A Study on Architectural Aspects of Museum Icon Exhibiting in Russia, 20th-21st Centuries

The dissertation presents innovative research on the influence of the historical and cultural context on the formation of the architecture of the exposition space of Russian icon painting in the XX-XXI centuries. This study examines the history of the origin and the development of the collection and display of religious art and the changes taking place in the organization of the exposition space retrospectively; describes and analyzes examples of permanent expositions of Russian icon painting and temporary exhibitions of the last decade; defines and illustrates modern exhibition trends. The cultural-historical method made it possible to consider the historical-cultural context of the emergence and development of expositions of Russian icon painting. To analyze the expositions in modern museums, an interdisciplinary case-study method was applied. These included: a formal stylistic analysis of the architecture of the exposition; interviews with museum specialists, designers and visitors, and monitoring the movement of visitors through the exposition. Having analysed the influence of the historical and cultural context on the organization of the space in which the Russian icon was exhibited from the end of the nineteenth century, having described and examined examples of modern expositions of Russian icon painting, the author attempts to typology the exposure solutions and demonstrates that the approach to the formation of the architecture of the exposition of icon painting remains scientific and has not changed significantly over the past decade. But the general cultural trends towards the creation of a museum exposition, as a separate genre of art, of course, could not but manifest themselves in the architecture of the exhibition of icon painting.