the process of physical contamination remains invisible. That is why for a long time contaminations have stayed inexplicable for people. Even today a man is not able to feel the moment of contamination or an illness trial. It is not by chance that the word «bolezn'» (illness) is presented synonymous to the word «iskus» (trial) in English explanatory dictionaries.
2. It is important to understand, that any kind of «seduction», «enchantment», «contamination» have its own aim, and while reaching it, an individual has to change oneself. In such a case, one more word is drawn into the orbit of «iskus» - «preobrazhenie» (transfiguration). «Preobrazhat'» or «preobrazit'»- to transform or to give a new image, to turn to, to convert into something; to depart, to pass away, to die, to change one's fleshly existence for spiritual one; to get a prototype, i.e. something original, initial, paragon; to remake anew, to arrange again, otherwise, in a different order, to re-organize.
3. «Iskus» (trial) of the artistic image may be represented in the form of the following logical chain of stages: «temptation», «enticement», «seduction», «enchantment», «contamination», «probation», «learning», «figuring out», «understanding», «perception», «changing», «alteration» and «transfiguration». The denoted chain can be easily shortened, in order to group the stages of «trail» into four main blocks: «temptation», «contamination», «probation», «transfiguration», where every block is an aspect, a side, and a function of the artistic image «trail».
4. And now, who or what «tempts» the artistic image and who or what «is tempted» by it. If we assume that, the artistic image (visual notion) is being crystallized in the process of the relationgame of the spectator with the piece-thing, and
then both parts of the dialogue must «tempt» and «be tempted». In every deed, every participant of the artistic interaction, making his move, becomes somebody or something «tempting» for his partner, and, receiving the counter move, turns into somebody or something «being tempted». On the other hand, the participants of the gamerelation perform their operational moves towards their opponent just because, they are «being tempted» by him, and representing a sort of «tempted» existence for the opponent. In any case, the artistic image, appearing at the intersection of the spectator's «trial» and the piece-thing «trial», becomes simultaneously both «tempting», and «tempted» phenomenon.
"Iskus" of the Artistic Image's Material Status
5. «Temptation» of the artistic image, presented as «enchantment», begins from charms showing, i.e. thingish-real base of the visual notion material status; the charms endowed with special «tempting» power of authenticity, which is comprehended as a correspondence of the sensuous images content straight with the given empiric objects. Further, the charms «induce», i.e. awake the artistic image «trial», stimulating the awakening of those inner game resources, that have been hidden and have been asleep in the spectator-observer and the piece-thing till a concrete dialogue-relation, and thus making the opponents to activate their operational interaction.
"Iskus" of the Artistic Image's Index Status
6. While receiving index status by the artistic image, the visual notion charms get a possibility «to contaminate», i.e. to render «an artistic-game illness», having a «contaminating» effect, to the relation participants. This artistic image charms influence can be alternatively defined by the notion
«to attract and to infatuate» - when the visual notion «trial» distracts, leading the spectator and the piece-thing away from the condition they have been in before «contamination» by «artistic-game illness».
"Iskus" of the Artistic Image's Iconic Status
7. After the «contamination» stage, the artistic image «trial», getting iconic status, puts the spectator-interlocutor and the piece-interlocutor in temptation of «severe probation» or some «judgment». Such period can be defined as a proper «artistic-game illness», resulting in «changes» of all the relation participants, and it is defined as a crystallization of the universal finiteness condition for the spectator, for the piece and the artistic image on the last stages of the artistic image, being in iconic status.
8. «Trial» of the artistic image of iconic status is characterized by artistic truth, whose content is of objective-subjective character. Artistic truth, basing on sensuous authenticity, allows the system of the visual notion signs to be an essence expression by means of the picture.
9. «Trial» of the symbolic status artistic image is «transfiguration», which the spectator-co-creator and the piece-text undergo, i.e. falling out of «commonness» into the Truth, into coExistence openness, where co-Existence is neither a present Existence something, nor a potential Existence nothing, but a boarder as a synthesis of both sides. The man's finiteness is dying in coExistence, but it cannot die, as far as it merges together the fear of «transfiguration» and the wish of «transfiguration». This is a finiteness death feeling in all its life preservation (absence while presence and presence while absence).
10. «Transfiguration» represents the main function of the artistic image «trial», while «temptation», «contamination» and «probation» being the supporting functions, by means of those
the proper effect of the visual notion «trial» is achieved.
Individual human possibilities are developed in the artistic image index-iconic build-up; here, a man himself within his limits takes part in the construction of an etalon, pattern alongside with the world of «the first» nature. If we remember Hegel's definition of the truth - a revelation of the objective in the subjective and of the subjective in the objective, - then we can see the way, the truth being achieved during the interrelation of the spectator and the piece-thing, when a man finds out that his activity has been pre-defined by the given work of art, and visa verse, understands that the objective content of the work of art will never be fulfilled without his disclosing subjective activity.
