Moscow: Institute of Africa of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2006, 143 p.

The reviewed monograph is a very interesting and relevant study both due to the lack of works on the culture and art of South Africa in Russian African studies, and due to the special role of this country on the African continent with its powerful economic, scientific and cultural potential, which provides great opportunities to influence regional and even global processes. It is the only developed country in Africa with the most significant white population and the influence of European culture, and at the same time a State where, until recently, there was such an odious form of segregation and racial oppression as apartheid.

Yu. S. Skubko notes that the cultural and ethnic multipolarity of South African society, which has made a peaceful transition from a white minority regime to an inter-racial democracy, is particularly interesting from the point of view of the prospects for the development of culture and art, in particular painting. Here, the author believes, we see a kind of modeling of some general processes of art development in the modern world (despite the relativity of any generalizations in this area), where globalization and Westernization have generated opposition in the form of a return to ethnic and cultural roots, active creative interpretation

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traditional art while preserving, however, the huge influence of Western civilization. Cultural assimilation and counteraction to it, the mutual influence of heterogeneous elements of different cultures actively influence the development of the artistic process, give it new directions, which clearly demonstrates the development of South African pictorial art.

The author of the monograph has done a lot of work on collecting, analyzing and scientifically summarizing information from a wide variety of sources, mainly South African: monographs, articles, catalogues of museums and galleries (including those obtained by the author during his stay in South Africa in 2004), local Internet sites, etc. the visual arts are sensitive to changes occurring in the bowels of society. The features of the development of South African pictorial art over two centuries are considered by the researcher specifically historically, in connection with social and political problems, without which it is difficult to understand the culture of the country, which until recently was a zone of internal colonialism and apartheid.

Monograph with a foreword by a prominent Russian art critic, corresponding member. Russian Academy of Arts A. K. Yakimovich, consists of an introduction, four chapters, an appendix ("Art collections of South Africa") and a conclusion. The sequence of chapters naturally reflects the history and logic of the formation of South African professional painting. The introduction provides a brief insight into the prehistory of South African rock art. The authors of thousands of ancient rock paintings and drawings with amazing skill conveyed their experience of material and spiritual life and, as Yu. S. Skubko notes, although there is no direct connection between ancient and modern art in South Africa, it has had a significant impact on the work of a number of contemporary artists, both white and black.

The first chapter of the book is devoted to the formation of professional painting, which at that time (the end of the XVIII - beginning of the XX century) was almost exclusively occupied by European settlers. The article considers the transition from "picture journalism" (field sketches of travelers and scientists) to really professional painting, which can be described approximately from the middle to the second half of the XIX century. The author notes the predominance of academic realism of the English and Dutch schools and the generally provincial nature of South African painting of that time. Formation after the Boer War of 1899-1902 South African statehood in the form of a self-governing dominion of the British Empire-the Union of South Africa-led to the creation of the necessary infrastructure for artistic life. National galleries, museums, professional associations, educational institutions, and government agencies that care for culture and art began to open. Special attention in the first chapter is paid to the work of the outstanding South African landscape painter Jacob Hendrik Pirnef, a recognized classic of the genre. As they say here, South African children learn to see the nature of their country through the eyes of a Pirnef.

The most important chapters are the second and third chapters of the book, which are devoted, respectively,to the self-identification and overcoming of the provincialism of South African art and artists who come from the black population. After many generations of white settlers, who gradually recognized themselves as "white Africans", the Dutch, French, and English schools of painting gradually "Africanized", which was also facilitated by the appearance in the middle of the last century of a large group of "black" artists.

In the second chapter, special attention is paid to the characterization of the work of what is considered to be the most famous and outstanding South African artist Irma Stern, who, along with Maggie Laubser, brought European subjectivism to South African art. Having experienced a certain influence of German expressionism, she developed her own deeply individual creative handwriting, which is characterized by pathos and humanism, the accuracy of the color palette and the special musicality of painting. In general, as the author notes, the role of women in South African art, as in other spheres of life, is very large.

An important contribution to the development of South African painting was made by the so-called New Group of Cape Artists, also known as the Cape Impressionists (existed from 1937 to 1953). A group of talented young artists (Gregoire Bonzaire, Freda Locke, Terence McCaw, Maggie Laubser, etc.) left the South African Union of Artists, protesting against the dominance of academic realism and "salon beauty" to develop local tastes

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the audience, creatively interpreting the achievements of European art (impressionism and post-impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, etc.).

