Secret Gogol: the vocation of a writer. Essay on literature on the theme Hero of the Russian Federation - Pankov Mikhail Anatolyevich (grade 5)

COMPOSITION

"It's good to wake up before dawn,
How good it is to have dreams at night
It's good that the planet is spinning,
How good it is in the world without war!”
A. Menshikov

The Pankov family lives in the village of Sloboda: Anatoly Mikhailovich Pankov is the only veteran of the Great Patriotic War and Pankova Olga Pavlovna - a veteran of pedagogical work. The name of their son is known throughout the country. Pankov Mikhail Anatolyevich bears the high title of Hero Russian Federation. He was born on the twentieth of July, one thousand nine hundred and fifty-two. He graduated from school in the village of Bui. According to the recollections of the teachers of the Buyskaya school, Anatoly was a calm, sympathetic student. After graduating from high school, he worked on a farm. From his father and mother he inherited health, diligence, intelligence and humanity.
He went through all the difficult steps military career. In 1973 he graduated from the Saratov Higher Military School of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, after which he worked as a commander of a platoon, company, battalion, regiment and division of the Internal Troops. Graduated from the Military Academy named after M.V. Frunze, and then from the Military Academy General Staff. From 1995, he worked as First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. At the same time, from 1995 to 1996, he was the commander of the group of internal troops as part of the group of federal troops in Chechnya. Participated in the first Chechen war. Since 1998, he has been Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for Emergency Situations.
After the Basayev and Khattab gangs invaded Dagestan in August 1999, he was appointed commander of the grouping of the Internal Troops in the North Caucasus. He personally led the operations of the troops, including in the Novolaksky district of Dagestan, where the Internal Troops liberated fourteen villages, destroyed three hundred and thirty-seven militants in battle, and captured forty-eight militants. Fourteen mortars were captured, eight anti-aircraft guns, four ammunition depots, and two more depots were destroyed. From October 1999, he fought on the territory of the Chechen Republic. Until the end of the year, units of the Internal Troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs occupied eighty villages in Chechnya and carried out one hundred and thirty-six special operations. In the battle for the liberation of the village of Znamenskoye on October 14, 1999, the command post was attacked by large forces of militants and was surrounded. Anatoly Mikhailovich personally led the battle to repel the attack, in which the fighters forced the enemy to flee. In December 1999 - January 2000, he took part in the storming of Grozny.
For the courage shown in battles and skillful leadership of waxes in the fight against terrorist formations in the North Caucasus, by the Decree of the Acting President of the Russian Federation of January 11, 2000, Lieutenant General Pankov Mikhail Anatolyevich was awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation with the Gold Star medal. In February 2000, Mikhail Anatolyevich Pankov was awarded the rank of Colonel General.
He has the orders "For Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR" of the third degree, "For Military Merit".
Far threw his call of duty. A few years ago he came to his small homeland, visited his native school, met with teachers and students. Small homeland- a piece of our big vast country. Mikhail Anatolyevich - Son with capital letter my father. And the goal of father and son is the same: to protect our homeland. The continuity of generations continues ... We are proud that such heroes live next to us. And as long as there are people like our fellow countrymen on earth, we are not afraid of any enemy.
“Let us win once,
But the war has a bloody trail,
And marking our dates
We do not want new victories.
That was a big price...
Russia does not need a war!”
Petr Davydov
Administration of the municipality "Bichursky district"
MBOU "Poselskaya secondary school"
Composition
"Hero of the Russian Federation - Pankov Mikhail Anatolyevich"

Nomination: Best literary work
2015

Attached files

Tolstykh Natalya Anatolyevna 2009

THE LESSON IS GOING ON..

ON THE. Tolstykh

"THE WHO HAS INCLUDED TALENT IN HIMSELF, THE CLEANER SHOULD BE A SOUL"

STUDYING POVESTIN.V. GOGOL "PORTRAIT." IN 8TH CLASS

The literature program for the 8th grade, compiled by A. Kutuzov, takes N.V. Gogol's "Portrait" two hours. Ego is one of the key works in which the author expresses his innermost thoughts, but, unfortunately, quite often the attention of eighth-graders is focused only on the fantastic plot and entertaining plot. That is why serious and deep work with the text is necessary, analytical reading should be the leader in these lessons.

First lesson. "Fame cannot give pleasure to the one who stole it and did not deserve it." (The fate of the artist Chartkov).

At the beginning of the lesson, general information about the work: the story was written in 1835 and was included in the collection "Arabesques". Later, in 1842,

N.V. Gogol returns to it, makes changes, and its second edition appears. These seven years of work on the story reflected the author's intense thoughts about the artist's destiny and the extent of his responsibility for his talent.

At the first lesson, we draw students' attention to the two-part composition of the story and work on the first part. Asking questions about its content, we gradually build an idea of ​​the main character - the artist Chartkov (portrait characteristics, environment, lifestyle). At this stage of the lesson, students cope well with tasks, attract text, draw the right conclusions: a creative person, talented artist Chartkov lives in a poor area, suffers need, material deprivation. Where does this lead? He is forced to think not about creativity, but about how to pay off his debts and what to eat tomorrow. The constant lack of money limits his freedom.

How does Chartkov become rich?

In an absolutely fantastic way, he receives a thousand chervonets. (Here it is enough to confine oneself to a simple retelling of the episode by one of the students).

How does the hero dispose of the received wealth?

“Hot youth” wants to “get everything from life”, and Chartkov spends money on fashionable clothes, delicious food, moves to a new apartment on Nevsky Prospekt ... It is unlikely that such behavior of a young man deserves categorical condemnation. But there is great temptation in the availability of so much that money can buy. And so

Natalya Anatolyevna Tolsty1x - teacher of Russian language and literature! MOU SOSH No. 163 (Yekaterinburg).

it already seems to Chartkov that you can buy everything, even fame, without applying special efforts. Why work, experience the throes of creativity, dreaming of fame? After all, it is the subject of purchase and sale.

How does Chartkov become famous?

For money, a custom-made article “On the extraordinary talents of Chartkov” appears in a “walking newspaper”. Reading an article in class helps students feel that artistic technique, as the author's irony, without which it is impossible to imagine Gogol. Irony is permeated with praise for the artist who took out "a lucky ticket from the lottery." And now Chartkov is on a par with another "fashionable" artist named Zero.

What is further fate hero?

He loses the wonderful vision of the artist, painting becomes a craft for him, it ceases to be a miracle. And now, instead of the human soul, he sees "only uniforms, but a corset, and tailcoat." For money, he fulfills any desire of the customer: "Whoever wanted Mars, he thrust Mars in the face, who aimed at Byron, he gave him Byron's position and turn."

Thanks to what does Chartkov's enlightenment occur? Did it save him?

Thanks to the painting, brought from Italy, "it became clear even to the uninitiated what an immeasurable gulf exists between creation and a simple copy from nature." Chartkov also understood this, but the insight was too late. “The attacks of rage and insanity began to appear more often. it all turned into the most terrible disease.” Rabies, madness - this is retribution for the betrayal of one's talent. “He began to buy up all the best that only art produced. Having bought the picture at a high price, he carefully brought it into his room and, with the fury of a tiger, rushed at it, tore it, tore it, cut it into pieces and trampled it underfoot, accompanying it with laughter of pleasure. The innumerable riches he had accumulated provided him with every means to satisfy this infernal desire. He untied all his golden bags and opened the chests. No monster of ignorance has ever destroyed so many beautiful works as this ferocious avenger destroyed. This is what he spent his wealth on.

Who is to blame for such a tragic outcome?

For some eighth graders, the answer to this

the question seems obvious: mysterious portrait. After all, the artist Chartkov thinks so: “As he remembered his whole strange story, as he remembered that in some way he, this strange portrait,

was the reason for his transformation, that the treasure of money he received in such a miraculous way gave birth in him to all the vain impulses that ruined his talent - almost rage was ready to burst into his soul. He immediately ordered the hateful portrait to be taken away. Chartkov hated the portrait, but not himself. Involuntarily, an analogy arises with Oscar Wilde's novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (the novel was read by students to the lesson extracurricular reading). Trying to destroy the portrait, in which Dorian's beautiful face becomes more terrible and uglier with every disgusting act of his, the hero kills himself. In Wilde's novel, the portrait personifies conscience. In Gogol's story, the portrait is given a different role - the role of a tempter testing a person: can he resist, can he save his soul? Is the portrait the reason for everything? Isn't the artist himself to blame for the fact that his creative destiny did not work out the way he dreamed in his youth? According to Gogol, the hero could not stand the test of wealth and lost his talent, exchanging it for comfort, pleasure and bought glory. Unable to resist the temptation, he betrayed the talent with which he was gifted, and the retribution for betrayal is late repentance, when nothing can be corrected, and madness from the realization of the irreparable deed.

Lesson two. "Talent is the most precious gift of God... Whoever has talent in himself, he must be purer than all in soul." (The theme of the vocation of the artist and the role of art in the story of N.V. Gogol "Portrait").

