Iconology and Methods of Studying Artistic Processes of the Modernism Era. Commentary on Mikhail Sokolov’s Article «Iconology and the Study of Soviet Art. On the Problem of Hidden Symbolism»

The proposed article develops the summarized report presented by the author at the conference of the Research Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the Russian Academy of Arts “Image and Plot in Visual Arts. Poetics from Antiquity to Modern Times” (X.2018) dedicated to the memory of Mikhail Nikolaevich Sokolov who was a consistent and talented successor of the interpretation strategies of Erwin Panofsky’s iconological method. The author refers to a little-known article by a remarkable scientist published in one of the reprint collections of the Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Arts (1991). Sokolov’s reflections on the problems of methodology, the use of iconological analysis connected to the study of the art of modern and contemporary times, in particular, the art of social modernism, bring into focus the content of his article. Special tools are needed to answer the question on what the spiritual world of a man of the twentieth century was, how the tragic events of the century were reflected in it. The tools the researcher used relatively recently to study the artist’s relations with society, the social order, the political system, the dictate of power and its order cannot contribute to solving new issues arising today. Therefore, the need to find (to develop) a method of extracting the desired knowledge in the spiritual life of the artist of the modernist era is the prerogative. The published article is a reflection and a kind of commentary on the methodological strategies proposed by Sokolov. The correlation of his own experience of many years of work on the study of the artistic creativity of the modernist era serves as an additional argument in favour of the applicability and effectiveness of the iconological method. There is a three-part article structure. The first part deals with the aspects of Sokolov’s article. The second and third parts of the article are devoted to the iconological analysis of the works of two painters (St. Petersburg-Leningrad): the landscapes by Nikolai Protopopov (1876-1960) and the still lifes of his wife Elizabeth Uvodskaya (1875-1943). The iconological analysis of N. Protopopov’s works shows the presence of semantic subtexts, symbolic content, indicating a clear difference between the artist’s values and the stilted rhetoric of the semiofficial narrative in relation to the events. The creative work of his wife, artist Elizabeth Vladimirovna Uvodskaya, appears to be completely unresearched due to particular life circumstances: the works were lost in the flow of events of the First World War and the revolution, absorbed by the spontaneous market of the the New Economic Policy (NEP) period and lost in the post-war years. The documents, letters, diaries were used for the kindling the stove in besieged Leningrad. Elizaveta Vladimirovna died during the blockade in 1943. The artist’s analyzed still lifes are being published for the first time. The iconological method of understanding the cultural meanings and deciphering symbols helps to reveal the affirmation of another reality in the structure of the works of both artists, in their style, semantics and symbolism.