Artistic space and time. Chronotope

AESTHETICS

K. A. Kapelchuk

Artistic and historical chronotope: the problem of addition

The article examines the concept of “chronotope”, introduced into the aesthetics of M.M. Bakhtin. The author demonstrates that the concepts of “artistic chronotope” and “historical chronotope” interact within the framework of the Derridean logic of addition and, thus, can be used to analyze modern artistic practices.

The article is devoted to the concept of “chronotope”, introduced into the aesthetics by M.M. Bakhtin. The author demonstrates that the concepts of “artistic chronotope” and “historical chronotope” interact within Derrida’s logic of supplementation, and thus can be used to analyze contemporary art practices.

Key words: artistic chronotope, historical chronotope, addition, historicity, artistic practices, museum, installation.

Key words: artistic chronotope, historical chronotope, supplement, historicity, artistic practices, museum, installation.

The fate of a concept, its opening for thematization or, on the contrary, its withdrawal into the peripheral areas of the field of attention of current philosophy is often determined not only by its own content, but also by the concept, concept or context opposing it, the relationship with which sets the trajectory of its comprehension. The mutual complementarity of the concepts “form - matter”, “substance - accident”, “nature - culture” can be dictated by the simple contradictory nature of the terms, but why then does such complementarity tend to become critical at some point? This does not necessarily have to be the dynamics of the mutual transition of concepts in the dialectical perspective of sublation. After all, © Kapelchuk K. A., 2013

The article was prepared with the support of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation within the framework of project No. 12-33-01018a “Production strategies in aesthetic theory: history and modernity.”

This explains the abolition of the concept, but not its return. The unresolved nature of the conflict of concepts and its deferred nature can be described in terms of the concept of supplement by Jacques Derrida1. When a concept reveals its lack of self-sufficiency and begins to need something that will complement it, it is eventually replaced by this addition, a sign, turning into a sign of this addition, i.e., into a sign of a sign, a trace of a trace. And this game cannot be finally fixed at some point of certainty, since the operation of fixation itself is drawn into the game, restarting its mechanism. Moreover, the process of replacements and shifts of meaning is not only speculative in nature, it also plays out in history - to the extent that it itself lends itself to the logic of representation.

Let us consider from this point of view the concept introduced into aesthetics by M.M. Bakhtin, the concept of artistic chronotope, the concept of historical chronotope and how their complementarity affects the practices of contemporary art. Bakhtin writes about literature and literary criticism, but the concept of “chronotope” in relation to art can be interpreted more broadly. It indicates the presence of special spatio-temporal coordinates, which are introduced through a work of art and determine the field of unfolding of the artistic image and the order of presentation of the artistic idea. But at the same time, it not only introduces a breakdown into genres, trends, etc. internal to the art itself, but also implies some background opposition. The identification of artistic space and time inevitably also means the external difference defined by “real”, living space and time. After all, by introducing the seemingly neutral concept of an artistic chronotope, we simultaneously carry out the operation of removing a work of art from the world. It can no longer be encountered by us as just one of its world phenomena. We point to a special artistic chronotope, and the work now not only occupies a special place among various beings, somehow ordered in space and existing in time, - now it is endowed with its own order and principle, i.e. autonomy.

1 “In fact, the entire semantic range of the concept of supplement is as follows: application (minimal connection between elements), addition (slightly greater connection between elements), addition (increasing the completeness of something to which something is added), replenishment (compensation for the original lack), substitution (brief or, as it were, an accidental use of something that came from outside instead of what was originally given), replacement (complete displacement of one by the other).”

Having outlined the difference, we have not yet clarified what its nature is, what relationships between the very different concepts themselves this difference implies, and what consequences and conceptual effects the presence of a separate artistic space and time entails. When the question is raised about the nature of the difference between the space and time of a work of art and the space and time of the world, the genealogical dimension of the problem comes to the fore: which context - artistic or everyday - is primary and which is derivative? Let us turn to the history of the concept of chronotope. It should be noted that this concept, how it arises and receives its justification in Bakhtin’s work “Forms of time and chronotope in the novel. Essays on Historical Poetics”, is initially associated with the double context of its use. On the one hand, the concept of chronotope has, in fact, an aesthetic meaning, which Bakhtin himself gives it, and on the other hand, this concept initially arises as a term of mathematical natural science: it is associated with the theory of relativity and has a physical meaning, and in the version of A.A. Ukhtomsky, to whom Bakhtin also refers, is biological. Thus, the concept of “artistic chronotope” seems to arise from the very beginning as a secondary one. However, Bakhtin immediately distances himself from the original meaning. He writes: “For us, the special meaning that it [the term “chronotope”] has in the theory of relativity is not important; we will transfer it here - to literary criticism - almost as a metaphor (almost, but not quite)." Let us note that here there is some borrowing that is not entirely clear in nature, “almost a metaphor,” the meaning of which has yet to be clarified.

