Abstract: The subject of the study is the thematic and iconographic directions of the negative interpretation of the image of an anarchist in the printed culture of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The object of the study is graphic works published in periodicals of various ideological trends and devoted to the representation of the image of an anarchist. Three main directions of such interpretation are identified and described, namely, the criminal-terrorist, the mentally ill and the immigrant, whose iconographic features are analyzed in the light of socio-political and historical-cultural conditions of each specific context. Among the reviewed publications should be mentioned: L'Assiette au beurre, Le Petit Journal (France), Freie Jugend (Germany), Het Volk (Netherlands), La Obra, El Peludo (Argentina), Star (New Zealand) and The Washington Post (USA).   The scientific novelty of the work consists in the fact that for the first time in modern art criticism, the process of forming the negative archetype of an anarchist is considered and analyzed on the basis of its graphic representation. Thus, a methodological basis is being created for studying the types of classification of the anarchist image. The methods used in the work are as follows: source studies, iconographic, artistic and stylistic analysis. The results of the study reveal the specifics of one of the interpretations of the image of an anarchist of the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, which has its roots in both right and left political trends, whose approaches to anarchism are based on socio-legal and medical sciences, among which criminology stands out. The latter, led by Cesare Lombroso, played a primary place in the mythologization, which is still active today, of the image of an anarchist as a carrier of chaos.