Essay reflection on the story by N.V. Gogol “Portrait. Analysis of Gogol's story "Portrait", a creative study of the mission of art

29.04.2019

To writing a story "Portrait", in which the element of mysticism also plays an important role. The writer published his work in the collection “Arabesques”.

Many critics did not like the work. Belinsky believed that "Portrait" was an unsuccessful attempt, where the author's talent began to decline.

After the scandal with the premiere of The Government Inspector, Gogol went to Italy. Under the southern sun and under the influence of the artist Ivanov, Nikolai Vasilyevich revised the story, and then published it again in 1841.

The writer made adjustments to the dialogues, scenes, and changed the name of the main character. Now he was called Chartkov, not Chertkov, which caused readers to associate him with the devil. The ending of the work has also become different: the figure of the moneylender does not disappear from the picture, but the portrait itself disappears.

The story consists of two parts. The central place in each of them is artist's image. Gogol shows two destinies, two talents with different worldviews, with opposite understandings of the tasks of painting. The hero of the first part is the young artist Chartkov. He shows great promise, but does not have the funds to buy canvas, paints or even food. However, Chartkov, using his last money, decided to buy a portrait of an old Asian man, shocked by his “living” eyes.

In the second part of the work we learn the history of the fateful picture. One day a moneylender came to the icon painter (he is known to us as the father of the artist B.) and asked him to draw a portrait. The artist agreed to the unusual order because the old man’s appearance made a great impression on him.

Every master is tempted by a portrait. Chartkov, having found money hidden in the frame, first wants to spend it on a new studio, brushes and paints to improve his talent. But instead, he buys unnecessary things, fashionable clothes, and visits restaurants. Subconsciously, Chartkov had previously envied the lives of fashionable artists; he wanted wealth and fame. And this desire has now triumphed over the desire for creative growth. It was the thirst for fame that forced Chartkov to order a laudatory article about himself.

At first, the young painter strives to follow the truth of life, looking not just for portrait resemblance, but trying to transfer the soul of a person, his character, onto the canvas. But gradually he turns into a craftsman, pandering to the tastes of the crowd, and loses his divine spark.

Chartkov became famous and rich. The public praises him famous people offer to teach at the Art Academy. He already looks down on young painters and lectures them. Only after seeing a new one, for real talented picture, Chartkov understands that he has ruined his talent.

The temptation of artist B.'s father was of a different kind. In the demonic image of a moneylender he was attracted by the opportunity to create a portrait evil spirits. It was a challenge to my talent. The artist felt that he was doing wrong, but professional interest forced him to continue working. Fortunately, unlike Chartkov, the icon painter was able to stop in time. With a huge effort of will, he managed to get rid of the influence of the portrait and cleanse his soul. He bequeaths his son to find and destroy the fatal painting.

The final part of the story does not add optimism. Chartkov went crazy and died, having previously destroyed large number their good work. But the terrible portrait could not be burned. He was kidnapped and may have begun to tempt a new victim.

The contrast between the two destinies of talented artists is natural. Gogol wanted to show that only by renouncing worldly goods, from the bustle of social life, an artist can create real paintings, and not handicraft canvases. It is not for nothing that the icon painter finds salvation from the influence of the portrait within the monastery walls.

While working on the story, Gogol was at a creative crossroads. From romanticism early works he approached realism, but had not yet fully comprehended the possibilities of a new direction for himself. In the story “Portrait” the writer seeks the answer to the question: can art be extremely accurate and mirror life? Or should it depict reality through artistic means, influencing the thoughts and feelings of people, and educate them? After all, the artist in the second part of the story came too close to reality, made the eyes of the moneylender alive and let evil into this world.

The author is responsible for his creation. Gogol emphasizes: only with pure thoughts, with kind hearted you can create a real masterpiece that can elevate the soul, illuminate it with light and joy.

“Portrait”, a summary of Gogol’s story in parts
“Dead Souls”, analysis of Gogol’s work

In light of this program, the story is offered for compulsory study in secondary vocational institutions

N.V. Gogol “Portrait”.

Studying the story takes 2 hours. During this time, it is necessary to study the ideological orientation, composition, and artistic value of the work.

