"THE PHILOSOPHY OF SIBERIA" IN V. I. SURIKOV'S CREATIVE WORK
The article is devoted to V. I. Surikov's creative work, namely to his two “Siberian” paintings - “The Capture of Snow Town” and “The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak Timofeyevich”. The interest in the creative work of the outstanding Russian artist is connected, on the one hand, with his 170<sup>th</sup> anniversary, and, on the other hand, with the fact that the major paintings of the artist, written after the bright trilogy “The Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Menshikov in Beryozovo” and “Boyarina Morozova”, were somewhat in the “shadow” and have not received a proper in-depth analysis yet. It is known that it was in Siberia where Surikov revived to creativity after a family tragedy - the death of his wife. He not only conveys the pages of life and history, but creates “axial” works again, embodying what could be called “the philosophy of Siberia” in the artistic form. The paper defines the notion of the “axial work” and conducts the semantic and art criticism analysis of the paintings “The Capture of Snow Town” and “The Conquest of Siberia by Yermak Timofeyevich”. The authors propose a variant of interpretation of the entire compositional decision and of certain significant details and images.