Limanskaya L.Yu. Ethological Aspects of Charles Darwin's Theory of Kinesics and their Role in the Art Criticism of Heinrich Wölfflin, Aby Warburg and Ernst Gombrich

Abstract: The subject of the research is the ethological aspects of Charles Drawin's theory of kinesics and their role in the art criticism of Heinrich Wölfflin, Aby Warburg and Ernst Gombrich. Special attention is paid to the analysis of applying kinesics as a non-verbal universal in the history of art. The researcher describes communicative and aesthetic functions of kinesics in art in relation to the mechanism of empathy based on the imitation function of the figurative language of graphic arts. Limanskaya analyzes views of Heinrich Wölfflin, Aby Warburg and Ernst Gombrich on the role of kinesics in relation to their views on the role of kinesics in the development of the emotional memory. Based on that, she traces back the connection between kinesics and collective unconscious as well as cultural archetype. The methodological basis of the research is based on the analysis of the role of sensualist ideas in the devlopment of evolutionary, psycnoanalytical, semiotic methods of studying the history and theory of art. The scientific novelty of the research is casued by the fact that the author studies the role of kinesics in the development of the figurative language of graphic arts. For the first time in the academic literature the author of the present article traces back the influence of sensualism, evolutionism and psychoanalysis on art studies of the 19th - 20th centuries as well as describes a number of parallels between ethology and art studies in relation to the communicative function of kinesics as a non-verbal universal of the figurative language in graphic arts. 

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