The second part of the story turns out to be much more difficult for eighth graders in terms of perception, understanding and interpretation. Here one cannot do without the comments of the teacher, who should lead the students to comprehend the idea of ​​a work of art.

So, who is depicted in the portrait?

This question does not cause difficulties, but special attention should be paid to the remark characterizing the usurer depicted in the portrait: “The devil, the perfect devil!” Is this parallel coincidental? Both the one and the other are capable of capturing a person completely.

Why does a usurer approach an artist with a request to paint his portrait?

The usurer explains this by his unwillingness to “die completely”, by the fact that “he needs to be present in the world”, that is, to maintain his former power over people. Doesn't this mean that he devoutly believes in the magical power of art that can give immortality?

How is the portrait going?

While painting a portrait of a usurer, the artist "felt some painful, anxious feeling, incomprehensible to himself", "painted it with disgust, did not feel at that time any love for his work." He tells his son: “Forcibly I wanted to conquer myself and soullessly, drowning out everything, to be true to nature. It was not a creation of art, and therefore the feelings that embrace everyone when looking at it are already rebellious feelings, disturbing feelings - not

feelings of the artist, for the artist breathes peace even in anxiety. “Such a strange aversion, such an incomprehensible burden” revived in his soul, that “he became frightened,” he threw the cysts and flatly refused to finish the work. But it is not possible to get rid of the portrait: “in the morning he received a portrait from the usurer, which was brought to him by some woman, the only creature who was in his services, who immediately announced that the owner did not want the portrait, did not give anything for him and sends back." The artist's intention to "cut him to pieces and burn him" was thwarted by friends who accidentally came to visit. No, it is not so easy to destroy what already exists, to which the painter gave life. The portrait begins to live its own life, it “walks from hand to hand and dispels lingering impressions, giving rise in the artist a feeling of envy, gloomy hatred for his brother, an evil thirst for persecution and oppression.”

How does the future fate of the artist develop?

“Perceptible change in character”, envy of a student, participation and defeat in a painting competition “for a newly built rich church”, deaths of loved ones, monasticism, hermitage.

What role did the portrait of the usurer play in the life of the artist?

Working on a portrait, the artist feels how the "demonic feeling of envy" takes possession of him. All the figures in the painting, painted for the church, “have no holiness in their faces; even, there is something demonic in the eyes, as if an impure feeling was leading the artist's hand. This means that not only the artist created a portrait, but the portrait also created an artist. Creating a portrait in a state of complete discord with himself, the artist took sin into his soul, and a sinner cannot paint a saint. Even in the monastery, where the painter “astounded all the brethren with the severity of life, vigilant observance of all monastic rules,” he refuses to the rector’s demand that “the main image is painted in the church,” explaining this by saying that “he is unworthy of taking up cysts, that it is defiled, that by labor and great sacrifices he must first purify his soul. Without dumping his own guilt on anyone for having become an instrument of evil, the artist comes to understand the need for repentance. And that's why at the end of the story, the reader is presented with a "beautiful, almost divine old man." (Here you can compare the portraits of two artists: the elder monk and Chartkov before his death. “The look of the basilisk”, “the monster of ignorance, “fierce avengers”, “terrible demon”, “like a harpy”, “hellish intention” - this is far from complete a set of figurative and expressive means that help to understand the author's attitude towards Chartkov.It is not by chance that at the beginning of work on the story, Gogol's hero bore the speaking surname Chertkov).

How does the composition of the story help to understand the main idea of ​​the work?

At the very beginning of work on the story, we already noted that it consists of two parts, which are connected by mysterious properties and the history of

creepy portrait. But this is clearly not enough to explain the writer's intention. The two parts of the story are not just and not just a story about a portrait, it is, first of all, an antithesis, a contrast between the life positions of two artists who could not resist the temptation. One of them, Chartkov, was not devoid of talent and in his youth showed great promise: “Young Chartkov was an artist with a talent who prophesied a lot: flashes and moments of his cysts evoked observation-bodily, consideration, a strong impulse to get closer to nature.” The words of the professor, who warned Chartkov more than once, are filled with deep meaning: “... You have some talent; it will be a sin if you destroy him.” And the artist worked to complete self-forgetfulness: "At times he could forget everything, mistaking them for cysts, and broke away from her only as from a beautiful interrupted dream." But he became an ally of the devil, succumbing to the temptation: "Kazalosa, he personified ... a terrible demon." He was unable to save his soul, and art without a soul ceases to be art. Gogoly writes about his hero: "Gold made him a passion, an ideal, fear, pleasure, a whole." But the whole and the passion of a real artist can only be art. The spiritual death of the hero preceded the physical death. Another painter, who is narrated in the second part of the story, following the lead of the devil and realizing the sins of his act, commits spiritual feat, which allowed him to turn to the gospel story of the Nativity of Jesus. So, according to the author, a person can stumble, succumbing to temptation, because he is weak, but this is not the worst crime. A person decides for himself whether he will serve good or evil, and this decision is not given to anyone easily. A special measure of responsibility lies with the artist, who must bring light, goodness, harmony into the world, and not destroy them. At the end of the story, the artist instructs his son: “Esta's talent is the most precious gift of God - do not destroy it. A hint of a divine, heavenly paradise is concluded for a person in the

art, and for that alone it is already above all. And how many times the solemn peace is higher than any worldly agitation, how many times the created ones are higher than the destruction. - a hundred times higher than anything

the best in the world, the highest created art. Sacrifice everything to him and love him with all your passion... He who has a talent in himself must be purer in soul than anyone else. Much will be forgiven to another, but he will not be forgiven. A person who left the house in bright festive clothes costs just a little life splashed with one spot of mud from under the wheel. And already the scales of the people surrounded him, and pointed at him with a finger, and talked about his slovenliness, while the same people did not notice the many spots on other passers-by, dressed in everyday clothes. For on everyday clothes you do not notice spots. The mission of an artist in this world is akin to a divine mission, since real art heals the soul. Religious service to art is a moral feat.

The stories of N.V. Gogol provides rich material for reflection. The author seems to tempt the reader: hasn't something important slipped away from him, hasn't he only seen what lies on the surface? Of course, this is true, but the life and reading experience of 8th grade students is not yet so great for them to fully realize all the complexities and depth of this writer. The main conversation about Gogol is yet to come. Our task was to create a situation in the lesson of the need to refer to the text when answering questions, the solution of which is vital for both classic writers and today's readers.

Homework. Written answers to the question in the form of an essay-reasoning (optional):

1. At the end of the first edition of the story scary portrait pawnbroker disappears before everyone's eyes. In the second edition, the portrait is stolen. What is the meaning of such an ending?

2. What, in your opinion, is the role of art in the modern world?

The Optina elder Father Macarius, according to another elder, Father Varsonofy, “foresaw Gogol’s coming” to the monastery as if it were something “extraordinary”. Father Varsonofy himself foresaw in this meeting of the Optina people with Gogol the glorification of the mystical beginning of Russian literature in the person of its then main representative: “The Gospel tells that when the Greeks came to Jesus Christ, He rejoiced in spirit and said: “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in Him ". So, probably, Elder Macarius also foresaw a great glorification, but not of himself, but brilliant writer » .

In the same way, Orthodox laity who were close to him in spirit looked at Gogol's work: V.A. Zhukovsky, P.A. Pletnev, A.O. Smirnova-Rosset, N.M. Languages ​​and others. V.S. Aksakova noticed, after reading Gogol's story "Rome": "This kind of work excites surprise not to the author, but to creativity itself, to this gift, truly sent from God to man; Isn't it really a sacrament that a person can do this? The idea of ​​Gogol's work as a mystical service to God is expressed in the book by A.M. Bukharev “Three letters to N.V. Gogol, written in 1848 by Archimandrite Theodore" (St. Petersburg, 1860).

However, the number of adherents of this view has always been relatively small. In the 20th century, this view was substantiated and developed in a number of major literary studies. The general idea for these works is expressed, for example, by V.V. Zenkovsky: Gogol "was a prophet of Orthodox culture<…>, that is, reworking the problems of culture in the light of Orthodoxy" .

This approach is most consonant with the views of the writer himself on artistic creativity.

The purpose of true art is to be "an invisible step towards Christianity", towards the temple, towards ritual worship.

Gogol was inclined to believe that the purpose of genuine art is to be "an invisible step towards Christianity", towards the temple, towards ritual worship (6, 56; "Selected passages from correspondence with friends"). This idea was affirmed by the writer already at the beginning of his work. In a letter to V.A. Zhukovsky on September 10, 1831, he writes: “It seems to me that now a huge building of purely Russian poetry is being erected, terrible granites have been laid in the foundation, and the same architects will bring out both the walls and the dome, to the glory of the ages, let the descendants bow down and have a place where you offer up your tender prayers" (X, 207). The irony here is romantic, suggesting that art, of course, is not a temple and not a substitute for it, but art is an artistic religion, and it can accompany temple worship. It is no coincidence that in “Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka”, work on which just then came to an end, positive images of the churchly artistic service to God are given: the icon painter and singer Vakula, as well as the deacon Foma Grigoryevich, delightfully skillfully performing the service.