There was a growing interest of artists in rock art and African heritage in general, especially since the 1930s and 1940s, as self-identification as white Africans grew among the white population. So, Walter Bathyss not only promoted the motives of rock art in his work, he identified himself with the "ancient man of Africa" and introduced many techniques of ancient artists to modern technology.

The participation of South African troops in the Allied armed forces (and among the conscripted artists there were many) in the military operations and occupation service in Italy, as well as the arrival of tens of thousands of new immigrants from Europe, including artists, to South Africa after World War II, also contributed to the further internationalization of South African art and overcoming its provincialism.

The third chapter is devoted to black South African painters, pioneers who broke through to the "world of white people's art" in the 1920s and 1940s (Gerard Sekoto, Georges Pemba, etc.), and a whole galaxy of urban African artists who creatively mastered the European painting technique and created such an important and original art in the 1950s and 1960s. a trend like "art of townships", segregated African suburbs of "white" cities (the most famous is Mhlaba Dumile).

Skubko notes that the South African black artist simultaneously exists in two worlds, reflecting them in his work: the world of the "white" urban civilization with its Christian roots and the world of the "black" tribal tradition (including elements of magism) and the African mentality. And of course, almost all African artists of the country, according to the author, are distinguished by social engagement, a powerful protest against racial oppression, embodied in their work regardless of schools and directions. Considering the differences between the work of white and black artists in South Africa, the author notes that unlike white artists, who, for example, pay great attention to landscape and still life, the black artist focuses almost exclusively on the person and his experiences, on the problems of the black population of the country. For him, Yu. S. Skubko writes, there is no art for art's sake, his work is a strained nerve of social and psychological conflicts.

The last, fourth chapter of the book is devoted to the development of painting during the crisis and collapse of the apartheid regime and the formation of a new state. The author notes that after the fascination with various formal delights in the 1960s and 1970s, South African painting of the 1980s and 1990s, while maintaining a wide pluralistic range of trends, still largely returned to expressive realism and the social problems of figurative art.

Along with modernism, Yu. S. Skubko emphasizes, the development of art that does not break with the realistic vision of the world continued throughout the XX century. The author's special interest in the work and personality of the recently deceased Russian-born Cape Town realist artist Vladimir Tretchikov is understandable. The arrogant and disdainful attitude of many art critics towards him, who consider V. Tretchikov nothing more than a master of skillfully crafted commercial kitsch, as Yu.S. Skubko notes, is more than compensated by the huge popularity of this undoubtedly talented self-taught artist among the widest public from different cultural strata and parts of the world, from Cape Town to Hong Kong and New York. Pictures of V. Tretchikov, as the author notes, are simple, they do not have modernist frills, but the artist has his own face, he is an excellent draughtsman, a strong portraitist, his paintings are distinguished by an almost perfect correspondence of formal means of image to semantic and emotional content, bright bold colors are quite conventional (the bluish-green scale of the face of the "Chinese Woman" causes fierce disputes among critics: whether it is a painting or a painted graphic), but they work on the author's idea, each picture of which is a narrative (for example, "Crying Rose" - a rose that fell out of a vase with water drops).

In conclusion, the author notes that the transition to inter-racial democracy and the abolition of the cultural boycott of South Africa gave rise to a powerful surge of artistic activity in the country and aroused a new interest in South African art in the world. Skubko believes that after the non-violent elimination of the apartheid system, a new national community is being formed in the country.-

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a new art school based on racial-ethnic and cultural pluralism and tolerance, which is of great universal importance in the modern world, where interethnic and religious conflicts do not subside.

The main provisions and conclusions of the monograph are interesting and scientifically reliable, so that the author's extensive creative work will undoubtedly make a significant contribution to the development of Russian art studies and African studies. Giving a broad palette of the development of the country's pictorial art, the author, of course, did not avoid certain omissions - a number of well-known masters and trends remained outside the scope of the work (such as the art of representatives of the significant Indian and Chinese communities of South Africa). The spelling of many names that are new to the Russian reader requires verification and possible clarification.

These comments are not, however, of a fundamental nature and do not reduce the overall high assessment of this new scientific work of Yu.S. Skubko (previously he wrote a dissertation and a monograph on the economy of South Africa), which is characterized by an extraordinary creative approach and novelty. This monograph, based on the author's successfully defended PhD thesis in art history in February 2006, deserves the attention of specialists and anyone interested in the culture and art of South Africa and the African continent as a whole.

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