Portrait of a hero as a means of artistic characterization. Tools for creating a character image

1. I.S. Turgenev: life and creativity. “Mumu” ​​- from the history of creation. Historical and cultural basis of the work.
2. Gerasim and Tatyana: the history of their relationship. Spiritual qualities of Gerasim.
3. Gerasim and Mumu: the happiness of the hero.
4. Gerasim's silent protest. Symbol of the muteness of serfs.

Lesson 2.

Subject: Gerasim: characteristics of the hero. Image creation tools. Portrait, description of the premises as a means of characterizing the character.

Textbook: Literature. 5th grade. Textbook-reader in 4 parts, part 2. Compiled by V.Ya. Korovina and others. M., Education, OJSC Moscow Textbooks, 2006.

Goals: to achieve students' understanding of the role of a portrait and a description of a room in a work of art; teach to analyze the text, paying attention to the role of such artistic and visual means as hyperbole, comparison, diminutive suffixes; to cultivate an aesthetic attitude towards the word, to develop interest in it as a means of creating an image in a literary work; cultivate interest in fine art through portrait images of story characters.

Teaching methods: verbal (conversation), visual (illustration), reproductive (text analysis, selection of synonyms, explanation of lexical meanings), work with a textbook (text) both independently and for the whole class.

During the classes:

1. Org moment.
2. Work on the topic of the lesson.

• You started reading the story. What are your impressions? Do you want to read to the end? Why?
• What did you like about the beginning of the work? What difficulties did you encounter while reading?
• Where does the story take place? What characters do we meet? What do we learn about them?
• Commented reading 1 paragraph (page 43). Explain the meaning of the words “miserly and bored old age”? Does Turgenev use these words in a literal or figurative sense in relation to the lady? Why was her life like this? How did you understand these words: “ Her day, joyless and stormy, has long passed; but her evening was blacker than night”? What words are used figuratively here? When does a person say about himself or others that the day is sad and stormy? Why did the lady live through such days? (The lady’s old age passed alone, her children left her: “her sons served in St. Petersburg, her daughters got married..”) Why do you think children were not frequent guests in their mother’s house?
• How does Gerasim appear on the pages of the story? Describe it. What external features of the hero did you notice? What attracted you to them? What qualities of Gerasim seemed the most important?
• Commented reading(pp. 43-44) Choose synonyms for the word “servants” (servants, servants, serfs) How did Gerasim stand out among her? What associations do you have when you hear the word “hero”? What heroic qualities of the hero does Turgenev himself point out? Read (“twelve inches tall”, “worked for four”, “leaning his huge palms on the plow”, “crushingly acted with a scythe”, “long and hard muscles of his shoulders”, “threshed non-stop with a three-yard flail”) Explain the expression “tireless work” . What quality should a person have who can work like this without getting tired? (hard work) What comparison does Turgenev use when describing Gerasim? (“how the lever went down and up... the muscles of his shoulders”) Let’s think about why the author chooses this comparison? (the lever is the tool that makes the mechanism work smoothly and clearly, and Gerasim “taught” his body this)
• Let's think about why Turgenev, speaking about the peasant's first assistant in plowing, a horse, uses the word “little horse”? What shade does the word acquire and due to what? (the role of the diminutive suffix, contrast: the huge Gerasim and the small horse.)
• Is there an assessment of the hero by the author himself? Support your answer with quotes. (“he was... the most wonderful person”, “he was a nice man...”) In relation to what qualities of the hero does the author express this attitude: to his external or internal characteristics?
• Commented reading(pp. 44-45) How did Gerasim get into the lady’s house? Read how you felt about moving to Moscow? (“bored and perplexed”) Explain the meaning of the word “perplexed”? Why was the hero “bored”? (his heart yearned for the fields, the “fields” where his whole life had been spent) Where does this bewilderment come from? After all, Gerasim understood that he was a serf, and therefore the lady had the right to do with him as she wished? (with his heroic physique, the work of a janitor was too simple for him, not on par with what he had been doing in the village all these years)
• What word did Gerasim call his new work? (“joke”) Let’s try to explain this. But such work is a blessing compared to the previous one, then why did Gerasim so often want to be left alone, go into the fields and “throw himself face down on the ground and lie motionless on his chest for whole hours...”? (sadness for my former life in the village, love for my native land, the understanding that no one will take into account his opinion as a serf, especially since he is mute) What comparison does the author choose here, talking about how difficult it was for Gerasim to adapt to the new life? (“he lay motionless on his chest, like a captured animal”) And where are captured animals kept? Why did the hero perceive himself as if in a cage? Explain.
• What was Gerasim’s new job? Tell me. Did Gerasim really have so little to do? Could it be that Gerasim could complete all these tasks “in half an hour”? How did the hero work? Let's find hyperbole in the description of Gerasim. (“not only the cart, but the horse itself will be pushed out of place,” “having caught two thieves, he hit their foreheads against each other, and hit them so hard that at least don’t take them to the police later...”) Why did those around him “begin to respect him very much”? (for dexterity, enormous physical strength, which he took not in order to frighten people, to cause fear and respect for himself, but in order to help others, as in the case of thieves) What comparison does Turgenev use when talking about the work of a janitor? (“his ax rings like glass”) Explain how you understand this image?
• Commented reading(p. 45) Why was the servant who lived with the lady “afraid” of Gerasim? (firstly, his physical strength caused fear, secondly, his muteness scared people away, thirdly, Gerasim was “of a strict and serious disposition”) What words in describing the attitude of others towards him make you smile? Read (“even the roosters didn’t dare fight in front of him, otherwise there would be trouble!”) Why did Gerasim, of all poultry, especially respect geese? (as Turgenev writes, Gerasim himself looked like a “sedate gander,” so he fed them and followed them)
• How does Gerasim appear? Describe it.
• Work from illustrations. Consider the proposed illustrations. They depict Gerasim. This is how the artists saw him. You see that the portraits of the hero are created in different styles of writing, using different visual means. Tell me, which portrait do you think best conveys the image of the hero? Explain your point of view. Which portrayal of the hero do you disagree with? Please comment.
• Each of us knows what a portrait is. This is a picture of a person. It can be painted with watercolors, ink, oil paints, made from any material, it can also be a photograph. There are also sculptural portraits. But all of them, one way or another, are created by something material. There are portraits created with words. You and I create them almost every day, whether talking about friends, describing them, about acquaintances, or just about different people, which we need to describe. We always imagine what the people we read about in a work look like, because the writer drew them verbally, and we imagine their appearance: appearance, gait... But a portrait in literature is also facial expressions, gestures of the hero,
  Notebook entry:portrait- description of a character’s appearance in a literary work. Typically, a portrait illustrates those aspects of a personality that are important to the author.
• How do you understand the word “closet”? Explain the meaning of the word? Why didn’t Turgenev put Gerasim in the house, not in the room, not in the attic, not in the room? What associations do you have with this word? (we remember the closet of Papa Carlo, who gave birth to Pinocchio) How did Gerasim arrange his closet? Let's read. Prove that based on the situation, you and I can already tell a lot about the person who lives here. What does Gerasim’s bed say, “a truly heroic bed”? (his enormous physical strength, he made it himself - a craftsman, a jack of all trades), “the table is strong and squat”? How do you understand this word “squat”? “Heavy chest” - explain the meaning of the adjective. Find the hyperbole in the description of Gerasim’s closet (“one hundred pounds could have been laid on it / the bed/ - it would not have bent”) What qualities of Gerasim are indicated by the objects in the closet? (love of strength, solidity, order)
• How did we see Gerasim in the first pages of the story? Summarize.