In addition, the artistic chronotope turns out to be secondary twice: not only in the discursive plane, but also in the content - in relation to what Bakhtin calls the “real historical chronotope”. In general, the pathos of the work is associated with a certain kind of Marxism and its topic of base and superstructure. Art in general and literature in particular represent in this context the “mastery of a real historical chronotope.” In this formulation one can hear an unambiguous solution to the question: there is a certain historical reality, the reality of lived life experience, in relation to which the strategy of “reflection” is carried out in the form of works of art. Real people “are in a single real and incomplete historical world, which is separated by a sharp and fundamental boundary from the world depicted in the text. Therefore, we can call this world the text-creating world<...>. From

real chronotopes of this depicting world and the reflected and created chronotopes of the world depicted in the work (in the text) emerge.” Is a different scheme and a different genealogy of the concept possible, reconstructed beyond the boundaries of the “Essays on Historical Poetics”?

In general, the idea of ​​a special space and time, different from the ordinary, everyday one, arises and is developed not in the field of aesthetics, but rather comes from the problematic of the sacred and the profane. Here the contrast between the two dimensions is conceptualized in exactly the opposite way. Firstly, the sacred dimension by definition dominates the profane, is its primary source and, thus, has greater reality. "For a religious person<...>the heterogeneity of space is manifested in the experience of contrasting sacred space, which alone is real, really exists, with everything else - the formless extension surrounding this sacred space.” Secondly, the interaction between the sacred and the profane is determined by a number of taboos. You cannot move freely from one sphere to another; One enters a temple differently than one enters a museum. Reflections on this topic can be found, in particular, in the study of Roger Caillois:

“The profane must, in its own interests, refrain from intimacy with it [the sacred] - a proximity that is all the more harmful since the contagious power of the sacred acts not only with murderous consequences, but also with lightning speed<...>. It is also necessary to protect the sacred from contact with the profane. Indeed, from such contacts it loses its special qualities, suddenly becomes empty, deprived of its effective, but unstable miraculous power. Therefore, they try to remove from the consecrated place everything that belongs to the profane world. Only the priest enters the holy of holies."

If we return to the consideration of the problems of artistic space and time, we can easily note the difference between it and sacred space and time. In contrast to the sacred, the aesthetic object, as the result of a mimetic operation in relation to the world, acts as a symptom of the inversion of coordinates: firstly, the space and time of a work of art are regarded as only additional in relation to the ordinary, and secondly, the object of art is not only not hidden from the profane the public, it is precisely intended for their gaze.

The indicated opposition between the sacred and artistic chronotope, at first glance, static, has its own historical genesis. Enlightenment and the process of institutionalization of art

associated with the procedure of replacing one with another. The very space in which a work of art is exhibited - the space of a museum - is formed due to the profanation of the sacred. As B. Groys notes, at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. The activities of museums are associated with the exhibition of outlandish religious objects brought from travels, which, thanks to their transfer to another context, are automatically endowed with the status of works of art and aesthetic value. As a result, art as a special region of existence sets the field of that specific temporality and space, which is conceptualized as autonomous in its own way, but ultimately derivative of real historical time and space.

We have identified two opposing strategies for thematizing the relationship of the life chronotope to another dimension different from it: profane space-time is subordinated to the sacred; the artistic chronotope is secondary and complementary to reality. But, as we have seen, these are not simply two different positions. One can be presented as an effect of the other: artistic space-time as a result of the operation of repressing the sacred dimension. Is the reverse movement possible here? The primacy of the artistic context is revealed through the third, transcendental scenario of the unfolding of the relationship between the artistic and the real chronotope, in which the former plays the role of a mechanism for the articulation of experience. If we raise the question of the conditions for the existence of experience, we already assume its mediation. The idea of ​​this mediation manifests itself in various ways. In Kant’s first “Critique” we are talking about the fact that perception is formed and mediated, in fact, by the forms of sensibility (space and time), as well as by the schematism of the concepts of the mind, which is associated with the action of the determining ability of judgment, which brings private perceptions under a given general principle. In this sense, the reflective ability of judgment, which is responsible for raising particular perceptions to a general principle, only complements the determining one. But already in the “Critique of Judgment” the situation turns around:

