THE ORIGINS OF NEO-EXPRESSIONISM AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS IN THE ART OF UKRAINIAN ARTISTS OF THE «NEW BEND» GROUP

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of artistic processes that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century after the Second World War. The reasons for the emergence of the transavant-garde in foreign art are determined. In this regard, attention is drawn to the relationship between the principles of avant-garde art of the early twentieth century and the trans-avant-garde, which was formed in the 70s and 80s in most countries and is characterized by certain regional features. The study argues that neo-expressionism or «igurative expressionism» as a stylistic trend became a common feature of regional transavant-garde groups in the 70s and 80s of the twentieth century: Arte Cifra (trans-avantgarde) in Italy, Figuration Libre in France, New Image Painting in the United States, Neue Wilde in Germany, and Nowa Expression in Poland. The article focuses on the reasons for the popularity and widespread use of stylistic features of Expressionism in the art of the second half of the twentieth century, an avant-garde movement of the early twentieth century that emerged in war-torn Germany. In particular, having transformed the experience of early expressionism, which tried to maximize the expression of the artist’s subjective experiences using color, deformation, and linearity, artists of the second half of the twentieth century strengthened these trends, expressing them in different ways in abstract expressionism (40s-50s) and neo-expressionism (70s-80s). Particular attention is paid to Neo-Expressionism, which saw a return to figurative painting. Neo-expressionism or «figurative expressionism» can be considered a creative method of the trans-avant-garde, so foreign researchers often use these concepts as synonyms. Neo-expressionism, despite a number of regional peculiarities, has certain characteristics: extreme subjectivity, mythologization, use of different techniques and their combination, use of artistic traditions, but with the aim of giving other meanings, ambiguity, pluralism, symbolism in the image. The novelty of the article is the presentation of the works of the Ukrainian banned artists of the New Bend group – Mykola Tregub and Woodon Baklytskyi – as an original version of neo-expressionism, which, thanks to the strength of spirit and the indomitable nature of the non-conformist artists, became a majestic artistic phenomenon in the conditions of socialist realism. Accordingly, the fact of the development of neo-expressionism in Ukrainian art of the 70s and 80s brings the national artistic culture to the world trans-avantgarde.