ABSTRACT
Theatrical scenery is the youngest of the Russian visual arts. Artists created huge easel paintings, which were then cut and arranged according to the perspective of the stage floor plans. Viktor Simov immediately grasped the essence of the new artistic principle and began to develop the environment in large-scale maquettes, creating the “proposed circumstances” by means of fine art, architecture and light. In productions of Anton Chekhov’s plays, Simov even changes his painting technique – the artist switches from a broad brush to small impressionistic strokes, leaving partial areas of the white canvas exposed, which contributes to the transmission of light and airiness. Poetic generalization made it possible to stage productions involving many scene changes in a new way. Konstantin Stanislavsky’s “system” paid great attention to the search for the “germ” of the role and the character image. It is legitimate to transfer this concept to the designer’s search for the “germ” of the image of the play.
