Bunin is a mad artist. "Visuality in the short story I

The sun was golden in the east, behind the misty blue of distant forests, behind the white snowy lowlands, which the ancient Russian city looked at from a low mountain shore. It was Christmas Eve, a brisk morning with a slight frost and frost.

The Petrograd train had just arrived: cabs, with and without riders, were pulling up the hill, over the packed snow, from the railway station.

In the old large hotel on a spacious square, opposite the old shopping arcades, it was quiet and empty, tidied up for the holiday. No guests were expected. But then a gentleman in pince-nez, with amazed eyes, in a black velvet beret, from under which greenish curls fell, and in a long coat of shiny chestnut fur, drove up to the porch.

The red-haired bearded man on the box pretended to quack, wanting to show that he was cold and that he should be given some extra food. The rider did not pay attention to him, leaving the hotel to pay him.

“Take me to the brightest room,” he said loudly, following a young bellhop carrying his expensive foreign suitcase with a solemn step along the wide corridor. “I’m an artist,” he said, “but this time I don’t need a room to the north.” Not at all!

The bellhop opened the door to room one, the most honorable one, which consisted of an entrance hall and two spacious rooms, where the windows were, however, small and very deep due to the thick walls. The rooms were warm, cozy and calm, amber from the sun, softened by frost on the lower windows. Having carefully lowered the suitcase onto the carpet in the middle of the reception area, the bellhop, a young fellow with smart, cheerful eyes, stopped waiting for his passport and orders. The artist, short in stature, youthfully light despite his age, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, walked from corner to corner and, dropping his pince-nez with a movement of his eyebrows, rubbed his pale skin with his white, alabaster-like hands! exhausted face. Then he looked strangely at the servant with the unseeing gaze of a very short-sighted and absent-minded man.

December twenty-fourth one thousand nine hundred and sixteen! - he said. - You must remember this date!

“I’m listening,” answered the bellhop.

The artist took out a gold watch from the side pocket of his jacket, glanced at it briefly, squinting one eye.

“Exactly half past nine,” he continued, placing his glasses on his bow again. - I’m at the goal of my pilgrimage. Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth, good will to men! I’ll give you a passport, don’t worry, but I don’t have time for a passport right now. I don't have a single free minute. Now I'm rushing to the city to return at exactly eleven. I must complete my life's work. “My young friend,” he said, extending his hand to the bellhop and showing him two wedding rings, of which one, on the little finger, was a woman’s - this ring is a dying covenant!

“That’s right,” answered the bellhop.

And I will fulfill this covenant! - the artist said menacingly. - I will write an immortal thing! And I will give it to you.

“We humbly thank you,” answered the bellhop.

But, my dear, the fact is that I did not take any canvas or paints with me - it was completely impossible to bring them in because of this monstrous war. I hope to get them here. I will finally realize everything that drove me crazy for two whole years, and then was so wonderfully transformed in Stockholm!

Speaking and hammering out words, the artist looked straight through his pince-nez at his interlocutor.

The whole world must know and understand this revelation, this good news! - he exclaimed, theatrically waving his hand. - Do you hear? The whole world! All!

“Okay, sir,” answered the bellhop. - I'll report to the owner.

In the world, my friend, there is no holiday higher than Christmas.

There is no sacrament equal to the birth of a person. The last moment of the bloody, old world! A new man is born!

It got completely cold outside and it became completely sunny. Frost was drawn on the telegraph wires blue sky tender and bluish and already crumbling and crumbling. The square was crowded with a whole forest of thick, dark green fir trees. At the butcher shops there were frozen white carcasses of naked pigs with deep cuts on the thick scruff of the neck, gray hazel grouse, plucked geese, turkeys, fat and frozen, hanging. Passers-by hurried, talking to each other, the cab drivers whipped their shaggy horses, and the undercutters squealed.

I recognize you, Rus'! - the artist spoke loudly, walking across the square and looking at the tightly belted, thickly dressed, cheerful merchants and women traders shouting near their stalls with homemade wooden toys and large white gingerbread cookies in the form of horses, roosters and fish.

He called a free cab driver and ordered him to go to the main street.

Just be quicker, I have to be home at work by eleven,” he said, sitting down in the cold sled, placing a heavy, heated cavity on his knees.

The driver shook his cap and quickly carried him on his well-fed gelding along the shiny, well-worn road.

More alive, more alive! - the artist repeated. At twelve the sun is at its fullest. “Yes,” he said, looking around, “the places are familiar, but thoroughly forgotten!” What is the name of this piazza?

What do you want? - asked the cab driver.

I ask you, what is the name of this square? - shouted the artist, suddenly falling into a rage. - Stop, scoundrel! Why did you bring me to the chapel? I'm afraid of churches and chapels! Stop! You know that one Finn brought me to the cemetery, and I immediately wrote letters to the king and to the pope, and he was sentenced to death! Take it back!

The driver reined in the runaway horse and looked at the rider with bewilderment:

Where do you want to go? You said on the main street...

I told you - to the art store!

You'd better hire someone else, master, we don't understand.

Well, get the hell out! Here are your pieces of silver!

Kim Tonin(1900–1951) born in Pyongyang. The work of this writer is one of the most interesting phenomena in Korean literature of the 20–30s of the XX century. At the beginning of the 20th century, he gained fame as one of the recognized masters of Korean prose. A special place in artistic heritage the writer belongs precisely short story. In 1919, Kim Tonin created the first purely literary magazine in the history of Korean literature, Creation.

Translation by Inna Tsoi

Mad Artist

Story

Guardian spirit.

A young pine tree stands on a rock, and moss glistens under the pine tree.

Bending down, I see under the rock several orchid bushes that bloom with yellow flowers.

The leaves of the orchids sway from the blows of the wind hitting the rock.

I bent down and picked at the bottom with a stick. However, there was still a meter and a half left before the orchids. I looked over, and there was a gorge.

Gorge. Its entire surface is covered with pine needles. Although gray rocks can be seen here and there, it is impossible to see the ground under the trees. If you fall in this place, you will roll on pine needles and, probably, fall somewhere out there, in some unknown ravine.

And there are also rocks behind me - high, more than six to seven meters. If you climb these rocks, you can see a huge valley on the other side of the Muak mountain pass. There is an old rock under my feet. Below it are several bushes of orchids, even lower are two or three young pines, behind the pines there is another rock, on the rock there are bell flowers, and below the rock a steep gorge begins.

At the place where the gorge ends, part of the city street Gyeongsong1 is visible above the pine trees. From a distance you can see cars driving back and forth along the road. Before my eyes is the same picture of a chaotic and noisy world.

But here, where I am standing now, there are deserted mountains. Mountains that fully justify the name “deaf”. And the wind, and caves, and steep cliffs, and pine trees - these are all remote mountains where you can fully feel the charm of solitude and peace.

Once upon a time, on the site of this city there was a valley surrounded by dense mountains. For five centuries the valley was leveled, plowed up and built up, and now here is the city of Gyeongsong. Now you will never know what was on the mind of the founder of the Li dynasty when he decided to build the capital in such a narrow valley. However, in the opinion of today's walker, Seoul is a uniquely beautiful city in the world. If you think that, living in the city, you can go out for a walk after eating, as they say, without even tying up your pants, and immediately find yourself in the remote mountains, in solitude and silence, then in this respect Seoul is a unique city.

I looked around the city with a five-hundred-year history quietly spread out below under the dark gray roofs. The grass grows wildly around me. The sound of a mountain river running into a gorge and amazing birds flying in front of me evoke the delight that travelers usually experience.

I stuck the stick into the crevice of the rock. And in order not to fall and roll head over heels, he noticed a place between a rock and a pine tree and sat there, bent over. I wanted to smoke, but realized that I didn’t take any tobacco with me. I thought that I would go out for a walk for a while, but unnoticed, step by step, I wandered into that direction. There's nothing to smoke.

On one side of me there are high cliffs, on the other there is a blue sky, and at the very edge you can see three or four pine branches with needles. The smell of pine resin can be heard faintly from somewhere. The sound of the wind in the pines... Indescribable silence and solitude. In fact, how many people since the creation of the world have been here, in this place where I am sitting now? Am I not the very first person to set foot on this rock in its entire existence? Was there anyone else besides me, a fool, who climbed the rock, trying his best to get to this place, and wasted so much energy? There are many brave men who climb into remote mountains for the sake of adventure, but I don’t think there were many who would be desperate to get to the guardian spirit itself.

There is a cave in the rock behind me.

Fearing that I would stumble upon snakes, I did not go inside, but rummaged around with a stick and discovered that the cave could easily fit three people.

Is it possible to somehow use this cave?

For five hundred years, in Hanyang,3 this city of intriguers and conspirators, all sorts of vile performances were played out. If only these people knew about the existence of this cave, the entrance to which is cut right on the nearby street, and that it can be reached from the outskirts of the city in just half an hour, then maybe they would use it for conspiracies?

Empty dreams!

Fascinated by this deep silence, I fell deeper and deeper into joyless empty dreams, and the cave was to blame.

All sorts of conspiracies, accompanied by massacres, blackmail, expulsions and exiles - these terrible images of the five-hundred-year reign of the Li dynasty inspired dark fantasies in me.

To quickly get rid of such joyless thoughts, I again rummaged in my pockets for tobacco, but there was still nowhere to get it from.

I looked down again, and suddenly something sparkled through the dense tops of the pines!

Looking closely, I saw a spring with spring water. The stream peeking through the gaps between the pines apparently seeped through a crevice in the rock, and this trembling sound was most certainly the sound of the wind. It cannot be that the sound of a spring gushing far below could be heard even here, in this very place.

Should I try to write a story about a spring? After all, the running water is so beautiful, and its murmur is pleasant, and its taste is excellent - maybe some interesting story about the stream will be born in my head? Isn't it better to come up with another, more beautiful story than the joyless empty fantasies of conspiracies and murders that came to my mind at the sight of this cave?

I pulled out a stick stuck in a crevice in the rock. Tapping it lightly on the rock at my feet, I began to compose a story.

There lived a certain artist. What was his name?

It's a troublesome thing to come up with names, so I'll take the name of a famous artist from the Silla era and call him Solguo.4

Maybe take the time of the reign of Emperor Sejong, when the city that is visible in front of me was experiencing the most beautiful time of its heyday.

Hundreds of atrocities were planned and committed here. There stands the Gyeongbokgung Palace, the center of the vital energy of all of Hanyang. A middle-aged man with an expression of suffering on his face is hiding in the mulberry garden outside the northern gate of Xinmu.

This is the artist Solgo.

