Artist’s Biography: from Individual and Creative Experience to Sociocultural Memory

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyse the specifics of presenting biographies of prominent profiles belonging to different eras; to confirm their revealing the key concepts of the humanity’s sociocultural memory while retransferring the artist’s individual and creative experience. The research methodology is based on implementing interdisciplinary approach with a variety of the following methods. The analytical method was used to study references adjacent to the issue of the study; the historical method was applied to renew the conditions of the existence of a creative person from various eras. The hermeneutic method enabled interpreting the chronicles’ content; the biographical one helped revealing multifaceted aspects of the master’s being. The systemic method was used to comprehensively consider the studied issue, while the theoretical one was applied to summarise the research outcomes. Scientific novelty. For the first time ever, national humanitarian studies are represented with the thesis justifying the connection between the master’s being and the civilisation circumstances of their era. Conclusions. Biography is a unique genre concentrating a profound framework of anthropological information, following the master’s and public’s collaboration. Antique patterns fix aspiring after obtaining harmony and combining the spiritual and the moral. The ones from the Middle Ages illustrate Christian postulates, holiness norms, and the personality’s genuine mission. The Renaissance profiles witness a philanthropic turning point, circularisation, considering the person’s essence as universal extent. The Enlightenment biographies justify the dominance of rationalism and the science principles of the reality awareness. The Romanticism chronicles implement the idea of the artist’s significance, of his inner essence and the equality of epoch phenomena and artworks. The chronicles referring to the early XX century reflect anthropological transformations, tension, complexity, and uncertainty. The Postmodernism opuses emphasise the wish to reconsider “the subjective world”, confirming the connection between all the existing phenomena, asserting the freedom from any dogmas. Contemporary masters’ chronicles indicate the beginning of the new European era. The master’s individual and creative achievements implemented via biography reconstruct and transmit the humanity’s sociocultural memory. The latter appears as a complex of knowledge, socially significant data, achievements and their extension mechanisms that reflect homo sapience practice being conceptualised via various opuses.

Key words: the artist’s biography; individual and creative experience; historical epochs; sociocultural memory.