Этнографический мотив и художественный образ произведений изобразительного искус-ства

The  article  examines  the  process  of forming  an  ethnographic  motive  at  works  of  fine  art  on example of “Osuohkai” by Evgeniy Porotov and Yulia Porotova. The research is based on the semiotic analysis of the fine arts language, which allows tracing the stages of the formation of a separate trope at an artwork and comparing the features of the ethnographic motive’s formation and formation of an imagery. There is not only a common ideological key, but also single signs coexist at the imagery and ethnographic motive. This work presents a comparison of their meanings. If for an artistic image universal human values have greater importance, then for signs of an ethnographic motive, the entire centuries-old experience of a certain culture is added to the universal one.