THE IDEA OF FATAL BEAUTY IN THE IMAGE OF THE SPHINX DURING THE PERIOD OF SYMBOLISM

Article concerns the idea of fatal beauty among the artists of Symbolism in the prism of sphinx image. This period is characterized by rehabilitation of ancient and oriental art and philosophy, the concept of “eternal return” and mysterious symbols of the past. Different embodiments of mythical creature are examined in the works of European artists and Russian philosophers. The main attention is to the idea of a fatal attraction to the base emotions, carrying death. What widely distributed to all levels of life and, in particular, to the interpretation of ancient stories — mythical, Asian or biblical. And moreover, with the help of famous historical and literary contexts, in the image of a sphinx appears a new motif of vulnerability, emotional instability in front of deep, sophisticated and instinctive nature of a human being.