PHILOSOPHICAL AND CULTURAL DOMINANTS IN THE WORK OF VIKTOR OLEKSENKO: SYMBOLIC AND COMMEMORATIVE CONTEXTS IN THE VISUAL SPACE

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to apply a multidisciplinary approach to a work of art, to identify cultural codes, and to reveal its perceptual image as a “memory figure” according to Jan Assmann. The methodological basis of the study is semantic analysis and iconological interpretation of artistic images, connotations and reminiscences. The scientific novelty of the study is a comprehensive polydiscursive approach applied to one work of art. This approach makes it possible to identify its palimpsest, intertextual and intermedial character, as well as its important meaning in the theory of social memory. The article analyses the philosophical and cultural meanings, reminiscences, and historical and cultural connotations of the artwork by the Honoured Artist of Ukraine Viktor Oleksenko. The philosophical and symbolic reality of art is actualised through the prism of the iconic meaning of the artwork and its individual symbols and concepts. The layering of the principles of colour science, iconographic and heraldic schemes, cognitive psychology, history and philosophy of visual art turn a painting into a metatext of culture. Tracing the motives and meanings, cultural and semiotic receptions and visual reminiscences in the artistic and visual construct of the work allows us to rethink national spiritual values and sacralised images of Ukrainian culture that acquire archetypal significance. Particular attention is paid to the artistic embodiment of the philosophy and mentality of cordocentrism, the principles of geometric gestalt and the heraldic image of a Cossack with a musket, decorativeness and ornamentation as part of the Ukrainian Baroque traditions. The analysis and specification of the semantic dimension of the visual language of the work suggests the possibility of its perceptual influence on the formation and actualisation of the politics of memory by means of art.