May be iconic status of the artistic image formation ends up with the finiteness culmination, because here the subjective reveals itself and begins dominating, at the end of ends bringing to the feeling of total finiteness.
Human-subjective artistic image formation has its own peculiarities at the «index» and «iconic» levels. First of all, it is necessary to note, that the partition of the artistic image crystallization into «index» and «iconic» statuses is of rather conditional character: the artistic image, being pre-defined at the index level, pre-unites into a certain integrity, while at the iconic level this integrity is gained in the form of the «image-icon» itself.
The subjective possibilities of objective simulation reveal and fully realize themselves at the index-iconic level. At the level of «image-icon» there is a limit of subjective simulation of the objective world. By the artistic image transition from index to iconic status the spectator reflexes over and consciously fulfills subjective actions and possibilities, gathering scattered elements-indexes in the integral «image-icon»
and performing maximally subjective work of humane thinking over the gathering.
In the process of the artistic image generation, substantiality and ideality inter-reveal each other: there is not any artistic image to be built without a work of art, possessing objective substantiality, but the artistic image itself exists only in the sphere of ideality and there is no possibility to enter physical relations with the piece-thing.
The Nature of the Contradiction Between the Subject and the Object of the Artistic Relation
The contradiction between the subject and the object of the artistic relation is not solved at the index-iconic level. On one hand, while merging of two sides of the artistic relation, the artistic image is being formed as a new quality, on the other hand - as far as coupling-relation itself here is of game type, the contradiction between the subject and object, being not solved, but on the contrary, escalated.
On the one hand, the artistic image is being formed and it must solve the subject-object contradiction, on the other hand - the contradiction is escalated. The work over the artistic image generation is conjoint with the work of art ha the ving a realistic character; moreover, subjective activity over the artistic image build-up is, as a rule, subjected to reflection to much more extent, than in the process of scientific or handicraft activity.
Inside the game relation the reflection represents its inevitable attribute, as far as the game obligatory supposes bi-planning and keeping yourself in a dual position of «the one, who is in play» and «the one, who is out of play».
The sharpness of disillusionment, which accompanies the completion of the artistic image generation at the iconic level, takes different forms:
1) The comprehension of conclusion illusiveness of the artistic image generation, when it turns out, that the sphere of art is a sphere of illusions;
2) The suspicion, that «the first» nature world is nothing, but a result of a subjective perception work, that «the first» nature thingishnss is nothing, but a summation of «the artistic images»;
3) The sharp feeling of total finiteness, as far as both the piece-thing and the man-spectator find out their mutual finiteness and fix it in the process of their relation; the work of art as «a thing» and «an interlocutor» points out to the spectator that, it is this very spectator, but nobody else, who enters the communication with it (another person could forme some «other» artistic image). And the spectator points out to the piece-thing that, he has been operationally related to nothing else, but this very work of art during the artistic image generation (otherwise, the result would have been different, to much extent dependant on the peculiarities of a concrete artistic work).
Thus, it turns out that, a sharp partition of the piece-thing and the man-spectator appears in the result of the artistic image crystallization, while the piece-thing and the man-spectator participating in the creation of this operational invariant. This finiteness tension makes the game coupling participants break off the relation, step out of it and start searching such an interaction, where the feeling of finiteness would be shot in something more significant.
The leaving of the work of art in the form of a «thing» and «interlocutor», the search of some other artistic relation may bring to a new address of the same spectator to the same work of art, but on a principally new level (the spectator is a «co-creator» and the work of art is a «text»). On the one hand, this new spectator's relation should be accompanied by a new address to a system-forming thingish layer of the work of art, on the other hand, it is impossible to accomplish, being
within the limits of the index-iconic level of the artistic image generation.
One should note, that the moment of future separation of the potential spectator from the piece-thing is present somehow in every artistic creation, and thus, it differs from the abstract authenticity of the unique sacred religious text: an artist and artistic material, creating a work of art, give it willingly or unwillingly a possibility of the relation break-off with the spectator, who will need some other works of art, in case the game interaction with the given piece-thing is not mutually harmonious.
In all probability, it is impossible to move linear and directly towards the integrity of the limited and the unlimited, of the finite and the Absolute without a stop, without sharp comprehension of one's own finiteness. The beginning of the artistic relation does not at all suppose any sharp emotional tuning for any necessity of integrity with the infinite and the Absolute. And this very emotional and spiritual necessity appears and sharpens already inside the game space of the artistic relation.
In a certain moment of the artistic image generation there appears a necessity to integrate the man-spectator and the Absolute inside the space of its artistic relation crystallization. The man-spectator begins to wish reaching the integrity with the infinite and the Absolute not before a concrete artistic relation, but spontaneously and suddenly inside the relation itself, i.e. here and now. It is the moment of the game break-off in the artistic image iconic status level, that makes the spectator perceive the wish to liquidate the break-off immediately here and now, by putting together the separated parts of the Whole.
