Cinema and Photography in the Esthetical System of Russian Literary Symbolism

Symbolism is one of the sub-paradigms of literary consciousness, which is characterized by the understanding of art as an activity that spiritualizes through aesthetic impact on the recipient. The poetics of the symbol developed within this framework presupposes a certain systematic and hierarchical understanding of art forms. Music, poetry, architecture, painting, theater, and the philosophy of symbolism are strongly interconnected and subordinated according to the criterion of suggestiveness, in which music and the word are given the first place. However, the role of new media in this hierarchy is not completely clear: how to define the place of photography and cinema with their highly effective means of aesthetic impact. It is only when referring to the symbolist model of art synthesis in mystical action, with reference to the theurgic aesthetics of the transformation of the world through creativity developed by Vl. Solovyov, that it becomes clear that cinema is perceived by symbolists not in its medial specificity, but as a new opportunity for art synthesis. Contemporary to symbolism, photographic pictorialism, despite the similarity of its positions, is not so relevant to its aesthetic consciousness. There is a one-sided influence: the aesthetics of symbolism is key to the self-characterization of Russian pictorialism.