“For such concepts that have yet to be found for given empirical intuitions and which presuppose a particular law of nature - only in accordance with it is private experience possible - the faculty of judgment needs a distinctive, also transcendental principle of its reflection, and it cannot in turn be pointed out to it already known empirical laws and turn reflection simply into a comparison of empirical forms for which there are already concepts.”

Thus, the shift of attention from the question of the general conditions of the possibility of experience to the question of the possibility of a transcendental justification of private experience leads to the fact that the mechanism of mediation of perception is supplemented by a certain indefinite universal principle, thanks to which aesthetic judgment is carried out, and the reflective ability of judgment, which previously replenishes the determining ability of judgment , takes the place of the basic principle governing the acquisition of experience. In other words, perception is not fully given - what is perceived must still be endowed with meaning.

Since the principle that is responsible for the possibility of aesthetic judgment and the genesis of meaning is uncertain, various particular principles can be placed in its place. And then again the determining ability of judgment comes to the fore, forcing these particular principles to function as ideologists that structure our experience from the outside. In this regard, the romantic concept of a genius is justified - one who is able to set rules and invent principles without completely obeying them: instead, he himself takes the place of the transcendental principle and is in endless creative development. One way or another, with regard to art, this third transcendental scenario assumes the following: works act as original simulators of sensuality, in accordance with which experience is ordered. This move can be found in various modern aesthetic theories and in relation to different types of art. Thus, R. Krauss, analyzing the modernist concept of art, writes about the concept of “picturesqueness”: “Under the influence of the doctrine of beauty, the very concept of landscape is created<...>. The landscape only repeats the picture that precedes it." S. Zizek begins his film “The Pervert’s Film Guide,” dedicated to understanding cinema and film images, with a monologue in which the question is posed as follows:

“Our problem is not whether our desires are satisfied or not. The problem is how we know what exactly we want<...>. Our desires are artificial - someone must teach us to desire. Cinema is an extremely perverted art. It doesn't give you what you want, it tells you how to want it."

J. Rancière speaks of the “aesthetic unconscious” and thinks of aesthetics as “a system of a priori forms that determine what is presented to sensation,” “the division of times and spaces, the visible and the invisible, speech and noise.” So, at the level of the concept xy-

The divine chronotope, complementing the everyday chronotope, displaces it and replaces it with its own game of division of time and articulation of spaces.

In this sense, we can re-read Bakhtin's passages on the chronotope. In relation to the historical, the artistic chronotope acts “almost as a metaphor.” Does this clause have a special meaning that problematizes both the gesture of borrowing and the originality of the non-fictional context of the concept? Bakhtin, in the introduction of his work, mentions that he listened to the report of A.A. Ukhtomsky about chronotope in biology. But if we turn to Ukhtomsky’s text on this concept, we will see that this biological context in itself is quite mysterious. Referring to Einstein and Minkovsky, Ukhtomsky contrasts the chronotope as an “irrelevant adhesive of space and time” to abstract space and time taken separately and considers it as a certain measure of an event, not indifferent to history.

“From the point of view of the chronotope, there are no longer abstract points, but living and indelible events from existence; those dependencies (functions) in which we express the laws of existence are no longer abstract curved lines in space, but “world lines” that connect long-past events with the events of the present moment, and through them with the events of the future disappearing in the distance.”

This turn of the problem towards historicity is very interesting. The point is that our experience, firstly, is heterogeneous, it is determined by many events-chronotopes, and secondly, it is open and incomplete: “world lines” cannot be thought of as predetermined. The idea of ​​a chronotope suggests that we are at some point along this line and have a limited perspective. This perspective, this historical chronotope, as Bakhtin says, must be “mastered” with the help of art. That is, the lack in the historical chronotope mobilizes the artistic chronotope. Moreover, we are turned to the future, and this intention has its limit. The “world line” cannot be traced to the end, and that is why it is mediated and thus formed, including by artistic structures. In this sense, Ukhtomsky speaks about the role of poetic conjecture and art, and Bakhtin speaks about the “creative chronotope” in which “the exchange of work with life” occurs.

