Margarita Silantieva

MGIMO University of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation

Abstract

The thesis about the complex interaction between art and religion is far from new. Competing points of view ranging from the assumption that art emerged from the mythopoetic complex to considering it as a craft that brought the utilitarian form to pure perfection, suitable even for glorifying God, still have their supporters and opponents. One of the brightest periods of such discussions was the movement of religious modernism in Russia in the first third of the 20th century. Representatives of religious modernism sometimes directly declared an understanding of art as theurgy. The opposite point of view assumed that the creative principle is fully manifested not in art as such, and not even in religious art (it is only a laboratory for the search for meanings), but in the relations of people, emanating from freedom, that is, in morality. This is exactly the idea of N. A. Berdyaev, once passionate religious modernist, an apologist for the philosophy of freedom and at the same time an exemplary parishioner of Orthodox parishes.

Can religious quests be expressed in masterpieces? Obviously, under certain conditions, the creation of human hands can become a form of glorification of God. Can the opposite situation take place when religious art demonstrates religious impotence? Quite so. However, if you introduce freedom into this equation, it has stereoscopic interpretations. In particular, Berdyaev's ontology will turn out to be possible, the one in which freedom turns out to be deeper than God. And if creative searches are not connected by anything except freedom itself, in a moral act a person acts as an independent creative principle. Interestingly, this point of view is developed by a religious philosopher whose ethics can hardly be called secular. And his religious anthropology becomes a field for the realization of those very searches in which a person himself becomes an application of his own creative activity, no matter whether he is a craftsman, or an artistic genius. In a sense, there is no difference between these positions. Art remains a laboratory for the search for meanings, but meanings come to life in the deed.

The application of this prism to some modern processes allows us to notice some new angles. In particular, arguing that art gives true freedom of expression, and such freedom can take place in the full sense exclusively in art, modern philosophy demonstrates a turn that takes moral meaning beyond the limits of morality itself. At the same time, such freedom is interpreted primarily as a political and social statement. Art as a laboratory goes beyond individual rooms and rebuilds life in accordance with a certain social and political agenda. Such statements often oppose one or another ideological model; however, they themselves are usually ideologically charged.

Similarity with Russian (now artistic) modernism of the first third of the 20th century. appears here as well. At that time, art (and, above all, Russian abstractionism) proclaimed a fundamental freedom from religious ideology, which was expressed in works that destroy religious canons and was (and is) perceived as a declaration of freedom from any canon, asserting the right to independent artist’s view. The easily read desire to de-ideologize creativity, to create a space of freedom, itself turned out to be akin to a new manifesto. Natalia Goncharova’s art created during the period of work on the ballet Liturgy (1915) with a group of like-minded people attracted by Sergei Diaghilev becomes this type of manifesto. The uniqueness of the author's view, it may seem, drafts off the prevailing stereotypes. At the same time, it is known that in depicting postures, gestures, movement dynamics and, most likely, even facial expressions, the group was guided by the Ravenna mosaics. Hence the paradox: the non-canonical interpretation of images, their vivid psychologization are combined with a reading of the gospel story, which has not only a religious, but also a moral dimension. At the same time, non-canonical means are used to revitalize biblical images as having a close relation to a person, understandable to him in his confusion, doubt, pity, and greatness.

In turn, the fine art of the late 20th – early 19th centuries seemingly returns to the canon, but fills it with unique content. Thus, in the works of Yevgeny and Lyudmila Semenov, the authors of the photo project The Last Supper, young people with Down syndrome are placed around the table. Here, the freedom to deal with the religious plot fulfills the program task: to show, by completely canonical means, an unusual perspective on the perception of the theme of the communion of the sons of men in the cup of the Son of God. Nevertheless, there is a clear social agenda of inclusion and a rethinking of approaches to who a person is as a son of God.

In both works by the above-mentioned authors religious painting serves as a tool to address anthropological problems. It is considered as a manifesto of religious freedom rather than a going back on the canon, in one case only in form, and in the second – in content. Religious freedom in both cases is associated with a rethinking of the question of man as a being capable of self-transcendence. The artistic expression itself becomes an act, and the religious themes of images become a means of emphasizing a person’s free search for himself, which is impossible without morally charged interaction with other people.

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