THE PARADIGM OF MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AND VISUALIZATION OF MUSIC PERFORMANCES IN OLD TIFLIS: PAINTING, CINEMA, LITERATURE
DOI: 10.23951/2312-7899-2023-4-143-166
The article presents the paradigm of musical instruments of Old Tiflis in the 18th century and its evolution before the Sovietization of Georgia. The visual texts of Niko Pirosmani, Vagharshak Elibekyan, and Giovanni Vepkhvadze, as well as the video texts of Sayat-Nova and The Color of Pomegranate, are analyzed. The object of the study is the paradigm of musical texts of Old Tiflis as a cross-cultural space. The semantics and functional peculiarities of musical instruments in poetic and visual texts are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to the visualization of musical “performances”. The article argues the following thesis: the description of the paradigm of musical instruments in visual and artistic texts provides an opportunity to reveal the spirit, the material world of Old Tiflis, the evolution of musical tastes, as well as implicit functions, visual syntagmas, and connotative semantics of musical instruments. The empirical study of the material showed that the visualization of musical instruments in painting and film art is an important poetic technique for conveying the spirit of Old Tiflis. The analysis of the film by Sergei Parajanov revealed an allusion to the works of Pirosmani. The detailed analysis of Sayat-Nova’s poem revealed the semantic and functional features of the beloved instrument (kamancha). The analysis of the visualization of the kamancha in Parajanov’s film The Color of Pomegranates showed that many metaphors of Sayat-Nova’s poem were recoded into the language of cinema. The kamancha became the key player revealing the poetic battles in the film Sayat Nova by Kim Arzumanyan. The detailed analysis of the works of Khojabekyan, Pirosmani, and Elibekyan revealed that the musical trio (two zurna players and one drummer) is a classical set for all festivities, weddings, and revelries. At the same time, the zurna, accompanied by church bells in Parajanov’s film, changes its function to mourning. In Elibekyan’s paintings, the organ grinders with their instruments became not only a compositional trick, a method of representation, a communicative element of Old Tiflis’ inn culture of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, but also a sign of European musical influences, an artifact of the city and a visual marker of the urban public space.
Keywords: Old Tiflis, music, painting, cinema, urban culture, oriental musical instruments, visualization of everyday life, Elibekyan, Parajanov
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Issue: 4, 2023
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: ARTICLES
Pages: 143 — 166
Downloads: 213