But the thesis about the mutual influence of life and art is in itself empty, reducing the entire play of meanings to some average

indistinguishability, while it is important to show precisely the difference that is made anew each time. In this sense, we cannot help but turn to the consideration of specific artistic practices. If the structure of an artistic chronotope can really act as a mechanism for the articulation of experience, then the following question becomes relevant: what kind of experience is assumed, constituted or turns out to be subject to perception through contemporary art? What kind of space and time are they given?

Together with theory, the forms of art themselves change, the coordinates of its space and time shift. In The Politics of Poetics, Boris Groys examines the popular thesis that art today can exist either in the form of consumer goods and design, or in the form of political propaganda. This means that it is not only no longer opposed to living space and time, but has already penetrated its fabric and is trying to directly shape it. Also, of course, this means a renunciation of one’s own autonomy; art here becomes a parallel phenomenon in relation to other phenomena of the world. And the world itself, in the conditions of modern technology, without the mediation of an artist, is constantly busy with its own presentation - in photographic images, videos and other media products. It would seem that the function of art should be lost. Nevertheless, art is actively engaged in building its own chronotope. And here it is interesting to shift the emphasis from the work of art itself to the place where it is exhibited - a museum, a gallery.

To the question of what a work of art is, according to Groys, modern art practices give a simple answer - it is an exhibited object. But since an essential feature of a work of art is its own exposure, the problem of chronotope also shifts from the analysis of the work itself to the analysis of the space of the museum and gallery. The ideal genre in this sense is installation - in fact, the creation of space, the creation of context. But why is this space being created? What does it contain? After all, this, by and large, is no longer so important - at least, what is exhibited is no longer at the center of artistic practice. The space of a museum can be filled with everyday, everyday things that belong to living space, and this situation, Groys believes, is, in particular, due to the change in the role played by the museum throughout its history. If initially museumification acted as a tool for profaning the sacred, that is, it removed a dimension that was significant for an object, leaving

Having cast it after such an operation as a disarmed but beautiful work of art, now placing the object in the context of the exhibition space, on the contrary, means its elevation to the level of a work of art.

But the point is not that we don’t care what to look at, or the artist doesn’t care what to exhibit (at least, the presumption of a creative act still remains behind him). Either a completely ordinary thing or a painstakingly made artifact can be exhibited - the point is that art can no longer rely on the spontaneity of the viewer’s sensory perception. And therefore, the main forms of existence of art are a project, which is a certain sketch, an idea, a commentary on a work, and artistic documentation testifying to an event that took place. That is, the place of a thing is taken by a description of a thing (in this regard, the literary artistic chronotope of the new novel is appropriate, in which instead of a description of things we are dealing with a description of a description of things). Sometimes such a basic strategy for a work of art as perception turns out to be impossible in principle: showing a video that lasts longer than the exhibition time; the simultaneity of events occurring in different parts of the artistic space, which physically cannot be recorded by one observer. “And if the viewer decides not to look at them at all, then only the fact of his visit to the exhibition will be significant.” Present time, presence, seems to be washed away from the matter of art. The authenticity of a work in the sense of its belonging to a specific place and time, here and now, which seemed to Benjamin as the last chance of art in the era of technical reproducibility, is no longer relevant. We may deal with copies, know about it, mean it, or not think about it at all.

It seems that art is no longer justified by anything: it cannot lay claim to uniqueness in contrast to the cyclical nature of everyday life (it itself constantly practices repetition in different forms); it does not require the being of the viewer, who is now reduced to the function of the body present in the exhibition space; it finally abandons the idea of ​​taste and inequality of images, making art an unprivileged practice... As a result, art, which has lost its traditional ways of maintaining autonomy, is left with two options - the market or propaganda. Nevertheless, despite the seemingly obvious failure, it is in this form of failure, according to Groys, that the potential

cial of contemporary art. Groys sees salvation in the “weak images” of the avant-garde, which only due to their primitiveness and elementarity can reflect the situation of exhaustion of “strong images” and preserve, in conditions of shrinking time, a time without events that set the vector of historical movement, a gesture of renewal of art. He alone may not be crushed by this time. It turns out that simply making this gesture is important, it opens up a space of reflection - for absent time; for a community of unrelated people placed in the installation space; for the new, which is truly new precisely because it cannot be assumed in advance, which remains invisible precisely because it appears only in that exclusive space of the museum, the function of which is precisely to reterritorialize differences. That is, what really turns out to be significant is not what is the subject of the exhibition, but the fact that artistic practice is combined with the formation of a special space and time, in which in some way something new, something unique again becomes possible, in which a community is formed, and art again realizes its autonomy: “the autonomy of art is not based on an autonomous hierarchy of taste and aesthetic judgment. Rather, it is the effect of abolishing any such hierarchy and establishing a regime of aesthetic equality for all works of art<...>. Recognition of aesthetic equality opens up the possibility of resistance to any political or economic aggression - resistance in the name of the autonomy of art."

