Irina Kistovich-Girtban

DYNASTY

Irina Kistovich-Girtban
Mikhail Verkholantsev’s Tent of the Sun

#2 2022 (75)

Fate is determined by character and by metaphysics of the highest level. A man of action, Mikhail Verkholantsev responds to the appeal of Hellenism an era in which fate was a synonym for chance. The world is run by goddess Tyche[1] at her discretion - she rolls a dice to decide to whom she will grant the right to change their life. The sculpture “Laocoon and His Sons” is a symbiosis of the freedom of will and the power of fate, as well as a symbol of Hellenism. As Tyche wills it, its second birth take place in Italy, in the era of Baccio Bandinelli and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The age of Mannerism begins. Eras and fates succeed one another and chance plays its role, or how else can we explain the emergence of the Mannerist Verkholantsev in Moscow in the 1960s?