Philosophical Alternatives 4/2024

Ivan Stefanov (Professor, DSc at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
A Sociological Look at the Autonomy of Art
https://doi.org/10.58945/AVFK7741
Abstract: The autonomy of art does not mean that from the Renaissance onwards there was a period in which art depended only on itself and on nothing else. Artists did break away from the traditional spheres of mythology, religion, and courtly canons, but they consistently and explicitly inscribed their works within the freer and broader objective structures of social communication, from immediate interpersonal communication all the way to the various forms of mass communication. Art takes on a new, completely free publicity that emphasizes the highly marketable and communicative character of the artwork and the mass character of its audience. Under the influence and support of different and even contradictory audiences, art is constantly changing its artistic form and social meaning. Considered in this way, autonomy represents a constantly changing form of socialization of art that also reaches very high, unique, and autonomous degrees of individualization of the artistic process. Within this process, the artist is now more subject to norms and rules that he freely and unconstrainedly chooses for himself and which he imposes on his imagination. But the specific characteristics of this free art must also be seen and understood as internal ciphers of a hidden external social context.
Keywords: art autonomy; sociocultural context; sociological paradigm; Baudelaire; Van Gogh; Mozart; N. Luhmann; G. Simmel; A. Haуser; Ognian Kassabov; N. Elias; R. Moulin; N. Heinich

Nikolina Deleva (Assistant Professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
Contemporary Art as a Phenomenon in the Era of Axiological Uncertainty
https://doi.org/10.58945/QVFQ2138
Abstract: Contemporary art is in a state of value collapse, which is the result of different factors: the process of art and reality becoming one, the influence of information technologies, globalization, and commoditization. On the one hand, the globalizing world finds it increasingly difficult to find intersections, which makes it impossible to establish collective and shared values and norms, and on the other hand, voluntary living in simulated informational realities breaks the connection with reality, leading to living instead in the giant simulacrum of hyperreality. The universal commoditization and the turning of art into a fetish create an anti-cultural situation in which there are no areas left outside of monetary exchange. All these factors influence the erosion of artistic values. The final stage of this process is sacralization through destruction and immortalization through the annihilation of the work of art.
Keywords: contemporary art; Baudrillard; simulacrum; hyperreality; technologies; values; globalization; commoditization; sacralization

Ivan Svilenov Stefanov (Doctoral student at the National Academy of Arts, Sofia, majoring in Photography)
Art Criticism in a Trap: The Crisis of Subjectivism in the in the 20s of the XXI Century
https://doi.org/10.58945/OHCS5165
Abstract: Art criticism has the privilege of being part of all the transformations in the history of Bulgarian art, with its role in the avant-garde situation in the 1990s being particularly significant, which left a lasting impression of its usefulness and necessity for the world of contemporary art. Over the past ten years, critical writing has progressively declined until the last dedicated portal for criticism has disappeared, and this circumstance has given rise to disturbing articles and questions in the public domain such as Where is criticism today?. Numerous attempts have been made to revive it, and the results have shown that not every generation is privileged to participate in a revolution, and not every decade gives rise to the writing of heroic criticism. For this reason, its temporary attenuation is not necessarily a cause for alarm—on the contrary. The self-serving writing and artificial motivation of criticism in recent years have left a more troubling sense of unprofessionalism, naivety, and illegitimate subjectivism in an age that rejects rigid norms and rules about good art. On the one hand, this ultra-democratic nature provoked dissatisfaction from connoisseurs of critical thought, but on the other hand, it placed the artist in the most liberal regional artistic situation of the last hundred years. The text analyzes the typology of contemporary art criticism, the factors contributing to its decline, and the possibilities for its legitimate emergence.
Keywords: art criticism; contemporary art; normative aesthetics; subjectivism; art world; Bulgarian art; cultural journalism

Yvanka Raynova (Profеssor, DSc at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
The Philosophical Foundations of Nikolay Raynov’s Conception of Art and Art History
https://doi.org/10.58945/PDXP3191
Abstract: The present study is the first attempt to reconstruct the philosophical foundations of Nikolay Raynov's art history conception, developed in particular in the 12 volumes of his History of the Plastic Arts. Although his philosophical views can hardly be separated from the theosophical ones, the author makes a cautious distinction that allows to clarify Nikolay Raynov's selective reception of some of the most important philosophical views on art and art history. The proposed reconstruction aims to show, firstly, that Raynov draws inspiration from major philosophers such as Plato and the Neoplatonists, Bergson, Croce, and Solovyov, and, secondly, that their views stand in the foreground while theosophical ones form rather the general interpretative framework that is always present but not always explicitly stated. The methods of comparative hermeneutics and immanent-critical philosophical analysis are used to clarify Nikolay Raynov's ambivalent attitude toward philosophy, the nature and role of his metaphysical idealism, his interpretation of the multiple forms of realism, his conception of the seven cultural circles, and the basic philosophical components of his synthetic science of plastic arts.
Keywords: Nikolay Raynov; philosophy; art history; aesthetics; idealism; realism