The chronotope of modernity is associated with such phenomena as biopolitics, the media environment, technical reproduction, and the totality of the market, which appear to be very problematic for the anthropological dimension itself. Here both the dimension of universalism and historicity, both integrity and the possibility of difference are lost. What should art be like in order to enter into a complementary relationship with it?1 It no longer pretends to universalism, it

1 Here it is worth mentioning that when we talk about addition, we mean an operation as a result of which the original complemented element, thanks to this addition, reveals its own limitations, lack, as a result of which it begins to lose its dominant position in relation to the complementary one. In this sense, we disagree with B. Groys, who, criticizing the “complementarity” of art in relation to political and economic practices, interprets supplement as just an addition: “... in this case, art can only act as a supplement, a term introduced Derrida, to certain political forces, and be used only to formalize or deconstruct their political

does not indicate a true difference, because it was sought from the very beginning, based on the system of cultural differences, etc. But, perhaps, the very fact of its persistent presence, its chronotope remains significant and significant as never before - perhaps not in itself, but as a sign of distinction.

However, the strategies described above can also be criticized. Installations, avant-garde images, artistic documentation - they suggest the possibility of an autonomous artistic chronotope, contrasted with the reality criticized through it, but they are still too reified, and therefore do not necessarily imply access to a space and time different from everyday life. Gallery visitors have the chance to form a community, but will they take advantage of it? Keti Chukhrov in her book “Being and Performing: The Theater Project in Philosophical Criticism of Art” raises the question of “whether “contemporary art” at this stage of its development is capable of fully reflecting the emancipatory potential of life and creativity. A similar question arises due to the fact that contemporary art does not always manage to go beyond the boundaries of the image, thing, fantasy, political illustration.” In this sense, the true outlet that art can offer is not the space and time that is extracted from the actually constructed space of the installation or the organized actual lack of time, etc.: they acquire their meaning in the context of a critique of sociality, but does it receive thanks to Is modernity itself meaningful to such interaction?

For Groys, it is important to demonstrate that the difference between an everyday thing and an object of art, despite their actual indistinguishability, can be staged in the space of a museum, which means that this difference - but no longer as a difference between different types of things, but as between different types of spaces - exists in reality, and art is, first of all, the art of creating not works, but a space of difference. But this difference turns out to be locked in its artificially created space,

positions and claims, but in no case act as active resistance to them<...>. Does art have its own energy or only complementary energy? My answer: yes, art is autonomous, yes, it has an independent energy of resistance." However, by defining and evaluating art through the mechanism of resistance to political and economic reality (in terms of our argument: historical chronotope), Groys already inscribes them into a certain general field in which one complements the other.

because, having left it, it immediately loses its meaning1. And from here two paths are visible - the sacralization of the image representing difference (which is a dead end, since this sacralization immediately blocks the difference itself and is included in the reality of the market), or the renewed practice of artistic gesture. The second way is associated with situations located on the border of artistic practices and life practices. Keti Chukhrov describes it through the concept of theater: “Theater for us is not a genre, but an anthropological practice that reveals transitions and thresholds between human existence and a work of art.” These transitions are provided by a special chronotope: “the theater raises the question of the eternal in the mode of time, in the mode of execution of life, and not its representation or reflection<...>. Transitional zone between being and play, motivated by the event; an open non-territory where the “human” collides with the “human”, and not with the thing<...>- this is what we call theater." And we can say that “theater” here is another name for the chronotope, which is built in the tension between the artistic chronotope and the historical chronotope.

Bibliography

1. Avtonomova N. Derrida and grammatology // J. Derrida “On grammatology”. - M., 2000.

2. Bakhtin M.M. Forms of time and chronotope in the novel. Essays on historical poetics // Bakhtin M. M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. - M., 1975.