Midsummer, mulberry foliage protects from the hot rays of the sun. The air is warm - in this mulberry garden, where there are green leaves overhead and the ground is humid and stuffy, the artist Solgo is hiding. Judging by the small bundle in which the lunch is wrapped, he plans to stay here until dinner.

But what is he doing? He just sits with a pained look, sweating profusely.

This garden, by order of the king, was used for breeding silkworms, and ordinary people It was forbidden to go there. During the whole day, not even the shadow of a person flashes there.

Occasionally the wind will rustle over the trees, but where Solgo is hiding there is not the slightest movement. With every breath of wind in the sultry air, Solgo shudders in surprise, but continues to gaze intently into the distance, as if expecting something

After some time, twilight, having crossed the Muak mountain pass, falls on this city. After waiting until it gets dark, the artist quietly emerges from his hiding place.

The day passed in vain. Maybe I should watch it again tomorrow?

Sighing heavily, the artist returned to his shack. It was almost completely dark, but in some places there were still dimly lit places. And when the artist fell into a streak of light, his face appeared, and it was ugly. Rarely has anyone seen such ugliness in this world.

The nose is like a clay bottle. The eyes are like two large circles. The ears are like scoops. Mouth resembles copper pipe. The facial expression is like that of a toad. He had such an ugly face that it would take every possible adjective to describe him. Moreover, this face was so large that even from a distance one could clearly distinguish its features.

With such a face, he himself was ashamed to appear somewhere in daylight.

Indeed, Solgo never appeared in public in daylight, although he was already of a conscious age.

He married early, at the age of sixteen, to a girl from a noble family, whom his mentor had arranged for him, but when she saw Solgo’s face, she immediately fainted and, coming to her senses, hastily ran away to her home. He tried to marry again, but his other betrothed managed to hold out for only one night, and on the second day the girl stubbornly told her parents that she was scared and she couldn’t be with him, even if she died. This is how he experienced the second tragedy in his personal life...

After suffering two shocks, Solgo gradually began to avoid women, and this desire became stronger every day. And then he didn’t want to deal with those who call themselves people at all.

In order to hide away from human eyes and devote himself entirely to painting, he left the human village and made himself a tiny home in a remote forest thicket. So he lived for almost thirty years, hiding there from people. To get what he needed for life or for painting, that is, every time he needed to go out onto a city street, he put on a large bamboo hat and also covered his face with hemp cloth.

Forty years have passed since he began to paint, thirty years since he was forced to lead the life of an ascetic and recluse; and that male power, which he could not realize while living alone, accumulated in his head. The male energy concentrated in his brain, transmitted to his fingertips, splashed out onto paper, and there were already a countless number of such drawings. Initially he had no dissatisfaction with his paintings.

Every time this or that picture appeared - the fruit of the talent given to him by nature, the skills acquired from the master and the male potency he had accumulated - he, appreciating it, was completely satisfied and even felt proud.

However, following the same path, in his twentieth year the artist gradually began to feel the first shoots of discontent in his soul. It is possible that at some point he began to think differently about painting techniques.

Can't you draw something else?

Mountain, sea, tree, stream, old man with a staff in his hand. Bridge or boat with raised sails, flowers. Moon, ox, shepherd...

Has he tried to draw anything else yet?

He wanted to depict something other than these traditional landscapes, imbued with the spirit of antiquity.

I wanted to draw a different face, more alive than the faces of those venerable, gray-haired elders or the faces of shepherds playing the pipe. This he learned from the master. I wanted to capture a more expressive face.

And from that time on, without sparing himself and using certain traditional means and drawing techniques, Solgo for ten years tried to convey in a drawing the expression of a living human face. However, the artist who retired from human world and lived in complete solitude, I couldn’t remember what a person’s face looked like.

The roguish faces of merchants, the impassive, expressionless faces of passers-by, the lean faces of bird catchers... Only such faces met him at that time, and even now he can easily meet people with such physiognomies on the road. Is there really no face with a different expression?

A face with a different expression!

A face with different emotions!

As this passionate desire matured and intensified in the artist’s soul, a certain memory vaguely surfaced in his head.

The expression on his mother's face.

Now it has almost completely faded from memory, but still sometimes the expression on his mother’s face, when she pressed him, little, to her chest, and, bending over, looked at him with eyes full of tears - this memory rose from the very depths of his memory.

His mother was a rare beauty. She was so beautiful that it seemed to take away all the beauty for many years to come from subsequent generations.

The artist was born to this beauty after the death of her father.

A mother holding her fatherless child to her heart. A bowed face with eyes from which no tears were allowed to fall.

As an adult, the artist saw only fright and fear on the faces of those who looked at him. Therefore, at times, with chilling sadness, he yearned for the beautiful, loving face of his mother, who looked at him with such love more than forty years ago.

He wanted to draw her face.

There are tears in the huge eyes, and yet they sparkle with joy and tenderness, and there is a hidden smile on the lips.

He wanted to capture this vision, which for a moment illuminated his soul like lightning, and then slipped away again. The artist shunned the world and lived constantly in hiding, so in his strange and bizarre soul the desire to depict this world became just as passionate. And as this desire intensified, his soul was filled with a feeling of resentment and discontent.

The artist threw down his brush and with a gloomy look thought that somewhere, just at these moments earthly women and men in the prime of life are having fun and joking, clasping each other in their arms.

The artist, whose soul was in constant turmoil, became more and more capricious and fastidious day by day. He decided to paint a portrait of the most beautiful woman on earth.

At first he was going to draw just a woman with a beautiful face. But, not having the opportunity to see such a beauty up close with his own eyes, the artist was unable to draw what his soul required. In irritation, he moved the tip of the brush over the paper, and somehow imperceptibly during these fruitless efforts his ideas about the beauty of a woman changed.

He wanted to draw an ideal beauty whom he would like to see as his wife.

The world did not give him a wife.

Look, even a small insect, even a small bird, is looking for a mate, rejoicing and having fun, finding each other and enjoying, but here a man - the great master of all things on earth - has been living without his half for fifty years now - from these thoughts, discontent grew in his soul.

He thought that earthly people had deprived him of a mate, that earthly women did not want to come to him, and that no one would even know about him, having spent his whole life alone, when he died, and that he would disappear somewhere in the mountains . As a result, he came to the conclusion that this world is not only not worthy of regret, but, on the contrary, this ruthless world is hateful to him.

Well, he himself, with the tip of his brush, will create the wife whom the world has deprived him of, and will still laugh at him.

Compared to the most beautiful woman who has ever existed on this earth, the beauty created by his brush will be incomparably more beautiful. He will also laugh at earthly beauties who consider themselves irresistible, although in fact they are ugly.

He will also look with contempt at those foolish men who took not so good wives as their wives. beautiful women, but they believe that these are incomparable beauties in the entire Celestial Empire.

He will also force those scoundrels who have four or five wives and concubines with them to bow before him and enjoy and dance with pleasure.

Gorgeous! Gorgeous!

The artist either closed his eyes or opened them, clasped his head in his hands, but no matter how hard he tried to imagine the beauty’s face, he could not do anything.

Of course, if the face is smooth, without roughness and all its features are harmonious, then such people are usually called earthly beauties. If you add blush or smiling eyes to such a face, it will become even more attractive. It’s possible to imagine such a face, and it’s not difficult to paint it with a brush.

But the artist, in whose memory the image of his mother and her face, as he remembered it in childhood, was imprinted with a slight shadow, such beauties did not bring satisfaction.

So he suffered and tormented himself year after year.

Several years have passed since the lower part of the beauty’s portrait was painted. About the same thing, how to depict top part- face, he had no idea.

Every time the artist entered his shack, the picture that hung at the entrance seemed to reproach him and call: “Come on, paint my face and neck.”

The picture made the artist feel uneasy.

Previously, unless there was any special business, the artist did not go outside during the day. Now, as usual, having wrapped his face, he began to wander around the city during the daytime.

Even if on the road, he will suddenly be lucky enough to meet an extraordinary beauty.

If for just one moment he saw a beauty he liked on the road, then perhaps he would be able to clearly hold this image in his head and complete the portrait from memory...

However, in this city, where the laws for men and women were strict, women from noble families did not appear on the street during the day with their heads uncovered. If there were any women, most of them were either servants or women of the lower class.

Although occasionally among them there were those who could be called attractive. However, the portrait required a woman who had pure beauty. Their faces expressed only stupidity; it was impossible to discern anything else.

Having wrapped his face, the artist wandered the streets, staggered and loitered either at the well or at the bazaar in the hope that many women would gather there. And if he came across even the slightest attractive ones, he followed them and tried to study their faces, but so far he had not been able to find a beauty who would satisfy his needs.

Maybe in the houses, in the half where women live,5 there will be a beauty that he will like? Ah, this women's room! Women's quarters! If only once I could see all the women from these rooms and appreciate their faces!..

At the end of the day, spent in excitement and anxiety, the artist, in search of the beauty, chose the royal mulberry garden as his last hope and entered there to see the faces of the court ladies collecting mulberry leaves. But, unfortunately, the bold journey was in vain: that day no one came to the garden.

It was the height of the silkworm breeding season, and if one decided to wait patiently and for a long time, the day would come when the ladies of the court would appear in this garden. The artist, burning with anger and a passionate desire to paint his wife’s face, the next day again entered the garden and hid there. Hiding among the mulberry trees, he waited patiently.

Every day for a whole month the artist, taking food with him, went to the mulberry garden. But every time he returned home in the evening, he only sighed deeply.

Not at all because he was unable to see the ladies of the court.

As if at a viewing party, which seemed specially arranged for the artist, hidden in the mulberry thickets, women from the royal palace appeared and passed in front of him day after day. The sleeves and hems of their dresses fluttered in the wind. They gathered several people at a time, picked mulberry leaves and left. So in the whole month he saw forty or fifty court ladies.

They were all beauties of the highest class. Compared to the women glimpsed on the road or at the well, their faces were more refined, there was no doubt about it.

But the eyes... The artist imagined them like this...

There was tenderness and joy in those eyes. They are filled to the brim with love. The ladies of the court did not have this. In other words, they were ordinary beauties.

The enormous claims of the artist, who wanted for himself the most beautiful of all beauties and who thereby wanted to take revenge on this ruthless world for depriving him of such a woman, could not be satisfied with beauties of this kind.

Each time, returning to his hut, he sighed long and heavily, and these sighs continued for a whole month. He never went to the mulberry garden again.

It was one of the days when the autumn sky is transparent and gives off an amazing blue.

With indignation filling his soul and unsatisfied desire, the artist, attaching a bamboo basket to the side, headed to the stream to wash rice for dinner.

