PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL
This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during Bryusov’s lifetime and claims that the portrait was as a universal point of convergence for verbal and visual arts. The dial...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences
2017-06-01
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| Series: | Studia Litterarum |
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| Online Access: | http://studlit.ru/images/2017-2-2/Drovaleva.pdf |
| _version_ | 1818262022660292608 |
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| author | Natalia A. Drovaleva |
| author_facet | Natalia A. Drovaleva |
| author_sort | Natalia A. Drovaleva |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during Bryusov’s lifetime and claims that the portrait was as a universal point of convergence for verbal and visual arts. The dialogue between literature and graphics in the context of the synthesis of arts sheds new light on the possibilities for interdisciplinary research. The time of the “beautiful book” was a time of great artists and illustrators who introduced the peculiarities of their own style and the manner of their artistic schools into their art. Books were commonly decorated with vignettes and famous paintings. Portraits, as well as plates in general, were of the highest quality. They were ornamental and illusory, with every minute detail finely drawn out. Yet, in the second edition of the novel Bryusov deliberately included medieval engravings and portraits. A comparative analysis of the verbal portraits in The Fiery Angel and engraved portraits in the book (Ruprecht, Heinrich, Faust, Mephistopheles, Renata, and Madiel) demonstrates that both the main and the secondary characters of the novel are picturesque and multidimensional whereas the xylographic portraits rather reveal conventionality and simplicity of the medieval time. This way Bryusov was seeking to debase clichе’s, especially as regards Agrippa von Nettesheim and Faust: according to Bryusov, the character of Agrippa had already become a clichе’d image and so was the popular engraving of the scientist that he reproduced in the middle of the sixth chapter of the 1909 edition. Juxtaposing the verbal and the graphic portraits in The Fiery Angel helps us better understand the function of the verbal portrait in a Symbolist text that was determined by the author’s design, on the one hand, and by various “instruments” of different arts, on the other. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-12T18:56:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-493f1153ef334fe8ade49e56045cbb79 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2500-4247 2541-8564 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-12T18:56:31Z |
| publishDate | 2017-06-01 |
| publisher | A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Studia Litterarum |
| spelling | doaj.art-493f1153ef334fe8ade49e56045cbb792022-12-22T00:15:14ZengA.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of SciencesStudia Litterarum2500-42472541-85642017-06-0122102110.22455/2500-4247-2017-2-2-10-21PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGELNatalia A. Drovaleva0Lomonosov Moscow State UniversityThis essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during This essay analyzes portraits in several editions of The Fiery Angel published during Bryusov’s lifetime and claims that the portrait was as a universal point of convergence for verbal and visual arts. The dialogue between literature and graphics in the context of the synthesis of arts sheds new light on the possibilities for interdisciplinary research. The time of the “beautiful book” was a time of great artists and illustrators who introduced the peculiarities of their own style and the manner of their artistic schools into their art. Books were commonly decorated with vignettes and famous paintings. Portraits, as well as plates in general, were of the highest quality. They were ornamental and illusory, with every minute detail finely drawn out. Yet, in the second edition of the novel Bryusov deliberately included medieval engravings and portraits. A comparative analysis of the verbal portraits in The Fiery Angel and engraved portraits in the book (Ruprecht, Heinrich, Faust, Mephistopheles, Renata, and Madiel) demonstrates that both the main and the secondary characters of the novel are picturesque and multidimensional whereas the xylographic portraits rather reveal conventionality and simplicity of the medieval time. This way Bryusov was seeking to debase clichе’s, especially as regards Agrippa von Nettesheim and Faust: according to Bryusov, the character of Agrippa had already become a clichе’d image and so was the popular engraving of the scientist that he reproduced in the middle of the sixth chapter of the 1909 edition. Juxtaposing the verbal and the graphic portraits in The Fiery Angel helps us better understand the function of the verbal portrait in a Symbolist text that was determined by the author’s design, on the one hand, and by various “instruments” of different arts, on the other.http://studlit.ru/images/2017-2-2/Drovaleva.pdfValery BryusovportraitThe Fiery AngelSymbolismsymbolic novelsynthesis of arts |
| spellingShingle | Natalia A. Drovaleva PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL Studia Litterarum Valery Bryusov portrait The Fiery Angel Symbolism symbolic novel synthesis of arts |
| title | PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL |
| title_full | PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL |
| title_fullStr | PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL |
| title_full_unstemmed | PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL |
| title_short | PORTRAIT IN LITERATURE AND GRAPHIC ART: THE CASE OF THE FIERY ANGEL |
| title_sort | portrait in literature and graphic art the case of the fiery angel |
| topic | Valery Bryusov portrait The Fiery Angel Symbolism symbolic novel synthesis of arts |
| url | http://studlit.ru/images/2017-2-2/Drovaleva.pdf |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT nataliaadrovaleva portraitinliteratureandgraphicartthecaseofthefieryangel |