3. Groys B. Politics of poetics. - M., 2012.

4. Caillois R. Myth and man. Man and the sacred. - M., 2003.

5. Kant I. Critique of the ability to judge. - St. Petersburg, 2006.

6. Krauss R. Authenticity of the avant-garde and other modernist myths. - M.,

7. Rancière J. Sharing the sensual. - St. Petersburg, 2007.

8. Ukhtomsky A.A. Dominant. Articles from different years. 1887-1939. - St. Petersburg,

9. Chukhrov K. To be and to perform: a theater project in philosophical criticism of art. - St. Petersburg, 2011.

10. Eliade M. Sacred and secular. - M., 1994.

1 “The new can be recognized as such only when it creates the effect of infinity, when it opens up an unlimited view of reality outside the museum. And this effect of infinity can be created exclusively within the walls of a museum - in the context of reality itself, we can only experience it as something finite, since we ourselves are finite.”

Literature, like other forms of art, is designed to reflect the surrounding reality. Including a person’s life, his thoughts, experiences, actions and events. The category of space and time is an integral component of constructing the author’s picture of the world.

History of the term

The very concept of chronotope comes from the ancient Greek “chronos” (time) and “topos” (place) and denotes the unification of spatial and temporal parameters aimed at expressing a certain meaning.

This term was first used by psychologist Ukhtomsky in connection with his physiological research. The emergence and widespread use of the term chronotope is largely due to natural scientific discoveries of the early 20th century, which contributed to a rethinking of the picture of the world as a whole. The dissemination of the definition of chronotope in literature is the merit of the famous Russian scientist, philosopher, literary critic, philologist and cultural critic M. M. Bakhtin.

Bakhtin's concept of chronotope

The main work of M. M. Bakhtin, dedicated to the category of time and space, is “Forms of time and chronotope in the novel. Essays on historical poetics", written in 1937-1938. and published in 1975. The author sees the main task for himself in this work as exploring the concept of chronotope within the framework of the novel as a genre. Bakhtin based his analysis on the European and, in particular, the ancient novel. In his work, the author shows that human images in literature, placed in certain spatiotemporal conditions, are capable of acquiring historical significance. As Bakhtin notes, the chronotope of the novel largely determines the development of the action and the behavior of the characters. In addition, according to Bakhtin, the chronotope is a determining indicator of the genre of a work. Therefore, Bakhtin assigns a key role to this term in understanding narrative forms and their development.

The meaning of the chronotope

Time and space in a literary work are the main components of the artistic image, which contribute to a holistic perception of artistic reality and organize the composition of the work. It is worth noting that when creating a work of art, the author endows the space and time in it with subjective characteristics that reflect the author’s worldview. Therefore, the space and time of one work of art will never be similar to the space and time of another work, and even less will it be similar to real space and time. Thus, the chronotope in literature is the interconnection of spatio-temporal relations mastered in a specific work of art.

Functions of the chronotope

In addition to the genre-forming function that Bakhtin noted, the chronotope also performs the main plot-forming function. In addition, it is the most important formal and content category of the work, i.e. Laying the foundations of artistic images, a chronotope in literature is a kind of independent image that is perceived at an associative-intuitive level. By organizing the space of a work, the chronotope introduces the reader into it and at the same time builds in the reader’s mind between the artistic whole and the surrounding reality.

The concept of chronotope in modern science

Since chronotope in literature is a central and fundamental concept, the works of many scientists of both the last century and the present are devoted to its study. Recently, researchers have been paying more and more attention to the classification of chronotopes. Thanks to the convergence of natural, social and human sciences in recent decades, approaches to the study of chronotope have changed significantly. Interdisciplinary research methods are increasingly being used, which make it possible to discover new facets of a work of art and its author.

The development of semiotic and hermeneutic analysis of the text has made it possible to see that the chronotope of a work of art reflects the color scheme and sound tonality of the depicted reality, and also conveys the rhythm of action and the dynamics of events. These methods help to comprehend artistic space and time as a sign system containing semantic codes (historical, cultural, religious-mythical, geographical, etc.). Based on modern research, the following forms of chronotope in the literature are distinguished:

• cyclic chronotope;
• linear chronotope;
• chronotope of eternity;
• nonlinear chronotope.

It should be noted that some researchers consider the categories of space and the category of time separately, while others consider these categories in an inextricable relationship, which, in turn, determines the characteristics of a literary work.