Characteristics of Gerasim.

The problem of creating a character image has been and remains one of the main ones in literary creativity. The character portrait is one of the main means of creating an image and can be considered as one of the aspects of this problem. However, verbal artistic portrait- a rather complex phenomenon that does not have an unambiguous interpretation. Therefore, one of the main tasks of researchers is to study the system of stylistic techniques and means of expression that are used to more accurately express the content of a work of art, and the creation of a portrait, in particular. A literary character is a generalization and at the same time a specific personality. He moves freely in the world of a work of art and organically enters it. Therefore, creating an image of a character means not only “endowing him with character traits and communicating to him a certain structure of thoughts and feelings, but also “making us see him, hear him, become interested in his fate and the environment around him.”

A character's portrait is a description of his appearance: face, figure, clothes. The image of his behavior, demeanor, facial expressions, gait, and gestures is closely connected with him.

But there may be no portrait description of the character, and then, as researcher L.A. points out. Yurkin, the reader gets an idea of ​​the character from the description of his thoughts, feelings, actions, and speech characteristics. But in those works where a portrait is present, it can become one of the main ways of creating a literary image.

A person's appearance can say a lot about him - about his age, nationality, social status, tastes, habits, character traits. L.A. Yurkin believes that in the portrait of a character there are three main features: the first are natural, the second characterize him as social phenomenon(clothing and the way to wear it, demeanor, etc.), and still others are facial expressions that indicate the feelings being experienced. “But a face, a figure, gestures can not only “speak”, but also “hide”, or simply not mean anything other than themselves. Therefore, an artistic portrait is often almost impossible to read.”

He also notes that when there is correspondence in life between the external and internal, it allows the writer to use the character’s appearance when creating him as a generalized image. A character can become the embodiment of one particular property of human nature, which dominates as a property of his behavior and requires a certain external expression for him.

Character portrait in modern literary criticism understood in a narrow and broad sense.

A verbal portrait in the narrow sense is a continuous descriptive chain of one sentence or more. A verbal portrait in a broad sense is the entire set of these descriptive chains related to the description of a character.

In this regard, a compact and dispersed verbal artistic portrait is distinguished.

Compact verbal portrait- a single portrait description: having described the appearance of his character once, the writer may not refer to it for some time.

Dispersed portrait description is a repeated periodic reference to the appearance of a character during the narrative

A verbal artistic portrait is multifunctional. Within the framework of a work of art, he can perform the most different functions, in accordance with the functional content of the literary text in general. The social, philosophical, moral, religious and other orientation of the text is reflected in the verbal portrait as an important compositional element of the work of art.

Using an artistic portrait as a means of creating an artistic image, each writer pursues his own specific goal, which means that in the text of a work of art, each specific portrait description of a character will have its own function. Thus, the characterological and evaluative functions lead readers to an understanding of the character’s character and contribute to the disclosure of the ideological and artistic content of the work.

The aesthetic function expresses the connection between content and form, without which an artistic image cannot be created. The systematizing property of the aesthetic function is that all other functions pass through it, that is, in its pure form the aesthetic function simply does not exist.

Thus, the external description of a character is not a convention for creating an artistic image, but a very important way of revealing its psychological means, and therefore a more in-depth understanding of the intent of the entire artistic text.

1. Portrait- image of the hero’s appearance. As noted, this is one of the techniques for character individualization. Through a portrait, the writer often reveals inner world hero, features of his character. In literature, there are two types of portraits - unfolded and torn. The first is a detailed description of the hero’s appearance (Gogol, Turgenev, Goncharov, etc.), the second is that as the character develops, they stand out characteristic details portrait (L. Tolstoy and others). L. Tolstoy categorically objected to a detailed description, considering it static and unmemorable. Meanwhile, creative practice confirms the effectiveness of this form of portraiture. Sometimes an idea of ​​the hero’s external appearance is created without portrait sketches, but with the help of a deep disclosure of the hero’s inner world, when the reader, as it were, completes the picture himself. “So, in Pushkin’s romance “Eugene Onegin” nothing is said about the color of the eyes or stripes of Onegin and Tatiana, but the reader imagines them as alive.

2. Actions. As in life, the character of a hero is revealed primarily in what he does, in his actions. The plot of the work is a chain of events in which the characters' characters are revealed. A person is judged not by what he says about himself, but by his behavior.

3. Individualization of speech. This is also one of the most important means of revealing the character of the hero, since in speech a person fully reveals himself. In ancient times there was an aphorism: “Speak so that I can see you.” The speech gives an idea of ​​the hero’s social status, his character, education, profession, temperament and much more. The talent of a prose writer is determined by the ability to reveal the hero through his speech. All Russian classic writers are distinguished by the art of individualizing the speech of characters.

4. Biography of the hero. In a work of fiction, the hero’s life is depicted, as a rule, over a certain period. The writer often brings up the day to reveal the origins of certain character traits) biographical information related to his past. Thus, in I. Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov” there is a chapter “Oblomov’s Dream,” which tells about the hero’s childhood, and it becomes clear to the reader why Ilya Ilyich grew up lazy and completely unadapted to life. Biographical information important for understanding Chichikov’s character is given by N. Gogol in the novel “ Dead Souls».

5. Author's description . The author of the work acts as an omniscient commentator. He comments not only on events, but also on what is happening in the spiritual world of the heroes. The author cannot use this tool dramatic work, since his direct presence does not correspond to the peculiarities of dramaturgy (his stage directions are partially fulfilled).

6. Characteristics of the hero by other characters. This tool is widely used by writers.

7. Hero's worldview. Each person has his own view of the world, his own attitude towards life and people, so the writer, to complete the characterization of the hero, illuminates his worldview. Typical example-Bazarov in I. Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons”, expressing his nihilistic views.

8. Habits, manners. Each person has his own habits and manners that shed light on his personal qualities. The habit of teacher Belikov from A. Chekhov’s story “The Man in a Case” to carry an umbrella and galoshes in any weather, guided by the principle “no matter what happens,” characterizes him as a hardened conservative.

9. The hero's attitude towards nature. By how a person relates to nature, to “our smaller brothers” animals, one can judge his character, his humanistic essence. For Bazarov, nature is “not a temple, but a workshop, and a person is a worker.” The peasant Kalinich has a different attitude towards nature (“Khor and Kalinich” by I. Turgenev).

10. Property characteristics. The caves surrounding a person give an idea of ​​his material wealth, profession, aesthetic taste and much more. Therefore, writers widely use this tool, giving important so-called artistic details. So, in the living room of landowner Manilov (“Dead Souls” by N. Gogol), the furniture has been standing unpacked for several years, and on the table there is a book, open for the same number of years on page 14.