Tatyana Batuleva (Professor, DSc at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
About the Fantastic/Magical in the Fairytale World of Nikolay Raynov: Rising Above the Human and Returning Back to It
https://doi.org/10.58945/RZZM3500
Abstract: The article examines the dual nature of the fantastic and the magical in the fairy-tale world of Nikolay Raynov. On the one hand, it thrives in a universe completely different from reality. But, on the other hand, it is not a refusal to accept the human situation but rather a way to enrich this situation. The human is situated on the horizon of an ethical imperative that predetermines the fate of the characters. It stands to reason that authorization is a step from magical to fantastical. Parallels have been sought both with Propp's morphology and with Bettelheim's psychoanalytic optics. The existential choice of the heroes turns them into warriors of light and bearers of light, which, as a manifestation of the divine in man, is a key concept in the philosophical, theosophical, and artistic works of the prominent Bulgarian classic.
Keywords: literary tale; authorized fairy tale; magical; fantastic; decorative art; bearer of light

Krasimir Delchev (Professor, DSc at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”)
The Hypermental Unconscious in Fine Art During the Latter Half of the 20th and Early 21st Centuries
https://doi.org/10.58945/FIJC5942
Abstract: The article analyzes the hypermental unconscious during the latter half of the 20th and early 21st centuries.
Keywords: hypermental; art

Kalin Nikolov (Art critic and artist, curator of the Graphic Office of the National Art Gallery, Sofia)
Rembrandt: “Dramatic Seer of Passions and Humanity”
https://doi.org/10.58945/STPG8206
Abstract: In recent decades, art history has repeatedly renewed interest in a number of the most important artists of various periods, especially Rembrandt. Research, both on his art and on the large legacy of knowledge and documentation concerning his working processes, should add to his influence on certain of his followers and among Bulgarian artists. Rembrandt's plastic and professional approach is expectedly and unexpectedly found in dialogue with a number of our artists, such as Karl Yordanov, Acad. Iliya Petrov, Kiril Gyulemetov, Prof. Petar Chuklev, Yavora Petrova, and others. On the other hand, it is the innovativeness of the Dutch master that adds certainty to the paths to modernity, which is highlighted in a number of notes, diaries, and interviews of our artists, including those of Prof. . Lyubomir Dalchev, Boris Angelushev, and others.
Keywords: Rembrandt; etching; litho; Evgeniy Semenovich Levitin; Lyubomir Dalchev; Evtim Tomov; Ilia Petrov; Petar Chuklev; Yavora Petrova

Vyara Popova (Associate Professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
Cézanne’s Baseless “Doubt”
https://doi.org/10.58945/GQCD4715
Abstract: Merleau-Ponty, starting from perception, reaches the visual through the work of Cézanne. The article applies the phenomenologist's essay to demonstrate how unfounded Cézanne's doubt was about his creative potential and the general change in art caused by him.
Keywords: perception; visual; vision; myopia; schizoid; color; contrast; tone decomposition; RGB color model; perceptual perspective

Hristo Pisarov (Doctoral student at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
Iconography as a Poster of the Logos Development of Doctrinal Byzantine Thought
https://doi.org/10.58945/TUOS8832
Abstract: The article presents an attempt to search for a different path to a philosophy of Byzantine iconography, which, through the construct of virtual transcendentalism, heuristically allows to understand the icon as a poster of the logos development of Byzantine doctrinal thought in the context of the logos development of European philosophy, summarized by the concept of logodynamism (a new term introduced by the author), which embeds medieval Christian thought in the logos environment from Heraclitus, Parmenides through Plato and Aristotle to modern European philosophy and enables the search for modern ways of understanding Christian phenomena, such as Byzantine iconography. The article brings out the connection of the icon with the archetypal and contemporary forms of the poster through the idea of message and image as a cultural phenomenon and thus achieves a different ontological status for the icon, making sense of its positioning in the contemporary cultural environment.
Keywords: icon; poster; logodynamism; message; neoplatonism; virtualist transcendentalism

Irena Mladenova (Doctoral student at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
The Golden Ratio in Pedagogy: Its Application in the Suggestopedic Methodology of Prof. Dr. Georgi Lozanov and Prof. Dr. Evelina Gateva
https://doi.org/10.58945/YVTA4745
Abstract: The article examines the application of the golden ratio to the suggestopedic methodology of Prof. Dr. Georgi Lozanov and the contribution of Prof. Dr. Evelina Gateva to the globalized artistic construction of the entire educational process. According to the research and application of the methodology, both during the existence of the Institute of Suggestology and Suggestopedia (1966–1991) and in its application today, the golden section, acting together with the other six laws of suggestopedia, supports the calm and full-fledged assimilation of a huge volume of material, which is stored in long-term memory and is used over time as full-fledged knowledge, and at the same time participates in revealing the potential reserves of the personality. The work of the teacher in the preparation for the learning process is fundamental—the coordination of all its constituent parts so as to offer the learners harmoniously arranged content, beauty, and ease in the learning process.
Keywords: golden ratio; pedagogy; suggestopedia; teacher; learning process; beauty; harmony

Sylvia Borissova (Associate professor, PhD at Institute of Philosophy and Sociology – BAS)
Tenth Conference on Aesthetics in Memory of Professor Isaac Passy
https://doi.org/10.58945/KARA3187