But after taking a few steps, he suddenly stopped.

On a stone by the stream, which was visible through the spreading pines, he saw a girl. She sat detached, absorbing the dappled rays of the evening sunset breaking through the pine branches, and looked down at the running stream.

How did this girl end up here?

In a place quite remote from human habitation. In a place that is too high for a person from the village to reach. In a place where there is not even a path. Until now, and even then only occasionally, only a woodcutter or a shepherd came here, but for traces of someone else to be here? This has never happened here. How did this girl end up in such a place?

The artist, stopped in confusion, began to watch her from afar. And as he watched, a heavy tension gradually arose in his chest.

Step by step, trying not to make noise, he began to move forward.

The distance between them gradually decreased, and the girl’s face became more and more distinct... Blood rushed to the artist’s face.

There are few such beauties in the world. She is seventeen or eighteen years old. Her facial features were beautiful, but even more wonderful, surprisingly beautiful was the expression on her face.

Either the girl could not take her eyes off the running water, or she was listening to something, but one way or another all her attention was focused on this stream. With her eyes wide open, as if she had forgotten how to blink, she gazed in fascination at the running stream.

Maybe she sees a dragon palace in this stream? What does it seem like to a bending girl with bangs, slightly fluttering in the wind and scattered from contact with pine trees? What does it seem to a girl who has completely given herself over to contemplation, who has concentrated all her dreams, all her passion, all her delight in a charming smile shining in her eyes and on her lips?

Finally he found it! This is an admirable facial expression that the artist tried for ten years to see and find on the roads near human villages or near a well and even in the royal mulberry garden, but could not find it. He found this face completely unexpectedly and right here.

The artist quickened his pace. He completely forgot how terrible his face was, and did not think how scared this girl would be if she looked at him. He quickly walked towards her.

Hearing the artist’s steps, the girl easily raised her head. She looked straight at him. But the girl’s wonderful gaze was directed somewhere into the boundless distance.

When the artist, with a heavy heart, not knowing what to say, made some incomprehensible sound, as if his tongue had suddenly become wooden, the girl was the first to break the silence:

What kind of place is it?

Here is a mountain that doesn’t even have a mountain guardian spirit, and you, so young, why are you here?

Yes... - Suddenly the girl became sad. - Somehow I groped my way along the stream.

The artist bowed his head. I tried to move. But the girl’s gaze remained motionless, as if directed somewhere into the distance. Her eyes, although wide open, looked through him, and it was impossible to understand where her gaze was directed.

Suddenly the artist screamed loudly.

Do you see what's ahead?

I'm blind.

She was blind. Hearing the girl answer, holding back tears, the artist came closer to her.

You can't even see what's in front of you! How did you get to this remote place?

The girl lowered her head low. She seemed to say something in response, but the artist could not catch her words. That amazingly charming expression that he had seen a few minutes ago disappeared, and the artist lost interest in the blind girl.

Of course, there was no doubt that she was a rare beauty. But it was not only her beauty that struck the artist at the very first moment. It was this amazing charm that was reflected on her face that attracted him.

Poor thing. Evening is already approaching, get down and go home before it gets dark.

Having said this, the artist decided to leave the girl. But she answered him:

Although it is dark, twilight is still very beautiful, right?

Beautiful, beautiful...

How beautiful are they?

Golden light flows in streams in the western mountains. There, the entire heavenly world was painted in a bright red color - green pine trees, dark blue rocks, and brown tree trunks - everything is buried in golden color...

What color is it - gold, bright red, green and dark blue, what are all these colors? I heard that the landscape of these mountains is very beautiful, and although I somehow got here, except for the sound of the wind and the sound of the water, except for what is heard by my ear, I cannot know where and how beautiful it is.

Gradually, the girl regains her former refined expression, broadly open eyes a wave of joy flashed. The beautiful expression, which had disappeared for a moment, began to appear again.

Eventually the artist came and sat down opposite the girl.

If you go down the stream, you can see the sea, and in its depths - the dragon's palace. There are columns entwined with silk of seven colors, skillfully carved stone steps and intricately shaped staircases, bells made of gold under the roof, doorposts decorated with pearls...

As the artist spoke, the girl’s eyes became more and more brilliant with each passing moment. Finally, the artist decided that he would return home with the girl.

I'll tell you about the dragon palace. But only if they don’t worry in your house...

So the artist lured the girl, and she raised her huge eyes, looked high into the sky and said that even if her parents lost such a cripple like her, they would not worry too much. And she willingly followed the artist.

My dreams, which took me a thousand miles away, were suddenly interrupted. How to continue this story?

Thoughts are racing through your head in disarray. At the same time, I hear lines from a popular song coming from somewhere...

I raised my head. Apparently, people are approaching from somewhere on the other side. Involuntarily listening to this loud song, I thereby prevent myself from concentrating.

This annoying song. Damn her.

Because of this damn song, there is no way to collect the interrupted story.

Are there stories without an end? Shouldn't we come up with at least some kind of resolution?

Maybe it should end like this: the artist took the girl with him, returned to his shack and, while telling her about the dragon’s palace, drew her face and made his old dream come true?

Where did such a bland ending come from? But since it turned out like this, then there’s no point in starting the story!

And then what?

Then maybe we should come up with a different ending?

The artist returned home with the girl. And he told her about the dragon palace. However, compared to how the girl heard about the palace back then for the first time, now she apparently did not feel so much excitement, and the expression on her face was not so wonderful. The artist's intentions burst like a soap bubble. He had no choice but to leave this picture unfinished forever.

And such an ending is also no good.

Then again...

The artist returned home with the girl. And at home, the longer he looked at her, the more she fascinated him, so in the end he gave up finishing the picture, and the girl became his wife. The blind girl and the ugly artist lived their lives carefree and cheerfully. The artist, who wanted the woman depicted in the painting to become his wife, acquired a real beauty as his wife.

Not the same again.

Boring and primitive. Damn this song.

I got up. Having lost interest, I did not want to stay and just sit in this place. The sounds of a popular tune can still be heard. I'll go where this song is not heard.

Bending down, I saw that in the distance something flashed through the pine trees - that same spring. Let me go down to the spring that formed the basis of my story. Going down this steep cliff was more difficult than going up it. When you climb a mountain, even if you fall and stumble, at least you will end up in the same place. However, if you trip on your foot while descending, you don’t know how long you’ll be sliding down. In extreme cases, you can even get to the very outskirts of Cheonundong. Moreover, the stick that helped me when going up was terribly in the way when going down.

It took about half a quarter of an hour to reach the spring.

And the spring actually had a rock on which one person could fit perfectly. Perhaps the artist washed rice on this rock? Or maybe it was on this that the girl sat and indulged in daydreams? I thought there was a deep cliff underneath, but it turned out that there was water flowing there in a weak, sluggish stream, making its way out from under the rock no more than an inch deep.

The gorge itself was completely silent. Even the sound of the wind came from somewhere above, in the distance. In those ancient times, this rather gloomy gorge with pine trees and rocks may have brought joy to the artist.

The artist returned home with the girl.

He was in such tension, and his soul was so joyful that he did not even want to cook dinner. Entering the shack, he saw that the unfinished portrait of a woman, waiting for several years for a head to be added to it, seemed to greet him with joy.

Okay, sit there.

The prepared paints were waiting for him.

With his heart beating with excitement, ready to burst, the artist stood in front of the canvas, sat the girl so that the light fell in her direction, and, dipping his brush, began his story.

He wanted to fulfill his old dream today, when there was still a little time left before dusk. That strength of the artist, which had been accumulating in him all these ten years, when he was just conceiving his painting, but could not begin work, was now completely concentrated in his hands.

And... you understand, right?

He looked at the girl, talked about the dragon palace, and his hands moved his brush with lightning speed.

In the palace the dragon has the precious pearl Mani7. With this pearl you can achieve whatever your heart desires. Once you pass it over your eyes, you will be able to see bright sun and the moon.

Yes? Is there such a jewel?

Yes, yes. But only you must obey me well, and then in a few days I will take you to the palace of the dragon, where we will ask for the pearl of Mani’s desires, and I will heal your eyes.

And then I too will be able to see the bright sun and moon?

Yes, the bright sun, and the moon, and a wonderful bright seven-color rainbow, and a beautiful grove, and a deep gorge - what you won’t see!

Oh, I wish I could get this pearl of desires as soon as possible!

Ahh, amazing beautiful expression. The artist did not miss anything from this amazing expression of admiration that appeared on the girl’s face and overwhelmed her. He transferred this expression to the canvas.

Twilight somehow imperceptibly gave way to night. Only the pupils of the woman in the picture were not painted; everything else was completely completed.

He wanted to finish drawing the pupils as well. But it was already too dark for this, and the vitality of the whole picture depended on the pupils.

What will happen if he finishes drawing these pupils during the day, when it dawns? But one way or another, the artist’s soul, which finally, after ten long years, achieved its cherished dream, experienced incomparable joy.

This exclamation of admiration was that exclamation of joy that is heard at the completion of a long-planned task. But along with the calm that came, other feelings awakened in the artist’s soul - tension and passion.

In order to better see the girl’s face in the impenetrable darkness, the artist sat down at her knees so close that he almost touched them. He calmed down a little and almost finished painting the picture, but due to the fact that he smelled the girl’s body and felt her closeness with all his gut, his nerves became tense to the limit. Gradually his whole body began to shake. In this darkness, the girl’s delightfully sparkling huge eyes and her lips, trembling with passionate desire, completely captured the artist’s consciousness...

During the day, the artist and the blind girl were no longer strangers to each other.

Today I'll finish drawing the pupils.

The artist, who lived a single life for thirty years and ate alone for thirty years, had breakfast for the first time not alone, but with a blind girl. He sat down in front of the painting again.

What about the dragon palace?

The girl's eyes sparkled with joy. However, these eyes, the brilliance of which he enjoyed as an artist, no longer sparkled as they did yesterday.

Of course, the second such beautiful eyes not in the world. But now these were the eyes of a woman yearning for love. These were the eyes of a woman, the passionate and loving eyes of a girl who in the past had endured insults for her injury, but who was now freed from this oppressive feeling and for the first time since last night knew what the “spring of life” is.

Dragon Palace?

Let's quickly go to the dragon palace, find the wishing pearl there, and you will open my eyes. I want to open my eyes quickly and look at this bright world, and on you... Will you get it for me?

But if I can’t get it, I’ll get it. This seven-color bright...

I would rather look at the seven colors.

Of course of course. In the meantime, think and imagine it in your head now.

Yes, but I really want to see it as soon as possible...