The idea of ​​a "temple" of art is repeated in Gogol's letter to V.F. Odoevsky dated March 15 AD. Art. 1838: “Do my relatives remember me, united with me by the holy union of muses?<…>But my heart still hurts until now, when a piece of newspaper is brought here, and in vain I try to find in it a name familiar to my soul.<…>everything is a market and a market, the contemptible coldness of trade and nonentities! Until now, everyone has lived with the hope that Jesus, angry and implacable, will come down and with a merciless scourge drive out and cleanse the holy temple from bargaining and sale, so that holy prayer will fly more freely ”(XI, 131).

Later, in Selected Places from Correspondence with Friends, it was the idea of ​​art-temple that determined the judgment about the best poet in Russia: . He did not enter there untidy and untidy; he brought in nothing thoughtless, reckless from his own life; disheveled reality did not enter there naked” (6, 160).

"...before understanding the meaning and purpose of art, I already felt with the intuition of my whole soul that it should be sacred."

The idea of ​​the “shrine of art” is repeated in a letter to Zhukovsky dated January 10, 1848 / December 29, 1847: “<…>before understanding the meaning and purpose of art, I already felt with the intuition of my whole soul that it must be holy ”(XIV, 33-34).

The fact that Gogol from his youth dreamed of subordinating his creative gift to the service of the Church was manifested not only in the images of church artists in the stories “The Night Before Christmas”, “Portrait”, but also in his desire to participate in the arrangement of the church in his native Vasilyevka: “I’m very sorry that I can’t make a plan for the iconostasis so soon,” he writes to his mother on December 15, 1834 (X, 345).

Gogol's views on the "shrine of art" applied, in particular, to the theater and dramaturgy. Gogol began to express judgments about the theater, about its high purpose and often base manifestations from the time the Inspector General was completed. In the "Petersburg scene in 1835/36" he claims: “The theater is a great school, deeply<его>appointment. He reads a lively useful lesson to a whole crowd, a whole thousand people at a time, and with the brilliance of solemn lighting, with the thunder of music, he shows the ridiculous habits and vices, the highly touching virtues and lofty feelings of a person. No, the theater is not what they have made of it now" (7, 479). This idea is developed in the Petersburg Notes of 1836. And in the “Theatrical tour after the presentation of a new comedy” (1836-1842) it is said that high theatrical art (like any high art of the word) is not empty fables, but inspired creativity: “Fables! .. Oh, may the saints abide forever in the offspring are the names of those who favorably listened to such fables: the wonderful finger of Providence was inseparably over the heads of their creators ”(4, 443).

“We made a toy out of the theater ... forgetting that this is such a pulpit from which a live lesson is read to the whole crowd at once.”

The theater, according to Gogol, “is such a department from which one can say a lot of good to the world” (6, 54). A similar idea was expressed in the Petersburg Notes of 1836: “We made a toy out of the theater like those trinkets with which they lure children, forgetting that this is such a pulpit from which a live lesson is read to the whole crowd at once” (7, 489). The word "pulpit" here is deliberately ambiguous; in an earlier sketch "Petersburg scene in 1835/36" in the appropriate place the word "school" is used (7, 479). “Chair” (Greek “seat”) is not only an elevation for a teacher in secular educational institutions, but also an elevation with a chair for a bishop in christian church from which sermons are delivered; this word also means the office of the bishop who manages the diocese (hence the expression " Cathedral”, that is, the cathedral in which the local bishop worships). In this regard, the word "world" is used by Gogol ambiguously: it means not only the universe, but also "laity", "parishioners" of the theater as a temple of art. Thus, Gogol develops here his favorite rapprochement (but not equalization) of art with the temple and of the artist with the clergyman.

Silent scene from The Inspector

Gogol did not agree with the general negative view of some of the clergy on secular art. In the XIV chapter of "Selected places ...", referring to A.P. Tolstoy, he remarks: “You reinforce yourself by the fact that some clergymen known to you rebel against the theater<…>» (6, 54). First of all, Tolstoy could refer to the opinion of the Rzhev archpriest Matvey Konstantinovsky, whom he introduced to Gogol and whom the writer later treated with great trust and respect, although he did not fully share his harsh assessment of secular, non-church art. On the advice of Tolstoy, Gogol sent "Selected Places ..." to Father Matvey and received a negative response, and Gogol's thoughts about the theater aroused the sharpest objection of the priest. Gogol answered him in a letter dated 9 May AD. Art. 1847: "<…>I wrote this article about the theater not to make society intrigued by the theatre, but to ward it off from the depraved side of the theatre, from all sorts of ballet dances and many of the strangest plays that have lately been translated in heaps from French. I wanted to discourage this by pointing to the best plays, and expressed all this in such an absurd and inaccurate way that I gave you reason to think that I send people to the theater, and not to the Church. God save me from such a thought! I never had it even when I felt much less the sanctity of holy truths. I just thought that it was impossible to completely take away their amusements from the society, but it is necessary to dispose of them in such a way that a person would naturally revive the desire after the amusement to go to God - to thank Him, and not to go to hell - to serve him ”(XIII, 300) . Further in this letter, Gogol admits that when he wrote in the XIV chapter about critics who do not strictly condemn secular art in a Christian way and accuse Pushkin of atheism in particular, he had in mind, first of all, "the publisher of the Mayak magazine, S.A. . Burachka, who, judging by his articles, must be a truly respectable and believing person, but who, however, too hotly and indiscriminately attacked all our writers, claiming that they were atheists and deists ”(XIII, 304).

Stepan Anisimovich Burachok, a gifted shipbuilding engineer, mathematician, philosopher, literary critic, published the journal Lighthouse of Modern Education and Education in 1840-1845. Works of scientists and writers, Russian and foreign" (from 1842 - "Mayak, a journal of modern education, art and education in the spirit of the Russian people"). He preached "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality." Georgy Vasilyevich Govorov, who took monasticism in 1841 under the name of Feofan and later (since 1859) became a bishop and the famous Hermit of the Vyshenskaya Hermitage (since 1872), anonymously acted among the Mayak employees. During the years of Gogol's work on Feofan, he was a bachelor of the department of moral and pastoral theology of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He developed questions of spiritual upbringing and education of the younger generations and was published in Christian Reading (a journal of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy), as well as in Mayak. According to his views on secular artistic creativity, St. Theophan was closer to Father Matthew Konstantinovsky than to Gogol. In particular, in the book “What is the spiritual life and how to tune in to it? Letters ”(M., 1878) he describes worldly life as follows:“<…>when we gather, we are a bunch of hypocrites. Comedy!" . This metaphor clarifies the author's attitude to theatrical art, including Gogol's favorite comedic work. Theophan’s attitude to secular literature as a whole is as follows: “What about stories and novels ?! There are good ones in between. But to find out if they are good, you need to read them, and after reading, you will pick up such stories and images that - God forbid! Bring in your clean head. After go - clean up. What is it like to call upon yourself such work ?! That's why I think it's better not to read them. When one of the well-intentioned people who have read it recommends which story, you can read it.

Another contemporary theologian and ascetic (since 1857 - Bishop) Ignatius (Bryanchaninov) also looked condemningly at secular artistic creativity. Even to the "Selected Places ..." St. Ignatius reacted with restraint negatively. Gogol received his response-letter along with a letter from P.A. Pletnev, written on April 4/16, 1847. It is noteworthy that on the same day, May 9, A.D. st., when Gogol responded to the letter of Father Matthew, he also answered the remarks of St. Ignatius (addressing Pletnev): “As for Brianchaninov’s letter, we must do justice to our clergy for their firm knowledge of dogmas.<…>Everything is fair and right. But in order to pronounce a full judgment on my book, for this you need to be a deep psychic, you need to feel and hear the suffering of that half of modern humanity, with which a monk does not even have a chance to meet; you need to know not your own life, but the life of many. Therefore, it is not at all surprising for me that they see in my book a mixture of light and darkness. Light for them is the side that is familiar to them; darkness is the side that is unfamiliar to them ”(XIII, 305-306). Gogol is referring to the lines from the letter of St. Ignatius:<…>There is also in man an innate inspiration, more or less developed, proceeding from the movement of the feelings of the heart. Truth rejects this inspiration as mixed, mortifies it, so that the Spirit, having come, will resurrect it in a renewed state. If a person, before being purified by the Truth, is guided by his inspiration, then he will emit for himself and for others not pure light, but mixed, deceptive, because in his heart lives not simple good, but good mixed with evil.

