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Five of fourteen spacious rooms display the main stages of development of the national school of
painting.
The reorganization of the Shevchenko Art Gallery into the museum has increased level of
research and publication of articles and catalogues. The professional staff of the Museum has made
a significant contribution to the acquisition, display, study and distribution of Kazakh art. Among
them are Gulnar Akisheva, Mara Baimukhamedova, Bayan Barmankulova, Amir Jadaibayev,
Rauza Kopbosinova, Svetlana Kobzhanova, Sabila Kumarova and Galina Syrlybaeva. Several of the
museum’s specialists took study trips and traveled throughout the country, acquiring paintings by
several regional artists to diversify and enrich the collection.
The emergence of new trends in visual arts constituted the 1970s and 80s. Gradually intensifying
anxiety and inner drama replaced the epic idealism inherent to the previous generation. The artists
reflected on ontological and existential problems. They revealed their awareness of the multipolar
and imperfect world around them and addressed the eternal dialectical confrontation between
good and evil. Instead of unidimensional, in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism, socialist world of the
1940s-60s, spiritual and civilizational antagonisms appeared in their art. The artists became more
interested in social changes of the epoch and focused in turn on the role of the individual in society as
a whole. The theme of man’s relation to society can be observed in large-scale thematic compositions
and portraits by Amandos Akanayev, Dulat Aliyev, Kamil Mullashev, Erbolat Tolepbay, Magauya
Amanzholov, Victor Kireyev and Mukhit Kalimov.
In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, formalist principles came to the fore via experiments
with color and shape. Abrashit Sydykhanov appealed to abstract symbolic painting, while Kenzhebai
Duisenbayev and the younger generation of artists such as Bakhyt Bapishev, Marat Bekeyev, Askar
Esdaulet and Andrey Noda searched for color novelty and expressiveness. The leitmotif of their artistic
expressions was disappointment with Soviet ideology and the breakup of a once-powerful nation.
On the one hand, society was in the state of euphoria connected with acquiring independence. On
the other hand, economic hardship and a decreased standard of living also defined their post-Soviet
experience. Artists, once on the sidelines of political life, created under conditions of the full absence
of censorship. The prospects of freedom to create and experiment opened before them and many
took advantage of it. The search for national identity became and continues to be an urgent question
for many artists working in Kazakhstan. In some instances, we can identify the aspiration to make
the essential issues of life and the artistic rendering of existential subjects, part of the artist’s quest to
manifest national identity. In subsequent years, artists responded to ethno-cultural discourse, to the
interpretation and transformation of the techniques inherent to decorative and applied art, and to the
lessons of Western expressionism and avant-gardism.
With the goal of more fully addressing the diverse themes and subjects within Kazakh
history and culture, the museum initiated a number of large-scale thematic projects and acquired
new works. The 2013 Republican Exhibition Competition, «Kazakh Folk Epos. The History and
Traditions of Kazakh People», stimulated the artists to appeal to the sources and traditions expressed
in folk epos. The contest’s best artworks were handed over to the Museum, among them paintings
by Dosbol Kassymov, Agimsaly Duzelkhanov, Kazakbay Azhibekov, Talgat Tleuzhanov, Bakhyt
Myrzakhmetov, Aset Zhakypbek and Dauren Kasteyev. Another national contest of historical
painting, the 2016 «Independence Bequeathed by Ancestors,» was dedicated to the 25th anniversary of
Kazakhstan’s Independence. The works by prize winners – Dauren Kasteyev, Meirzhan Nurgozhin,
Nurlan Kilibayev, Aset Zhakypbek and Dauren Makin – also entered the museum’s collection.
Today, the museum continues to focus its efforts on collecting, studying, and sharing the most
unique aspects of its collection: the painting of Kazakhstan.

Gulmira Shalabayeva,
Director of the Kasteyev State Museum of Arts of the RK,
Honored Figure of the RK,
Doctor of Philosophy, Professor

Notes:
1.Citation on the book. The fight for progressive realism in foreign countries.
M., Iskusstvo, 1975, p. 45.

22 ИЗОБРАЗИТЕЛЬНОЕ ИСКУССТВО КАЗАХСТАНА. ЖИВОПИСЬ