11.Psychological analysis tools: dreams, letters, diaries, revealing the hero’s inner world. Tatyana's dream, letters from Tatyana and Onegin in A.S. Pushkin's novel “Eugene Onegin” help the reader understand the inner state of the characters.

12. Meaningful (creative) surname. Often, to characterize characters, writers use surnames or given names that correspond to the essence of their characters. Great masters of creating such surnames in Russian literature were N. Gogol, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. Chekhov. Many of these surnames became household names: Derzhimorda, Prishibeev, Derunov, etc.

In modern literary criticism there are clear differences: 1) biographical author- creative person, existing in extra-artistic, primary-empirical reality, and 2) the author in his intratextual, artistic embodiment.

An author in the first meaning is a writer who has his own biography (the literary genre of scientific biography of a writer is known, for example, the four-volume work of S.A. Makashin, dedicated to the biography of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc.), creating, composing another reality - verbal and artistic statements of any kind and genre, claiming ownership of the text he created.

In the moral and legal field of art, the following concepts are widely used: Copyright(Part civil law, defining the legal responsibilities associated with the creation and use of works of literature, science and art); copyright agreement(agreement on the use of works of literature, science and art, concluded by the copyright holder); author's manuscript(in textual criticism, a concept characterizing the belonging of a given written material to a specific author); authorized text(text for which the author’s consent has been given for publication, translation and distribution); author's proofreading(editing proofs or layout, which is carried out by the author himself in agreement with the editors or publishing house); author's translation(translation of a work into another language by the original author), etc.

With varying degrees of involvement, the author participates in literary life of his time, entering into direct relationships with other authors, with literary critics, with the editors of magazines and newspapers, with book publishers and booksellers, in epistolary contacts with readers, etc. Similar aesthetic views lead to the creation of writing groups, circles, literary societies, other copyright associations.

The concept of the author as an empirical-biographical person and entirely responsible for the work he has composed takes root along with the recognition in the history of culture of the intrinsic value of creative imagination, artistic fiction (in ancient literatures, descriptions were often taken as the undoubted truth, for what actually happened or happened) 1). In the poem quoted above, Pushkin captured the psychologically complex transition from the perception of poetry as a free and majestic “service of the muses” to the awareness of the art of words as a certain kind of creative work. It was a clear symptom professionalization literary work, characteristic of Russian literature at the beginning of the 19th century.

In an oral collective folk art(folklore) the category of author is deprived of the status of personal responsibility for a poetic statement. The place of the author of the text takes place there executor text - singer, narrator, narrator, etc. For many centuries of literary and especially pre-literary creativity, the idea of ​​the author, with varying degrees of openness and clarity, was included in the universal, esoterically comprehended concept of Divine authority, prophetic instructiveness, mediativity, sanctified by the wisdom of centuries and traditions 1 . Literary historians note a gradual increase personal beginnings in literature, a barely noticeable but persistent strengthening of the role of the author's individuality in the literary development of the nation 2. This process, starting with ancient culture and more clearly revealing itself in the Renaissance (the works of Boccaccio, Dante, Petrarch), it is mainly associated with gradually emerging trends in overcoming artistic and normative canons, consecrated by the pathos of sacred cult teaching. The manifestation of direct authorial intonations in poetic literature is determined primarily by the growth of the authority of sincere-lyrical, intimate-personal motives and plots.

Author's self-awareness reaches its apogee in the heyday romantic art, focused on keen attention to the unique and individual value in a person, in his creative and moral quests, on the depiction of secret movements, on the embodiment of fleeting states, inexpressible experiences of the human soul.

In a broad sense, the author acts as an organizer, embodiment and exponent of emotional and semantic integrity, the unity of a given artistic text as an author-creator. IN sacred sense It is customary to talk about the living presence of the author in the creation itself (cf. in Pushkin’s poem “I erected a monument to myself not made by hands...”: “...The soul in the treasured lyre/My ashes will survive and flee decay...”).

The relationship between the author outside the text and the author captured in the text, are reflected in ideas about the subjective and omniscient author’s role that are difficult to comprehensively describe, the author's plan, the author's concept (idea, will), found in every “cell” of the narrative, in every plot-compositional unit of the work, in every component of the text and in the artistic whole of the work.

At the same time, there are known confessions of many authors related to the fact that literary heroes, in the process of their creation, begin to live as if independently, according to the unwritten laws of their own organics, acquire a certain internal sovereignty and act contrary to the original author’s expectations and assumptions. L.N. Tolstoy recalled (this example has long become a textbook example) that Pushkin once confessed to one of his friends: “Imagine what kind of thing Tatyana ran away with me! She got married. I never expected this from her.” And he continued: “I can say the same about Anna Karenina. In general, my heroes and heroines sometimes do things that I would not want: they do what they should do in real life and as happens in real life, and not what I want...”

Subjective author's will, expressed throughout artistic integrity works, commands a heterogeneous interpretation of the author behind text, recognizing in it the inseparability and non-fusion of the empirical, everyday and artistic and creative principles. A general poetic revelation was A.A. Akhmatova’s quatrain from the cycle “Secrets of the Craft” (the poem “I have no use for odic armies...”):

If only you knew from what rubbish / Poems grow without shame, / Like a yellow dandelion on a fence, / Like burdocks and quinoa.

Often, a “treasury of curiosities” - legends, myths, stories, anecdotes about the author’s life - diligently replenished by contemporaries, and then by descendants, becomes a kind of kaleidoscopic-centripetal text. Increased interest may be attracted to unclear love, family-conflict and other aspects of the biography, as well as to unusual, non-trivial manifestations of the poet’s personality. A.S. Pushkin, in a letter to P.A. Vyazemsky (second half of November 1825), in response to his addressee’s complaints about the “loss of Byron’s notes,” noted: “We know Byron quite well. They saw him on the throne of glory, they saw him in the torment of a great soul, they saw him in a tomb in the middle of resurrecting Greece. - You want to see him on the ship. The crowd greedily reads confessions, notes, etc., because in their meanness they rejoice at the humiliation of the high, the weaknesses of the mighty. At the discovery of any abomination, she is delighted. He is small, like us, he is vile, like us! You’re lying, scoundrels: he’s both small and vile - not like you - otherwise.”

More specific “personified” authorial intratextual manifestations provide compelling reasons for literary scholars to carefully examine author's image in fiction, discover various shapes presence of the author in the text. These forms depend on tribal affiliation works from him genre, but there are also general trends. As a rule, the author's subjectivity is clearly manifested in frame components of the text: title, epigraph, beginning And ending main text. Some works also contain dedications, author's notes(as in “Eugene Onegin”), preface, afterword, together forming a unique meta text, integral with the main text. This same range of issues includes the use pseudonyms with expressive lexical meaning: Sasha Cherny, Andrey Bely, Demyan Bedny, Maxim Gorky. This is also a way of building the image of the author and purposefully influencing the reader.

The author expresses himself most poignantly in lyrics, where the statement belongs to one lyrical subject, where his experiences are depicted, his attitude towards the “inexpressible” (V.A. Zhukovsky), towards the outside world and the world of his soul in the infinity of their transitions into each other.

