Vladimir B. Koshaev

Canonical conventions are typological spiritual syntagmas of different epochs and presented in the form of "canon / canons", depending on the understanding / reading of the Image of the World by a person, in connections and relations with which he and humanity are, and part of which he and society are. In a generic sense, the Canon in art is characterized by the image of a referent or an object of worship. The canon is established with all the obviousness of the banner. This happens at the turn of great epochs and materializes in a special way in the trinity of factors of the "matrix of being": the social organization of society, the technological level of production, the idea of the spiritual, ideological content of life.

The canon-"morph" in the art of the Paleolithic is expressed mainly in the worship of objects of the biocenosis. In the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Metal Ages, "morph" replaces the canon "morpheme" in the form of a cultural archetype of the Image of the Universe, in which there is a person and an entity that created the world, with which a person is connected with the help of a sacrifice. Such an Image of the World has come down to us in the structure of language, myth, fairy tale. It is deployed vertically and horizontally in the levels of aboveground and underground space and is presented in various mythopoetic models of the created world. This structure persists into the Neolithic and Metal Ages, but is refined in the details of cultural lore. Ancient civilizations preserve the figurative mytho-morphological context of the Universe as a system, but within them a canon-"metamorpheme" is born, in particular, the Abrahamic monotheistic idea of the Image of the World, and in a number of regions and cultures its monastic model, recognizing the existence of only one substance or one type of substances.

In monotheism and monism, the idea of a plurality of mythological worlds is abolished, and the image of the referent changes accordingly - in one case it becomes the Personality of the Creator, and in the other, it becomes an extrapersonal, extra-spatial and timeless "substance", defined in Buddhism by the category "nirvana". The former canonical structures do not disappear, but they are subordinated to the new laws of the objective and subject content of the Image of the World. Since the New Age, a special modality of the medieval canon has arisen — the "anthropomorpheme" as the scientific center of the Picture of the World — a predicate in which a person is recognized as its intellectual center. This figurative line in the 20th century forms the basis of another predicative — the "subject"-canon, a marker of a daring attempt at the subconscious construction of the Image of the World, that is, in the paradigmatic model of its presentation. Today, all canonical forms are present in world culture.

This text continues the previous article [3, 4, 5], which deals with the issue of typology of art and characterizes the circumstances of the canonical conventions of the Middle Ages in the form of a metamorpheme, the New Age — an anthropomorpheme, a number of phenomena of the twentieth century — the subject of the canon. Morph and morpheme, as previous models of the Image of the World, turn either into a folklore tradition, or become subordinate taxonomic elements of new artistic and figurative systems. The metamorpheme is established from the period of the Abrahamic idea of monotheism, also monism and the Image of the World, which is recognized as the One not in authentic numerous and independent models, but as a common foundation of being that unites all peoples. In monotheism and monism, the idea of a plurality of mythological worlds is abolished, and the image of the referent changes accordingly — in one case it becomes the Personality of the Creator, and in the other, it becomes an extra-personal, extra-spatial and timeless "substance", defined in Buddhism by the category "nirvana". The former canonical structures do not disappear, but they are subordinated to the new laws of the objective and subject content of the Image of the World. The definition of the metamorpheme of the Middle Ages since the New Age corresponds to the modality — "anthropomorpheme" as the scientic center of the World View - a predicate in which a person is recognized as its intellectual center. In the future, this figurative line in the 20th century forms the basis of another modality — the "subject-canon", as a result of a daring attempt at the subconscious construction of the Image of the World, which now corresponds to the paradigmatic model of its presentation. Today, all canonical forms are present in the world artistic culture.

Over the three decades of the new Russian history, the science of folk art has experienced significant losses in the perspective of art history — along with the liquidation of the system of factories of art goods, the Ministries of local industry as management regulators, the technological resources of the folk arts and crafts industry have suffered, as well as the scientific environment — the Research Institute of Artistic industry and the museum was disbanded, created on the basis of the former Commercial and Industrial Museum of Handicrafts of the Moscow Provincial Zemstvo (1885), the purpose of which was to promote the development of handicrafts. In 1946, the museum was renamed the Museum of Folk Art NIIHP. At the same time, regions began to show interest in folk art, apparently in the search for what is called national and cultural identity, which was reflected in the initiatives of the Governments of a number of Republics to create network projects for the "revival" of folk arts and crafts in the regions, as well as educational methods of studying in systems education and school programs. Of great importance is the work in a number of regions on the formation of materials that include a description of the heritage and, which is very important, dictionaries and encyclopedias. The article describes the experience of creating the Encyclopedia "Udmurt Republic: Arts and Crafts" as one of the regional schools of the Russian Federation.

The article examines aspects of the development of the artistic and humanitarian direction, which in its scientific and educational basis is largely predetermined by the formation of humanitarian research and the development of historical art history as a fundamental trend at Moscow University, which significantly influenced the formation of educational and scientific traditions in other sectors of heritage, in particular, art and industrial education, the domestic representative of which is the Stroganov School. The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that in 2025, two Russian universities, connected historically, mentally, and methodologically, will celebrate their anniversaries. 270 years will be celebrated by the Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (1755), where, along with the medical, philosophical, and legal faculties, art classes were opened in 1756. In them, students were taught drawing, singing, playing the violin and harp, architectural design, acting, and dancing. In 1758, the Academy of the Three Most Noble Arts (architecture, sculpture and painting) was founded on the basis of the art classes of Moscow University. It existed here until 1764, when it was transferred to St. Petersburg.

In 2025, the Stroganov School of Art and Industry will celebrate its 200th anniversary. It grew out of the first Drawing School in Russia, founded by Count S.G. Stroganov (1825) and went all the way to the Imperial Art School (1900); now it is the Russian State University of Art and Industry (2022). Moscow State University and Stroganov are largely connected by the traditions of art history and the humanities, which originate both in the achievements of Moscow University and in the theory of the subject-spatial environment, which was significantly supplemented by materials.

The article is devoted to the formation of artistic and figurative perspectives in early Christian art. To accomplish this task, the authors of the article analyze the very concept of «early Christian art», clarify its boundaries and formulate a working classification of the periods of early Christian art. Based on the leading Russian-language and foreign literature, a detailed analysis of the factors of the genesis of the main artistic images is carried out, among which are: the formation of the canon of the Old and New Testaments, secular (pagan) artistic symbolism, ancient philosophy, dogmatic-theological polemics and a number of other, less significant reasons. In conclusion, the hypothesis is expressed about the possibility of constructing a classification of the early Christian symbolic system based on the factors of origin of a particular symbol in the canon, and also outlines the field for further research of the field.

The album, titled “From Forest to Steppe: Russian Wooden Architecture,” is a fundamental work by William Brumfield, a recipient of the Order of Friendship and a professor of Slavic studies. It contains over 400 color photographs. The material is presented in two sections, with explanations provided in each chapter, covering wooden architecture from the Russian North to Siberia.

In this issue of the journal “Theory and History of Art”, within the anthropology of art section the emphasis is placed on the theory of the issue and interdisciplinary approaches to research methodology. This direction was preceded by the testing of ideas within the framework of the scientific seminar “Anthropology of Art”, which was established in 2020, as well as the XVI and XVII Congresses of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia in 2023 and 2025. It was based on the interests of three institutions in this field, as the context of physical and social anthropology interested the founders of the “Anthropology of Art” direction: at the N. N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences; at the Faculty of Arts of Lomonosov Moscow State University; at the S. G. Stroganov Russian State University of Art and Industry.