The Drowned Man Motif in the Works of the Fin de Siècle Period

The purpose of the article is to analyse the features of the drowned man motif in the works of the fin de siècle period. The research methodology consists of art and general scientific approaches. A comparative method was used to reveal figurative and thematic parallels in the works of artists of different European countries at the turn of the 20th century; historical and cultural – to determine the mythopoetic sources for themes and images; semiotic method – to insight the symbolism of works. The scientific novelty of the research is to outline the specifics of artistic and figurative decisions of the drowned man’s genre motif and to identify figuratively thematic parallels in the works of artists of fin de siècle period in European countries. Conclusions. The drowned man motif in the art of fin de siècle was formed against the background of degradation that prevailed in Europe. The atmosphere of bewilderment and disappointment caused by the destruction of stable worldviews cast a gloom over the artists that embodied on their canvases in the form of aesthetization of death as a way to get rid of the routine of the world. Among the drowned man motifs in the art of this period there are three key iconographic versions of depiction: Ophelia from Shakespearean tragedy “Hamletˮ; the Lady of Shalott from A. Tennyson’s poem of the same name; Elaine of Astolat is a figure of T. Malory’s novel “Le Morte Arthurˮ. The Englishism of the mentioned figures testifies to the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites on the art of fin de siècle. Making a comparison of paintings by J. E. Millais, American artist T. E. Rosenthal and Ukrainian painter W. Kotarbinski, it was showed that the image of drowned woman from W. Kotarbinski’s picture is on the border of two iconographic versions of depiction, they are Ophelia and Elaine of Astolat. The isolation of persistent iconographic motifs in the art of “turn of the century”, including decadence and symbolism, has made it possible to reveal certain interconnections in the art of Ukraine, England, France, Belgium, Germany and the United States of America, which were understudied. The prospects for further research relate to the decadence and symbolism in the fine arts of Ukraine and Europe