The influence of G. Gurdjieff's philosophy on the art system of Ayn Rand's novels

The article is devoted to the issue of the roots of the ideal human conception in the works of Ayn Rand, an American writer and philosopher from Russia. One of them is Russian philosopher George Gurdjieff and his anthropocosmic philosophy, in which he, as well as Ayn Rand, interpreted F. Nitzsche’s “the great idea” of “superhuman”. This hypothesis is proved via the relation between Ayn Rand and Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect, the founder of the so-called “organic architecture”. The influence of Gurdjieff’s ideas is traced in Ayn Rand’s novels at the level of plot and motive. All her novels are based on the opposition between “superhumans” and “machines”. Moreover, the process of the “superhuman” evolution is difficult and accompanied by the invariable demonstration of triumph marked by the development of an individual as a professional. The repeated plots, such as the evolving hero in the center of the novel, the building of himself, together with motives of a chariot, living and dead, are analyzed in Ayn Rand’s novels. They reflect the influence of Gurdjieff’s ideas about the human evolution and the ultimate goal - the achievement the integrity. The integrity of Ayn Rand’s protagonists is correlated with Gurdjieff’s thought about the equilibrium inside the triad “Thought-Word-Action”. It allows to state the specificity of the impact of Gurdjieff’s philosophy on the art system in Ayn Rand’s texts and is the practical basis for the formation of the characters. Although Nietzsche was the creator of the idea of “superhuman” in theoretical sense, Gurdjieff’s philosophy and Rand’s objectivism are mostly practice-oriented, as they support the methods for the superhuman’s design (practical for the former, and ideological for the latter).