Abstract

The subject of this study — the painted illustrations by Yu. Sooster (1924–1970) for popular science articles in the 1962 edition of the annual journal Science and Humankind. The articles included “The Puzzle of Human Brain Evolution” by M. Nesturkh, “Physics and Progress in Agriculture” by I. Revut, “Wealth of the Oceans” by L. Zenkevich, “New Developments in Stereochemistry” by O. Reutov, “Cosmic Matter and the Earth” by V. Fesenkov, and “Metagalaxy and the Universe” by A. Zel’manov. These illustrations have not been extensively described or analyzed in the scholarly literature before. The author set out several tasks, including identifying the features of Sooster’s illustrations, correlating them with other visual materials accompanying the articles, analyzing how the artist worked with the text to create images, and comparing these works with Sooster’s studio paintings and graphics. The study concludes that Sooster did not follow a path of obvious adherence to the text. Instead, he preferred to construct images that were more abstract in nature, prompting the reader to engage in additional humanistic and philosophical refl ections. This approach was characteristic of publications under the direction of Yu. Sobolev, Sooster’s friend and the chief artist of the “Znanie” publishing house. Sobolev aimed to immerse the reader deeper into the essence of the scientific text and establish its connection with broader metaphysical problems by combining diverse images and using metaphors. In this way, the artist became a full-fledged co-author of the researcher who wrote the article. This principle is evident in each of Sooster’s six illustrations. The study also discovers similarities between Sooster’s illustrations and the main direction of his creative work in several aspects: compositional techniques (such as the importance of the horizon line, contrast of scales, focus on the leading metaphorical element), coloristic solutions, attention to texture, and a conceptualphilosophical approach to selecting and combining images.

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