A Phantom Wanders Europe: Mikhail Vrubel’, Pavel Filonov – and Other States of Mind

Abstract The focus of this article is on the psychological or psychiatric dimensions of the artistic productions of Mikhail Vrubel’ and Pavel Filonov, a main argument being that the two artists, even of different generations and worldviews, had much in common in their approach to the artistic process, specifically to the act of painting. Copious reference is made to their respective encounters with the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, to their attitudes towards decoration and ornament and to certain pictorial motifs such as flight and floridity. Reference is also made to psychiatrists of the time such as Pavel Karpov, the exhibition of works by the mentally ill in 1926 and to RAKhN (Russian Academy of Artistic Sciences).