You bend over and see that the painting standing at your knees is just waiting for its pupils.

But what was reflected in the eyes of the blind girl, although beautiful, still could not express anything other than love and passion. Those eyes weren't worth ten years of dedicated effort.

Let's think about the dragon palace!

So what if I start thinking? You need to see it with your own eyes as soon as possible.

At least try to think about it.

If you have an idea about it, then thoughts arise, isn’t it?

Think the way you thought yesterday!

In the end, the artist became irritated.

Come on dragon palace! Dragon Palace!

Think of a dragon palace! So, what kind of palace is it?

Seven colors and bright.

So, what else?

And also golden columns, no, columns woven from silk. And also green pearls...

Green is not a pearl! Green is jade!

Either the roof or the doors are green.

Eh, fool!

The artist grabbed the blind girl’s shoulders with his huge hands. He grabbed them and began to shake them.

Let's do it again, carefully. Dragon Palace?

A palace in the depths of the sea...

The artist could not restrain himself and hit the girl on the cheek. The girl shook with fear and fright.

Where else can you find such a fool? To look - these sick eyes don’t even know how to blink, and everyone is looking somewhere into emptiness. The artist looked into these empty eyes, and dissatisfaction and annoyance increasingly overwhelmed him. He grabbed the blind girl by the throat.

Oh, you fool! Idiot! Cripple!

Grabbing her by the throat, he began to shake her, constantly hurling curses that came to his mind, and bringing down all his anger on her. When he saw that something like a feeling of resentment and bitterness arose in her eyes, clouded like a sick person, he began to shake her harder. Suddenly he released her from his hands. The body of the blind girl became too heavy...

The girl slipped out of the artist’s hands and fell backward. As she fell, she hit the ink pot, and it overturned. Droplets of mascara rolled down from the ink bottle onto the girl's face.

Frightened, the artist tried to shake her, but the blind girl no longer belonged to this world.

The artist did not know what to do. He rushed about in complete confusion and suddenly involuntarily glanced at his painting, and... Oh! He screamed and fell.

Pupils somehow managed to appear imperceptibly on the face that was looking at him from the picture. The artist came to his senses, stood up and looked at the painting again: the pupils of the eyes were completely drawn.

But the way the pupils were drawn made the artist sit up again, and he could not move from his place. The eyes of a blind girl looked at him, reflecting the same expression of despair when the artist grabbed her by the throat!

These were the same pupils as then, at that moment.

There was nothing strange in the fact that the blind girl fell and hit the ink pot, and there was nothing strange in the fact that when the ink pot overturned, droplets of ink splashed out of it, but how did these drops fall in such a miraculous way? How did it happen so amazingly that, due to the spread of mascara, even irises appeared around the eyes, whereas at first only the pupils appeared, and only because droplets of mascara fell there? On one side is a dead girl, on the other is a completed portrait. The artist sat there with an absent look and could no longer get rid of the slight trembling that beat him.

A few days later, inside the city fortress, some crazy old man appeared, who with a gloomy face wandered around the city, holding a very strange portrait of a woman in his hands. No one knew where he came from, and no one knew about his past. The old man must have treasured this portrait very much, because he did his best to resist people looking at the painting and immediately ran away.

So he wandered for several years, and one day, during a strong snowstorm, he lay down on the rocks and died. Even dying, he continued to clutch this single portrait to his chest.

Old artist! I mourn your sad fate. Having lowered the stick into the water, I moved it a little more and slowly stood up.

Looking up, I saw that the summer afternoon sunset was already dancing over the snow-white range of mountains and a mountain bird was flying over this ancient gorge towards the south.

1 One of the old names of Seoul.

2 In traditional Korean clothing, men's pants were tied at the bottom with ribbons.

3 One of the old names of Seoul.

4 The biography of the artist Solgo is included in “Samguk Sagi” - “Historical Records of the Three States” by Kim Pusik (1075–1151), in the book. 48th: Solgo is from Silla. Since his birth he had neither means nor service, so there are no records of his ancestry. From birth he already knew how to draw well. He once painted an old pine tree on the wall of Hwannyeon Temple. The trunk had scales and cracks, and the branches with needles were bent like a bowl. Crows, falcons, swallows and sparrows, seeing a pine tree from afar, flew towards it, but when they flew close, they stopped helplessly and fell. As the years passed, the colors darkened. The temple monks touched up the tree with red and green paints, but the birds no longer came. The portraits of the Bodhisattva in the Punghwangsa Temple from Gyeongju and in the Tangseok Temple from Jinju are the creations of his brush. People say that this was written in the spirit.

5 Cor. unban- in traditional Korean houses, the interior of the house, female half. According to Korean law, entrance to unban outsiders were prohibited. Even the authorities did not have the right to enter there to arrest the owner of the house.

6 A measure of length equal to 0.576 km.

7 In Buddhist legends, this was the name of a precious pearl, with the help of which a person could fulfill all his desires. According to other legends, this pearl is located in the mouth of the Dragon.

Translation I. V. TSOI

Inna Valerianovna Tsoi born in 1973 in Leningrad. Graduated from the Department of Korean Philology, Faculty of Oriental Studies, St. Petersburg State University. Candidate philological sciences. The dissertation was devoted to the work of the writer Kim Tonin (1900–1951). Scientific interests: modern Korean literature, culture and linguoculturology. Worked as a teacher in the Republic of Korea: from 2003 to 2004 at the University foreign languages“Hanguk”, from 2004 to 2006 - at Hallim University. Currently he teaches at the Faculty of Oriental Studies at St. Petersburg State University. Author of more than 10 scientific publications.

Ivan Alekseevich Bunin INSANE ARTIST Original here: Digital library Yabluchansky.<...>The sun was golden in the east, behind the misty blue of distant forests, behind the white snowy lowland, which the ancient Russian city looked at from the low mountain shore.<...>It was Christmas Eve cheerful morning with light frost and frost.<...>In the old big The hotel on a spacious square, opposite the old shopping arcades, was quiet and empty, tidied up for the holiday.<...>But then a gentleman drove up to the porch pince-nez, with amazed eyes, in a black velvet beret, from under which greenish curls fell, and in long doha brilliant chestnut fur. <...>- Take me to the very light number, - he said loudly, solemnly step following along a wide corridor behind a young bellhop carrying his expensive foreign suitcase.<...>- I artist, he said, “but this time I don’t need the room to the north.”<...> Bellhop opened the door to number the first, the most honorable, consisted of an entrance hall and two spacious rooms, where the windows were, however, small and very deep, due to the thick walls. <...>Carefully lowering the suitcase onto the carpet in the middle of the reception area, bellhop, a young fellow with smart, cheerful eyes, stopped waiting for his passport and orders.<...> Artist, short in stature, youthfully light despite his age, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket, walked from corner to corner and lowered his eyebrows pince-nez, rubbed his pale skin with white, alabaster-like hands! exhausted face. <...>Then he looked strangely at the servant with the unseeing gaze of a very short-sighted and absent-minded person. <...>I must complete the work with all my life. <...>“My young friend,” he said, extending his hand to the bellhop and showing him two wedding rings, one of which, on the little finger, was a woman’s, “this ring - dying covenant! <...>- And I am this one covenant I will fulfill it! - the artist said menacingly.<...>Speaking and tapping words, the artist looked straight through pince-nez at your interlocutor.<...>On the square<...>

Mad_artist.pdf

UDC 821.161.1–3 Bunin.09

S. V. Lomakovich, I. I. Moskovkina
Kharkov National University named after V. N. Karazin

Ekphrasis as a metatext in the prose of I. A. Bunin in the 1920s (on the 80th anniversary of the Nobel Prize)

Lomakovich S. V., Moskovkina I. I. Ekphrasis as a metatext in prose I. O. Bunin of the 1920s (before the 80th Nobel Prize was awarded).

The article contains an analysis of the intermediality of the poetics of the novel I. O. Bunin "God's Mitec". Particular respect is given to the specificity and functions of ekphrasis, which plays a conceptual role in the novella. Its functioning in the context of metatext clearly demonstrates the development of writing before the modernist mystique at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Key words: poetics, ekphrasis, intertext, intermediality, metatext, modernism.

Lomakovich S. V., Moskovkina I. I. Ekphrasis as a metatext in the prose of I. A. Bunin in the 1920s (on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Nobel Prize).

The article offers an analysis of the intermediality of the poetics of I. A. Bunin’s short story “The Mad Artist”. Particular attention is paid to the specifics and functions of ekphrasis, which plays an important conceptual role in the short story. Its functioning as a metatext clearly explicates the writer's attitude towards modernist art beginning of the twentieth century.

Key words: poetics, ekphrasis, intertext, intermediality, metatext, modernism.

Lomakovich S. V., Moskovkina I. I. Ecphrasis as metatext in I. A. Bunin’s prose of 1920 (the 80th anniversary of the awarding of the Nobel Prize).

The article presents an analysis of intermedial poetics of I. A. Bunin’s novelette “Crazy artist”. Particular attention is paid to the specifics of features and functions of ecphrasis that plays a conceptual role in the story. Its function as a metatext clearly reflects the attitude of the writer to the modernistic art of the early twentieth century.

Keywords: poetics, ecphrasis, intertext, intermediality, metatext, modernism.

Bunin's skill, noted at the beginning of the twentieth century with two Pushkin Prizes (1903 and 1909), and in 1933 with the Nobel Prize, is generally recognized today. Thanks to the works of B.V. Averin, V.Ya. Grechnev, V.V. Zamanskaya, V.A. Keldysh, L.A. Kolobaeva, V.Ya. Linkov, Yu.V. Maltsev, O.V. Slivitskaya, M. S. Stern and other modern researchers, the biographical, historical, cultural, ideological and aesthetic origins and aspects of his work, the specifics of his worldview, genre system, poetics and creative method are characterized. The book “Ivan Bunin: pro et contra” and the chapter in the fundamental work of IMLI scientists “Russian literature at the turn of the century (1890s - early 1920s)”, written by N. S. Broitman and D. M. Magomedova. At the same time, in the process of determining the writer’s place in the literary process of the twentieth century, the vector increasingly shifted from realism to neorealism and modernism. However, today it is still seen differently.

In the last decade, ideas about the degree of Bunin's innovation and his contribution to the development of literature have been enriched and clarified, thanks to new perspectives on viewing his works, including intermedial aspects of poetics. Most often, the attention of scientists is drawn to the specifics and functions of ekphrasis in his short stories, which is apparently associated with the productive development in recent years of the theory of ekphrasis. However, not all interpretations of the discovered features of the intermediality of Bunin’s poetics seem indisputable. In particular, we're talking about about the functions of ekphrasis in the short story “The Mad Artist” (1921) and its interpretation in the context of socio-historical and aesthetic realities of the first third of the twentieth century.

