Art of the Second Half of the 20th Century on Music, Theatre and Cinema: A.P. Levitin’s Portraits of the Art Figures

Abstract

In the history of world culture of the twentieth century, images of various representatives of theatre, cinema and music were often reflected on the canvases of many artists — S.A. Petrov, Z. E. Serebryakova, V.A. Meshchaninov, P. F. Sudakov, Y. S. Nikolaev, P. P. Konchalovsky and others. There exists a vital need to reassess the art heritage of the Soviet era. In this article, the author is considering the pictorial and graphic portrait heritage of A. P. Levitin, an Honored Artist of the RSFSR. The analysis of stylistic and artistic techniques used by the artist in his chronological and creative development is also proposed. The article suggests a brief overview of the evolution of the main features of Levitin’s portrait art, which can be presented as defining for realistic direction of painting of the second half of the 20th century. If in the 1950s and 1980s the artist preferred a psychological portrait using a neutral background and more classical poses and composition, while his portraits represented vast genre scenes, and were almost monumental ones. Such most characteristic portraits of A. P. Levitin with his unique author's style of composition include Triptych. Composer Sviridov, Portrait of Dmitry Hvorostovsky, Actor and his roles (People's Artist of the USSR O. V. Basilashvili).

Keywords

Art of the second half of the 20th century, soviet painting, A. P. Levitin, portrait, music, theatre, art figures, realism, graphics, Leningrad school of painting.

For citation

Yanna S. Knyazeva — Post-graduate student of the Department of Cultural Studies and Art, A.S. Pushkin Leningrad State University.

E-mail: yannnasinica@mail.ru

ORCID 0009-0004-5789-7602

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Received: 12.08.2023

Revised: 01.11.2023

Accepted: 10.11.2023