Based on methods used by comparative analysis, this article reveals how the poetics of art, poetry and music all converged in the first quarter of the 20th century. The article points out common artistic intentions, all based on the creative notion of cosmism as one of the paradigms of Russian art at the time. This is the perspective from which the realia organizing the poetics of sound, poetry and art will be briefly examined from the point of view of the “absolute”, seen as a criteria for “superlativity” and “perfection” in artistic creation. The term “absolute” is considered as a category proper to the Russian philosophical and aesthetic tradition, taking on aspects which may seem paradoxical when expressed in the creative work of symbolism and futurism.
Basing ourselves on the ideas of 19th-century Russian philosophers, we will analyse common features of “cosmism” in the works of Alexander Scriabin, Ivan Wyschnegradsky, as well as in the artworks of Vasily Chekrygin, Casimir Malevich, Vasily Kandinsky and in the poetry of Velimir Khlebnikov, Vasilisk Gnedov. The way followed by aesthetic and poetological theories in the first years of the 20th century leads from the synthesis of arts to the “nullification” of creation. The concepts lying at the basis of cosmism do not simply point to an era seeking global change, they are also a search for new mythologies which might be appropriate to those times.
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