Plans of expression and content in existential painting of the XX century

The art of the XX century remains the subject of social and human sciences. Sociologists, cultur-ologists, art historians, political scientists, philosophers and other specialists considered the phenomenon from various points of view. Researchers agree that the art of the last century have a pluralism of directions, currents and schools. XX century is marked by a variety of "isms" - Abstractionism, Su-prematism, Purism, Futurism, Cubism, Surrealism. All these "isms" express certain values of artists and their admirers, a special outlook of the creative class. Each "ism" marks the concrete picture of the world. Researchers also agree that the art of the XX century have been marked by the courage of creative experiments. According to some thinkers, the courage of artistic experiments led to "dehumaniza-tion" of art. Artists refused to depict an image of world that is familiar to human. The place of the usual forms was occupied by "lifeless" compositions. Abstractions were challenged even by the most sophisticated spectators. Metamorphoses occurred not only with plan of expression, but also with plan of content. Art of the XX century reacted sensitively to the biggest social shifts - revolutions, wars, genocide, increasing influence of ideologies, etc. Various schools of the visual arts (for example, the schools of socialist realism and the Third Reich) expressed new collective values - the values of unity and struggle for ideals, for the reorganization of the old world. In the focus of the art were not only collective, but individual values, not only the life of society, but also the life of individuals. Representatives of "marginal" art, "Art Brut" and "Outsider art" focused on human nature, phys-icality, psyche and the states of the soul. In the XX century the sophisticated spectator could no longer be surprised by canvases with pornographic scenes, sexual perversions and scenes of violence. Unlike abstractionists, the artists of the realistic underground depicted the forms familiar to the human eye. More precisely, the lowest manifestations of human nature were depicted. Unlike the socialist realists, these artists did not portray the enthusiastic builders of the earthly paradise. In the art of the XX century, unlike the canons of classicism and modernism, a human was portrayed as "too inhuman". The originality of the art of the XX century can be expressed in the increased attention of artists to the existential problems. It cannot be said that existential questions were never raised in the art of the past. But it was in the XX century when sharpness of existential problems reached its peak. The themes of estrangement, abandonment, loneliness, mental pain, insanity, fear and horror, flight from realities, anger and aggression were revealed in pictures by various authors around the world. Existential art was consonant with the philosophy of existentialism, represented by J.-P. Sartre, A. Camus, K. Jaspers, M. Buber, G. Marcel. Unlike the existential philosophers, artists and sculptors, above all, amazed the human eye. Bright images from canvases could affect the addressee far more than ideas from the pages of books. Professional artists used a variety of techniques that made it possible to clearly express the existential problems in the art. In this article I will focus on both plans of expression and content represented in the existential art.

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