PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL
Journal Title: Studia Litterarum - Year 2017, Vol 2, Issue 2
Abstract
This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during Bryusov’s lifetime and claims that the portrait was as a universal point of convergence for verbal and visual arts. The dialogue between literature and graphics in the context of the synthesis of arts sheds new light on the possibilities for interdisciplinary research. The time of the “beautiful book” was a time of great artists and illustrators who introduced the peculiarities of their own style and the manner of their artistic schools into their art. Books were commonly decorated with vignettes and famous paintings. Portraits, as well as plates in general, were of the highest quality. They were ornamental and illusory, with every minute detail finely drawn out. Yet, in the second edition of the novel Bryusov deliberately included medieval engravings and portraits. A comparative analysis of the verbal portraits in The Fiery Angel and engraved portraits in the book (Ruprecht, Heinrich, Faust, Mephistopheles, Renata, and Madiel) demonstrates that both the main and the secondary characters of the novel are picturesque and multidimensional whereas the xylographic portraits rather reveal conventionality and simplicity of the medieval time. This way Bryusov was seeking to debase clichе’s, especially as regards Agrippa von Nettesheim and Faust: according to Bryusov, the character of Agrippa had already become a clichе’d image and so was the popular engraving of the scientist that he reproduced in the middle of the sixth chapter of the 1909 edition. Juxtaposing the verbal and the graphic portraits in The Fiery Angel helps us better understand the function of the verbal portrait in a Symbolist text that was determined by the author’s design, on the one hand, and by various “instruments” of different arts, on the other.
Authors and Affiliations
N. A. Drovaleva
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP26143
- DOI 10.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-2-10-21
- Views 330
- Downloads 13
TOWARDS THE DESCRIPTION OF “PHILOLOGICAL TRANSLATION” IN THE 1930s: ADRIAN A. FRANKOVSKY AS TRANSLATOR OF THE 18th CENTURY ENGLISH NOVEL
The first part of the article describes the phenomenon of “philological translation” in the Soviet culture of the 1930s and, in particular, translations of the 18 th century English novels by Adrian A. Frankovsky. Within...
The Plot and Its Modifications in the Temporal and Generic “Space”
With the loss of mythological beliefs, traditional plots become decompensated by their new interpretations. For example, when a tribe borrows a plot from a neighboring tribe but does not share the beliefs of the authen...
ADULT AND HIS OTHER: CONCEPTUALIZATION OF THE CHILDHOOD IN THE AUSTRIAN MODERNIST FICTION (ON THE EXAMPLE OF R.M. RILKE)
The childhood as the subject of psychology, philosophy, and art is object of intensive study in the 20th century Austrian culture. Childhood is seen as the origin of personhood, its “code” that calls for interpretation...
Rahel Vaenhagen and the Culture of Her Time
This essay examines the personality of Rahel Varnhagen, one of the brightest representatives of the German cultural milieu, owner of a literary salon that brought together prominent authors, artists, philosophers, noble...
ROMANTIC SELF IN SEARCH OF GOD: PHILOSOPHICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF S. T. COLERIDGE
The article deals with spiritual progress of S.T. Coleridge from his youthful interest in the followers of Locke (his direct predecessors in English intellectual tradition) to his fascination with pantheism, to his stud...