Of the famous A.P. Tolstoy of "clergy" was closer to Gogol's understanding of artistic creativity than the Metropolitan of Moscow Filaret (in the world Vasily Mikhailovich Drozdov; 1782-1867). The metropolitan himself wrote several inspired lyrical poems imbued with Christian theology, including The Evening Song of the Traveler (1820), and also (1830) - a response to Pushkin's poem "A gift in vain, a random gift ..." (1828). The answer of the metropolitan to the poet was first distributed in the lists, and then was made public in an article by S.A. Burachka "Vision in the realm of spirits" (Mayak. 1840. Ch. 10). It is no coincidence that in the XIV chapter of “Selected Places ...” Gogol, defending Pushkin from accusations of non-Orthodoxy, recalled how Metropolitan Filaret, who turned to the poet with a lyrical poetic message, evoked a response impulse of genuine Christian inspiration - the poem “In hours of fun or idle boredom ... "(1830).

In his defense of art, Gogol proceeds from the fact that Christianity initially supported all creativity respecting God as a humble increase in God-given talents (corresponding to the parable of Christ: Mt. 25:14-30). Through creativity, according to the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, "the image of God in man" is realized. At the time when Gogol was working on "Selected Places ...", a similar view was supported by the Optina Elders. Following Elders Macarius and Barsanuphius, Elder Nectarios also looked at artistic creativity in this way.

Naturally, Gogol distinguished between creativity marked by the veneration of God, and creativity frankly theomachy. As for secular creativity, apparently irrelevant to issues of faith, the writer urged not to rush to condemn: “<…>as if Pushkin was indispensably obliged to speak in his verses about the highest Christian dogmas, for which the hierarch of the Church himself is taken only with great fear, having prepared himself for this with the deepest holiness of his life ”(6, 60).

In the story "Portrait" (1833-1841), Gogol comprehended the already passed part of his creative path and predicted the future - through the image of the artist's father B., who was talented painter, who at first worked indiscriminately, for everyone: both for worldly people and for the Church, reveling in the very possibility of creativity. This painter was tempted even by the image of an unclean usurer, but in his declining years he understood his vocation, became a monk and acquired true divine inspiration. The thoughts uttered by his lips are the thoughts of Gogol himself: true art “with resounding prayer strives eternally towards God” (3, 107); “Whoever has a talent in himself, the purest of all should be a soul. Much will be forgiven to another, but he will not be forgiven” (3, 108). Gogol later noted the features of his artist in the painter A.A. Ivanov, who seeks to "depict the whole<…>move man's conversion to Christ” and “prayer to God” (6, 112), while spending “a truly monastic life” (6, 118) (“Selected places ...”).

“God knows, I would not like to say anything except what serves to glorify His holy name.”

In the soul of Gogol himself, in the last years of his life, a prayer to God was constantly heard: for help in creative service to Him. On February 28/16, 1848, he writes to V.A. Zhukovsky: "Oh! May God help us, both you and me, to gather all our strength for the production of creations that we cherish in the depths of our souls, for the good of our land, and may He enlighten us with the light of the mind of His holy Gospel!” (XIV, 52). “Oh, that He would not leave me for a moment and tell me my way! How my heart would like to tell the glory of God! I'm waiting, like manna, irrigating irrigation from above<…>God knows, I would not like to say anything except what serves to glorify His holy name. I would like to vividly, in living examples, show my dark brethren, who live in the world, play with life like a toy, that life is not a toy, ”Gogol admits to Father Matvey Konstantinovsky in April 1850 (XIV, 179). And he writes to him on November 28, 1851: “The mere thought that you are praying for me already instills in my soul the hope that God will honor me to work for Him better than how I worked hitherto, weak, lazy and powerless” (XIV, 259 ). In a letter to V.A. Zhukovsky on February 22, 1852, Gogol also asks for prayers for himself: “Pray for me so that my work is truly conscientious and that I am at least somehow worthy to sing a hymn to heavenly beauty” (XIV, 269).

Gogol's story Portrait " divided by two parts. In the first talking about someone young artist Chartkov, who saw a portrait of an old man in some kind of provincial shop, and this painter was hooked by the eyes of the old man, they were so written out that they seemed just alive. With the last money he bought this portrait, and bringing it home, it seemed to him that the old man depicted in the portrait was himself completely alive and was about to get out of the portrait. Meanwhile, Chartkov had dream - get rich and become a fashionable painter. And on the same night, he dreams that the old man crawled out of his portrait, and shows a bag in which there are a lot of bundles of money. The artist discreetly hides one of them. The next morning, he actually finds the money. And after this moment, his business goes uphill, he really becomes a fashionable artist, but his work loses its individuality, and as a result, the artist loses his talent. One day he is asked to criticize a picture of a young artist, and Chartkov sees the talent of the young artist and realizes in horror that traded talent for money. And then he begins to buy up all the paintings of talented artists in order to destroy them. All this time he sees the eyes of the old man. He soon dies, leaving nothing behind.

Second part talks about the auction at which this painting is sold. Many want to buy it, but one person says that the portrait should go to him, since he has been looking for it for a long time. The person who bought the portrait tells an incredible story. A long time ago there lived in St. Petersburg a certain usurer, who was different from other opportunities to lend any amount of money. But strange feature- everyone who received money from him ended his life sadly. One day the pawnbroker asked the artist, the buyer's father, to portray him. But the longer the artist paints, the more he feels disgust for the old man. When the portrait is painted, the usurer says that he will now live in the portrait, and dies the next evening. Changes are taking place in the artist himself: he begins to envy the talent of the student ... When a friend takes the portrait, peace returns to the artist. It soon turns out that the portrait brought misfortune to a friend, and he sold it. The artist understands how much trouble his creation can bring. Having accepted, tonsured a monk, bequeathed to his son to find and destroy the portrait. He says: Whoever has talent in himself must be the purest of all in soul. People listening to the story turn to the portrait, but it is no longer there - someone managed to steal it. So ends the story of N.V. Gogol Portrait.

. "Portrait" - a story about the fate of the artist And the struggle between good and evil in the human soul . The author uses the traditional motif: money, wealth in exchange for a soul . The story touches on many problems: the struggle between good and evil in the soul of a person, the power of money over a person, but the most important - the problem of the purpose of art (art true and imaginary). In this work we meet three painters: this is a young Chartkov , icon painter and his son.

Chartkov is described in the first part. He appears before us quite talented, but poor and murmuring about his fate. The hero of the story "Portrait" - a young gifted artist Chartkov - is poor. Gogol draws the unpretentious life of the artist, the meager furnishings of his dwelling, the shabby dress. in his character, as the professor of painting, Chartkov's teacher, shrewdly noted, there is impatience, he is inclined to succumb to charms, temptations

In ordinary life, weaknesses take on a different form: “the light is already beginning to pull” on him, a “dandy scarf” is tied around his neck, and a “glossy hat” flaunts on his head. He wants to splurge, flaunt. But for the time being, “he could take power over himself,” until an incident occurred that abruptly turned his fate.

The young artist is offended by the fact that fashionable painters draw a few "pictures" and get big money, while he is forced to live in poverty and obscurity. And suddenly he finds himself in an unprecedented situation: he gets everything he dreams of through a mysterious portrait. He does not immediately succumb to temptation, but first decides to buy mannequins and prints and seriously engage in art. But 22 years and youth spoke in him. The inner voice and desires of the artist oppose his reason. He rushes to buy unnecessary things, spends money on previously inaccessible pleasures.

Why money turned out to be stronger than the artist's talent That is, Chartkov has a talent and a desire to learn, but another part of his soul longs for instant success and fame. And it is this part that overpowers the first. The reason for this was the devilish money that pushed Chartkov to fame, but for which he had to pay with his talent. As a result, a person morally falls.

The artist, the father of the narrator of the second part, committed a sin by painting a portrait of a usurer. He goes to a monastery and becomes a hermit. Here a man passes the way not from talent for death but from committing sin before ascending to goodness . After spending many years in prayer and fasting, he finally takes up the brush and writes the birth of Jesus. The icon painter instructs his twenty-year-old son, also an artist, who is going on a trip to Italy. This artist B. is as young as Chartkov, but as we see from the description of him at the auction, he was an unfashionably dressed young man who was alien to all social upheavals and who did not care about fashion. He, having received a request from his father to find and destroy the portrait, comes to the auction.

In the story fate of three artists brings together pawnbroker portrait, who mysteriously disappears from the auction at the end. We see in the poem two completely different artists, whose fates are connected by one portrait. But in the first case, the artist goes from talent to death, and in the second - the path from committing sin to good. Gogol speaks of the artist's responsibility for his creation; the main goal of the painter is “to awaken good feelings”. The author shows the reader what a real artist should be like: “he who has talent in himself must be the purest of all in soul.”

Grotesque, fantastical beginning is also present in the story "Portrait", which was included in the collections "Arabesques" and "Petersburg Tales" and is considered the most romantic. It raises several problems: moral responsibility of the artist to himself and art, dependence of talent on fashion and money , and devilish essence of art .

An expressive parallel that clarifies Gogol's thought is one episode from the second part. The usurer who came to the artist (the narrator's father) said to him: “Draw a portrait of me. With extraordinary zeal, he set to work, but, having painted the eyes, he could not finish the portrait, feeling "incomprehensible anxiety." Since then, he has changed. One day he began to paint a new canvas. Everyone unanimously predicted his victory in the competition, when “suddenly one of the members present, if I am not mistaken, a spiritual person, made a remark that amazed everyone. “In the picture of the artist, for sure, there is a lot of talent,” he said, “but there is no holiness in the faces; there is even, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if an impure feeling was leading the hand of the artist. Everyone looked and could not but be convinced of the truth of these words.

