On the Unity of the Ethical and the Aesthetic in Russian Art (historical and cultural aspect)

The article discusses two main features of Russian art, which are considered in a historical perspective using fine art as an example. The first feature is a special understanding in Russian art of the relationship between the ethical and aesthetic principles as an antinomy of their unity and intrinsic value, as well as the belief in their Divine origin that has persisted for centuries. The second feature is the dialogic nature of Russian art: the perception of a work of art was considered to be as significant a spiritual and intellectual work, a creative act, as its creation. The article shows that the features were a living practice, reflected in texts and practically realized already in ancient Russian art. The bearers of the main spiritual, moral and aesthetic idea of Russian art were icons. After a century of Western dictate, it was the turn first to Byzantine icons and then to Russian ones that became decisive for Russian fine art in the 19th and 20th centuries. The discovery of icons in the 1910s brought into Russian art those national impulses that allowed it, despite heavy ideological pressure, not to lose its roots and to experience a new flowering in the 1960s and 1970s.