The thesis concerns main tendencies, phenomena and peculiarities of development of the cultural and artistic process in the South of Ukraine in the 1960-1980s. The thesis describes the main artistic and stylistic dominant in the paintings of Odessa, Nikolaev and Kherson artists of the studied period. The concept of «artistic-stylistic dominant» has been interpreted as a set of heterogeneous technical and stylistic peculiarities, characteristic features of artistic styles and trends which, due to the effect of manifestation intensity («phenomenological thickness») in particular artistic products, revealed the potential of the conceptual and aesthetic integrity and steadiness, owing to which being for some time a decisive trend in the cultural and artistic process in Southern Ukraine throughout 1960s–1980s. Artistic-stylistic dominants are characterized from the point of view of the interaction of tradition and innovative trends in the art of this period.
The work is based on the cultural approach that explains the work of the artists of the South of Ukraine in the 1960s-1980s in connection with the development of the artistic culture of the region. The structure of the dissertation is due to the general concept, the logic of the problem’s solving, its content, purpose and the assigned research tasks.
It’s should be noted that researchers of Southern Ukraine considered only some aspects of development of the artistic process in the region in the 1960s-1980s, analyzed creative work of some artists (mainly from Odesa and Mykolaiv), but the special fundamental investigation as to stylistic peculiarities of paintings by artists of Southern Ukraine has not been provided for now, so in the dissertation paper the main attention has been payed to creativity of little-known artists, peculiarities of artistic background in such localities as Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa as well as to mutual influence and interaction with the general artistic process in Ukraine.
The studying of archive sources allowed to make more clear dates of formation of regional unions and artistic associations which were represented in chronological order and introduced in the general artistic context. Owing to materials gathered and studied, most of which are published for the first time, the managed to trace the development of tendencies of impressionism in Southern Ukraine from the end of the XIX to eighties of the XX centuries. It’s noted that development of impressionism took place in Odesa in the beginning of the XX century and was directly associated with creative work of some artists of the Union of Southern Ukraine artists. It has been demonstrated that traditional academic realism remained the acknowledged descriptive language in the 1960s – 1980s. Within the context of non-conformism for the first time it has been investigated regional peculiarities of the so-called “rough style”. It is noted that artists of Southern Ukraine who were within this trend revealed interest to lyrical landscape motives as well as to representation of some strong individuality in contrast to generalized portrayals. Due to analysis of artistic works there was proved the association of creative experiments of some nonconformists from Odesa with creative activity of their precursors – “Odesa Parisiennes” which were active in Odesa in the beginning of the XX century. It has been set clear that during 1960s – 1980s some nonconformist artists began to use archetypes, ethnic symbols and allegories as well as “national themes” and plots, reminiscences of archaic primitivism, Trypillya symbolism, Scythians animalistic style, icon painting forms, common culture canvas, Ukrainian Baroque.
It’s also been defined factors that influenced the development of artistic process and formation of imagery stylistics in the region in question, especially dynamics and variability of art exhibition practice, creative background in artistic communities, level and character of professional education of artists, commercial and social components. It was established that in general, the official artistic life of the South of Ukraine was subordinated to the Union of Artists of the Ukrainian SSR, which carried out a thorough control over the ideological content of artistic works. The negative and positive influence of the Union on the development of the artistic process has been analyzed.
The study carried out allowed to conclude that it was the local artistic tradition in conjugation with innovative trends that defined particularities of manifestations of stylistic shifts in the painting of Southern Ukraine influenced by contemporary cultural trends.
Key words: cultural-artistic process, stylistic dominant in art, tradition, innovation, artist.