Thus, in the light of modern research, the concept of chronotope is gaining increasing importance as the most structurally stable and established category of a literary work.

No work of art exists in a space-time vacuum. It always, one way or another, contains time and space - the most important parameters of the artistic world of a work. However, the artistic world only depicts real reality, is its image, and therefore is always conditional to one degree or another. Thus, time and space in literature are also conditional.

Literature can move from one space to another, which, moreover, does not require a special reason. For example, events occurring simultaneously in different places can be depicted. This technique, in particular, was actively used by Homer in the Odyssey.

Conventionality is not the only property of space and time. Esin A.B. also calls such a property as discreteness, i.e. discontinuity. Literature is capable of “not reproducing the entire flow of time, but selecting the most significant fragments from it, indicating the gaps with formulas. Such temporal discreteness served as a powerful means of dynamism in the development of the plot.” 1 Discontinuity is also characteristic of space. It manifests itself in the fact that “it is usually not described in detail, but is only indicated with the help of individual details that are most significant for the author.” 2

According to the peculiarities of artistic convention, time and space in literature are divided into abstract and concrete. The researcher calls abstract space “which in the limit can be perceived as universal (“everywhere and nowhere”). It does not have a pronounced characteristic and does not have a significant impact on the characters and behavior of the characters, on the essence of the conflict, does not set an emotional tone, is not subject to active authorial comprehension, etc.” On the contrary, a specific space is “tied” to topographical realities; it actively influences what is depicted.

The properties of time are also associated with the type of space. Thus, abstract space is combined with the timeless essence of the conflict. And vice versa: spatial specificity is usually complemented by temporal specificity.

Artistic time is most often concretized in “tying” the action to historical landmarks, dates, as well as in indicating cyclic time: seasons, days. Initially in literature, such an image of time only accompanied the plot, but over time, the images began to acquire an emotional, symbolic meaning (for example, night is the time of domination of secret, evil forces). The seasons were most often associated with the agricultural cycle, but some authors endow these images with individual traits, denoting the connection between the time of year and a person’s state of mind (For example, “I don’t like spring...” (Pushkin) and “I love spring most of all" ( Yesenin)).

Literature is a dynamic art, in which rather complex relationships arise between “real” and artistic time. Esin A.B. distinguishes the following types of such relationships:

"Eventless."

"Real" time is zero, for example, during descriptions.

"Chronicle-everyday".

Literature “paints a picture of sustainable existence, actions and deeds that are repeated day after day, year after year. There are no events as such in such a time. Everything that happens in it does not change either the character of a person or the relationships between people, does not move the plot (plot) from beginning to end. The dynamics of such time are extremely conditional, and its function is to reproduce a stable way of life.” 1

It is also important to note such a property as the completeness or incompleteness of artistic time. Closed time has an absolute beginning and an absolute end, usually the completion of the plot and the resolution of the conflict.

Khalizev calls temporal and spatial representations “infinitely diverse and deeply meaningful.” He identifies the following “images of time: biographical (childhood, youth, maturity, old age), historical (characteristics of the change of eras and generations, major events and the life of society), cosmic (idea of ​​eternity and universal history), calendar (change of seasons, everyday life and holidays), the daily cycle (day and night, morning and evening), as well as ideas about movement and stillness, the relationship between the past, present and future.” 2

Pictures of space in literature are no less diverse: “images of closed and open space, earthly and cosmic, actually visible and imaginary, ideas about objectivity close and distant.” 3

Temporal and spatial ideas captured in literature constitute a certain unity. MM. Bakhtin, a researcher of the artistic world, introduced the term chronotope (from the ancient Greek chronos - time and topos - place, space), meaning “the relationship of artistic space and time, their “fusion”, mutual conditionality in a literary work.” 1

“The chronotope of the threshold is imbued with high emotional and value intensity; it can also be combined with the motive of the meeting, but its most significant complement is the chronotope of crisis and life turning point. The very word “threshold” already in speech life (along with its real meaning) acquired a metaphorical meaning and was combined with the moment of a turning point in life, a crisis, a life-changing decision (or indecision, fear of crossing the threshold). In literature, the chronotope of the threshold is always metaphorical and symbolic, sometimes in an open form, but more often in an implicit form. Time in this chronotope, in essence, is an instant, seemingly without duration and falling out of the normal flow of biographical time.” 2

Speaking about the meaning of chronotopes, one can, following Bakhtin, note their plot significance. Bakhtin calls the chronotope “the organizational center of the main plot events of the work.” In the chronotope, plot knots are tied and untied, the researcher notes.