The devilish obsession that has taken possession of the soul involuntarily and, as it were, imperceptibly for the artist (and man) himself, penetrates into his works. And no talent can change the blasphemous content. On the contrary, talent fully reveals the meaning of impure motives, although such a meaning may remain unclear to an inexperienced or "bewitched" look. Giftedness in itself says nothing about the humanity or inhumanity of art. Humanity, according to Gogol, is contained in the heart, in the feelings, in the nature of the artist. But as a result, it is difficult to distinguish between the human (in the language of Gogol - Christian, Divine) and inhuman, diabolical, demonic: both can be depicted skillfully and masterfully.

The artist turned into a hater of art, destroying the works of his talented fellows. The demonic (Gogol compares Chartkov's gaze with that of a basilisk, and his with a harpy that poisons everything around, with a demon that hates and despises the world) begins to grow and expand, acquiring fantastic dimensions: the portrait "doubled, quadrupled in his eyes: all the walls seemed to be hung with portraits who fixed their motionless, living eyes on him. The destruction of the personality is completed by illness, fits of rabies and a terrible death.

The fantastic, revealing the terrible power of the demonic principle, serves in Gogol as a warning about the need to preserve spirituality, to take seriously and responsibly the moral virtues and humanistic content of the individual.

So, having begun to paint secular portraits for the sake of money and thus becoming a fashionable artist, Chartkov was filled with malice and envy of everything beautiful and, in fits of madness, began to destroy works of art.

Thus, the social problem of gold, which destroys the artist, is complicated in the story by a proper aesthetic problem: the goals and purpose of the artist. Therefore, Gogol resorts to the technique of “comparative biography”, giving, in contrast to Chartkov’s story, the story of a schema artist who realized the high religious essence of art and instructed his son in the finale: “A hint of a divine, heavenly paradise is concluded for a person in art, and therefore alone it is already above all. And how many times the solemn peace is higher than any worldly excitement, how many times creation is higher than destruction; how many times an angel with pure innocence alone bright soul above all the untold forces and proud passions of Satan, so many times above everything that is in the world, a lofty creation of art. Sacrifice everything to him and love him with all your passion, not with a passion that breathes earthly lust, but with a quiet heavenly passion; without it, a person has no power to rise from the earth and cannot give wonderful sounds of calm. For to calm and reconcile all, a high creation of art descends into the world.

In contrast to the history of Chartkov, the prehistory of the portrait unfolds. With another artist, the same transformations take place: he also felt envy of the student. But, unlike Chartkov, he understood the secret reasons for his fall and freed himself from the power of the portrait. He found the reason in himself, although she came to him from outside along with the usurer who ordered his image. However, the artist accepted the order, as if letting the demonic element into his soul, and, therefore, assumed full responsibility for the rash act.