IN drama the author finds himself more in the shadow of his heroes. But even here his presence is seen in title, epigraph(if he is), list characters, in various kinds stage directions, advance notices(for example, in “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol - “Characters and Costumes. Notes for Gentlemen Actors”, etc.), in the system of remarks and any other stage directions, in remarks aside. The author's mouthpiece can be the characters themselves: heroes -reasoners(cf. Starodum’s monologues in D.I. Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor”), choir(from the ancient Greek theater to the theater of Bertolt Brecht), etc. The author's intentionality reveals itself in general concept and the plot structure of the drama, in the arrangement of characters, in the nature of conflict tension, etc. In dramatizations of classical works, characters “from the author” often appear (in films based on literary works, a voice-over “author’s” voice is introduced).

The author appears to be more involved in the event of the work in epic. Only the genres of autobiographical story or autobiographical novel, as well as adjacent works with fictional characters, warmed by the light of autobiographical lyricism, present the author to a certain extent directly (in “Confession” by J.-J. Rousseau, “Poetry and Truth” by I.V. Goethe, “Before and Thoughts” by A.I. Herzen, “Poshekhon Antiquity” by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, in “The History of My Contemporary” by V.G. Korolenko, etc.).

Most often the author acts as narrator, leading story from third party in an extra-subjective, impersonal form. The figure has been known since the time of Homer omniscient author, knowing everything and everyone about his heroes, freely moving from one time plane to another, from one space to another. In modern literature, this method of narration, the most conventional (the narrator’s omniscience is not motivated), is usually combined with subjective forms, with the introduction storytellers, with transmission in speech formally belonging to the narrator, points of view this or that hero (for example, in “War and Peace” the reader sees the Battle of Borodino “through the eyes” of Andrei Bolkonsky and Pierre Bezukhov). In general, in an epic, the system of narrative instances can be very complex, multi-stage, and the forms of input of “alien speech” are very diverse. The author can entrust his stories to someone he has written, to a dummy Narrator (participant in events, chronicler, eyewitness, etc.) or to narrators, who can thus be characters in their own narrative. The narrator leads first person narration; depending on its closeness/alienity to the author’s outlook, the use of this or that vocabulary, some researchers distinguish personal narrator(“Notes of a Hunter” by I.S. Turgenev) and the narrator himself, with his characteristic, patterned tale (“Warrior” by N.S. Leskov).

In any case, the unifying principle of the epic text is the author’s consciousness, which sheds light on the whole and on all components of the literary text. “...The cement that binds every work of art into one whole and therefore produces the illusion of a reflection of life,” wrote L.N. Tolstoy, “is not the unity of persons and positions, but the unity of the original moral attitude of the author to the subject” 2. IN epic works the author's beginning appears in different ways: as the author's point of view on the recreated poetic reality, as the author's commentary on the course of the plot, as a direct, indirect or indirect characterization of the characters, as the author's description of the natural and material world, etc.

Author's image as a semantic-style category epic And lyric-epic the works are purposefully comprehended by V.V. Vinogradov as part of the theory of functional styles he developed 2. The image of the author was understood by V.V. Vinogradov as the main and multi-valued stylistic characteristic of a single work and of all fiction as a distinctive whole. Moreover, the image of the author was conceived primarily in his stylistic individualization, in his artistic and speech expression, in the selection and implementation of the corresponding lexical and syntactic units in the text, in the general compositional embodiment; The image of the author, according to Vinogradov, is the center of the artistic and speech world, revealing the author’s aesthetic relationship to the content of his own text.

One of them recognizes complete or almost complete omnipotence in a dialogue with a literary text reader, his unconditional and natural right to freedom of perception of a poetic work, to freedom from the author, from obediently following the author’s concept embodied in the text, to independence from the author’s will and author's position. Going back to the works of V. Humboldt and A.A. Potebnya, this point of view was embodied in the works of representatives of the psychological school of literary criticism of the 20th century. A.G. Gornfeld wrote about a work of art: “Complete, detached from the creator, it is free from his influence, it has become a playground of historical fate, because it has become an instrument of someone else’s creativity: the creativity of those who perceive. We need the artist’s work precisely because it is the answer to our questions: our, for the artist did not set them for himself and could not foresee them<...>every new reader of Hamlet is, as it were, his new author...” Yu.I. Aikhenvald offered his own maxim on this matter: “The reader will never read exactly what the writer wrote.”

The extreme expression of this position is that the author’s text becomes only a pretext for subsequent active reader receptions, literary adaptations, willful translations into the languages ​​of other arts, etc. Consciously or unintentionally, the reader’s arrogant categorism and categorical judgments are justified. In the practice of school, and sometimes special philological education, confidence in the limitless power of the reader over the literary text is born, the formula “My Pushkin”, hard-won by M.I. Tsvetaeva, is replicated, and involuntarily another one is born, going back to Gogol’s Khlestakov: “With Pushkin on a friendly leg."

In the second half of the 20th century. The “reader-centric” point of view has been taken to its extreme limit. Roland Barthes, focusing on the so-called poststructuralism in literary literature and philological science and announcing the text is a zone of exclusively linguistic interests, capable of bringing the reader mainly playful pleasure and satisfaction, argued that in verbal and artistic creativity “traces of our subjectivity are lost”, “all self-identity and, first of all, the bodily identity of the writer disappears”, “the voice is torn away from its source , death comes for the author." Artistic text, according to R. Barthes, is an extra-subjective structure, and the owner-manager, co-natural with the text itself, is the reader: “... the birth of the reader has to be paid for with the death of the Author.” Despite its proud shockingness and extravagance, the concept death of the author, developed by R. Barth, helped to focus philological research attention on the deep semantic-associative roots that precede the observed text and constitute its genealogy, which is not fixed by the author’s consciousness (“texts within a text”, dense layers of involuntary literary reminiscences and connections, archetypal images, etc.). It is difficult to overestimate the role of the reading public in the literary process: after all, the fate of the book depends on its approval (the silent path), indignation or complete indifference. Disputes between readers about the character of the hero, the convincingness of the denouement, the symbolism of the landscape, etc. - this is the best evidence of “life” artistic composition. “As for my last work: “Fathers and Sons,” I can only say that I stand amazed at its action,” writes I.S. Turgenev to P.V. Annenkov.

But the reader makes his presence known not only when the work is completed and offered to him. It is present in the consciousness (or subconscious) of the writer in the very act of creativity, influencing the result. Sometimes the thought of the reader is framed as an artistic image. To denote the reader’s participation in the processes of creativity and perception, various terms are used: in the first case - addressee (imaginary, implicit, internal reader); in the second - real reader (public, recipient). In addition, they highlight reader's image in work 2. Here we will talk about the reader-addressee of creativity, some related problems (mainly based on the material of Russian literature XIX-XX centuries).

Municipal budgetary educational institution

Secondary school No. 21

"Portrait of a hero as a means of artistic characterization"

MBOU secondary school No. 21

Scientific supervisor: Kurlenko G.P.,

teacher of Russian language

and literature MBOU secondary school No. 21

Kovrov, 2012

Purpose of the abstract:

Explore portraits as a means of artistic characterization.

Research objectives:

1.Get acquainted with the history of the appearance of the portrait.

2.Consider portraits of heroes in different areas of literature.

