INVENTING MODERNISM. EMILE ZOLA AND ISSUES OF ART THEORY
Abstract
The article is devoted to the problems of interpretation of the theory and practice of modernist art. The researcher examined the corpus of texts by Émile Zola (literary, artistic, and theoretical works) in connection with the emergence of modernist discourse. The author paid special attention to the comparative description of the texts by Zola and Friedrich Nietzsche as two founders of contemporary art and avant-garde theory. The researcher assessed the existing terminological nomenclature (realism, naturalism, symbolism, decadence) in the studies of modernist art and literature of the 19th century. The central place in the article is occupied by the problem of the unconscious and the analysis of biological discourse, which makes it possible to connect various areas of modernist art. The author concluded that the literary and theoretical work of Émile Zola is of great importance for the reconstruction of the philosophical and iconological programs of modernism. Moreover, without a full-fledged reference to the works of Zola, it is impossible to study the sources and main mythologemes of philosophy and theory of art of postmodernism (Baudrillard, Deleuze, Guattari).
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