The cultural TV channel Russia-K has broadcast the latest programme in the authorial series by Hermitage Director Mikhail Piotrovsky – “Thus Spake Zarathustra”.
The new programme is devoted to the element of fire, about which Konstantin Balmont wrote: “There is no stronger, no stranger, no brighter beauty!” There are few things in the world so contradictory, so simultaneously fascinating in its beauty and its malevolence… Fire is one of the four elements, one of the components making up material, indeed the very essence of the world, according to philosophers, physicists…. At the same time fire is a terrible destructive force.
How did the artists of the past reflect the dual nature of this most mysterious element in their work and which rarities among the Hermitage’s stocks serve as reminders of great historic fires?
Through examples from the Hermitage collection, viewers see the way the theme of fire spans all historical periods and cultural formations – from items of the Zoroastrian cult and the elements of fire in classical mythology to sacrifices in depictions of biblical episodes.
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