Nadezhda Guliaeva
Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, Russia
Russian literature of the 19th century borrows principles, themes, images and ideas from pictorial art, which formed the aesthetic the world view, and was included in the sphera of philosophical discourse. As a result, cultural background of the epoch is created by the interaction and interpenetration of different artistic codes, both verbal and visual. The subject of the writer’s creative interest is not only paintings, but also the history of their creation, as well as the artist and the broadest approach to his work. In this aspect ekphrasis, as an aesthetic phenomenon, related to the category of beauty and included in the literary text as a literary reception, seems the urgent problem of modern aesthetics.
The object of this report is the aesthetic phenomenon of ekphrasis in Leskov’s text. The paper examines how painting models verbal expression and aesthetic impression from paintings creates the meaning, on the example of “Zahudaliy rod. Family Chronicle of princes Protozanov (From the notes of Princess V. D. P)” (1874) by Nikolai Leskov.
Writer “attributed” portraits of central characters of the chronicle to Johann Baptist Lampi the Elder (1751–1830) and Orest Kiprensky (1783–1836). However, the analysis revealed a reference to the subjects and pictorial manners of other artists who were not mentioned in the text: Dmitry Levitsky (1735–1822) and Karl Bryullov (1799–1852). We managed to establish particular canvases, which served not only as material for a work of art, but also had the aesthetic impact, which gave birth to the author’s intent. These are portraits of “Empress Catherine II with allegorical figures and the Fortress of Truth” (1793) and “The Countess E. D. Samoilova” (1792–1796) by I. B. Lampi the Elder, “Portrait of Countess E. S. Samoilova” with double authorship by I. B. Lampi the Elder and Karl Bryullov, portraits of “E. N. Khrushcheva and E. N. Khovanskaya” by Dmitry Levitsky (1773) and “Shishmaryov Sisters” (1839) by K. Bryullov.
On the whole, the effect of ekphrasis, representing the visual image to the reader, is not associated with the rhetorical function of the method, which originated from the word (as it was in ancient tradition), but with the aesthetic impression from the works of art — in this case from the series of ceremonial portraits, which created a verbal image.