The Development of Sculpture in Kyrgyzstan Since the 1960s
In the 1960s, in Kyrgyzstan, as in other republics of the country, a new stage in the development of sculpture and monumental art began, which continues to this day. This period marks the flourishing of the work of the first national sculptor T. Sadykov, who trained under the outstanding Soviet sculptors S. T. Konenkov and E. F. Belashova, as well as sculptors Z. Khabibulin, A. Mukhtudinov, V. Shestopal, and D. Kheidze, who graduated from the country's art universities. During these years, the first professional monumental artists emerged, including S. Bakashev, A. Voronin, T. Gertsen, A. Kamensky, and E. Gerdyuk, whose work defined the paths of development, main features of content, genre, and stylistic diversity of contemporary monumental art in Kyrgyzstan.
Stationary Sculpture. In the last two and a half decades, significant shifts have occurred in the development of stationary sculpture in Kyrgyzstan. It has been enriched by creative personalities, becoming more multifaceted in themes and ideas, visual content, and style, gaining its own identity amidst the colorful variety of rapidly developing realistic schools of sculpture in our country.
During this period, the direction of the search for meaningfulness and expressiveness of the plastic image has noticeably changed. Sculptors of the older generation, L. Mesarosh, O. Manuilova, N. Lodyagin, and V. Puzirevsky, made a significant contribution to the formation of sculpture in Kyrgyzstan, which lacks professional traditions in sculpture. In their work, they relied on the brightness of initial impressions from the freshness of life material, unique character types, novelty of plots, as well as the achievements of European and Russian sculpture. The new generation of masters has significantly expanded the range of themes and issues in Kyrgyz plastic art, setting new visual and professional challenges. The work of contemporary sculptors who entered the art scene in Kyrgyzstan in the 1960s and 70s more fully encompasses the multifaceted nature of Kyrgyz life, its common Soviet and unique features.
Compared to previous decades, there is a clear movement in sculpture towards a deeper reflection of the psychology and spiritual world of contemporaries, a more acute expression of the artist's personal relationship to the theme and image of the sculptural representation. Thanks to the presence of a number of bright creative talents and the revival of plastic art on a nationwide scale, it has now become a focal point for reflections on the spiritual world of man, his civic duty, and moral issues.
As for the traditions of craftsmanship, the emphasis has also shifted somewhat. The new generation of sculptors, actively studying the experience of domestic and world sculpture and mastering the international language of plasticity, is no less actively seeking to anchor their creative individuality in the deep layers of national life, psychology, and folk aesthetic consciousness, confirming the fact that "for the formation and development of modern national schools of sculpture, one's own traditions in sculpture often have less significance than the heritage of the entire national culture of the people. This is convincingly confirmed in such republics as Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan..."
The sculptors of our republic's new generation logically rely on the plastic representations of the Kyrgyz people, stemming from the "sculpturality" of the mountainous nature and prominently manifested in the monumental character of the national ornament with its restrained expression, large, smoothly evolving patterns, richness and clarity of silhouettes, and compositional and rhythmic diversity. A vivid expression of the three-dimensionality of regional thinking is the ensemble of the nomadic dwelling — the yurt, which, in its constructive and architectural perfection, as well as its organic connection with the surrounding space, represents one of the peaks of plastic harmony. The folk sense of the three-dimensionality of the world is reflected in the images and rhythms of musical and verbal folklore, crowned by the heroic epic "Manas."
Representatives of the current generation of sculptors take into account, to varying degrees, what was created on the territory of Kyrgyzstan during ancient and medieval times — a unique monumental sculpture, various forms of memorial, small, and decorative plastic art, which have brought us reflections of the art of once flourishing nomadic and agricultural civilizations. They study archaeological finds, architectural monuments, and Turkic sculptures that can still be found in the steppe and mountainous areas of Kyrgyzstan, astonishing contemporaries with their monumental effect and harmonious connection with the mountain and steppe landscapes.
Thus, a significant driving force in the development of Kyrgyz sculpture since the 1960s has been the realization by sculptors of their main task — the necessity of forming a national plastic school, which should incorporate the advanced ideas of the time, process the experience of world sculpture, but grow on the fertile soil of living Kyrgyz reality and those folk artistic traditions that, through their creative interpretation, can become relevant for our time.
Contemporary sculpture in Kyrgyzstan is characterized by a noticeable trend towards the development of diverse plastic forms, the expansion of previously established boundaries of types and genres of sculpture, their mutual penetration, and the combination of realistic and decorative-conditional techniques, etc.
