Abstract beauty and Christian integrity of creativity (I. V. Kireevsky about art and an artist)

This paper is conceived as an effort to present a coherent exposition of the aesthetic views of the Russian Christian thinker Ivan V.Kireevsky. The foundation of this theory is the concept of an organic totality of life of both artist and spectator, in particular that of the unity of beauty and truth, as well as an organic concept of society, in which both artists and critics are laborers in the task of transforming the personal and common life into a truly believing totality. I.V.Kireevsky's mature aesthetic theory is opposed to the theory of abstract or «pure» art.