Thus, in the dissertation research of A. Yu. Krivoruchko “Functions of ekphrasis in Russian prose of the 1920s,” ekphrasis in “The Mad Artist” is considered primarily from the point of view of its use in a work of art to assess the socio-historical changes that shook the country at the beginning of the twentieth century . According to the researcher, in this, one of the first Bunin works created in emigration, unlike later ones, the theme of Russia has not yet acquired the character of a “Russia of Memories”: “In “The Mad Artist” a sharp rejection was expressed in a polemically pointed form the author of the turning point that occurred in 1917 in Russian history and, in particular, his condemnation of the role of the creative intelligentsia in the revolution, the proclamation of its responsibility for what happened. Creating the image of his hero-artist, Bunin confronts two contradictory and equally unacceptable trends for him... on the one hand, admiration for the West..., and on the other, the idealization of Russia and the Russian people... its special mission. The writer focuses on the unsuccessful meeting of the artist, who accepted Western European ideals and decided to transfer them to his homeland, with real Russia» .

This interpretation seems overly straightforward and sociological and, moreover, not accurate - it does not take into account the artistic realities of the work. After all, the events in the short story take place in 1916 in pre-revolutionary Russia, and the artist is shocked by the nightmare of the First World War. In addition, as will be shown below, the “Russia of Memories”, which appears in the so-called “reverse ekphrasis”, already plays an important structure-forming and conceptual role here.

M. S. Baytsak, in his dissertation “The Poetics of Descriptions in the Prose of I. A. Bunin: Painting through the Word,” focuses on another function of ekphrasis in “The Mad Artist” - on the characterization of the creator through his creation. From the researcher’s point of view, “a number of ekphrasis make it possible to correlate the creator’s plan and its execution. Two detailed conventional ekphrasis, in which there are motifs from paintings by a variety of authors - from Raphael, Michelangelo, I. Bosch to the German Expressionists - create a specific plot in which the main conflict of the work is embodied." At the same time, “the traditional romantic concept of creativity as madness, the problem of the discrepancy between the creative concept and its artistic embodiment, is revealed in a new way.”

This interpretation of the role of ekphrasis and the short story as a whole, in our opinion, allowed the researcher to come closer to understanding the artistic, poetic and aesthetic aspects of the work, but also requires significant clarification - especially with regard to the “romantic concept of creativity.” After all, the correct interpretation of not only “The Mad Artist,” but also Bunin’s aesthetic position depends on the interpretation of the functions and essence of ekphrasis in this short story, representative of Bunin’s prose of the 1920s.

Scientists have already noted the symbolist discourse in such short stories by Bunin of the 1910s as “Brothers” (1914), “Mr. from San Francisco” (1915), “Dreams of Chang” (1916), with their openly symbolic-neo-mythological poetics and philosophical issues. At the same time, such a short story as “Archival Business” (1914) revealed typological similarities with the post-symbolist prose of L. Andreev of the 1910s, which ironically assimilated artistic principles symbolism and expressionism. Bunin’s short story “The Mad Artist” also suggests comparison with the works of L. Andreev. This, like “Archival File”, “ yuletide story”, in which genre canons are also paradoxically transformed. In accordance with them, the events are timed to coincide with Christmas Eve. The essence of what is happening also seems to be quite consistent with the moment: the artist, in front of the eyes of the inhabitants of the provincial hotel (and readers), completing “the work of his whole life,” paints a canvas that is likened to them good news. The artist’s behavior corresponds to the mission he has assigned to himself: he is majestic and feels like either a prophet or the creator of a new world.

The painting he conceived, entitled “The Birth of a New Man!” was intended to “make an unheard of impression.” It was supposed to be flooded with light and capture the birth of Christ, foreshadowing the death of the old, bloody world: “I have to paint the Bethlehem Cave, write Christmas and fill in the whole picture - and this manger, and the baby, and the Madonna, and the lion, and the lamb, reclining next to each other - right next to each other! - like this the jubilation of angels, like this light, what was that truly the birth of a new man..." . Noteworthy is the fact that the ekphrasis of the canvas imagined by the hero, in addition to the well-known plot, introduces into Bunin’s short story a wide intertext of European art, starting with wall painting Roman catacombs and ancient Byzantine mosaics, also includes new, subjectively personal, intimate details. The artist notes in passing that, contrary to the canon, the birthplace of the New Man will be Spain - the country of his happy first marriage journey: “In the distance are blue mountains, flowering trees on the hills, in the open skies...”.

While painting a picture, another vision appears before the artist’s “mental gaze”, which he tried to convey on his canvas. Ekphrasis of this version of “The Birth of a New Man!” intertextually connected with another gospel story, repeatedly and variously recreated on the canvases of masters of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and such outstanding contemporaries of Bunin as Vrubel (art critics gave it the code name “Virgin Mary with the Child and other figures”). The artist “dreamed” of heaven, “filled with eternal light, twinkling with the Edenic azure”, “luminous faces and wings of countless jubilant seraphim”, “God the Father, terrible and joyful”, “a maiden of indescribable beauty, with eyes full of bliss of a happy mother, standing on the clouds... showed the world, raised high in the divine hands of her baby, shining like the sun,” “wild, mighty John, girded with animal skin, knelt at her feet.”

However, instead of the beautiful vision that “his heart yearned for,” the artist’s canvas, in a novelistic-unexpected manner and contrary to the genre canons of the “Yuletide” happy ending, captured something apocalyptic-expressionist: “The wild, black-blue sky burned to the zenith with fires, the bloody flames of smoky, crumbling temples , palaces and dwellings. Racks, scaffolds and gallows with strangled people were blackened against the fiery background. Above the whole picture, above this whole sea of ​​fire and smoke, a huge cross with a bloody sufferer crucified on it rose majestically, demonically... The bottom of the picture showed a disorderly pile of the dead - and a dump, a squabble, a fight between the living, a confusion of naked bodies, hands and faces. And these faces, snarled, fanged, with eyes bulging from their sockets, were so vile and rude, so distorted by hatred, malice, and the voluptuousness of fratricide, that they could be recognized rather as the faces of cattle, animals, devils, but not at all as human.” .

The picture, against the will of the artist, depicted something that turned out to be stronger than his dreams, which actually captivated his imagination, shocked his consciousness and his entire being. The chaos and disharmony that reigned in a distraught, war-torn world took possession of the artist. From the hero’s “pronouncements”, which run like a dotted line through the entire narrative, the reader learns the artist’s life story during the period of incubation of the idea for the painting. Preparing to Proclaim the Good News of the Coming new era Light, Love, Beauty, Goodness, the artist, together with his pregnant wife, takes a trip to Europe by sea. Unable to withstand the ordeals and horrors of war, his wife and newborn child die in a foreign land. Therefore, the creation of a picture, in addition to its universal significance, is associated for the artist with a passionate belief in the possibility of resurrecting the dead with the power of his genius and art: “I will paint the Madonna with her whose name is now sacred. I will resurrect her, killed by an evil force along with new life borne by her heart!” .

As a result, the artist’s good intentions turn into their opposite not only in life, but also in creativity. Having arrived specifically to complete his “life’s work,” he forgot his brush, has neither canvas nor paints, wakes up to natural light and is forced to paint at night under artificial, ominous lighting. He tries to paint a happy Madonna, looking at a photograph of his wife in a coffin, and a new newborn, happy man- from a deceased baby. It is not surprising that instead of the Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of the Beast looms - “ devilish obsessions life" completely captured his imagination and demanded their embodiment. Wanting to sing Hosanna to the Creator (“Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”), he shouted a curse to him (cf.: “The Life of Basil of Thebes” by L. Andreev).

Note that the ekphrasis of both canvases imagined by the artist apparently intertextually echoes similar descriptions in Gogol’s story “Portrait”, where the writer reflected on the nature of inspiration (divine and demonic) and its creative results, as well as on the brilliant canvases that the artist created is prepared throughout one's life. Trying to capture birth the god-man and the new man, the advent of the kingdom of God on earth, Bunin's mad artist proclaimed martyrdom death the Son of God on a huge cross, which " demonically towered" above the crowd of creatures (new humanity) with the faces of "cattle, beasts, devils", i.e. death of everything human and divine in man (cf. “In the Crowd” by F. Sologub). It’s also scary that for the sake of one’s own creations artist sacrificed his son and wife(which also evoked associations with the Creator). Therefore, he must fully share responsibility for the world order with God. Through a particular incident from the artist’s life, a neo-mythological narrative about the ontological foundations of the created universe and man “shone through.”

Thus, first of all, Bunin artistically recreated, explored and explained the type of expressionist artist and the origins of his work. Thanks to intertext and parallels creative artist And God the Creator the writer, like the symbolists, reflected on the ontological foundations of human existence. But at the same time, Bunin did not become like either an expressionist or a symbolist-neo-mythologist. He managed to maintain a distance between himself and the mad hero, whom he looked at from the point of view common sense and natural human perception, reflected in the title, the reaction of a smart lackey and the irony of the narrator, who constantly emphasizes the absurdity of the hero’s appearance and behavior. Here too, irony saved Bunin from the temptation to proclaim the new Message and the Ultimate Truth.

“The Mad Artist” is a Matryoshka short story. A brilliantly executed ekphrasis of a fictional writer, but recreating character traits and the “common places” of the expressionistic canvas (moreover, typologically similar to the picture of the world captured in “The Wall”, “Red Laughter” and other symbolic-expressionist short stories and stories by L. Andreev, intertextually included in Bunin’s short story), is inscribed within the framework of neo-mythological symbolist novella. The latter is inscribed in the frame of the narrative on behalf of the narrator, who created an ironic distance between himself, the “new myth” and the madman hero.

This distance is clarified and constantly maintained through the inclusion of impressionistically depicted images in the story. landscape sketches and interiors that capture the narrator’s perception of the discreet, natural beauty of a snow-covered pre-Christmas Russian town and human habitation during those 24 hours during which the mad artist completes his Good News. The novella begins with a morning landscape: “The sun was golden in the east, behind the misty blue of distant forests, behind the white snowy lowlands, which the ancient Russian city looked at from a low mountain shore. It was Christmas Eve, a brisk morning with light frost and frost.” Then the interior of the hotel room appears: “The rooms were warm, cozy and calm, amber from the sun, softened by frost on the lower windows.” As Bunin progresses, he “paints” an urban landscape that conveys the nuances of midday light and color: “The street became completely dry, it became completely sunny. The frost on the telegraph wires was drawn across the blue sky gently and bluishly and was already crumbling and crumbling. The square was crowded with a whole forest of thick, dark green fir trees...”, etc.

