Research of the Phenomenon of Animalistic Art in the Works of Foreign and Russian Authors

Abstract

The article considers animalistic art as a significant historical and artistic phenomenon, which has become a field of research of foreign and Russian authors. The article analyses important questions concerning the specificity of animalistics and related reflections of world outlook. The author discusses moral issues, asks the question about the role of animals in human history, notes the negative results of the consumerist attitude of man to wildlife and, in this regard, the need for a positive and careful attitude to it. The reader’s attention is drawn to animalistic art as a fertile sphere of influence on human feelings and thoughts, especially in the era of global change. The position of the artist, researcher, looking at and studying the world of living nature is revealed. In this aspect the historical stratum of separate epochs is emphasized, in which the figurative nature of animals and in it the qualities of iconicity, symbol as identifying, concentrated meanings are vividly revealed. The first group of questions considers animalistic art from an educational point of view, allowing us to look at the images of animals and birds from the position of a scholar, study. The second group is related to the method of work of the animalist artist, revealing the peculiarities of the genre. The worldview aspect, determined by the artists’ views on the animal world, is inseparable from the pictorial aspect, i.e. the embodiment of animals and birds in the artistic image. This aspect also implies a conversation about the specificity of animalistics, which in the works of Russian researchers found a clear and precise expression. The relevance of the topic is denoted by the importance of talking about the problems of ecology, which have acquired a pronounced character in the modern world. This universal concept of preservation of the natural world, which has become universal, has opened a new layer of significance of animalistic art. At the present stage, when the main principle — the relationship between man and nature — is being reassessed, the reference to the world of animals, including in the historical and artistic aspect, acquires high significance.