«Беспримерная любовь к искусству»: Николай Гоголь и Александр Иванов

"Unparalleled love for art", the idea of selflessness unites the writer and the artist. In the early 1840s. in Gogol's interpretation of art, a religious dominant is brought to the fore. Art is understood by Gogol as "labor", which, by the will of God, becomes the main "mental affair" associated with its "internal structure." Rejection of oneself in the name of the law of God, repentance, and spiritual conversion give the contemporary artist true guidelines in his striving to find “inner thought”, comprehending the “high mystery of creation”. The idea of teaching as a personal confession of the Christian doctrine is clearly expressed both in autoreception and in the image of the artist, created by Gogol in his article "The Historical Painter Ivanov".