CANONIZATION OF THE VISUAL IMAGE OF RUSSIAN WRITERS IN PORTRAITURE OF THE 19TH-20TH CENTURIES

Abstract

This article is devoted to the consideration of the artistic images of classical Russian writers in the painting of the XIX - XX centuries. Despite the wide popularity of the portraits, a detailed analysis of the visual images directly embedded in them, apart from their own works, was not fully carried out. Through a comparative analysis of artistic means, we will build the evolution of the images of Russian writers in portraits of both individual artists and in the general context of painting of the 19th-20th centuries. This topic is of considerable relevance, since in many ways the image of writers and poets is formed not only and not so much by emphasizing their own works, but by means of pictorial representation, which to a large extent has a much stronger impact. We will draw direct parallels with the literary works of the writers in order to identify relationships or differences with their visual images in painting.

Extended abstract:

This article is devoted to the consideration of artistic images of classical Russian writers in the painting of the 19th and 20th centuries. Despite the wide popularity of the portraits presented in the report, detailed analysis of the visual images directly embedded in them without separation from their own works has not been fully carried out. With the help of comparative analysis of artistic means we will build the development of images of Russian writers in portraits as individual artists, and in the general context of painting of the XIX - XX centuries. This topic is of considerable importance, since in many respects the image of writers and poets is formed not only and not so much by emphasizing their own works, as much with the help of pictorial representation, which to a large extent has a much stronger impact. The article presents portraits of such writers as Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, Anna Andreevna Akhmatova and others, both well-known and unknown to the general public. Through description and comparative analysis, we will identify the development of the portrait genre and the image of the poet as a whole in 19th and 20th century painting. We will consider the addition to the canon of visual images of poets, the causes of these phenomena, as well as their existence and representation in later cultural traditions. Importantly, we will also draw direct parallels with the literary works of the writers presented in the report, in order to identify relationships or differences with their visual images in painting. Of course, despite the thoroughness of our analysis, this article cannot claim to be a complete review of all portraits of Russian writers. However, we have clearly demonstrated the basic principles of the canon of artistic representations of the above-mentioned cultural figures, and we have also analysed the ways of adding to this canon, from which we can conclude that, chronologically speaking, in most cases the visual characteristics of the portrayed hero appear and are fixed during the period of the greatest flowering of the writer's work. From an artistic point of view, these markers are mainly characteristic physiognomic features. In addition, it is important to note that all the artists we have considered in this article have, in one way or another, sought not only to achieve the most naturalistic representation of the character, but also to transfer specific character traits or specific personal impressions from the work of a particular writer.