These descriptions reveal “picturesqueness,” the intermediality of Bunin’s prose—the transfer of fine art techniques into literature, which give the verbal image picturesqueness, mise-en-scène, and colorfulness. Bunin's short story includes so-called “reverse ekphrasis” - descriptions that evoke associations in the reader with the motifs, images and mood of various paintings. Despite criticism of modern art, the writer knew it very well (both literature and painting) and mastered its techniques. As researchers have shown, the degree of saturation of his works with “quotations” from paintings contemporary artists very high. Among the most frequent sources of “quotations” are the modernist paintings of F. Malyavin, A. Rylov, L. Bakst, V. Borisov-Musatov. According to the observations of M. S. Baytsak, Bunin, operating with “topoi”, created a kind of rhetoric of “commonplaces” of Russian and European painting and filled the narrative with it. A quotation of this kind allowed the author to create an aestheticized image of reality: the world as beauty, which was one of the main creative principles for him.

Thus, although Bunin, following Andreev, Sologub and many other modernists at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, was forced to note the strengthening of the power of chaotic destructive forces over the world and man, his attitude and understanding of the world did not boil down to just this. Bunin was given the ability to see, experience and recreate the harmony and beauty of the universe. O. V. Slivitskaya convincingly spoke about the bipolarity of his artistic world. The explicit or hidden ekphrastic nature of the descriptions largely determined the specificity of the figurativeness of Bunin’s prose, and, apparently, it can be spoken of as a distinctive and important feature of his poetics. Taking into account, assimilating and, at the same time, overcoming the experience of not only realists, but also modernists (symbolists, expressionists, impressionists), Bunin found new, original, artistic methods research into the deep fundamental principles of human life and humanity. It is they, and not only and not so much the specific historical collisions of the pre-revolutionary or post-revolutionary Russia, were the subject of historiosophical and artistic comprehension in prose Nobel laureate- Russian writer, whose innovations enriched world literature.

Literature

1. Averin B.V. The life of Bunin and the life of Arsenyev: Poetics of memory / B.V. Averin // I.A. Bunin: Pro et contra: The personality and work of Ivan Bunin in the assessment of Russian and foreign thinkers and researchers. Anthology / Comp. B. Averin (together with D. Riniker and K. V. Stepanov). - St. Petersburg. : RKhGI, 2001 - pp. 651-678.

2. Baytsak M. S. Poetics of description in the prose of I. A. Bunin: painting through the word: Abstract of thesis. ...cand. Philol. Sciences: 10.01.01 / Baytsak Marina Sergeevna. - Omsk, 2009. - 17 p.

3. Broitman S.N., Magomedova D.M. Ivan Bunin // Russian literature at the turn of the century (1890s - early 1920s). - Book 1. - M., 2000. - P. 540-585.

4. Bunin I. A. Collection. op. : In 6 volumes - T. 4. Works 1914-1931 / Editorial Board: Yu. Bondarev, O. Mikhailov, V. Rynkevich; article-afterwords. and comment. A. Sahakyants. - M.: Artist. lit., 1988. - 703 p.

5. Grechnev V. Ya. Ivan Bunin // Grechnev V. Ya. About prose and poetry of the 19th - 20th centuries: L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin, L. Andreev, M. Gorky, F. Tyutchev, G. Ivanov, A. Tvardovsky / V. Grechnev. - 2nd ed., rev. and additional - St. Petersburg: Solart, 2009. - P. 99-184.

6. Zamanskaya V. V. I. Bunin: Between a moment and eternity // Zamanskaya V. V. Existential tradition in Russian literature of the twentieth century. Dialogues at the Borders of Centuries: Textbook / V.V. Zamanskaya. - M.: Flinta: Science, 2002. - P. 207-229.

7. I. A. Bunin: Pro et contra: The personality and creativity of Ivan Bunin in the assessment of Russian and foreign thinkers and researchers. Anthology / Comp. B. Averin (together with D. Riniker and K. V. Stepanov). - St. Petersburg. : RKhGI, 2001. - 1016 p. - (Russian way).

8. Keldysh V. A. I. Bunin // Keldysh V. A. O " silver age» Russian literature: General patterns. Problems of prose / V. A. Keldysh. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2010. - P. 205-249.

9. Kolobaeva L. A. About the dispute with F. M. Dostoevsky: categories of evil, conscience, “crime and punishment” in the prose of I. A. Bunin / L. A. Kolobaeva // Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries mirror modern science: In honor of V. A. Keldysh: Research and publications. - M.: IMLI RAS, 2008. - P. 29-36.

10. Krivoruchko A. Yu. Functions of ekphrasis in Russian prose of the 1920s: Abstract of thesis. ...cand. Philol. Sciences: 10.01.01 / Krivoruchko Anna Yurevna. - Tver, 2009. - 18 p.

11. Linkov V. Ya. World and man in the works of L. Tolstoy and I. Bunin / V. Ya. Linkov. - M.: Moscow State University Publishing House, 1989. - 174 p.

12. Maltsev Yu. Ivan Bunin: 1870–1953 / Yuri Maltsev. - M.: Posev, 1994. - 432 p.

13. Moskovkina I. I. Art world I. A. Bunin in the context of Russian prose of the late 19th - early 20th centuries / I. I. Moskovkina // Creative heritage I. A. Bunina and the world literary process: Materials of the international scientific conference, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the birth of I. A. Bunin. - Eagle: OGPU. - pp. 88-90.

14. “The inexpressibly expressible”: ekphrasis and problems of representation of the visual in literary text: Sat. Art. / Comp. and scientific ed. D. V. Tokareva. - M.: New Literary Review, 2013. - 572 p.

15. Slivitskaya O.V. “Heightened sense of life”: the world of Ivan Bunin / O. V. Slivitskaya. - M.: Russian. state humanist univ., 2004. - 270 p.

16. Tokarev D.V. About the “inexpressible”: (Instead of a preface) / Dmitry Tokarev // “The inexpressibly expressible”: ekphrasis and problems of representing the visual in a literary text: Collection. Art. / Comp. and scientific ed. D. V. Tokareva. - M.: New Literary Review, 2013. - P. 5–25.

17. Hall James. Dictionary of plots and symbols in art. - M., 1997.

18. Stern M. S. In search of lost harmony: Prose of I. A. Bunin of the 1930-1940s / M. S. Stern. - Omsk: Publishing house Omsk. state ped. University, 1997. - 40 p.

Keywords: Ivan Bunin, criticism, Bunin's work, works, read criticism, online, review, review, poetry, Critical articles, prose, Russian literature, 19th century, analysis, Nobel Prize, ekphrasis, metatext, modernism

2.1. Visuality in the novel by I.A. Bunin "Mad Artist"

Researchers do not have a consensus on what genre the work “Mad Artist” belongs to. M. V. Kudrina in the dissertation “ Genre structure story" defines the genre of "The Mad Artist" as a "decanonized short story", T. Yu Zimina-Dyrda in the article "The World of the Artist in the Stories of I. A. Bunin" - as a story, M. S. Stern in the dissertation "Prose of I. A. Bunin 1930-1940s. Genre system and generic specificity" - like a lyrical story. We will show that the genre of “The Mad Artist is a short story. This is the genre that predominates in Bunin’s work.

The short story “The Mad Artist” contains lyrical inserts – moments of self-awareness and analysis of one’s relationships with others. These are the hero’s experiences, his moods, as well as the author’s comments. The very task that the artist sets for himself tells us that an event occurred in his life that was clearly imprinted on his soul. Throughout the story, he fusses a lot, urges the cab driver, shouts, reacts violently to any failure, remembers his wife and talks about her to the bellhop. Often his face is distorted with horror.

The title is a code. It should also be considered as a solution to the code. This is a relatively independent element of the text, which is its frame component. The title of the novel says that main character- an artist, a creator, but for some reason he is mad. D. N. Ushakov’s explanatory dictionary defines the concept “mad” as “extremely reckless; characterized by an extreme degree of something, very tense.” The subtextual lyrical storyline reveals the hero’s inner emotional experiences. This happens only at the end of the story. The death of his wife and child affected the artist’s soul so much that the apocalypse came for him. The canvas can also be interpreted as the death of Russia, because it was precisely this attitude towards the revolution that Bunin expressed in his diaries “Cursed Days”. The artist's anonymity means that this character is not an individual. In the short story there is only one name - Ivan Matveevich from the police, which is mentioned in a conversation between the hotel owner and the bellhop. This means that such an artist’s tragedy is not an isolated incident. It could have happened to many others.

Thus, M. Nesterov’s wife Maria died in 1885 immediately after giving birth. The artist recalled: “... It was then Sunday, Trinity Day, clear, sunny. A service was going on in the church, and nearby, in a wooden house, my Masha was saying goodbye to life, to me, to her Olechka, to little Olechka, as she was called in advance. I was here and saw how death approached minute by minute. Life remained only in the eyes, in that bright point that gradually set behind the lower eyelid, like the sun behind the horizon. Another minute and it’s all over… . I drew a lot then, and the image of the deceased did not leave me... . Then the idea came to write “Christ’s Bride” with the face of my Masha... . In this simple picture I then lived out my grief.” Buninsky the artist is also trying to overcome his grief and write deceased wife in the image of the Mother of God.

The subtextual storyline, which arises due to the movement of the motives of haste, suffering, and horror, reproduces the emotional experiences of the hero, novelistically unexpectedly revealed to the reader only in the finale. The chronotope of “The Mad Artist” allows us to define the novel as a Christmas one.

The artist himself, when we first meet him, is described as “a gentleman in pince-nez, with amazed eyes, in a black velvet beret, from under which greenish curls fell, and in a long coat of shiny chestnut fur.” In the room, talking to the bellhop is “an artist, short in stature, youthfully light despite his age, wearing a beret and a velvet jacket...; dropping his pince-nez with a movement of his eyebrows, he rubbed his pale, exhausted face with his white, alabaster hands.” Portraits of other characters are given briefly, but with small details. Thus, the cab driver is “a red bearded man on a box,” the bellhop is “a young fellow with smart, cheerful eyes,” the baguette saleswoman is “a rosy-cheeked young lady in a fur coat,” and the hotel owner is seen by the observer as “a squat man with a beaver on the crown of his head and sharp eyes.”