At the same time, one can also highlight the pictorial meaning of the chronotope. “Time acquires a sensory-visual character in it, plot events in the chronotope are concretized. The special condensation and concretization of the signs of time in certain areas of space creates the opportunity to depict events in the chronotope (around the chronotope). All the abstract elements of the novel are philosophical and social generalizations, ideas, analyzes of cause and effect, etc. “They gravitate toward the chronotope and through it become familiar with artistic imagery.” 1

Along with meaning, the chronotope in a work performs a number of important artistic functions. Thus, through the depiction of space and time, the era that the artist comprehends and in which his heroes live becomes visual and visible in the plot. At the same time, the chronotope is focused on a person: “it surrounds a person, captures his connections with the world, often refracts the spiritual movements of the character, becoming an indirect assessment of the rightness or wrongness of the choice made by the hero, the solvability or unsolvability of his litigation with reality, achievability or unattainability harmony between the individual and the world." 2

So, the chronotope organizes the narrative, events are built around it, and characters act. Also, the chronotope helps the author express the main philosophical ideas and thoughts in his work.

A chronotope is a culturally processed stable position from which or through which a person masters the space of a topographically voluminous world; for M. M. Bakhtin, the artistic space of a work. Introduced by M.M. Bakhtin's concept of chronotope connects space and time, which gives an unexpected twist to the theme of artistic space and opens up a wide field for further research.

A chronotope fundamentally cannot be single and unique (i.e. monological): the multidimensionality of artistic space eludes a static gaze that captures any one, frozen and absolutized side of it.

Ideas about space lie at the core of culture, so the idea of ​​artistic space is fundamental to the art of any culture. Artistic space can be characterized as the deep connection inherent in a work of art of its meaningful parts, which gives the work a special internal unity and ultimately endows it with the character of an aesthetic phenomenon. Artistic space is an integral property of any work of art, including music, literature, etc. In contrast to composition, which is a significant relationship between the parts of a work of art, such space means both the connection of all elements of the work into some kind of internal unity that is unlike anything else, so and giving this unity a special quality that is not reducible to anything else.

A relief illustration of the idea of ​​a chronotope is the “same swing,” but it is not the diagram itself that shifts, but the movement of the reader’s gaze, controlled by the author by changing chronotopes, along a stable topographical scheme: to its top - to its bottom, to its beginning - to its end, etc. d. The polyphonic technique, reflecting the multidimensionality of the world, seems to reproduce this multidimensionality in the reader’s inner world and creates the effect that Bakhtin called “expansion of consciousness.”

Bakhtin defines the concept of chronotope as a significant interconnection of temporal and spatial relations, artistically mastered in literature. "In the literary and artistic chronotope, there is a merging of spatial and temporal signs into a meaningful and concrete whole. Time here thickens, becomes denser, becomes artistically visible; space intensifies, is drawn into the movement of time, the plot of history. Signs of time are revealed in space, and space comprehended and measured by time." Chronotope is a formal-content category of literature. At the same time, Bakhtin also mentions the broader concept of “artistic chronotope,” which is the intersection of the series of time and space in a work of art and expresses the inseparability of time and space, the interpretation of time as the fourth dimension of space.

Is it difficult to claim that the concept of chronotope applies to all types of art? In the spirit of Bakhtin, all arts can be divided depending on their relationship to time and space into temporary (music), spatial (painting, sculpture) and spatio-temporal (literature, theater), depicting spatial-sensory phenomena in their movement and formation. In the case of temporal and spatial arts, the concept of a chronotope, linking time and space together, is, if applicable, then to a very limited extent. Music does not unfold in space; painting and sculpture are almost simultaneous, since they reflect movement and change very restrainedly. The concept of chronotope is largely metaphorical. When used in relation to music, painting, sculpture and similar forms of art, it becomes a very vague metaphor.

In works of spatiotemporal art, space, as it is represented in the chronotopes of these works, and their artistic space do not coincide. The staircase, hallway, street, square, etc., which are elements of the chronotope of a classical realistic novel ("small" chronotopes according to Bakhtin), cannot be called "elements of the artistic space" of such a novel. Characterizing the work as a whole, the artistic space is not decomposed into individual elements; any “small” artistic spaces cannot be distinguished in it.