Premonition of photography: About a strangeness in “The Portrait” by Gogol
Shevchenko Ekaterina Sergeevna
Samara University
Submitted: 14.09.2024
Abstract. The study aims to identify the characteristics of ekphrasis and intermediality in Nikolai Gogol’s novella “The Portrait”. The research is original in that it builds upon the chain “an icon – a painting” outlined by the researcher V. V. Lepakhin by adding a missing link, “a daguerreotype” (or “a photography”). Although the official date of photography’s invention is considered to be 1839, the image as an exact copy of reality, a certain premonition of photography, plays a significant role in the plot of Gogol’s novella. It was found that N. V. Gogol had a fear of photography as a complete likeness of real life, which is indirectly indicated by some facts of his biography: the only photograph of the writer is the group photograph with young artists learning the craft in Rome (1845), as well as contemporary mentions that the writer avoided being photographed, hiding his face from the camera. The results obtained have shown: 1) new technologies for creating cultural objects caused anxiety in Gogol the artist, which is reflected in the figure of Chertkov and other characters in the novella; 2) the “photographic” image, resembling an exact copy, appeared in Gogol’s novella as a “double” of the icon and its antipode; 3) in the plot of “The Portrait”, images resembling reality, striving to replace reality itself, are understood by the writer as delusion and apostasy, while the icon and the path to it are seen as ascension and asceticism, which is confirmed by the two-part composition and the intentional contrast of the novella’s parts; 4) the ekphrastic and intradiegetic images in “The Portrait” are conditioned by the author’s world of values, his religious feeling and spiritual vision.
Key words and phrases: интермедиальность в литературе, интрадиегетический образ, живописный экфрасис, религиозный экфрасис, миросозерцание Гоголя, духовное зрение Гоголя, визуальная поэтика повести «Портрет», intermediality in literature, intradiegetic image, pictorial ekphrasis, religious ekphrasis, Gogol’s worldview, Gogol’s spiritual vision, visual poetics of the novella “The Portrait”
Open the whole article in PDF format. Free PDF-files viewer can be downloaded .
References:
Bal' V. Yu. Motiv «zhivogo portreta» v povesti N. V. Gogolya «Portret»: tekst i kontekst. Tomsk, 2009.
Gippius V. V. Gogol'. L.: Mysl', 1924.
Gladilin M. S. N. V. Gogol' i stanovlenie bytovogo zhanra v russkoi zhivopisi // N. V. Gogol' i ego tvorcheskoe nasledie: sbornik materialov Desyatykh Gogolevskikh chtenii. M.: Fest-partner, 2010.
Dilaktorskaya O. G. N. V. Gogol' i A. A. Ivanov. K 200-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya N. V. Gogolya (1809-1852) // Gumanitarnye issledovaniya v Vostochnoi Sibiri i na Dal'nem Vostoke. 2009. № 2 (6).
Esaulov I. A. Ekfrasis v russkoi literature novogo vremeni: kartina i ikona // Ekfrasis v russkoi literature: trudy lozannskogo simpoziuma / sost. i red. L. Geller. M.: MIK, 2002.
Zhakkar Zh.-F. Literatura kak takovaya. Ot Nabokova k Pushkinu. Izbrannye raboty o russkoi slovesnosti. M.: NLO, 2011.
Zenkin S. N. Imago in fabula: intradiegeticheskii obraz v literature i kino. M.: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2023.
Lepakhin V. V. Zhivopis' i ikonopis' v povesti Gogolya «Portret». Po redaktsii «Arabesok» // Lepakhin V. V. Ikona v russkoi khudozhestvennoi literature. Ikona i ikonopochitanie, ikonopis' i ikonopistsy. M.: Otchii dom, 2002.
Lotman Yu. M. Khudozhestvennoe prostranstvo v proze Gogolya // Lotman Yu. M. O russkoi literature. SPb., 1997.
Mashkovtsev N. G. Gogol' v krugu khudozhnikov: ocherki. M.: Iskusstvo, 1955.
Sergeeva-Bernardini E. S. O dvukh redaktsiyakh «Portreta» Gogolya // Mir russkogo slova. 2009. № 2.
Strano Dzh. Zhivopisets po imeni Gogol' (Slovo i obraz v tvorchestve pisatelya) // N. V. Gogol' i ego literaturnoe okruzhenie. Vos'mye Gogolevskie chteniya: sb. dokladov mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii (g. Moskva, 1-4 aprelya 2008 g.). M.: ANO Fest-partner, 2009.
Khanzen-Leve O. A. Intermedial'nost' v russkoi kul'ture: ot simvolizma k avangardu / per. s nem. B. M. Skuratova, E. Yu. Smotritskogo. M.: RGGU, 2016.
Русский