The appearance of other minor characters (the second cab driver, merchants) is not described. Throughout the novella, new details appear in the artist’s visual appearance: “His doha opened up, dragged through the snow, his eyes wandered around in pain and confusion.” Such an external small detail, like an open chest, reveals to us the artist’s inner feeling, which is emphasized by the pained expression of his eyes. In the dream, “his pale and thin face looked like an alabaster mask. He lay high, on his back..., his long gray-green hair scattered, and you couldn’t even hear his breathing.”

Visual details such as the artist’s alabaster complexion and green hair evoke thoughts of the dead and drowned from the works of N.V. Gogol. These two motifs are repeated in the short story, but in this passage the motive of death is added to them - “you couldn’t even hear his breathing.”

The spiritual death of the artist is also indicated by such a feature of his behavior as fear of churches and chapels. After preparing to paint the picture, the observer sees “the white, serious face of the artist and ... the young, preoccupied face of the bellhop.” The motif of the artist’s pale, deathly face appears again. This pallor looks brighter against the background of the young face of the bellhop, which is most likely ruddy and dark. Further, the character’s facial expression gradually changes: “The artist’s face became more and more painful,” “Suddenly his face was distorted with horror.”

Yes, it opens again inner world hero. While working, “from the heat of the candles the artist’s hair at his temples became wet…. The eyes were watery and burning, the facial features were cut off.” After work, he becomes even paler: “... he was so pale that his lips seemed black... . Dark eyes they burned with inhuman suffering and at the same time with some kind of ferocious delight.”

Thus, we see that such a visual detail as the artist’s pallor reflects his inner state. The pallor and suffering increase towards the end of the story. This complexion emphasizes that the artist is alive in body, but his soul, which has survived the tragedy, is tense. He is afraid of not having time to paint a picture, he forces himself to do it, torments himself, but never fulfills his promise.

The narration is conducted in the third person - from an outside observer. It is known that Bunin’s works contain a lot of details. Visuality in the short story also manifests itself at the level of the narrator. So, he mentions such details as “plowed snow”, “the rooms were amber from the sun, softened by frost on the lower windows”, “frost on the telegraph wires was drawn across the blue sky gently and bluishly and was already crumbling, crumbling”, the frost had turned gray .

The entire text is permeated with liturgical and religious motifs. The artist calls his journey a pilgrimage. A pilgrimage is a journey to holy places. For him, the city he comes to is holy, Rus', his wife and baby are holy. That is why he imagines his wife in the image of Madonna. “Madonna” is translated from Italian as “my lady”; Roman Catholics call the Mother of God this way. The latter was often portrayed by Raphael Santi and Leonardo da Vinci.

Bunin's short story includes so-called reverse ekphrasis, which are given here from the narrator's point of view. These are descriptions that evoke in the reader associations with the motifs, images and mood of various paintings. IN in this case these are impressionistically painted landscapes of the pre-Christmas snowy Russian provincial town, transmitting natural beauty nature and the slow pace of life. Already in the first paragraph of the novella, a series of visual images can be identified: “the sun was golden,” “the white snowy lowland,” “the foggy blue of distant forests,” “a brisk morning with light frost and frost.” These images create an impressionistic, “unfinished” landscape-sketch. The reader sees the narrator’s desire to convey the changing state of light (“it became lean, it became completely sunny”, “the sun slowly left the room. Then it completely left”, “bright golden light”), colors (“frost... was drawn across the blue sky gently and bluishly” , “the square was crowded with a forest of thick, dark green fir trees,” “the winter frosty night”[9: 202]), air (“amber from the sun, softened by frost on the lower windows”).

The subjective perception of the narrator is also conveyed: “The frost on the windows has turned grey, it has become boring,” “a joyful light.” The resulting distance between the hero and the narrator clarifies the attitude of the author himself to the artist, his expressed worldview and the state of the world at the beginning of the twentieth century, parabolically returning the reader to the title of the short story.

City landscapes described from the narrator’s point of view can be compared with the works of K. Korovin “Russian Winter”, “Paris in Winter”, I. Grabar “March Snow”, I. Grabar “Rime. Sunrise".

The description of the canvas conceived by the artist resembles the icon of the Nativity of Christ. “I have to paint the cave of Bethlehem, write Christmas and fill in the whole picture - and this manger, and the Child, and the Madonna, and the lion, and the lamb, reclining next to each other - right next to each other! - with such rejoicing of the Angels, such light that this would truly be the birth of a new man. Only for me it will be in Spain, the country of our first marriage trip. In the distance are blue mountains, flowering trees on the hills, in the open skies...” However, the canonical icon dedicated to this event should also depict shepherds, an ox and a donkey against the backdrop of a stable. In this picture, the background is blue mountains, which are symbols of connection with the earthly sphere of existence.

Let us define the types of this ekphrasis according to various parameters that relate to the topic of visuality. In terms of the object of description, this is direct ekphrasis, since the narrator mentions that the visual object he is describing is a painting. In terms of the reality of the work’s existence in history, or its fictionality, this is mimetic ekphrasis, since it can be assumed that Bunin is hinting at really existing visual objects. Ekphrasis is implicit, since neither the author nor the title of the painting is indicated. From the point of view of the method of presentation in the text, this is a complete ekphrasis, because the description of the painting is presented in one paragraph. By the number of broadcast visual information This ekphrasis can be classified as consolidated - containing motifs from several paintings.

The religious ekphrasis of the Bunin artist can be compared with the canvases of M. Nesterov, V. Vasnetsov, M. Vrubel, who painted Russian churches. The picture that the artist imagined can be compared either with an icon or with paintings by medieval painters. He imagined “The heavens, filled with eternal light, glowing with Edenic azure and swirling with wondrous, albeit vague clouds, ...; the luminous faces and wings of countless jubilant seraphim appeared in the eerie liturgical beauty of heaven; God the Father, formidable and joyful, good and triumphant, as in the days of creation, towered among them like a rainbow, gigantic vision; The Virgin of indescribable loveliness, with eyes full of the bliss of a happy mother, standing on the clouds, shining through the blue of the earthly distances stretched out beneath her, showed the world, raised high in her divine arms the Child, shining like the sun, and the wild, mighty John, girded with an animal skin, on his knees near her feet, in a frenzy of love, tenderness and gratitude, kissing the hem of her clothes” [9: 204].

This picture is not at all like canonical icon Nativity of Christ. On canonical Orthodox icons The Nativity of Christ should depict the Divine Child, the Mother of God, Joseph and the Magi. Angels and animals in a stable can also be depicted - oxen, donkeys, kids, sheep.

The picture of the mad artist is reminiscent of icons where the Mother of God is depicted in full height: Oranta, “The Virgin and Child” by M. Vrubel in the Cyril Church; sketch by M. Nesterov “The Ascension of the Lord,” which also depicts azure Seraphim, swirling clouds, and the Mother of God, but She stands on the ground; works by M. Nesterov “Annunciation. Archangel Gabriel", "Annunciation. The Virgin Mary".

Let us consider the icons of the Mother of God, reminiscent of a picture imagined by a mad artist. M. Nesterov often depicted Her in bright blue clothes. In “Hodegetria” by V. Vasnetsov, the Mother of God sits on a throne on the clouds, holding the Baby in her arms, and two Angels are bending towards Them, the sky behind them is azure and starry. God the Father in the painting of a mad artist is like from a painting by Vasnetsov with same name. Azure, blue color in icon painting is a symbol of purity and holiness. The artist’s painting also resembles the “Sistine Madonna” by Raphael Santi. On it, the Mother of God is depicted in full height, standing on the clouds, with Her Son in Her arms. To Her right stands Pope Sixtus. At the bottom of the picture are painted angels in the form of children looking at the Son of God.

In terms of the object of description, this is direct ekphrasis; in terms of the reality of the work’s existence in history, or its fictionality, this is mimetic implicit ekphrasis. In terms of volume – complete, in terms of the represented object – ekphrasis painting.

This picture can also be compared with the icons of the Mother of God. For example, on the icon “Maximovskaya” the Mother of God is depicted in full height, with Her Son in her arms. On one of the list options She is dressed in blue clothes, on the other – in crimson ones. On the “Cyprus” icon, the Mother of God sits on a throne, with the Divine Child in Her arms. Her omophorion is crimson and her robe is blue. The icon “Abbess of the Holy Mount Athos” has several variants of lists. In both, the Blessed Virgin is depicted standing over the island. On one of the lists Her omophorion purple, and the vestments are dark blue, on the other the omophorion is crimson, and the vestments are azure blue with shades of blue, on the third the vestments are dark blue, and the omophorion is dark red with shades of crimson. The sky, which acts as a background, is light blue.

On the icon “Evangelist Luke writes the icon of the Most Holy Theotokos,” the omophorion of the Mother of God is purple, and the vestments are dark blue with azure splashes. In Her arms is the Divine Child, and on the left sits the Evangelist Luke, painting an icon of Them. On the “Eletsk-Chernigov” icon, the Mother of God with the Child in her arms is depicted against a background of golden light and a tree spreading its branches. The robes of the Mother of God are dark blue, the omophorion is red. On the Yeletskaya icon, the Mother of God in a purple omophorion and blue vestments is depicted standing on white clouds. Above Her, on thrones also located on the clouds, solemnly sit God the Son, already matured and resurrected, God the Father in the form of a wise gray-bearded old man, and God the Holy Spirit in the form of a white dove.

On the “Vutivanskaya” icon, the Mother of God is dressed in a scarlet omophorion and dark blue vestments. With the Baby in her arms, She sits on a throne that stands on a stone. To the left and right of them are depicted two Angels stretching out their hands to Them. The Pechersk icon has several lists. On all these lists, the Mother of God in crimson robes and a blue omophorion with the Child in her arms is depicted sitting on a throne, to the left of Them stands St. Theodosius, to the right is St. Anthony. The halo of the Most Pure One is white and gold in color and is written in the form of the radiance of the sun. On one of the lists, the throne stands on blue-white clouds, under it two Seraphim are symbolically written in the form of children with wings. Above the throne, to the right and left of it, two Angels are depicted waist-deep in the form of youths with wings. There are halos above Their heads, Their hands are folded in prayer. All figures are written on an azure blue background.

On another list, the Mother of God and the Son of God are depicted sitting on swirling gray-brown clouds. The Most Pure One is dressed in a scarlet omophorion and blue vestments, Her halo resembles gold Sun rays, separated from one another. The head of the Virgin has a bright light. The radiance also comes from under the clouds and falls on the temple with gilded domes. Saints Anthony and Theodosius stand on brown-gray clouds, which also reflect the golden light of the Virgin's halo. The figures are written on a black and blue background. On the third list, the Mother of God is written sitting on a throne. She has a crown on her head, She is dressed in scarlet robes, and the Virgin holds the Son in her arms. Her halo is yellow-orange in color, reminiscent of the burning of a warm fire. To the right and left of the throne are Angels, painted in the form of young men with wings, dressed in white tunics and blue dresses. The holy wonderworkers bowed at the feet of the Divine Child. All figures stand on clouds, the background is sky blue.