It is necessary to teach students how to analyze a work, and for this you need to know the history of the creation of the story, master the text, and know information from the writer’s biography. This development has a practical orientation:

help the teacher cope with the above tasks, properly organize study time, give a complete understanding of this work, the problems that N.V. Gogol set for himself.

The methodology of teaching literature has developed several approaches to the implementation of problem analysis literary work: highlighting moral, aesthetic, philosophical problems in a literary text.

In my work I relied on monographs and numerous scientific articles Professor V. G. Marantsman.

He writes: “Problem-based learning as the structure of the educational process is a system of interconnected and increasingly complex problem situations, during which a student, under the guidance of a teacher, masters the content of a subject, methods of studying it, and develops in himself the qualities necessary for a creative attitude towards science and life.” .

“Portrait” is the most important work not only for Russian, but also for world literature. It has not lost its importance in our time. After all, in the world there are always rich people who want to become even richer, and poor people who want to take the place of the rich. This problem can be classified as an eternal problem.

A. S. Pushkin wrote about this in his works “ Queen of Spades” and “Mozart and Salieri”. Currently, the problem posed by N.V. Gogol is especially acute. What is more important: true art or easy money? Gogol claims that true talent is a gift from God,

the artist simply does not have the right to waste it in vain for the sake of profit.

Therefore, the hero of the story, Chartkov, dies: he was unable to defend his art in the face of the thirst to enrich himself financially.

In my methodological development I present:

materials for teachers from the history of the creation of the story “Portrait”;
lesson development in accordance with scheduling.

Plan.

1. Introduction.
2. N.V. Gogol’s story “Portrait” (material for teachers).
4. Methodological development of a lesson based on N.V. Gogol’s story “Portrait”.
5. Literature

Introduction

Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol divided all his stories into two large cycles: “Evenings on a farm near Dikanka”, “Mirgorod” and “Petersburg stories”. Many of the works of the last cycle convey the idea of the merciless and destructive power of money. “Portrait” is one of these stories.

It tells about Chartkov - an honest, hardworking artist, a man with talent and the ability to subtly feel nature. But with one drawback. This flaw is greed. The money accidentally found in the portrait frame deprived him of peace and suppressed his interest in real art.

“Portrait” is a story about the tragedy of an artist who knew the joy of inspired creativity and was unable to defend his art in the face of the thirst to enrich himself financially. Gogol, under the guise of a fantastic incident, shows the reader the true capital of Russia as it is, the whole of St. Petersburg, striking with pictures of contradictions and contrasts. All the forces of evil are embodied in the hidden image of the city; it expresses all the tragedy of Russian reality. All its inhabitants are divided into businessmen and people who want to become them. “Our age has long acquired the boring face of a banker,” Gogol notes in the story. In general, the St. Petersburg cycle collected all the injustices that were happening in society, and “Portrait” became the embodiment of the fight against destructive greed.

To reveal the action of the story, Gogol chose an interesting technique. The work consists of two parts. The first tells about the tragic fate and death of the hero, the real reason which is covered in mystery for the reader. In the second, the author explains the mysterious circumstances and causes of Chartkov’s death, without saying a word about him.

The theme of the work is expressed in the title - this is a mysterious portrait of a strange moneylender. “It was no longer a copy from life, it was a strange painting that would illuminate the face of a dead man rising from the grave.”

The painting forced one artist to waste his talent, another to go to a monastery. In order to show the reader the meaning of the story as transparently as possible, Gogol makes the portrait disappear at the very end. In the first edition of the story, it was not the painting that disappeared, but the image of the old man from it, but in the final version the author wanted to make sure that the portrait was stolen again, so that a person would be found who would become the next victim of the Asian moneylender.

The main idea of the story is that true service to art requires from a person moral fortitude and courage, and an understanding of the high responsibility to society for talent. Chartkov lacked either one or the other.