Moreover, transition to the symbolic level of the artistic image generation is determined by some kind of «sobering» of the spectator-interlocutor -at the final moment of the iconic status artistic image generation it becomes clear for him that the
real communication, like physical, chemical or biological interactions, with the piece-interlocutor is impossible in any case.
The piece-thing is a representative of the Absolute for the spectator. The ideal relation of the finite and the infinite can be materialized only through a representative, though, at the same time, the representative - intermediary should have an indication, that finally the spectator's relation must be built up not with it, but with the «other» one, the representative is directing to: the representative must «disclose» itself in the form of something valuable by itself and pass the role of an intermediary between the man and the Absolute over to the artistic image.
The representative simultaneously appears and does not appear to be a final point of artistic relation. The piece-thing represents both the model of integrity, which the man touches upon and for a moment he feels himself to be integral, and at the same time, it is a sort of a «bridge», by means of which the man-spectator can contact with something, that cannot be expressed adequately. Any expression of Existence Fulfillment just slightly appears in the «secondary» sensuousness of the work of art as a model, as far as any model construct always lights up only some features and aspects of its object, source and pattern.
Thus, the final integration of the man-spectator happens not with the piece-thing, but because of it and that is why the artistic image finds the way for the finite to the infinite and the Absolute.
Compositional formula, which contains a consolidated content of the symbolic status artistic image, prohibits the players to address the discoveries, which have been done by them at the material-index-iconic levels of the artistic image generation. So, for example, the «lemniscate» compositional formula of the artistic image symbolic status of the painting «the Visitation of Messiah» by A. Ivanov does not have any direct
connection to the religious plot, on which base it has been visually investigated and opened.
On reaching the artistic image symbolic status, it is extremely important for the players to understand the necessity of negation of that, what has been achieved on the stages.
Like in due time the artist was gifted the opportunity to choose such nonorganic (stone, metal, paints or clay) among all the abundance of «the first» nature nonorganic materials, which could express all the variety of the Universe, so, the same way, by the transition to the artistic image formation of symbolic status the game-relation partners perform a selection of such symbolic signs, included into the body of compositional formula, where the artistic image specifics gains universal meaning.
At the symbolic level of the artistic image formation the Absolute gets the first and the last possibility to be depicted and expressed. Visual symbol is the limit of art capability, and, in this respect, the artist's apex possibility: to give a graphic representation of the infinity, to reveal the image of the Absolute. Simulating the Existence Fulfillment, the master's most capability both now and always and in all the cultures is to present «secondary» sensuously the essence of the universal by means of a circle. Having outlined the contour and created the boarder, to determine visually the limits, and thereby to find out that there is something, exceeding the circle, breaking out of it.
The number of compositional formulas, like the number of universal ideas, is rather limited. All of them are the derivatives of the visual notion
«circle».
By the transition from the verity to the truth the man-spectator's self-actualization is minimized. The force of his subjectiveness comes to its limit and, having shown its inconsistency, turns out to be a weakness. On the other side, the spectator's subjectiveness, having revealed itself,
having disclosed and fixed its own work, performs a reflection over it: calls the subjectiveness work a game, logical operations, sensuousness and so on. On this stage the spectator's subjectiveness composes both its own map of the artistic
image layers and self description on the stages of sensuousness, reason, game, generation. Simultaneously, the subjective comes to the boarder with the objective and creates its own limit on this boarder.
References
Contemporary Philosophical Dictionary, Second ed., London, Frankfurt am Main, Paris, Moscow (Minsk: Labyrinth, 1998).
N.P. Koptseva, Philosophy. Truth As the Aim and Sense: Introduction to Alethiology (Krasnoyarsk, SibSTU, 2003).
N.P. Koptseva, The Philosophy of the 17th Century (Krasnoyarsk, SibSTU, 2002), in Russian.
N.P. Koptseva, "The Problems of Truth In the Contemporary Philosophy", Philosophy. Actual Problems. Course of Studies for the students of all training forms, P. 1 (Krasnoyarsk, SibSTU, 2004), 152-166, in Russian.
V.I. Zhukovskyi, Formula of Harmony (Krasnoyarsk: Bonus Press, 2001), in Russian.
V.I. Zhukovskyi, Theory of Art, P. 1 (Krasnoyarsk, 2004), in Russian.
V.I. Zhukovskyi, Theory of Art. Art History Methodology, P. 2 (Krasnoyarsk, 2004), in Russian.
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V.I. Zhukovskyi, N.P. Koptseva, D.V. Pivovarov, The Visual Essence of Religion (Krasnoyarsk, 2006), in Russian.
