ISSN 2078-9823 (Print), ISSN 2587-7879 (Online)

DOI: 10.24412/2078-9823.071.025.202503.249-262

Elena L. Iakovleva

Kazan Innovative University named after V. G. Timiryasov (Kazan, Russia),

e-mail: mifoigra@mail.ru

 

Features of N. I. Feshin’s Silence: An Attempt to Understand Existential Experience

 

Abstract

Introduction. Often, a person prefers non-speaking as a key strategy of his manifestations, which makes it possible to talk about silence as an existential human being. N. I. Feshin is one of the people who chose him as the basis of his life and work, which actualizes the study of the specifics of the artist’s silence.

Materials and Methods. The main research methods are analytical and existential. They help to clarify the phenomenon of the silent person and the algorithms of creative personality in silence. The theoretical and methodological basis was the ideas of V. V. Bibikhin on existential states of personality, M. Mikhailova on silence, S. Frank on the incomprehensible, A. S. Gagarin on transcendence, D. G. Seryakov on non-finito, E. L. Iakovleva on the hidden.

Results. It was revealed that N. I. Feshin’s inherent silence is associated with a two-week stay in a coma at the age of three. Preferring silence in any situation, Nikolay Ivanovich demonstrated his own isolation: he was always in himself with his (hidden) thoughts. With external passivity, the artist’s silence was an active process through which he reflected on existence, learned about the Self, engaged in creativity, expanding his boundaries. The workshop became an ideal place of silence and solitude for N. I. Feshin. In it, the silent artist found himself open to being, which contributed to his transcendence, which became an incentive to creativity. When transcending, Nikolai Ivanovich penetrated into the depths of being and discovered the necessary idea/image, subjecting it to artistic processing. N. I. Feshin had the gift of expressing on canvas the inexpressible, comprehended in silence, and the technique of such a statement became non-finito. It played the role of an ellipsis, personifying Feshin’s silence and the hidden, connected with existential experience. Non-finito transforms a masterpiece of art into an open work with multiple interpretations.

Discussion and Conclusion. Feshinsky’s silence and non-finito turn out to be interconnected. Non-finito embodies silence in a work of art. The ellipsis expressed in Feshin’s paintings through non-finito actualizes the analysis of the works from the point of view of the artist’s silence about being-in-the-world, being-with-oneself and being-with-Others.

Keywords: Nikolai Ivanovich Feshin, silence, coma, secrecy, silence, transcendence, workshop, detached state, non-finito, ellipsis.

For citation: Iakovleva E. L. Features of N. I. Feshin’s Silence: An Attempt to Understand Existential Experience. Gumanitarian: aktual’nye problemy gumanitarnoi nauki i obrazovaniia = Russian Journal of the Humanities. 2025; 25(3): 249–262. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.24412/2078-9823.071.025.202503.249-262.

 

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