Maxim of the Herdsman in the Intermedial Discourse of Shukshin's Stories

. An attempt has been made to analyze the influence of I. P. Popov's painting "Herdsman" on the ideological, narrative, semiotic, pictorial content of Shukshin's artistic space. The experience of the mutual aesthetic attraction of a writer and an artist is considered: the intersection of worldview concepts, the exchange of plots, the use of different artistic languages, and development of techniques at the junction of visual and verbal art. Through the image of a herdsman, perceived in Popov's yet undeveloped vision of the mid 1950s, Shukshin builds on his own concept of national character, enriches philosophical experience of understanding life and human's place in it, attitude to death, delves deeply into the theme of creativity, searches for the ideal of the artist. Mythologems and semiologems (horse, rain, dawn, loneliness) reproduced on Popov's canvas would become leitmotivs of Shukshin's prose; shapes and color, brush strokes and accents, genre syncretism (landscape and portrait) would be embodied in his poetic manner, the existential pathos of Popov's work would also be shared by the writer.