Interpretation of the Images of Antiquity in Russian Art of the 1870 – 1910s

This paper considers the phenomenon of reception of antiquity in the works of Russian artists of 1870-1910s, from the intimated genre works of the Academy’s alumnus G. Semiradsky to the "Ancient Horror" of L. Bakst. The author attempts to trace how artists recreate the images of antiquity in their works and analyze how its refined artificial nature, created in the Western art of the previous centuries, gradually opens its own boundaries and reveals expressiveness in previously unexplored periods, such as Archaic or Aegean civilization. This work is presented in three chapters, sequentially revealing such areas of the topic as antiquity in the Academy's repertoire, a landscape on antique motifs and antiquity on the threshold of a new century. Through this prism unexpected aspects of academic painting were revealed, as well as the complexity of the genre categories of time and the ambiguity of the very nature of reception.