Consider examples of portraits from various authors.

Introduction

Behind long history Since its existence, literature has accumulated a rich arsenal of various techniques with the help of which an artistic image is created. One of the most important means of characterizing a hero is his portrait. Portrait in literature is one of the means of artistic characterization, which consists in the fact that the writer reveals the typical character of his heroes and expresses his ideological attitude towards them through the image of the appearance of the heroes: their figure, face, clothing, movements, gestures and manners. Given how much physical description can reveal, writers often use it to describe a character. For example, such a description was well accomplished by A.S. Pushkin: “His appearance seemed remarkable to me: he was about forty, of average height, thin and broad-shouldered. There was gray in his black beard; his lively, large eyes were darting. His face had a rather pleasant, but roguish expression. His hair was cut in a circle ; he was wearing a tattered overcoat and Tatar trousers." A skillfully done description makes the character’s appearance almost “alive”, visible. The external appearance creates the first impression of the character and becomes a step on the path to understanding the inner world of a person: “one sideways left-hander, a birthmark on the cheek, and hair on the temples torn out during training”

In fiction as a verbal art, a portrait is only one of the means of characterization, used in compositional unity with other similar means: the unfolding of action in the plot, the description of the thoughts and moods of the characters, the dialogue of the characters, the description of the situation, etc. An example is cite a portrait from the work “Asya” by Turgenev: “My gaze fell on the handsome young man in a cap and wide jacket; He was holding a short girl by the arm, wearing a straw hat that covered the entire upper part of her face.” A unique system of such means of characterization is what creates an artistic image in literature, and the portrait thereby turns out to be one of the sides of the artistic image.

Among all other methods of depiction, the portrait is distinguished by its special visual clarity and, together with the landscape and everyday descriptions, gives the work a special power of representation. Here, for example, is a very unusual portrait by N.V. Gogol: “He was beautiful even in death: his courageous face, recently filled with strength and a charm invincible for wives, still expressed wonderful beauty; black eyebrows, like mourning velvet, set off his pale features.”

Being one of the aspects of an artistic image, a portrait includes those main points that are essential for the image as a whole. In the portrait of a hero, as in his entire image, there are both general, typical features and individual ones. On the one hand, the literary hero is portrayed in most cases as social and historical person, a representative of a certain social era, a certain class and class group; his appearance, movements, and manners usually characterize the social environment that the writer generalizes and ideologically evaluates in his work. On the other hand, the literary hero is, as a social and historical person, different from other members of his environment; by choosing and combining individual features of his portrait, the writer also expresses his ideological attitude towards that social group, the representative of which is the hero:

Always modest, always obedient,

Always cheerful like the morning,

How a poet's life is simple-minded,

How sweet is love's kiss;

Eyes like the sky are blue,

Smile, flaxen curls,

Everything in Olga... but any romance

Take it and find it right

Her portrait...

The culture of portraiture developed gradually and had a direct connection with the author’s immediate assessments. The first literary portraits were published in magazines. The “pioneer” in Western Europe was C. Sainte-Beuve. In 1829, the magazine Revue de Paris published his portraits of Corneille, Boileau, and Lafontaine. The history of portraiture in Russian criticism begins with Karamzin’s “Bulletin of Europe”, in which the publisher himself published a biography of I.F. Bogdanovich (Bulletin of Europe, 1803, No. 9-10). Many Russian magazines, including art history magazines, had special sections called “Biography” or “Biography and Neurology.” Thus, in the “Drama Journal for 1811” (Moscow), “Journal of Fine Arts” (St. Petersburg, 1823); the magazine “Repertoire of the Russian Theater” (1823), the magazine “Artist” (Moscow, 1889) and others, there were special departments in which similar portrait essays. Subsequently, the genre went beyond critical sections and crossed the boundaries of magazine types of publications.

The peculiarity of the emergence of the literary portrait is the fact that in Europe and Russia it was born as a genre literary criticism and in connection with the emergence of the so-called “new romantic method”. In the early stages of the development of literature, portraits are replete with metaphors, comparisons, and vivid epithets: “These were two stalwart young men, still looking from under their brows, like recently graduated seminarians. Their strong, healthy faces were covered with the first fluff of hair, which had not yet been touched by a razor.” Despite its colorfulness, such portraiture was not an accurate reflection individual characteristics character. This situation persisted in literature until the 19th century.

Portrait in various literary genres

In different literary births and genres, the portrait changes with changes in artistic methods, styles and literary trends. At different stages literary development, at its various moments the portrait differs in the degree of its typicality and the degree of its individualization based on its ideological content. In the works of writers who gravitate toward naturalism with its social and everyday generalizations or toward realism, which reveals deeper social contradictions, the portraits of heroes are usually distinguished by realistic plausibility and typicality. The hero is portrayed as a typical representative of his environment, in its ordinary, everyday everyday relationships and settings; in the portrait of heroes, everyday everyday features are most often emphasized, which do not have anything exceptional or extraordinary in them. Such a hero was shown in “The Overcoat” by N.V. Gogol: “The official cannot be said to be very remarkable, short in stature, somewhat pockmarked, somewhat reddish, somewhat blind in appearance, with a small bald spot on his forehead, with wrinkles on both sides of the cheeks and a complexion that is called hemorrhoidal.”

In the works of writers distinguished by certain shades of romanticism and fantasy, one can often see a repulsion from the ordinary and everyday. The characters are portrayed as exceptional individuals in unusual, rarely encountered circumstances, and their portraits contain a lot of the extraordinary, the exaggerated, and sometimes the fantastic. An example is the detailed description of the changed clothes of the sons of Taras Bulba: “The students suddenly changed: instead of the previous dirty boots, red morocco boots with silver horseshoes appeared on them; trousers as wide as the Black Sea, with a thousand folds and ruffles, were covered with a golden spectacle; Long straps with tassels and other trinkets for the pipe were attached to the glasses. A scarlet-colored Cossack, cloth bright as fire, was girded with a patterned belt; there were embossed Turkish pistols
tucked into the belt; the saber clanged against his legs. Their faces, still slightly tanned, seemed to become prettier and whiter; the young black mustache now somehow set off its whiteness and the healthy, powerful color of youth more brightly; they looked good under black mutton caps with a golden top.” This is no longer an everyday, but a romantic portrait, found mainly in romantic poems, ballads and lyrics. However, realist writers’ portraits are not always distinguished by maintaining the features of external verisimilitude. In some works of realist writers, permeated with romance or a satirical mood, reaching the point of grotesque, we find a typical portrait of typical heroes, shown in exaggerated everyday relationships or outside of them. Depending on the nature of the literary style, the content of the portrait and the place given to it change. Hence the very different forms of portraiture in the history of literature - from richly developed to almost complete absence him (for example, among the Symbolists). The Romantics abandoned all previous aesthetic norms, but could not remain independent for long. Their portraits gradually became canonized: a romantic hero must have restless and gloomy look , the features are stern and melancholy.

“Kept a trace of the alarm of abuse

Wrinkles of a dark brow.

There is blood in the weapon and dress;

In the last frantic squeeze

The hand on the mane froze.”

