Terra sebv s acta mvsei sabesiensi s

T. M. Stepanskaya, L. I. Nekhvyadovich 

 

168

decorative tradition (A. I. Kuindzhy). In the composition of such landscape 

paintings, colour saturation was deepened in order to underline the 

conceptual accent and increase the emotional resonance of the artistic 

image. 

Painting technique is another important aspect of the Russian 

landscape painting tradition; specifically, in the way the painter lays patches 

of colour onto the canvas. The main pictorial techniques of the Russian 

school of landscape painting were oil painting, watercolour, tempera and 

pastel drawing. The dominant artistic form was the picturesque landscape 

executed in an oil painting. 

At the turn of 21

st

 century, as the source of originality in Russian 

national artistic heritage again became an urgent problem, the phenomena 

of late 19

th

-early 20

th

 century Russian art received renewed academic 

interest. If it is possible to juxtapose the facts of artistic life with the 

features of this epochal period, then the crisis in structure can be described 

as being connected to changes in the way of thinking, to the transition to a 

new philosophical model of perception of the world, to new images of man 

and the world. Historians of art note that for the (then) modern artistic 

image, an integral philosophical-aesthetic concept was required, based on 

which new artistic devices could be developed. Striving to create a national 

artistic style had become the main direction for painters by the end of the 

19

th

 century. This became the modern or new style in Russia.

28

 

In the search for a national style, the painters of the late 19

th

-early 20

th

 

century looked to the ethnocultural heritage of Ancient Rus. In their artistic 

interpretation of Russian ethnocultural traditions, art historians distinguish 

three stages: 1. folklore-realistic (1880s-1890s); 2. decorative-stylised (end of 

the 1890s - mid-1900s [decade]); 3. retropectivism (mid-1900s to mid-

1910s). It should be noted that due to the large volume of extant material 

on this topic, the authors have limited themselves to the most typical 

examples which demonstrate the general concepts and typical features of 

the Russian School.  

The activities of the Abramtsevsky Colony (1878) played a significant 

role in the actualisation of Russian ethnocultural traditions in art. At 

different times, A. M. Vasnetsov, M. V. Vrubel, K. A. Korovin, I. I. Levitan 

and others were all members of this club. The activity of these painters was 

connected to the renewal of folk crafts and the search for a national style. 

The artists connected folklore with the enrichment of realism and the 

revision of genres with fine art. The researcher V. I. Plotnikov in his 

monograph Folklore and Russian Fine Arts in the Second Half of the 19

th

 Century 

                                                 

28

 Neklyudova 1991, p. 37-55. 

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Ethnocultural Traditions as a Basis of National Originality of Schools of Art 

 

169

distinguished two directions in the activity of the club: 1. national-folklore; 

2. landscape-open-air.

29

 

The analysis of Russian fine art around the turn of the 20

th

 century 

makes it possible to distinguish ethnocultural archetypes and mythological 

images. In the perception of Russian painters, the landscape is the origin: it 

is given semantic meaning, imbued with numerous subtexts relating to vital 

topics of Russian thought in the spheres of philosophy, aesthetics, morality 

and artistic cognition of the world. V.  M.  Vasnetsov,  N.  K.  Rerikh,  I.  I. 

Biblin, M. A. Vrubel and A. P. Ryabushkin added a new element to fine art 

through the selection and interpretation of ethnocultural material. Russian 

folklore became the main object for artistic presentation. Narratives and 

motifs such as the World Tree, stones, images of mythological birds, 

characters from fairy tales and epic heroes were depicted based on the 

principles of Russian realist painting. Alongside this, an improvisational 

element appeared more actively in the systems of artistic imagery which 

suited the character of national folklore. Thus, for instance, a motif of a 

stone, connected in ethnocultural tradition with the selection of a path, 

forms a semantic element of works such as A Knight at the Crossroads by V. 

M. Vasnetsov, About Ivan Tsarevich, The Firebird and Big Bad Wolf  by  I.  Y. 

Biblin, A Giant’s Tomb by N. K. Rerikh and Sitting Demon by M. A. Vrubel. 

Art critic S. K. Makovsky suggests that “in Vrubel’s painting, there is 

something stony. Does his Sitting Demon, created in 1890, not appear from 

the chaos of monstrous stalactites?… Is Vrubel’s “Pan” not carven from 

stone ten years later …? Vrubel’s “Bogatyr” is the same: … the horse 

appears as if sculpted from a primitive block.”

30

 The image of sacred stone 

also appears in the N. K. Rerikh’s painting The Treasures of Angels (1905). The 

spatial composition of this work is reminiscent of icon-painting: the sacred 

stone is depicted at the base of the picture, on earth, and the figure of the 

Angel is located near it; rows of angels stand in the central part of the 

composition with trees full of mythical birds rising above them; the top 

layer is taken by New Jerusalem with its white-stone walls. The play of light 

and shadow on the sacred stone, angels’ wings, and tops of trees is 

communicated through the contrast of golden and emerald hues. In its 

entirety, the compositional structure of N. K. Rerikh’s canvas is aimed at 

revealing the symbolic content of the image, as is further proved by 

examining his other works Ilya of Murom, The Holy Procopius who is Praying for 

the Unknown, Floating Everlasting Expectation. 

The motifs of sun, birth, roads and the cycles of nature are applied as 

symbols-signs in the creative works of the Russian Symbolist painters. 

                                                 

29

 Plotnikov 1987, p. 39. 

30

 Makovsky 1999, p. 82. 

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