Personibas skatijuma pretmeti realitate un portrettelnieciba padomju perioda: Oficiala retorika un sleptas pretestibas intonacijas

• Authors: Ruta Caupova

Title variants

EN

CONTRASTING INTERPRETATIONS OF PERSONALITY IN REALITY AND SCULPTURAL PORTRAITS OF THE SOVIET PERIOD: OFFICIAL RHETORIC AND INTONATIONS OF RESISTANCE

• Languages of publication: LV

Abstracts

EN

Totalitarian regimes of the past century reveal a spectrum of perplexing social and psychological anomalies and contrasts in their attitudes towards the personality, meaning not just the individual acquiring his/her identity through the experience of socialisation but human life as such. The fine arts, being an obvious tool of propaganda, were certainly important as an ideological instrument. The portrait genre was particularly emphasised; special attention was paid to commissions of traditional portraits. Making portraits of high-ranking persons was a mark of respect that often crowned their promotion and the awarding of orders and honorary titles. Expressions of heightened optimism and sunny elation encoded in facial features was not derived from the typical traits of that personality but demonstrated superficial assumptions of what a Soviet man’s image should be like. This treatment can be considered social masquerading in order to comply with the ideological tenets. Taking advantage of the benefits related to commissioned portraits, many sculptors created rather superficial portraits of both historical persons and their contemporaries, disregarding the deeper layers of personality and character. Nevertheless, one has to admit that truly remarkable and up to date works were also created, thanks to the options of portrait commissions during that period in Latvia. Some of them, like the portrait images by Lea Davidova-Medene, manifested innovative sculptural solutions. Intonations of independence and resistance showed in sculptural portraits that focused on the spiritual power and stance of the personality. Here one should note that full-fledged portrait images embodying the individual’s personality and partly also the self in a convincing whole, is hard to render in verbal formulations. If the artist has managed to describe the model aptly and convincingly, such an image cannot be completely ideological. It may be covered with various ideological explanations, but the portrait image remains unaffected in its immanent being. Sculptors created portraits of different people, sometimes also portraying their relatives or acquaintances along with official works. However, overtones of resistance are most visible in the portraits of renowned and popular representatives of the creative professions.

Keywords

EN

LATVIAN SCUPLTURE; POLITICS AND ART; PORTRAIT; PERSONALITY; LEA DAVIDOVA-MEDENE

• Publisher: Publishing House 'Neputns', Terbatas iela 49/51-8, Riga LV-1011, Latvia; www.neputns.lv
• Journal: Materiali Latvijas makslas vesturei
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 8
• Pages: 178-185

Contributors

author

Ruta Caupova