(Demon, M.Yu. Lermontov)

The sentimental portrait affirms the rich spiritual world of the hero. Attention is paid to the spiritual world of a person, and feelings come first. “A young, well-dressed, pleasant-looking man met her on the street. She showed him the flowers and blushed.” In this portrait from the work “ Poor Lisa» N.M. Karamzin does not pay attention to the face and appearance of the young man. All that is said is that the young man (Erast) was young and handsome, and the girl “blushed” when she saw him.

In folklore, the positive heroes of fairy tales are always dazzlingly beautiful. The fantastic beauty of good in oral folk art contrasts with the exaggerated ugliness of evil.

“Speak the truth, young lady

There really was a queen:

Tall, slender, white,

And I took it with my mind and with everything;

But proud, brittle,

Willful and jealous."

(The Tale of dead princess and about the seven heroes, A.S. Pushkin)

"She was tall, slender, dazzling white woman -

The Snow Queen; and the fur coat and hat she was wearing were made of snow.”

(The Snow Queen, H.H. Andersen)

Only the realistic portrait became individualized, in which verbal painting was supplemented with analysis that conveys complexity and diversity, in which the originality of nature was embodied. The Russians created a wonderful portrait gallery writers XIX century. Each of them supplemented already known techniques with their findings in the field of literary portraiture.

One of the first to offer a detailed analytical description of the hero’s appearance was M. Yu. Lermontov in the novel Hero of our time . In this work, all artistic means are subordinated to the main goal of the author - to see the hero through the eyes of various characters, to gradually bring the reader closer to unraveling the secret of Pechorin’s personality, whose character develops and reveals itself. An important role in the realization of the writer’s plan is played by the psychological portrait of the hero placed in the short story. Maxim Maksimych . Pechorin's appearance bears the stamp of a complex internal organization. Looking at the hero, the reader begins to understand a lot about his character. The portrait testifies to Pechorin's fatigue and coldness. Grigory Alexandrovich retains the sophistication and sophistication inherent in a person of an aristocratic circle, but they do not save him from indifference to life. The most strong impact The hero’s eyes influence the narrator: “They didn’t laugh when he laughed!.. This is a sign of either an evil disposition or deep, constant sadness. Because of the half-lowered eyelashes, they shone with some kind of phosphorescent shine... It was not a reflection of the heat of the soul or the playing imagination: it was a shine, similar to the shine of smooth steel, dazzling, but cold... "Each feature of Pechorin's face is accompanied by a similar author's commentary . The writer shows that his hero is a man in whose soul the fire of desires has gone out. The feelings left his face, leaving their traces on it and the impression of forces that were not completely wasted, which no longer please Pechorin. He is indifferent to his fate, to his past.

Later, in the works of N.V. Gogol, I.S. Turgenev, F.M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, detailed characteristics of appearance were replaced by portraits, marking a single, but semantically very important detail.

For example, in the portrait of Gogol’s Akaki Akakievich main feature it turns out to be complete impersonality, emphasized in every way by the writer: “No matter how many directors and various bosses changed, everyone saw him in the same place, in the same position, in the same position, with the same official for writing, so that later they were convinced that that he, apparently, was born into the world completely ready, in a uniform and with a bald spot on his head.”

I. S. Turgenev in the work “Bezhin Meadow” paid special attention to five boys: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. He describes in some detail the appearance and clothing of each of them: “The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would give about fourteen years old. He was a slender boy, with beautiful and delicate, slightly small features, curly blond hair, light eyes and a constant, half-cheerful, half-absent-minded smile. He belonged, by all accounts, to a wealthy family and went out into the field not out of necessity, but just for fun. He was wearing a motley cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new Armenian jacket, put on saddled, barely rested on his narrow shoulders; A comb hung from a blue belt. His boots with low tops were just like his boots - not his father’s.” The author concluded from Fedya’s portrait: it belongs to a rich family. This was indicated by his clothes, and the author also noticed that the boy was not wearing his father’s boots, but his own. “The second boy, Pavlusha, had tousled black hair, gray eyes, wide cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, the size of a beer kettle, a squat, awkward body. The guy was unprepossessing - needless to say! - but still I liked him: he looked very smart and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He couldn’t flaunt his clothes: they all consisted of a simple shirt and patched ports.” Despite his ugly facial features, the author still paid special attention to Pavlusha and found interesting things in him. “The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, blind, it expressed some kind of dull, painful solicitude; his compressed lips did not move, his knitted eyebrows did not move apart - it was as if he was still squinting from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp braids from under a low felt cap, which he pulled down over his ears every now and then with both hands. He was wearing new bast shoes and onuchi; a thick rope, twisted three times around the waist, carefully tied his neat black scroll. Both he and Pavlusha looked no more than twelve years old.” Turgenev clearly did not really like the boy’s appearance; this is reflected in the portrait itself. “The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad gaze. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed downwards, like a squirrel's; lips could barely be distinguished; but his large, black eyes, shining with a liquid brilliance, made a strange impression; they seemed to want to express something for which the language - in his language at least - had no words. He was vertically challenged, frail build and dressed rather poorly." This portrait can be called romantic; Kolya collected in his appearance the features inherent in a romantic image, which was perfectly supported by the author. But he is Vanya it was there at first and didn't notice , therefore Turgenev described him briefly: “he lay on the ground, quietly huddled under the angular matting, and only occasionally put his light brown curly head out from under it. This boy was only seven years old."

F. M. Dostoevsky attached great importance to the appearance of the hero. Revealing the inner world of his characters, the writer sought to show the clash of opposing forces, the constant struggle between consciousness and subconscious, intention and the implementation of this intention. The heroes of his works not only worry, they suffer painfully. Striving for deep psychological motivation of the character, F. M. Dostoevsky also subordinates portraiture to this task. But he very vividly describes one old man from “White Nights”: “The face is so important, thoughtful; He keeps whispering under his breath and waving his left hand, and in his right he has a long, knotty cane with a gold knob.” Thus, he gives one small portrait, recording only the main distinctive features of the hero, and does not delve into descriptions of the smile, hair, eyes. But nevertheless, the image of an old man can be easily imagined.

A recognized master of psychological analysis not only in Russian, but also in world literature is L. N. Tolstoy. Among the writer’s favorite techniques for embodying character, a portrait plays a special role. Tolstoy, as if in a mirror, is reflected living truth human physiognomy , rare features bring out everything that lurks inside... a person . In the portraits of Tolstoy’s heroes, everything is changeable and mobile. Appearance serves as a means of conveying the dynamics of the hero’s mental life. An example is the portrait of Varenka in the story “After the Ball”: “She was a wonderful beauty even at fifty years old. But in her youth, eighteen years old, she was lovely: tall, slender, graceful and majestic, just majestic. She always held herself unusually straight, as if she could not do otherwise, throwing her head back a little, and this gave her, with her beauty and tall stature, despite her thinness, even bonyness, a kind of regal appearance that would frighten away from her if If it weren’t for the affectionate, always cheerful smile of her mouth, her lovely, sparkling eyes, and her entire sweet, young being.” . This portrait also contains notes of romanticism.