Many carriages, droshky and carriages stood in front of the entrance of the house, in which the auction sale of the things of one of those rich art lovers who sweetly dozed off all their lives, immersed in marshmallows and cupids, who innocently passed for patrons of the arts and innocently spent for this the millions accumulated by them solid fathers, and often even their own previous works. As you know, there are no such patrons now, and our 19th century has long acquired the boring physiognomy of a banker who enjoys his millions only in the form of numbers put up on paper. The long hall was filled with the most motley crowd of visitors who swooped down like birds of prey on an untidy body. There was a whole flotilla of Russian merchants from Gostiny Dvor and even the market place, in blue German frock coats. Their appearance and facial expressions were somehow firmer, freer, and were not signified by that sugary helpfulness that is so visible in a Russian merchant when he is in his shop in front of a buyer. Here they did not at all repair, despite the fact that in the same hall there were many of those aristocrats, before whom they were ready in another place with their bows to sweep away the dust caused by their own boots. Here they were completely cheeky, touching books and pictures without ceremony, wanting to know the goodness of the goods, and boldly outbid the price added by the connoisseur counts. There were many indispensable visitors to the auctions who decided to visit it every day instead of breakfast; aristocratic connoisseurs who considered it their duty not to miss an opportunity to increase their collection and who did not find another occupation from 12 to 1 hour; finally, those noble gentlemen, whose dresses and pockets are very thin, who come every day without any mercenary purpose, but only to see what will end up, who will give more, who will give less, who will kill whom and what will be left for whom. A lot of pictures were scattered completely to no avail; furniture was mixed with them, and books with the monograms of the former owner, who, perhaps, had no commendable curiosity to look into them. Chinese vases, marble tabletops, new and old furniture with curved lines, with vultures, sphinxes and lion's paws, gilded and ungilded, chandeliers, kenkets - everything was piled up, and not at all in the same order as in the shops. Everything was a kind of chaos of art. In general, the feeling we feel at the sight of the auction is terrible: everything in it responds with something similar to a funeral procession. The hall in which it is produced is always somehow gloomy; windows, cluttered with furniture and paintings, sparingly pour out light, silence spilled over faces, and the funeral voice of the auctioneer, tapping with a hammer and performing a funeral service for the poor, so strangely encountered here arts. All this seems to add to an even stranger unpleasantness of the impression. The auction seemed to be in full swing. A whole crowd of decent people, moving together, fussed about something vying with each other. The words "Ruble, ruble, ruble" were heard from all sides, did not give the auctioneer time to repeat the added price, which had already increased four times more than the announced one. The crowd around was bustling about the portrait, which could not but stop everyone who had any idea in painting. The artist's high brush was evident in him. The portrait, apparently, had already been restored and refurbished several times, and represented the swarthy features of some Asiatic in a wide dress, with an unusual, strange expression on his face; but most of all those who surrounded were struck by the unusual liveliness of the eyes. The more one peered into them, the more they seemed to rush inwards to each one. This oddity, this unusual focus of the artist, captured the attention of almost everyone. Many of those who have already competed for it have retreated, because the price has been unbelievably high. Only two well-known aristocrats remained, lovers of painting, who did not want to refuse such an acquisition for anything. They got excited and would probably fill the price to impossibility, if suddenly one of those who were looking at it right there did not say: Let me stop your argument for the time being. I, perhaps more than anyone else, have the right to this portrait. These words instantly drew everyone's attention to him. He was a slender man, about thirty-five, with long black curls. A pleasant face, filled with some kind of bright carelessness, showed a soul alien to all languishing worldly upheavals; in his outfit there were no pretensions to fashion: everything showed him an artist. It was, for sure, the artist B., personally known by many of those present. No matter how strange my words will seem to you, he continued, seeing the general attention rushing to himself, but if you dare to listen a little story perhaps you will see that I had the right to pronounce them. Everyone assures me that the portrait is the one I'm looking for. A very natural curiosity flared up in almost everyone's faces, and the auctioneer himself, gaping, stopped with a hammer raised in his hand, preparing to listen. At the beginning of the story, many involuntarily turned their eyes to the portrait, but then they all stared at one narrator, as his story became more entertaining. You know that part of the city, which is called Kolomna. So he began. Everything here is unlike other parts of St. Petersburg; it is neither a capital nor a province; you seem to hear, having crossed into the streets of Kolomna, how all sorts of young desires and impulses leave you. The future does not enter here, here everything is silence and resignation, everything that has settled from the metropolitan movement. Retired officials, widows, poor people who are familiar with the Senate and therefore have condemned themselves here for almost their entire lives move here to live; seasoned cooks who jostling all day in the markets, chatting nonsense with a peasant in a petty shop and taking five kopecks worth of coffee and four sugar every day, and, finally, all that category of people that can be called in one word: ashy, people who with their dress, face, hair, eyes, they have a kind of cloudy, ashy appearance, like a day when there is neither storm nor sun in the sky, but sometimes it’s just neither: fog is sown and takes away all sharpness from objects. Here you can include retired theater ushers, retired titular advisers, retired pets of Mars with a gouged eye and swollen lip. These people are completely impassive: they walk without turning their eyes to anything, they are silent, not thinking about anything. There is not much good in their room; sometimes it’s just a damask of pure Russian vodka, which they monotonously suck all day without any strong rush in the head, excited by a strong reception, which a young German artisan usually likes to ask himself on Sundays, this daring Meshchanskaya street, who alone owns the entire sidewalk, when time has passed twelve o'clock at night. Life in Kolomna is a fearful solitary one: rarely will a carriage appear, except perhaps the one in which the actors ride, which alone confuses the general silence with its thunder, ringing and rattling. It's all pedestrians; the cabman very often trudges without a rider, dragging hay for his bearded horse. You can find an apartment for five rubles a month, even with coffee in the morning. Widows receiving a pension are the most aristocratic families here; they behave well, often sweep their room, talk with friends about the high cost of beef and cabbage; they often have a young daughter, a silent, mute, sometimes pretty creature, an ugly little dog and a wall clock with a sadly tapping pendulum. Then come the actors whose salary does not allow them to leave Kolomna, the people are free, like all artists who live for pleasure. They, sitting in dressing gowns, mend a pistol, glue all sorts of gizmos useful for the house out of cardboard, play checkers and cards with a friend who has come, and so they spend the morning, doing almost the same thing in the evening, with the occasional addition of punch. After these aces and the aristocracy of Kolomna, unusual fractions and trifles follow. It is as difficult to name them as it is to count the many insects that are born in old vinegar. There are old women here who are praying; old women who get drunk; old women who both pray and drink together; old women who make a living by incomprehensible means, like ants, carry old rags and linen with them from Kalinkin Bridge to the crowded market in order to sell it there for fifteen kopecks; in a word, often the most unfortunate remnant of humanity, for which no benevolent political economist could find means to improve its condition. For this reason I have brought them to show you how often this people is in need of seeking only sudden, temporary help, resorting to loans; and then a special kind of usurers settle among them, supplying small amounts on mortgages and at high interest. These small usurers are several times more insensitive than any big ones, because they arise in the midst of poverty and brightly displayed beggarly rags, which the rich usurer, who deals only with those who come in carriages, does not see. And that is why it is already too early Removes in their souls any feeling of humanity. Among such usurers there was one ... but it does not prevent you from saying that the incident about which I began to tell relates to the past century, namely to the reign of the late Empress Catherine II. You can understand for yourself that the very appearance of Kolomna and the life inside it had to change significantly. So, among the usurers there was one being in all respects extraordinary, who had settled for a long time in this part of the city. He walked around in a wide Asian outfit; dark paint his face indicated his southern origin, but what kind of nation he was: an Indian, a Greek, a Persian, no one could say for sure about this. Tall, almost unusual growth, a swarthy, skinny, flushed face and some incomprehensibly terrible color of it, large eyes of unusual fire, overhanging thick eyebrows, distinguished him strongly and sharply from all the ashen inhabitants of the capital. His dwelling itself was not like other small wooden houses. It was a stone building, like those that the Genoese merchants had once set up to their heart's content, with irregular windows of unequal size, with iron shutters and bolts. This usurer differed from other usurers already in that he could provide any amount of money to everyone, from a poor old woman to a prodigal court noble. The most brilliant carriages often showed up in front of his house, from the windows of which the head of a luxurious secular lady sometimes looked. The rumor, as usual, spread that his iron chests were full without counting money, jewelry, diamonds and any pledges, but that, however, he did not at all have that self-interest, which is characteristic of other usurers. He gave money willingly, distributing, it seemed, very profitably the terms of payments; but by some strange arithmetic calculations he forced them to rise to exorbitant percentages. So, at least, the rumor said. But what is strangest of all, and what could not but strike many, was the strange fate of all those who received money from him: they all ended their lives in an unfortunate way. Whether it was just people's opinion, absurd superstitious rumors, or deliberately spread rumors remains unknown. But a few examples that happened in a short time before the eyes of everyone were vivid and striking. From among the then aristocracy, a young man soon drew attention to himself best surname, who distinguished himself already at a young age in the state field, an ardent admirer of everything true, sublime, a zealot of everything that gave rise to art and the mind of a person who prophesied a patron of the arts. Soon he was worthily distinguished by the empress herself, who entrusted him significant place, completely in accordance with his own requirements, a place where he could produce a lot for the sciences and in general for the good. The young nobleman surrounded himself with artists, poets, scientists. He wanted to give everything a job, to encourage everything. He undertook many useful publications on his own account, gave many orders, announced consolation prizes, spent a lot of money on this, and finally got upset. But, full of generous movement, he did not want to lag behind his business, he looked everywhere to borrow and finally turned to a well-known usurer. Having made a significant loan from him, this man changed completely in a short time: he became a persecutor, a persecutor of a developing mind and talent. In all the writings he began to see the bad side, he interpreted every word crookedly. Then, unfortunately, it happened French revolution. This suddenly served him as a tool for all possible vile things. He began to see in everything some kind of revolutionary direction, in everything he seemed to have hints. He became suspicious to such an extent that he finally began to suspect himself, began to compose terrible, unjust denunciations, and made a lot of unfortunate people. It goes without saying that such deeds could not fail to finally reach the throne. The magnanimous empress was horrified and, full of the nobility of the soul that adorns the crowned bearers, she uttered words that, although they could not pass on to us in all accuracy, but deep meaning impressed them in the hearts of many. The Empress noticed that it is not under monarchical rule that lofty, noble movements of the soul are oppressed, it is not there that creations of the mind, poetry and art are despised and persecuted; that, on the contrary, only monarchs were their patrons; that Shakespeares and Molières flourished under their generous protection, while Dante could not find a corner in his republican homeland; that true geniuses arise during the brilliance and power of sovereigns and states, and not during ugly political phenomena and republican terrorism, which have not yet given the world a single poet; that it is necessary to distinguish poets-artists, for they bring only peace and beautiful silence into the soul, and not excitement and grumbling; that scientists, poets and all producers of arts are pearls and