On the “Terebino” icon, the Mother of God is depicted from the waist up, wearing a crimson robe and a crown. Her arms are bent at the elbows, there is tenderness on her face, her gaze is turned to the Youth Son, Who learned to stand on his own. She is ready to support the Child at any moment so that It does not fall. Old Russian icon The Mother of God “Bogolyubskaya” has several lists. On them She is written standing at full height with a letter in her right hand, extending her left hand to the Son. Christ is depicted in the upper right corner of the icon waist-deep on white clouds. He blesses His Mother. In the upper left corner, the Seraphim are kneeling on a white cloud, with Cherubim flying above Them.

The background is the blue-blue sky on the left side of the Virgin Mary and the blue-blue sky and yellow-scarlet sunset to the right of Her. The light coming from Christ paints the heavens azure. The Mother of God stands on a stone, behind Her is a landscape similar to Central Russian: on the left is a brown-yellow scorched field, on the horizon is a church, on the right are green trees, a grassy-green field, a river, blue forests in the distance.

On another list, the background is a dark blue-violet sky. The sunset is a menacing blue-violet color; the sun has already set, but the light yellow light from it is still visible. On the third list, instead of the joyful nature behind the Blessed Virgin, brown-black mountains, an orange-scarlet sunset, and small green-black trees growing one by one are written. The sky has a green-azure color, the clouds are the same color, but with a blue tint. Christ is written on a golden background, symbolizing closeness to God and bliss, waist-high, with a gray-black swirling cloud around Him.

On the “Modena Kosinovskaya” icon, the Mother of God is depicted standing at full height, with the Divine Child in her arms, dressed in a scarlet omophorion and blue vestments. Rays reminiscent of the sun emanate from Them; the Mother of God hands the Child to someone invisible, not written on the icon. The background is an azure sky. In the icon “House-Builder, or Economist,” the Mother of God in a scarlet-scarlet omophorion and dark blue vestments sits on a throne with the Child in her arms. On one list above Them only Angels are depicted crowning the Mother of God, on the other - God the Son and God the Father, sitting on thrones in swirling dark clouds against a background of light golden glow. Thus, the picture of the mad artist is more similar to the “Bogolyubskaya”, “Pechersk”, “Modena” icons.

The picture that the artist produced has the right to be called “The Horror of Death”, “The Collapse of the Universe”, “The Torment of Sinners at the End of the World”. It can be compared with K. Bryullov’s painting “The Last Day of Pompeii”, with the works of I. Bosch and contemporary expressionists E. Munch, O. Dix, D. Ensor and others. Instead of the beautiful vision that the artist’s heart “craved”, his The canvas, novelistically and unexpectedly and contrary to the genre canons of the “Christmas” happy ending, captured something apocalyptic-expressionist: “The wild, black-blue sky to the zenith was blazing with fires, the bloody flame of smoky, crumbling temples, palaces and dwellings. Racks, scaffolds and gallows with strangled people were blackened against the fiery background... . The bottom of the picture showed a disorderly pile of the dead - and a dump, a squabble, a fight between the living, a confusion of naked bodies, hands and faces. And these faces, snarled, fanged, with eyes bulging from their sockets, were so vile and rude, so distorted by hatred, malice, and the voluptuousness of fratricide, that they could be recognized rather as the faces of cattle, animals, devils, but not at all as human.” .

This picture does not correspond to what the artist intended: one can assume that he is unable to paint anything beautiful and harmonious in the state of mind in which he is at a given period of time. Here again we need to remember the artist’s appearance. He is always pale, his hair is green; His behavior is restless, fussy, and loud. Perhaps he feels too deeply guilty towards his wife, because there is a share of his guilt in the fact that she died along with the child. The artist experiences this event too deeply and becomes unable to sense beauty and depict it on his canvases. A. Hansen-Leve in the work “Russian Symbolism. The system of poetic motives" highlights this type of artist - the artist as the devil. God the Creator, Love, creation, goodness and everything connected with him is the opposite of the devil, hatred, evil, chaos, etc. The latter phenomenon is characterized by hatred of nature, immersion in the depths of the sea, illuminated by the moon. He who creates in the name of evil has lost unity with the Creator, the world He created, and his own spiritual integrity, inspiration and freedom. Such an artist-demiurge rebelled against God and forgot Him.

The inability to forget corresponds to the inability to remember. So the mad artist, on the one hand, remembers his wife, but on the other hand, in order to remember what she looked like, he needs to look at the photograph. In the photo she is lying in a coffin. This once again reminds the artist of his guilt before her and brings disharmony into his soul.

The artist’s painting can be compared with the paintings of I. Bosch, F. Goya, V. Vereshchagin, A. Durer and contemporary expressionists of Bunin. I. Bosch. in the triptych painting “The Last Judgment” he depicted people who inherited eternal bliss, torment and those who are still judging themselves. Those condemned to eternal torment are subjected to various punishments against the backdrop of brown-red plains and mountains. The painting “The Temptation of St. Anthony” depicts people and animals, behind which a fire is blazing on the horizon, the sky is brown. An orange-red fire on the horizon is depicted in his painting “A Wagon of Hay.” In the painting “The Pilgrimage to San Isadore” F. Goya captured groups of blind dead people walking somewhere. Their faces yellow color, clothes are dark, the procession takes place on a black background with yellow spot sunset

O. Dix has a series of paintings “War”, in which he expressed his attitude to the military events of 1914 - 1918. On fifty canvases he depicted what he himself experienced. So, in one of these paintings, Dix depicted the bodies of dead soldiers, already beginning to decompose. The background of the picture is the sky in black and gray clouds. Another painting shows a field strewn with bayonets, and the sunset is a vibrant blur of blue, scarlet, black and white. The third picture depicts a hungry soldier with an expression of horror on his face, followed by death in the form of the skeleton D. Ensor. in one of his paintings he painted human skeletons in home clothes lying in a furnished room. This artist quite often depicted dead bodies on the street, at home or in the office, as something that does not cause surprise and does not attract special attention.

This picture can also be interpreted as the end of Russia. In the diaries “Cursed Days”, this is precisely the emphasis that Bunin placed on her future fate. Revolution is the collapse of the old world, the impossibility of returning to the past. In exile, Bunin could not forget Russia. However, the plot time of the novel is 1916, the time of the First World War. So, another version of the interpretation of the canvas “Russia is lost”, but for the artist - because of the First World War, and for Bunin the reason for the death of the country is the revolution of 1917. In 1915, he wrote the short story “The Mister from San Francisco,” in which apocalyptic motifs can be traced. The epigraph to this short story “Woe to you, Babylon, strong city” is a quote from the Apocalypse. In The Mad Artist, thanks to the intertext of the short story “The Mister from San Francisco,” an apocalyptic motif functions.

A. Hansen-Leve in the work “Russian Symbolism. System of poetic motives" also noted that the symbolic meanings of blue color and its shades are associated with both the earthly and celestial spheres. The symbol of azure (“Heaven, ..., twinkling with Edenic azure”) stems from the spheres of space, this shade is on the border between outer space and the air atmosphere. The latter is dominated by blue and blue. The symbolic meaning of azure can be compared with the meaning of blue and light blue. This is a sign of infinity, the boundlessness of the earthly distance, and in Orthodox iconography blue is the traditional color of the vestments of the Most Holy Theotokos. The blue and gold background are equivalent from this position - both colors are a substitute for the sphere of the mystical sky.

Azure is a shade of blue. The symbolism of azure stems from the spheres of space - this shade is located on the border between outer space and the atmosphere of air; it is involved in the transparency of the mystical spheres, the luminaries. Azure and gold stand on the same level of the supernatural, otherworldly; The azure color can be a symbol of dreams, distance from real life, and blue and blue, in this case, will mean the earthly, the real. The azure shade can also be a symbol of royalty and divinity.

All these colors and shades of ekphrasis of the planned painting express the artist’s dream, the play of his imagination. The blue and gold background are equivalent from this position - both colors are a substitute for the sphere of the mystical sky. Azure is the opposite of blue and cyan in that it participates in the transparency of mystical spheres and luminaries.

Let's consider the symbolic shades of color that are found in the short story. The blue symbols “The Blue of the Earth’s Distances” are associated with the earthly sphere of existence. This is a sign of infinity, limitlessness, distance, coldness, melancholy. Blue is associated with the word “depth”. In Orthodox iconography, blue is the traditional color of the vestments of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

In the Christmas troparion (in the Orthodox Church, this is a short prayer chant that reveals the essence of the holiday or glorifies a saint), Christ is called the Sun of Truth (“Baby shining like the Sun”). Like symbols solar beginning opposite to the moon sunny world- lunar. In the symbolic devilish world there is darkness, there is no sun, but the luminary is the moon. The sun is a symbol of the masculine principle, it is associated with fire, gold, light, salvation, royalty, power, energy. sunlight identified with truth.

Black color is a symbol of night, threat, temptation, earthly depths, omens, apocalypticism. Fire and fire are symbols associated with the sun. They correlate with transformation, new birth, creativity, life, the Dionysian first fire. The color of fire is most often dominated by red, the meaning of which combines ambivalent concepts: blood and death, birth and dying, rise and fall, creation and destruction. The blood-red hue can be a symbol of the Incarnation.

We showed that “The Mad Artist” is a novella. The religious ekphrasis of this short story can be compared with the paintings of M. Nesterov, V. Vasnetsov, M. Vrubel. with icons “Ascension of the Lord”, “Annunciation. Archangel Gabriel", "Annunciation. Virgin Mary" by M. Nesterov, the "Bogolyubskaya" icon, the "Pecherskaya", "Modenskaya" and other icons of the Mother of God. By type they are classified as direct and reverse. Reverse ekphrasis are the impressionistic landscapes of the narrator, creating a distance between him and the mad hero, and direct ekphrasis are the ekphrasis of the artist’s conceived and executed paintings. Ekphrasis of the painting “The Birth of a New Man!” can be compared with the work of K. Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii”, with the works of I. Bosch, E. Munch, O. Dix, D. Ensor. This painting reflects the state of mind of the artist, who was shocked by the horrors of the First World War. At the same time, this painting can also be interpreted as an expression of Bunin’s attitude towards the 1917 revolution.