In modern literature, for example, in the work “Kys” by Tatyana Tolstoy, one can find very unusual portraits, incomparable with anything: “And those who were born after the Explosion have different Consequences - all sorts of them. Some have hands that look like they are covered in green flour, as if he was rummaging through bread; some have gills; Others have a cock's comb or something else. But it happens that there are no Consequences, perhaps by old age the pimples will disappear from the eyes, or in a secluded place the beard will begin to grow right down to the knees. Or your nostrils will prick up on your knees.” The heroes of the novel look more like monsters than people, although they dress normally and speak in a characteristic caricatured dialect<#"justify">Conclusion

portrait hero literature romantic

So, let's summarize. Portraits appeared in magazines in the 19th century, and in Russia it was born as a genre of literary criticism, in connection with the emergence of the “new romantic method.” Romantic portraits became canonized. U romantic heroes there must be certain external features, they must be excited. In folklore there is a constant opposition between good and evil. If positive heroes are always beautiful and kind, then negative ones were distinguished by both external and internal ugliness. In a sentimental portrait, the main thing is to appeal to the feelings and soul of the hero, but in a realistic portrait, on the contrary, the originality of nature is valued. A fantastic portrait can break all boundaries and rules. Such a portrait can contain anything.

Having become acquainted with portraits in works of different genres, from different authors, I can say with confidence that the portrait is one of the most important artistic means that helps to understand the most complex and contradictory characters. Unlike other ways of depicting a hero, be it fine art or sculpture, a portrait in a literary work is the most dynamic, capable of fully conveying the appearance, facial expressions, gestures, and movements of the individual. It is precisely this completeness that is interesting not only literary portrait, but also all literature in general.

List of materials used

L.I. Krichevskaya “Portrait of a Hero”

www.wikipedia.org

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1. Portrait - a painting, drawing or photograph depicting a face or figure of a person.

2. Portrait (French portrait, from old French portraire - “to reproduce something feature by feature”, obsolete parsuna - from Latin persona - “personality; person”) - an image or description of a person or group of people, existing or existing in reality, including artistic means(painting, graphics, engravings, sculpture, photography, printing), as well as in literature and criminology (verbal portrait). Portrait in literature is one of the means of artistic characterization, which consists in the fact that the writer reveals the typical character of his heroes and expresses his ideological attitude towards them through the image of the appearance of the heroes: their figure, face, clothes, movements, gestures and manners. IN fine arts A portrait is an independent genre, the purpose of which is to display the visual characteristics of the model. “The portrait depicts the external appearance (and through it the inner world) of a specific, real person who existed in the past or exists in the present.” A portrait is a repetition in plastic forms, lines and colors of a living face, and at the same time its ideological and artistic interpretation.

3.Features:

– Copying – the portrait resembles the original only in appearance (“literal” image);

– Image – for a portrait, the face of a real person is used, and his image is created by the artist himself (a person in the image of an ancient Roman commander, king);

– A good portrait not only shows the appearance, but also the inner world, it must have an emotional similarity with the model (i.e., in the presence of the portrait, the presence of the person himself is felt), for this the artist can deviate a little from the external similarity;

– “A portrait not only depicts a person’s individuality, but also expresses the individuality of the author’s artistic personality. The artist gets used to the model’s appearance, thanks to which he comprehends the spiritual essence of human individuality. Such comprehension occurs only in the act of empathy (reincarnation) in the process of merging the model’s Self and the author’s Self. The result is a new unity, similar to that between the actor and his role. Thanks to this fusion, the model in the portrait looks as if she were actually alive.”

The author of a portrait, as a rule, is not a dispassionate recorder of external and internal features of the person being portrayed: the artist’s personal attitude towards the model, his own worldview, his creative manner leave a visible imprint on the work. Nikolai Evreinov notes that among uncultured peoples there is a superstitious prejudice against portraits, based on the belief that alive soul the person turns into a drawn image; but in fact, the soul of the portrait painter is captivated in its momentary, minute or hour-long experience. Thanks to this, the “hand” of the portraitist is easily recognizable in his works.

4. Literary portrait a) Portrait as a characterization of a hero:

- Inner world. Shown through dialogues and monologues, internal dialogues, behavior, actions, thoughts, descriptions of dreams (the internal state of the hero. Eg. Evgeny Bazarov (I. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”), Ilya Oblomov (Goncharov “Oblomov”))

- Appearance. A description of the hero is used, showing his appearance (artistic portrait).

b) Portrait as a detail of a work of art:

– Interior detail (room decoration);

– “Hero” of the work (has important role in the work: Gogol’s “Portrait” has a strong influence on people, driving them crazy; Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” makes the main character fall in love with himself, is the container of his soul; in Turgenev's Faust there is a talking portrait of the old woman Yeltsova; in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" a photographic portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, possessing enormous power impact).

5. Conclusions about the role of portraits in literature:

– Reveals the character of the hero (portrait of a moneylender - Gogol “Portrait”);

– Changes the worldview, the internal state of the hero (the story “Mother” by Veresaev).

The role of portraiture in literature

In order to find out the role of a portrait in works, let's consider what a portrait is and its role in the fine arts.

Portrait is a painting, drawing or photograph depicting a face or figure of a person. Portrait in all genres of fine art: painting, graphics, engraving, sculpture, etc. In fine art, a portrait is an independent genre, the purpose of which is to display the visual characteristics of the model. “The portrait depicts the external appearance (and through it the inner world) of a specific, real person who existed in the past or exists in the present.”

A portrait can depict a person literally, copying every detail of a person’s appearance, and the artist can also create some kind of image, for example, depict a model in the image of an ancient Roman commander or king.

The peculiarity of a good portrait is that it shows not only the person’s appearance, but also the inner world, has an emotional similarity with the model (i.e., in the presence of the portrait, the presence of the person himself is felt); for this, the artist can deviate a little from the external similarity.

Another feature of any portrait is the influence of the artist’s personality on the portrait. “A portrait not only depicts the individuality of a person, but also expresses the individuality of the artistic personality of the author. The artist gets used to the model’s appearance, thanks to which he comprehends the spiritual essence of human individuality. Such comprehension occurs only in the act of empathy (reincarnation) in the process of merging the model’s Self and the author’s Self. The result is a new unity, similar to that between the actor and his role. Thanks to this fusion, the model in the portrait looks as if she were actually alive.”

The author of a portrait, as a rule, is not a dispassionate recorder of the external and internal characteristics of the person being portrayed: the artist’s personal attitude towards the model, his own worldview, his creative style leave a visible imprint on the work. Nikolai Evreinov notes that among uncultured peoples there is a superstitious prejudice against portraits, based on the belief that a person’s living soul passes into a painted image; but in fact, the soul of the portrait painter is captivated in its momentary, minute or hour-long experience. Thanks to this, the “hand” of the portraitist is easily recognizable in his works. Alphonse Daudet, looking at it from the other side, wittily summarizes: “the artist with a long nose strives to lengthen the noses in all the portraits he paints.” That is why portraits made from the same person by different artists can be completely different in how they convey their inner world. One can cite as an example the portraits of Ambroise Vollard, painted by different artists in different periods of the development of painting. So, for example (to the aspect of the intentional distortion of the model’s appearance by the artist and the rejection of certain details), the story of the portrait of Ambroise Vollard by Picasso is known. Vollard did not like the portrait, and the painting was sold to Shchukin in Moscow. However, despite the fact that the painting was made in cubism, it is believed that Picasso portrayed Vollard more successfully and insightfully than his colleagues, who painted Vollard realistically.