“Portrait” can be compared with “Mozart and Salieri” by Pushkin. Seduced by the devil, Chartkov “recognized that terrible torment... when a weak talent tries to speak out in excess of it and cannot speak out; that terrible torment that makes a person capable

to terrible atrocities. He was overcome by terrible envy, envy to the point of rage.” He recognized the torment that Pushkin's Salieri suffered. But Salieri killed the creator of music, retaining the ability to enjoy his works. And Chartkov destroys “all the best that art has ever produced,” trying to destroy art itself. Salieri committed a crime and thereby ruined his talent. Chartkov ruined his talent and his soul and therefore commits atrocities.

The story “Portrait” by N.V. Gogol.

(Teacher's material)

Problem-based learning is one of the ways to comprehend educational material. It fosters conceptual thinking and promotes the development of a systematic approach to phenomena.

Studying Gogol’s story “Portrait” requires a problematic approach to activate students’ attention; problematic questions make them think about the significant issues of the work.

The works of Gogol, which are studied by students of secondary vocational education, deepen the topics outlined in previous cycles. The author and his heroes find themselves not under the sultry sun of a “delightful summer day” and not under the cover of a “divine” night, but in a city illuminated by a dim lantern. In “Petersburg Tales” the author’s focus on the problems of spiritual self-determination of man, the problems of art, and creativity is most clearly revealed; the writer directed his gaze into the depths of the human soul, trying to see the essence behind the form, the inner behind the external. Gogol constantly warns the reader: “Oh, don’t believe this Nevsky Prospect! Everything is a deception, everything is a dream, everything is not what it seems!” Through the prism of the fantastic, the writer examines the known in a different way, and tries to see an anomaly in the familiar. “The originality of the artistic system of St. Petersburg stories lies in Gogol’s principles of the relationship between the real and the fantastic.”

In a world turned inside out, a person feels fragile and lonely, like Tyutchev’s hero standing on the edge of an abyss:

And the man is like a homeless orphan,
Now he stands weak and naked
Face to face before the dark abyss...

The tragedy is manifested both in the “behavior” of the environment (...the bridge stretched and broke on its arch...), and in the feelings of a person (Piskarev “seemed that some demon had chopped up the whole world into many different pieces and all these pieces mixed together senselessly”). By shifting the proportions, the author shows how the apparent easily replaces the essential, the real becomes fantastic, how a thing easily replaces a person, how the boundary between good and evil is imperceptibly erased. At the same time, the characters experience an existential feeling of loneliness and melancholy. At such critical moments, people need to learn to live and love with a constant “awareness of the fragility and doom of everything.”

The story “Portrait” is dedicated to the main and burning theme of N.V. Gogol - the theme of creativity, the fate of the artist, aesthetic and moral.

The idea of the story dates back to 1831-1832. Three works - “Nevsky Prospekt”, “Portrait” (1st ed.), “Notes of a Madman” - were included in the collection “Arabesques”, published in 1835. The author dreamed of creating a book about St. Petersburg artists, sculptors, and musicians. The first two stories echo a number of Arabesque articles on art issues. The author so deeply and sincerely believed in its saving power that he hoped to influence the world order through it. “...I know that before I understood the meaning and purpose of art, I already felt with the instinct of my whole soul that it should be holy... In art there are creations, not destruction. Art is the establishment of harmony and order in the soul, and not confusion and disorder...” - says N.V. Gogol in a letter to V.A. Zhukovsky.

In the early 40s, the author returned to work on the story, since its first edition was not accepted by his contemporaries. V. G. Belinsky noted: “Portrait” is unsuccessful attempt Mr. Gogol in a fantastic way. There's talent here. The first part of this story is impossible to read without fascination...

But its second part is absolutely worthless: Gogol is not visible in it at all...” In Rome, the author subjected the story to a thorough revision. In the first edition, Gogol conducted an open dialogue with the reader, exposing all the “nerves” of the work. In the second edition, he deepened the aesthetic issues and more clearly expressed the aesthetic ideal. In the first part there is an implementation problem

artistic gift, the influence of art on the human soul entered sporadically. In the final version, this question is posed with complete certainty: “Or is slavish, literal imitation of nature already an offense and seems like a discordant cry?” True art, according to Gogol, should be illuminated high society and not obey the laws of the momentary, temporary. As a result of the edits, the plot was changed: the subtext was deepened, the exposition and ending were changed, and the fantasy was veiled.

