Conference 2015

The 6th International Conference Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art took place in Moscow on 27–31 October 2015. It was organised by Lomonosov Moscow State University, St Petersburg State University, and the Moscow Kremlin Museums. The working languages were Russian and English.

Renaissance and the Art of Europe

The central theme focused on the Renaissance and the art of Europe. It approached the Renaissance not simply as a historical period but as a field of artistic exchange: between Italy and other parts of Europe, between Western European and Russian traditions, and across architecture, visual art, and material culture.

The wider programme retained the conference's broad chronology, from the ancient world to the present. Sessions addressed medieval, Eastern Christian, and medieval Russian art; Renaissance art and architecture; Western art of the modern age; Russian and international art from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century; art theory; and cult and artistic culture.

A special plenary session at the Moscow Kremlin Museums, “The Art of Rus and Western Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries”, examined the work of Italian architects in Russia, Western motifs in the art of Muscovy, Renaissance decoration in the Kremlin cathedrals, and Western European craftsmen at the Russian court.

Conference programme overview

Emblem and publication

Vyacheslav Mikhailov's painting Tondo. Piazza di Spagna (2002) was chosen as the conference emblem. A detail from the work appeared in the programme and on the volume of conference papers.

Research presented at the 6th conference was published in Volume 6 (2016) of Actual Problems of Theory and History of Art. The bilingual collection ranged from the ancient world to the twenty-first century.

The organising committee acknowledged the Fabergé Museum in Baden-Baden and the Russian Artistic World Foundation, whose financial support contributed to the conference and the publication of its papers.