The ideological and thematic uniqueness of «Belvedere torso» story by M. Aldanov

Questions of «Art and the Artist», «Genius and Madness», «Art and Love» for the first time became Aldanov’s a subject of interest in the story «Belvedere Torso» (1936). Revealing the problems of the Creator and the Creation, the Talent and the Envious, the Meaning of Life and the Meaning of Art, Aldanov destroys conventional images of famous historical figures such as Michelangelo and Vasari by making the characters more complicated and ambiguous. The writer carefully examines the cultural context of the time: the life and relationships of artists, writers, scholars, clergy, contemporaries of Michelangelo. He managed not only to go deep into the psychology of a man of the past, but to achieve understanding of the human psychology and philosophy of life in general.