With the development of technology and the advent of cameras, the need for hand-drawn portraits has disappeared, but some people prefer portraits to regular photography. So why are they willing to pose for several hours for an artist to get a hand-drawn portrait, if they can make a photographic portrait in a few seconds?

I conducted a survey to find out how a hand-drawn portrait differs from a staged photograph. 32% of people surveyed believe that a portrait is more alive and natural than a photograph; through a portrait one can convey the inner world of the model. A photograph is simply a copy of a person, not conveying any emotions or feelings, a frozen picture, a “second frame.”

30% express the point of view that a portrait is the artist’s vision, as he sees the model. 38% of respondents prefer photography, believing that a photographic portrait is more accurate and realistic.

Let's look at comparisons of some prominent people. Yuri Lotman writes: “Everyday understanding tends to identify the function of a portrait and a photograph: the objects of both are reflection human face, and this reflection is basically mechanical. The portrait seems to be the most “natural” genre of painting that does not need theoretical justification. It seems that if we say something like: portrait is a painting that performed the function of photography when photography had not yet been invented, then we will exhaust the main questions that involuntarily arise in us when we begin to think about this genre of painting. Words about the “mysteriousness” and “incomprehensibility” of the function of the portrait in culture seem far-fetched. Meanwhile, without being afraid of objections of this kind, we dare to assert that the portrait fully confirms the general truth: the more understandable, the more incomprehensible. Photography has no past and future, it is always in the present tense. The time of a portrait is dynamic, its “present” is always full of memory of the past and prediction of the future. The portrait constantly fluctuates on the verge of artistic doubling and mystical reflection of reality.” The 18th century portrait painter Latour shared his emotions in one of his letters: “How much concentration, the ability to combine, how much painful searching is needed in order to be able to maintain the unity of movement, despite the changes that occur in the face, in all forms, from fluctuations in thoughts, from the feelings of the soul; but every change creates a new portrait, not to mention the light, which is constantly changing and causes the tones of colors to change in accordance with the movement of the sun and time.” Thus, we can formulate that a portrait, unlike a photo card, is a “made” work of art, on which a lot of time and mental effort of the author was spent, thanks to which, in terms of quality and depth of transmission, it will be a much more complex and multi-level work that conveys much better personality.

Let's move on to consider the role of a portrait in a person's life. In ancient times, portraits were associated with magic: a similar image of a person was a substitute this person. In the Roman Empire, portraits of the emperor were a mandatory attribute of judicial procedures, indicating the presence of the ruler himself at the meeting. Death masks taken from ancestors were kept in houses, and these portrait sculptures provided patronage for the family. Other societies also used the portrait as a memorial tool (in Ancient Egypt, in Japan, in Oceania).

In many societies, portraits are regarded as an important way to denote power and wealth. During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, portraits of donors were often included in a work of art, confirming the patronage, power and dignity of the donor, as if emphasizing who exactly paid for the creation of a given stained glass window, altar image or fresco. In the previous period - Byzantium and the Dark Ages - the main feature of the portrait was not likeness, but an idealized image, a symbol of who the model was (see portraits of the emperors Constantine and Theodosius II). In politics, the portrait of the head of state is often used as a symbol of the state itself.

There were other aspects: “Portraits decorated the halls of landowners’ estates that belonged to bars, sometimes far from any spiritual life, but because of fashion or arrogance, they considered it necessary to have “personas” of themselves and their ancestors, and did not notice the comic or even the satirical effect produced by their pompous and clumsy faces.

Let's look at portraits in literature. Without a literary portrait it is impossible to imagine any literary work. Firstly, the most important role of a portrait is to describe the hero. A literary portrait is holistically formed only at the end of the work: it is not only a description of a person’s appearance, but also the inner world, which is revealed to the reader through dialogues and monologues, internal monologues, behavior, actions, thoughts, as well as the dreams of the hero (for example, “Oblomov” by Goncharov - Oblomov’s dream, Turgenev’s “Fathers and Sons” - Bazarov’s dream, Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” - Raskolnikov’s dreams).

A portrait in literature can also be an interior detail, which can also somehow characterize the hero and add a description to his literary portrait.

Also, the portrait itself can be the “hero” of the work, i.e., have an important role in the work. For example, Gogol's "Portrait", where the portrait of a moneylender has a strong influence on people, drives them crazy; Wilde's "The Picture of Dorian Gray", where the portrait makes the protagonist fall in love with himself, is the container of his soul; in Turgenev's Faust there is a talking portrait of the old woman Yeltsova; in Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" there is a photographic portrait of Nastasya Filippovna, which has enormous impact.

When an author uses a portrait as the “hero” of a work, he is showing some function of the portrait. Firstly, this is a reflection of the hero’s inner world, since nice portrait, as mentioned earlier, shows the inner world of the hero. Examples include Gogol’s “Portrait” and Wilde’s “Portrait of Dorian Gray,” where very realistic portraits The characters reflect their inner world very well and are, as it were, the receptacle of their souls.

Secondly, this is the influence of the portrait itself on a person’s inner world. For example, this is clearly visible in Veresaev’s story “Mother,” which describes the change in the protagonist’s inner world and his worldview after he saw Raphael’s wonderful portrait of the Sistine Madonna.

Thirdly, this is the influence of a portrait on a person’s life. For example, “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. The portrait painted by Basil Hallward made Dorian Gray fall in love with himself, with his beauty, changing his life. "Portrait" of Nikolai Gogol. The portrait of a moneylender changed the life of the artist who painted it. He went to a monastery and did not paint for a long time. The portrait also drove the people who owned it crazy. The artist Chartkov was very talented, but due to the influence of the portrait of a moneylender, he changed his art and began to paint for money.

Veresaev’s story “Competition” proves that a person’s inner world is conveyed through a good portrait, which influences people better than a portrait beautiful girl, empty inside. This is the eternal question about the beauty of a person, which Zabolotsky asked in his poem “The Ugly Girl”:

what is beauty

And why do people deify her?

She is a vessel in which there is emptiness,

Or a fire flickering in a vessel?

The portrait of a divinely beautiful maiden amazed those who saw it. The picture dazzled the eye, and when they looked away from the picture and looked around, everything seemed dark, dull, vague. Seeing such divine beauty, everyone looked at his beloved and found her ugly, and himself unhappy.

People liked the portrait of an ordinary girl Zorka more, although she was not a beauty, but inside she was beautiful, and this beauty overshadowed some of the ugliness in Zorka’s appearance. The light emanating from the painting was soft, joyful, warming. The picture made us remember the best moments of life, and each girl shone with the same light that shone in Zorka.

Thus, I found out that portraits play an important role in literature. Firstly, it is needed to better understand the hero of the work, to imagine him as the author imagined him (a literary portrait). When the author uses a portrait as the “hero” of a work, he uses the functions of the portrait in ordinary life, bringing the work closer to reality, which not only helps to better understand and comprehend the work, but also to think about questions about real art and real beauty conveyed through a portrait.