diamonds in the imperial crown: with them the era of the great sovereign flaunts and receives even greater splendor. In a word, the empress, who uttered these words, was divinely beautiful at that moment. I remember that the old people could not talk about it without tears. Everyone took part in the case. To the credit of our national pride, it should be noted that the Russian heart always dwells wonderful feeling take the side of the oppressed. The grandee who deceived the power of attorney was punished approximately and removed from his place. But he read a much more terrible punishment on the faces of his compatriots. It was a resolute and universal contempt. It is impossible to tell how the vain soul suffered; pride, deceived ambition, shattered hopes - all joined together, and in fits of terrible madness and rage his life was interrupted. Another striking example also took place in the sight of everyone: of the beauties that our northern capital was not poor at that time, one won decisive superiority over all. It was some kind of wonderful fusion of our northern beauty with the beauty of noon, a diamond that rarely comes across in the world. My father confessed that he had never seen anything like it in all his life. Everything seemed to be united in her: wealth, intelligence and spiritual charm. There was a crowd of seekers, and among them the most remarkable of all was Prince R., the noblest, best of all young people, the most beautiful in face and chivalrous, generous impulses, high ideal novels and women, Grandison in every way. Prince R. was passionately and madly in love; the same fiery love was his answer. But the party seemed uneven to the relatives. The family estates of the prince had not belonged to him for a long time, the surname was in disgrace, and everyone knew his bad state of affairs. Suddenly, the prince leaves the capital for a while, as if in order to improve his affairs, and after a short time is surrounded by pomp and incredible splendor. Brilliant balls and holidays make him known to the court. The beauty's father becomes supportive, and an interesting wedding takes place in the city. Where such a change and the unheard-of wealth of the groom came from, no one could surely explain this; but it was said on the side that he entered into some kind of conditions with an incomprehensible usurer and made at him a loan. Be that as it may, but the wedding occupied the whole city, and the bride and groom were the subject of general envy. Howling was known for their ardent, constant love, the long languor endured on both sides, the high merits of both. Fiery women outlined in advance the heavenly bliss that the young spouses would enjoy. But everything turned out differently. In one year there was a terrible change in her husband. The poison of suspicious jealousy, intolerance and inexhaustible whims poisoned the hitherto noble and beautiful character. He became a tyrant and tormentor of his wife and, which no one could have foreseen, resorted to the most inhuman deeds, even beatings. In one year, no one could recognize the woman who until recently shone and attracted crowds of obedient admirers. Finally, unable to endure any longer her hard fate, she was the first to talk about divorce. The husband went berserk at the mere thought of it. In the first movement of fury, he burst into her room with a knife and, no doubt, would have stabbed her right there if he had not been seized and restrained. In a fit of frenzy and despair, he turned the knife on himself and ended his life in terrible agony. In addition to these two examples, which took place in the eyes of the whole society, many were told that happened in the lower classes, which almost all had a terrible end. There an honest, sober man became a drunkard; there a merchant clerk robbed his master; there a cab driver, who had been driving honestly for several years, stabbed a rider for a penny. It is impossible that such incidents, sometimes told not without additions, did not induce a kind of involuntary horror on the modest inhabitants of Kolomna. No one doubted the presence evil spirits in this person. It was said that he offered such conditions from which a hair stood on end and which the unfortunate man never then dared to transfer to another; that his money has a burning property, glows by itself, and bears some strange signs... in a word, there were a lot of all sorts of absurd rumors. And the remarkable thing is that all this Kolomna population, this whole world of poor old women, petty officials, petty artists and, in a word, all the small fry that we just named, agreed to endure and endure the last extreme rather than turn to a terrible usurer; they even found old women who died of hunger, who agreed to kill their bodies rather than destroy their souls. Meeting him on the street, involuntarily felt fear. The pedestrian cautiously backed away and looked back for a long time after that, watching his exorbitant tall figure disappearing in the distance. There was already so much extraordinary in one image that anyone would be forced to involuntarily ascribe to it a supernatural existence. These strong traits, embedded as deeply as they ever do in a human being; that hot bronzed complexion; this exorbitant thick eyebrows, unbearable, terrible eyes, even the widest folds of his Asiatic clothes - everything seemed to say that before the passions moving in this body, all the passions of other people were pale. Every time my father stopped motionless when he met him, and every time he could not help saying: “The devil, the perfect devil!” But I must quickly introduce you to my father, who, by the way, is the real subject of this story. My father was a remarkable man in many respects. He was an artist, of which there are few, one of those miracles that only Rus' alone spews from its unopened womb, a self-taught artist who himself found in his soul, without teachers and schools, rules and laws, carried away only by one thirst for improvement and walking, reasons, perhaps unknown to him, only one path indicated from the soul; one of those self-born miracles that contemporaries often honor with the insulting word "ignorant" and who do not cool off from blasphemy and their own failures, receive only new zeal and strength, and already far in their souls go away from those works for which they received the title of ignoramus. With a high inner instinct he sensed the presence of thought in every object; comprehended by itself the true meaning of the word "historical painting"; comprehended why a simple head, a simple portrait of Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, Titian, Correggio can be called historical painting and why a huge picture of historical content will still be a tableau de genre, despite all the artist’s claims to historical painting. Both his inner feeling and his own conviction turned his brush towards Christian subjects, the highest and last step of the lofty. He had no ambition or irritability, so inseparable from the nature of many artists. He was a firm character, an honest, direct person, even rude, covered on the outside with a somewhat stale bark, not without some pride in his soul, speaking of people together and condescendingly and sharply. “Why look at them,” he used to say, “because I don’t work for them. I won't take my pictures into the living room, they'll put them in the church. Whoever understands me will thank me, who does not understand will still pray to God. A secular person cannot be blamed for not understanding painting; on the other hand, he understands cards, knows a lot about good wine, horses, why should a gentleman know more? Still, perhaps, as soon as he tries one and the other, and goes to be smart, then there will be no life from him! To each his own, let each do his own. For me, it’s better that person who says bluntly that he doesn’t know any sense than the one who poses as a hypocrite, says that he knows what he doesn’t know, and only spoils and spoils. He worked for a small wage, that is, for wages that he only needed to support his family and to provide him with the opportunity to work. Moreover, he never refused to help another and extend a helping hand to a poor artist; he believed in the simple, pious faith of his ancestors, and that is why, perhaps, on the faces depicted by him that high expression appeared by itself, which brilliant talents could not get to the bottom of. Finally, by the constancy of his work and the steadfastness of the path outlined for himself, he even began to gain respect from those who honored him as an ignorant and home-grown self-taught. He was constantly given orders in the church, and his work was not translated. One of the jobs occupied him greatly. I don’t remember what exactly the plot of it consisted of, I only know that it was necessary to place the spirit of darkness in the picture. For a long time he thought about what image to give him; he wanted to realize in his face all the heavy, oppressive man. With such reflections, the image of a mysterious usurer sometimes flashed through his head, and he thought involuntarily: "I wish I could write the devil from someone." Judge his astonishment when once, while working in his workshop, he heard a knock on the door, and immediately after that a terrible usurer came straight in to him. He could not help but feel some kind of internal trembling that ran involuntarily through his body. Are you an artist? he said without ceremony to my father. Artist, said the father in bewilderment, anticipating what would happen next. Good. Draw a portrait of me. I may die soon, I have no children; but I don't want to die completely, I want to live. Can you draw a portrait that is completely alive? My father thought: “What is better? He himself asks to be the devil in my picture.” I gave my word. They agreed on the time and price, and the next day, grabbing a palette and brushes, my father was already with him. High yard, dogs, iron doors and shutters, arcuate windows, chests covered with ancient carpets, and, finally, the extraordinary host himself, sitting motionless in front of him, all this made a strange impression on him. The windows, as if on purpose, were crowded and cluttered from below so that they gave i no from only one top. “Damn it, how well his face is now lit up!” he said to himself and began to write greedily, as if fearing that the happy illumination would somehow disappear. “What power!” he repeated to himself. If I even half depict him as he is now, he will kill all my saints and angels; they will turn pale before him. What diabolical power! it will simply jump out of my canvas if I am only a little true to nature. What extraordinary features! he repeated incessantly, intensifying his zeal, and he already saw for himself how certain features began to pass onto the canvas. But the more he approached them, the more he felt some kind of painful, disturbing feeling, incomprehensible to himself. However, in spite of this, he set himself to pursue with literal accuracy every imperceptible feature and expression. First of all, he took up the decoration of the eyes. There was so much power in those eyes that it seemed impossible even to think of rendering them exactly as they were in nature. However, by all means, he decided to find in them the last small feature and shade, to comprehend their secret ... But as soon as he began to enter and delve into them with a brush, such a strange disgust revived in his soul, such an incomprehensible burden that he had to give up the brush for some time and then take it up again. Finally, he could no longer endure it, he felt that those eyes pierced his soul and produced in it incomprehensible anxiety. On the next, on the third day, it was even stronger. He became afraid. He dropped the brush and flatly said that he could no longer write with it. One should have seen how the strange usurer changed at these words. He threw himself at his feet and begged him to finish the portrait, saying that his fate and existence in the world depended on this, that he had already touched his living features with his brush, that if he conveyed them correctly, his life supernatural power will remain in the portrait, that he will not die completely through this, that he must be present in the world. My father felt horror at such words: they seemed so strange and terrible to him that he threw down his brushes and palette and rushed headlong out of the room. The thought of that worried him all day and all night, and in the morning he received a portrait from the usurer, which was brought to him by some woman, the only creature who was in his service, who immediately announced that the owner did not want a portrait, did not give for it nothing and sends back. In the evening of the same day he learned that the usurer had died and that they were going to bury him according to the rites of his religion. All this seemed to him inexplicably strange. Meanwhile, from that time on, a perceptible change appeared in his character: he felt restless, anxiety state , for whom he himself could not understand the reasons, and he soon performed such an act that no one could have expected from him. For some time now, the works of one of his students began to attract the attention of a small circle of connoisseurs and amateurs. My father always saw talent in him and showed him his special disposition for that. He suddenly felt envious of him. General participation and talk about it became unbearable to him. Finally, to the top of his annoyance, he learns that his student was offered to paint a picture for the newly rebuilt rich church. It blew him up. “No, I won't let the sucker triumph!” he said. It's too early, brother, he decided to put the old people in the mud! Still, thank God, I have the strength. Here we will see who will soon put someone in the mud. And a straightforward, honest-in-heart man used intrigues and intrigues, which until then he had always abhorred; finally achieved that a competition was announced for the picture and other artists could also enter with their works. After which he locked himself in his room and set about his brush with ardor. It seemed that he wanted to gather all his strength, all of himself here. And for sure, it came out one of his best works. No one doubted that he did not have the championship. The pictures were presented, and all the others appeared