FRENCH AVANT-GARDE AT THE TURN OF THE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES: CONCEPTUAL BASES OF CULTURAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Abstract. The article considers the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries as a key period that became the symbolic foundation of postmodernism. First, this time marked the establishment of a new philosophical way of thinking, which gradually took root in the European intellectual space; Second, it was the artistic trends of that time that determined the direction of art development in the following decades and led to the emergence of iconic literary and artistic models that renewed the aesthetic nature of creativity and set the vector for further cultural exploration.
Particular attention is paid to cultural analysis based on the principles of regionalism, personalisation, detail and theoretical-practical parity. Thanks to these principles, the reasons for the formation of avant-gardism in the French context are well argued. At the same time, it outlines how, in the second half of the 20 th century, certain achievements of avant-garde art were reinterpreted and transformed into postmodernist and metamodernist innovations.
The purpose of the article is to highlight the French cultural space at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries in its theoretical dimension and to argue for the role of avant-garde experiments of 1905–1925 as the basis for subsequent artistic and philosophical innovations in the paradigm of «avant-garde – postmodernism».
Research methodology. The material of the article is based on the potential of analytics, but includes the use of elements of historical, cultural, biographical, dialogical, and comparative approaches.
Conclusions. Focusing on a clearly defined region, the article recreates the key literary and artistic processes whose aesthetic and artistic orientation shaped the «French model of avant-gardism». The selection of the period 1905–1925 made it possible to reconstruct the development of the avant-garde movement – from «Fauvism» to «Cubism» – on the basis of a personalized approach. A somewhat restrained attitude of the French creative elite towards futurism and abstractionism, which remained on the margins of French cultural space, has been revealed.
At the same time, it was in France that the ideas of surrealism were theoretically substantiated and tested on the principles of theoretical and practical parity, which French culture had been using since the 17 th century. The article traces the development of surrealism in the French interpretation, which after 1925 gradually «dissolved» under the influence of the work of Spanish and Italian artists. Finally, the article outlines the influence of surrealism on postmodernism and metamodernism, emphasizing its role as a fundamental aesthetic and artistic basis for the development of European avant-garde art in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Novelty. This article systematizes the findings accumulated over several decades: from the analysis of the interaction between «symbolism and fonism» to the first attempts to outline the specifics of metamodernism, which are also reflected in contemporary Ukrainian humanities discourse.
The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using its results in the educational process (cultural studies, art history, philosophy of culture), for the development of special courses and lectures devoted to the history of avant-garde movements and their influence on the formation of contemporary artistic culture, as well as a methodological basis for further interdisciplinary research on avant-garde phenomena in the European cultural space.