Painting and graphics in the collections of the Literary and Art Museum of Anton Chekhov's the Sakhalin Island Book

Abstract

The article presents a thematic review of works of fine arts of the Literary and Art Museum of Anton Chekhov's the Sakhalin Island Book. The museum collection, which has been formed since the 1980s, comprises the following sections: Paintings, Graphics, Written sources, Photographic materials, Numismatics and Phaleristics, Household items and decorative and applied arts, and Sculpture. These collections are divided into two main groups, namely the core collection and the auxiliary collection. The museum collection includes over eight hundred works of painting and graphics, the majority of which are the creations of Sakhalin artists, as well as descendants of A.P. Chekhov, specifically his nephews, Sergey Mikhailovich and Sergey Sergeevich Chekhov. The ideological aspect of the selection of exhibits is determined by the particular characteristics of the museum, which encompasses not only private collections comprising Chekhov's archives, items belonging to the writer himself and his family, but also directs attention to the comprehensive display of the book “Sakhalin Island”. Nevertheless, the artistic merit of the works of fine art from this collection should be acknowledged and contextualised within the broader framework of art history. In this article, the author employs the iconographic method to identify and describe the principal themes, subjects, and motifs of the works, thereby providing insight into the ideological and thematic orientation of the collection of Far Eastern art in this museum.