Religious and philosophical concepts of A. A. Ivanov in the symbols of art

The article deals with the biblical and evangelical plots of A. A. Ivanov - an outstanding thinker of the historical genre, painter-philosopher and prophet who influenced the development of Russian and world art of the 19th-20th centuries, the work of N. Ge, M. Vrubel, V. Surikov, M. Nesterov, V. Kandinsky. An important document for understanding his spiritual and aesthetic concept, plots devoted to the depiction of the “miraculous” and the formation of a new pictorial and plastic language in such works as “The Archangel Gabriel Smites Zachariah with Silence” (1850), “The Annunciation to the Virgin Mary”, “Joseph’s Dream”, “Walking on the Waters” are the testimonies of N. V. Gogol, who notes the importance of the personal acquisition of Christ by A. Ivanov. Naturally, his turn towards understanding Byzantine and Old Russian culture when working on sketches for the murals of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in 1845. In his biblical and Gospel sketches, Ivanov used glow effects, luminescence techniques, achieving dematerialization of the classical form, its sculpturality, three-dimensionality and volume. Throughout his career, he conducted an incessant dialogue with figures of Russian and European culture: Gogol and Rozhalin, Schelling’s romantic philosophy, trends associated with the names of Herzen, Ogarev, Sechenov, the worldview quest of Overbek and the Nazarenes, Tyutchev’s concept of the universe and Tirsh’s lectures, Venevitinov’s ideas, Shevyrev, Kireevsky, Odoevsky. Thus, the historical works and biblical and evangelical cycles of A. Ivanov go far beyond the bounds of their time, elevating the viewer to the high order and moral and religious meaning of art, to deep reflection on the values of being, allowing to enter a new artistic and worldview language - movement towards heaven. The article uses materials from the author’s doctoral dissertation “Genesis of Cultural and Religious Meanings of Russian Art: from Icons to Avant-garde.”