METHODS OF REPRESENTING CORPOREALITY IN TEACHING PAINTING AT NAFAA

Abstract

The article examines the methods of representing corporeality in the process of teaching painting at the National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. It explores the transformation in the perception of the concept of “corporeality” in contemporary art and outlines the necessity of updating the teaching methodologies of academic drawing and painting. Based on an analysis of the Ukrainian artistic tradition – from the legacy of the professors of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts, M. Boichuk, F. Krychevsky, and O. Bohomazov, to contemporary pedagogical practices – the paper substantiates the potential for integrating the academic school with innovative approaches to depicting the human figure. It demonstrates that the traditional understanding of drawing as a means of realistic representation should be complemented by approaches that incorporate symbolic, emotional, and cultural dimensions. The author proposes a special course that develops a system of practical and theoretical assignments combining academic, analytical, and conceptual approaches to the representation of corporeality. The course program involves work with the image of the body through historical parallels and conceptual frameworks – from archaic totemism and the formation of the classical canon to the expressiveness of modernism and the fragmentation of postmodernism. Particular attention is paid to the challenges of distance learning, the need for a critical revision of the post-Soviet academic model of education, the integration of theoretical knowledge with the practice of academic figure drawing and painting, and the formation of students’ ability to interpret the body as an artistic image rather than merely an object of observation and realistic depiction. The result of the proposed approach is the formation in students of a holistic understanding of corporeality as a plastic, conceptual, and emotional category that unites academic mastery with contemporary artistic thinking. Such an integrated method fosters the development of an individual artistic language, critical perception of cultural contexts, and prepares young artists to work within the multidimensional space of contemporary art.