Medal Art. In the 1970s, medal art began to develop in Kyrgyzstan. The first enthusiasts in this field, Vyacheslav Viktorovich Kopotev and Anatoly Nikolaevich Solovyov, graduated from the Frunze Art School and mastered the laws and expressive means of this specific type of small plastic art over several years.
The growing interest in medal art began in foreign and Soviet art as early as the 1960s, and in the 1970s and 1980s, this traditional branch of chamber sculpture, having received "new breath," was enriched with modern themes and expanded its arsenal of expressive means. After the I All-Union Medal Exhibition (1970), this type of art actively developed in all Soviet republics, gaining recognition at major republican and international exhibitions.
The art of medals, which originated in Kyrgyzstan and is successfully represented by the works of V. Kopotev, A. Solovyov, and a number of young sculptors, boldly explores national, union-wide, and universal themes, promoting progressive humanistic ideals. Here, the revolutionary struggle for the establishment of Soviet power, the stages of socialist construction, events of the Great Patriotic War, the fight for peace, and the commemoration of outstanding figures in national history and culture, as well as the achievements of human thought and art, find their expressive representation.
Kyrgyz medalists are well acquainted with the achievements of masters from our country, as well as from Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Canada, Norway, and Finland. They work within the main trends of contemporary medal art, which has significantly expanded its social and aesthetic functions, often coming closer to other forms of plastic arts, primarily the form of small plastic relief, covering a wide variety of themes, including everyday and battle scenes, landscapes, and abstract lyrical motifs.
