LEXICAL MEANS OF EXPRESSING ARTISTIC INTENT IN THE AUTHOR'S SIGNATURES AND TITLES OF MARIA PRIMACHENKO'S PAINTINGS

Abstract

The article analyses the lexical and semantic features of the titles and captions of paintings created by Ukrainian folk artist Maria Prymachenko. Prymachenko’s work is a unique phenomenon at the interface of visual and verbal art, where words and images function in close interconnection. The analysis shows that the lexis used in the titles and captions not only performs a nominative function, but is also an important means of expanding the semantic and emotional scope of the artistic space. At the lexical level, the titles of the paintings clearly show a predominance of nouns, which structurally and semantically organise the author’s text and form several main thematic groups, each of which performs a specific semantic and stylistic function in the composition of the caption. It has been determined that the nouns that dominate in the texts of captions and titles of paintings can be conditionally divided into several lexical-semantic groups, which refer to animals, plants, agricultural products, kinship and affinity, and folk rituals. Proper nouns (onomatopoeia), which also have diverse semantics, can be combined into a separate group. The research focuses on how linguistic means, in particular noun lexis denoting animal names, serve as an auxiliary means for expressing artistic ideas. The article examines the role of various thematic groups of nouns denoting animals in the formation of the figurative and aesthetic space of works. It also provides a classification of nouns denoting various animals and gives examples of the use of these lexis in the titles and captions of Maria Prymachenko’s paintings. It has been determined that an important feature of nouns denoting animals and fantastic beasts used by Maria Prymachenko in the captions to her paintings is that they are almost always anthropomorphised, i.e. human properties and characteristics are transferred to animals, and their image is complemented by a verbal image that embodies character, emotion, and action. It has been determined that by using nouns from this semantic group to verbalise what is depicted, some of which are characterised by certain dialectal features, the author models her own picture of the world, where animals appear as active participants in an imaginary space, often close in their characteristics and nature to humans.