Symbolism and painting of V. E. Borisov-Musatov

Abstract

This article continues the series of author’s publications in this journal, dedicated to the work of Russian symbolist artists. In this case, symbolism is considered as a “way of understand ing the world” (A. Bely), acting as a universal category in the interpretation of the process of hu man perception of the world. The ideological doctrine of discovering ideal being through sym bols, substantiated by German philosophers (A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche), being the theoreti cal basis for the work of intellectual artists, acquires specific interpretations of its modeling in each author’s version. Therefore, the main task of this entire series of publications is to consider the issue of the individual originality of artistic “models” of the universe, presented in their au thor’s diversity from the standpoint of the philosophy of symbolism. The main task of this partic ular article is to identify the author’s “accent” ideological positions of symbolism in the work of the famous Russian artist V. E. Borisov-Musatov. In the article, this is done by abstracting from the accepted art criticism judgments about the work of Borisov-Musatov, which have become an noying cliches that simplify the complex nature of the great master’s work. In this regard, once again, the issue of understanding the ideological meanings in the art of symbolism is actualized, the “linguistic” material of which is characterized by semantic closure, therefore the article tradi tionally uses the techniques of hermeneutic logic that facilitate the “reading” of deep, ideological meanings in art of a conditionally symbolic nature.