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Conceptual symbolism as the tendency in contemporary painting

The literature devoted to this direction in the fine arts is small. Even this term – conceptual symbolism – very comfortably feels rather in philosophy and philology, than in art criticism. Therefore when we speak about conceptual symbolism as about one of the forms of modern conceptual painting, it is necessary to understand that all the terminology used is vague  and not concrete. We will begin with that conceptual painting, in strict understanding of canons of conceptualism is in general a nonsense because represents not action, but only it's result. Nevertheless, these works and these artists are rather widely presented in modern culture and reflect a certain and peculiar point of view on world around. And after all existence of the original point of view also does  art-works of the artist amusing and original, regardless of criticism or perception of people. Questions of perception by painting of conceptual symbolism in general are rather difficult as its images – its symbols – mean a certain level of knowledge, a certain acquaintance to concrete cultural and historical tradition. At the same time, as well as it is necessary to a true art, painting of conceptual symbolism possesses powerful action on human subconsciousness and formulates  the general representations at the level of ideas and associations. For this reason there is so frequent need of the verbal comment that additionally reduces number of adequately reflecting public. The border between painting of conceptual symbolism and abstract painting is washed very away as images of this painting are abstract. However, distinctive features of the fine arts of this direction can be defined rather accurately:

1. Obligatory existence of an image or symbol, often with philosophical implication.

2. Decorative effect avoiding, up to lack of it.

3. Verbal comment is desirable.

On our site www.newlinearte.com it is possible to examine unique works of the artists working in this genre – Evgeny Geguzin (Evgeny Gegouzin) and Pavel Zamikhovsky (Pavel Zamikhovsky). Besides you can study a number of articles about a role and a place of conceptual symbolism in the modern fine arts.