before her like night before day. Suddenly, one of the members present, if I am not mistaken, a spiritual person, made a remark that amazed everyone. “There is certainly a lot of talent in the artist's painting,” he said, “but there is no holiness in the faces; there is even, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if an impure feeling was leading the hand of the artist. Everyone looked and could not but be convinced of the truth of these words. My father rushed forward to his picture, as if to believe such an insulting remark himself, and saw with horror that he had given almost all the figures the eyes of a usurer. They looked so demonically crushingly that he himself shuddered involuntarily. The picture was rejected, and he had to hear, to his indescribable annoyance, that the primacy remained with his student. It was impossible to describe the fury with which he returned home. He almost killed my mother, dispersed the children, broke brushes and an easel, grabbed a portrait of a usurer from the wall, demanded a knife and ordered a fire to be lit in the fireplace, intending to cut it into pieces and burn it. This movement was caught by his friend, a painter, who, like him, was a merry fellow, always pleased with himself, not carried away by any distant desires, working cheerfully at everything that came across, and even more cheerfully taking to dinner and feasting. What are you doing, what are you going to burn? he said and went to the portrait. Have mercy, this is one of your best works. This is a moneylender who recently died; yes, this is the perfect thing. You just hit him not in the eyebrow, but in the very eyes. So eyes have never looked into life, as they look at you. But I'll see how they will look in the fire, said the father, making a movement to throw it into the fireplace. Stop, for God's sake! said the friend, holding him, give it to me, if it pricks your eyes to such an extent. The father was at first stubborn, finally agreed, and the merry fellow, extremely pleased with his acquisition, dragged the portrait with him. After his departure, my father suddenly felt calmer. It was as if a weight had been lifted from his soul along with the portrait. He himself was amazed at his malicious feeling, his envy, and the obvious change in his character. Having considered his deed, he was saddened in soul and, not without inner sorrow, said: No, it was God who punished me; my picture rightly suffered disgrace. She was plotted to destroy her brother. The demonic feeling of envy drove my brush, the demonic feeling should have been reflected in it. He immediately went to look for his former student, hugged him tightly, asked his forgiveness and tried as much as he could to make amends for his guilt before him. His works flowed again, as serenely as before; but thoughtfulness began to show more often on his face. He prayed more, was more often silent and did not express himself so sharply about people; the coarsest exterior of his character somehow softened. Soon one circumstance shocked him even more. He had not seen his comrade for a long time, who begged him for a portrait. I was about to go and visit him, when suddenly he himself unexpectedly entered his room. After a few words and questions from both sides, he said: Well, brother, it was not for nothing that you wanted to burn the portrait. Damn him, there is something strange in him ... I don’t believe in witches, but, your will: evil spirits sit in him ... How? said my father. And so that since I hung it in my room, I felt such anguish ... just as if I wanted to kill someone. In my life I did not know what insomnia was, and now I have experienced not only insomnia, but such dreams ... I myself can’t tell whether these are dreams or something else: it’s as if a brownie is strangling you, and the accursed old man keeps imagining. In a word, I cannot tell you my condition. This has never happened to me. I wandered like a madman all these days: I felt some kind of fear, an unpleasant expectation of something. I feel that I cannot say a cheerful and sincere word to anyone; just as if a spy was sitting next to me. And only since I gave the portrait to my nephew, who asked for it, did I feel like a stone had suddenly fallen from my shoulders: I suddenly felt cheerful, as you can see. Well, brother, you concocted the devil! During this story, my father listened to him with undistracted attention and finally asked: And now your nephew has a portrait? Where is the nephew! could not stand it, said the merry fellow, to know that the soul of the usurer himself moved into him: he jumps out of the frames, paces around the room; and what the nephew says is simply incomprehensible to the mind. I would have taken him for a madman if I had not partly experienced it myself. He sold it to some collector of paintings, and even he could not stand it and also sold it to someone. This story produced strong impression on my father. He fell into thought in earnest, fell into hypochondria, and finally became completely convinced that his brush had served as a diabolical tool, that part of the life of a usurer had indeed turned into a portrait somehow and was now disturbing people, inspiring demonic impulses, seducing the artist from the path, giving rise to terrible torments of envy, and so on and so forth. Three misfortunes that followed, three sudden death wife, daughter and young son he considered himself a heavenly punishment and decided to leave the light without fail. As soon as I was nine years old, he placed me in the Academy of Arts and, having paid off his debts, retired to a secluded monastery, where he soon took the monastic vows. There, with the severity of life, vigilant observance of all the monastic rules, he amazed all the brothers. The abbot of the monastery, having learned about the art of his brush, demanded that he paint the main image for the church. But the humble brother flatly said that he was not worthy to take up the brush, that it was defiled, that by labor and great sacrifices he must first purify his soul in order to be worthy to begin such a work. They didn't want to force him. He himself increased for himself, as much as possible, the severity of monastic life. Finally, she, too, became insufficient for him and not quite strict. With the blessing of the abbot, he retired to the desert, to be completely alone. There he built a cell for himself from tree branches, ate only raw roots, dragged stones from place to place on himself, stood from sunrise to sunset in the same place with his hands raised to heaven, continuously reading prayers. In a word, he seemed to seek out all possible degrees of patience and that incomprehensible self-sacrifice, examples of which can only be found in the lives of saints alone. Thus, for a long time, for several years, he exhausted his body, strengthening it at the same time with the life-giving power of prayer. Finally, one day he came to the monastery and said firmly to the rector: “Now I am ready. If God wills, I will do my work.” The item he took was the Nativity of Jesus. whole year he sat behind him, not leaving his cell, barely feeding himself harsh food, praying incessantly. After a year, the picture was ready. It was, indeed, a miracle of the brush. It is necessary to know that neither the brothers nor the rector had much knowledge in painting, but everyone was struck by the extraordinary holiness of the figures. The feeling of divine humility and meekness in the face of the Most Pure Mother, bending over the Infant, a deep mind in the eyes of the Divine Infant, as if already seeing something in the distance, the solemn silence of the kings struck by the divine miracle, bowed down at His feet, and, finally, holy, inexpressible silence embracing the whole picture, all this appeared in such a harmonious force and power of beauty that the impression was magical. All the brothers fell on their knees before the new image, and the tender rector said: “No, it is impossible for a person with the help of human art alone to produce such a picture: a holy, higher power led your brush, and the blessing of heaven rested on your labor.” At this time, I completed my studies at the Academy, received a gold medal and with it the joyful hope of traveling to Italy - the best dream of a twenty-year-old artist. I had only to say goodbye to my father, from whom I had parted for twelve years. I confess that even the very image of him has long since disappeared from my memory. I had already heard a little about the stern holiness of his life and imagined in advance to meet the callous appearance of a hermit, alien to everything in the world, except for his cell and prayer, exhausted, dried up from eternal fasting and vigil. But how amazed I was when a beautiful, almost divine old man appeared before me! And there were no traces of exhaustion on his face: it shone with the lordship of heavenly joy. A snow-white beard and thin, almost airy hair of the same silvery color scattered picturesquely over his chest and over the folds of his black cassock and fell to the very cord that girded his wretched monastic clothes; but most of all it was amazing for me to hear from his lips such words and thoughts about art, which, I confess, I will keep in my soul for a long time and would sincerely wish that every one of my brothers did the same. I have been waiting for you, my son, he said as I approached his blessing. You will have a path along which your life will flow from now on. Your path is clear, do not deviate from it. You have a talent; talent is the most precious gift of God do not destroy it. Explore, study everything that you see, subdue everything with your brushes, but be able to find the inner thought in everything and try most of all to comprehend high secret creations. Blessed is the chosen one who owns it. He has no low object in nature. In the insignificant the artist-creator is as great as in the great; in the contemptible, he no longer has the contemptible, for the beautiful soul of the Creator shines invisibly through him, and the contemptible has already received a high expression, for it has flowed through the purgatory of his soul. A hint of a divine, heavenly paradise is contained for man in art, and for that alone it is already above all. And how many times the solemn peace is higher than any worldly excitement; how many times creation is higher than destruction; how many times an angel, by the pure innocence of his bright soul alone, is higher than all the innumerable forces and proud passions of Satan, so many times higher than anything that exists in the world, a high creation of art. Offer everything to him and love him with all your passion. Not a passion breathing earthly lust, but a quiet heavenly passion; without it, a person has no power to rise from the earth and cannot give wonderful sounds of calm. For in order to calm and reconcile all, a high creation of art descends into the world. It cannot instill murmuring in the soul, but with resounding prayer strives eternally towards God. But there are moments, dark minutes... He stopped, and I noticed that his bright face suddenly darkened, as if some momentary cloud had come running over him. There is one incident in my life, he said. To this day, I cannot understand what was the strange image from which I wrote the image. It was definitely some kind of diabolical phenomenon. I know the light rejects the existence of the devil, and therefore I will not speak of him. But I will only say that I wrote it with disgust, I did not feel at that time any love for my work. I forcibly wanted to conquer myself and soullessly, drowning out everything, to be true to nature. It was not a creation of art, and therefore the feelings that embrace everyone when looking at it are already rebellious feelings, disturbing feelings, not the feelings of an artist, for an artist breathes peace even in anxiety. I was told that this portrait goes from hand to hand and dispels lingering impressions, engendering in the artist a feeling of envy, gloomy hatred for his brother, an evil thirst for persecution and oppression. May the Almighty protect you from these passions! There are none scarier. It is better to endure all the bitterness of possible persecution than to inflict one shadow of persecution on someone. Save the purity of your soul. Whoever has a talent in himself, he must be purer than all in soul. Much will be forgiven to another, but he will not be forgiven. A man who left the house in light festive clothes has only to be splashed with one spot of dirt from under the wheel, and all the people have already surrounded him, pointing their fingers at him, and talking about his slovenliness, while the same people do not notice the multitude spots on other passers-by, dressed in everyday clothes. For stains are not seen on everyday clothes. He blessed me and hugged me. Never in my life have I been so exalted. Reverently, more than with the feeling of a son, I clung to his chest and kissed his scattered silver hair. A tear glistened in his eyes. Fulfill, my son, one of my requests, he told me already at the very parting. Maybe you will happen to see somewhere the portrait that I told you about. You suddenly recognize him by his unusual eyes and their unnatural expression, exterminate him by all means... You can judge for yourself whether I could not promise to fulfill such a request with an oath. In the course of fifteen whole years I did not happen to come across anything that would in any way resemble the description made by my father, when suddenly now, at an auction ... Here the artist, without finishing his speech, turned his eyes to the wall in order to look once more at the portrait. The same movement was made in an instant by the entire crowd of those who listened, looking for an unusual portrait with their eyes. But, to the greatest amazement, it was no longer on the wall. Indistinct chatter and noise ran through the whole crowd, and after that the words were clearly heard: "Stolen." Someone has already managed to pull it off, taking advantage of the attention of listeners who were carried away by the story. And for a long time all those present remained in perplexity, not knowing whether they really saw these extraordinary eyes or whether it was just a dream that appeared only for a moment to their eyes, bothered by a long examination of ancient paintings.