  The Riemann -- Silberstein -- Majorana -- Oppenheimer approach to the Maxwell
electrodynamics in vacuum is investigated within the matrix formalism. The
matrix form of electrodynamics includes three real 4 \times 4 matrices. Within
the squaring procedure we construct four formal solutions of the Maxwell
equations on the base of scalar Klein -- Fock -- Gordon solutions. The problem
of separating physical electromagnetic waves in the linear space
\lambda_{0}\Psi^{0}+\lambda_{1}\Psi^{1}+\lambda_{2}\Psi^{2}+ lambda_{3}\Psi^{3}
is investigated, several particular cases, plane waves and cylindrical waves,
are considered in detail.
