Alexander Archipenko: Artistic and Aesthetic Principles of the European Avant-garde Epoch

he paradigm formation of Alexander Archipenko’s art (1887–1964) in the context of the European avant-garde was analyzed in the article. The study examined the historiography of the 20th century artistic movement from Cubism, Futurism to Expressionism. The author analyzed the sculptor’s conceptual connection with innovations of the period and underlined the main philosophical principles of the epoch, and their impact on the formation of the artist’s figurative plastic concepts. The focus was made on the accumulation of the universal cultural experience of the European avant-garde in the process of Alexander Archipenko’s personality formation. The social and cultural factors of the sculptor’s personality formation were traced. The sculptor’s phenomenon is inseparable from the conglomeration of the European avant-garde thoughts. The sublimity of the intellectual resource development of the period was the driving force in the formation of Alexander Archipenko’s innovation. The author of the present study analyzed the main cultural and artistic groups of the epoch, and revealed Archipenko’s direct participation in them. Archipenko, the inventor of the experimental space, showed the way to sculptors of the 20th century. The sculptor’s philosophic line was projected into multicultural and anthropological dimension. The consolidation of general experience of the existence is embodied in the sculptor’s seeking strategies. Archipenko’s methodology development passed through the multicultural synthesis of the world’s ancient experience. There was a certain inspiration by mythological, ritual and historical prototypes as well. The artist’s semantic field had the only basis where new variations of the form and content arose from. The synthesis of artistic, aesthetic and philosophical principles of European avant-garde in Alexander Archipenko’s art contributed to the formation of the ethno-national basis of his art.