The story consists of two parts: The first examines the tragic story of the artist Chartkov; the second tells the story of human transformation. Here N.V. Gogol used the technique of “inverted composition”, well known in world literature (after all, the events of the second part chronologically precede the events of the first). Why did Chartkov’s talent die? Why did the hero fail to preserve his talent, but the author of the mysterious portrait managed to overcome the painter of a “discordant life” in himself? What is the meaning of the composition?– answers to these and other questions will help young readers unravel the many mysteries of Gogol’s text. During the lessons we will talk about the secret of creativity, the riddle human spirit, about possible ways to comprehend the nature of art, about how important it is for a person not to betray himself, not to betray his talent and to believe in his calling. Problem analysis will help students overcome many “discordances” in the perception of the text.

The beginning of the story is promising: before us is a young, talented artist, “who prophesied many things: in flashes and moments his brush responded with observation, content, and a strong impulse to get closer to nature...”. He knows how to distinguish genuine art from fakes, to see the “mask” behind the so-called face. Thus, in the paintings exhibited in the Shchukinsky yard, what is first striking is not only the mediocrity of their authors, but also the distorted reality: “He stopped in front of the shop and at first laughed inwardly at these ugly paintings. Here one could see simply stupidity, a powerless, decrepit mediocrity that had arbitrarily entered the ranks of the arts... A Flemish man with a pipe and a broken arm, looking more like an Indian rooster than a man.” Examining portraiture with the hero, the author sadly notes the lack of light, beauty and harmony of inner life in the depicted. Very little time will pass, and bright, flashy colors will begin to play on Chartkov’s canvases; Psyche’s pretty head will be replaced by Lisa’s languid face, on which “one can detect heavy traces of indifferent diligence in various arts.”

Each new customer will have “different claims.” They will try to hide traces of deformed reality behind the mask of Mars, Byron, the appearance of Corinne, Ondine, Aspasia, Chartkov with “great willingness to agree to everything and add plenty of beauty to everyone... He will marvel at the wonderful speed and agility of his brush... “In the meantime, he has been standing “motionless for some time now,” as if spellbound, in front of one portrait, in large, once magnificent frames...”

Let's compare the editions:

II edition:

“He was an old man with a bronze-colored face, high cheekbones, and stunted; the features of the face seemed to be captured in a moment of convulsive movement and responded not with northern strength. The fiery afternoon was captured in them. He was draped in a loose Asian suit. No matter how damaged and dusty the portrait was, when he managed to clean the dust from the face, he saw traces of work high artist... Most extraordinary of all were the eyes: it seemed as if the artist had used all the power of his brush and all his diligent care in them. They simply looked, looked even from the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony with their strange liveliness.”

I edition:

“...He began to impatiently rub his hand and soon saw a portrait in which a master’s brush was clearly visible, although the paints seemed somewhat cloudy and blackened. It was an old man with a kind of restless and angry expression on his face; there was a smile on his lips, sharp, sarcastic, and at the same time some kind of fear; the blush of illness was thinly spread over the face, distorted by wrinkles; his eyes were large, black, dull; but at the same time some strange liveliness was noticeable in them. It seemed that this portrait depicted

some kind of miser who spent his life over a chest, or one of those unfortunates who are tormented all their lives by the happiness of others... Some kind of incompleteness was visible throughout the portrait...”

In the first edition, the portrait of the moneylender clearly reveals him as a demonic character. In the second edition, Gogol veiled, hid in the subtext the entire infernal essence of the moneylender, leaving the reader in an aura of mystery.

Looking at the mysterious portrait at home, Chartkov simultaneously experienced two opposite feelings: on the one hand, he was very frightened, on the other, some kind of longing gripped him. The young man tried to fall asleep, thinking about “poverty, about the pitiful fate of the artist, about the thorny path ahead of him in this world,” but the portrait did not give him peace: something attracted him, beckoned him behind the screen. The gold that flashed in the hands of the moneylender became a symbol of temptation, the spiritual test of the hero. In “Petersburg Tales” dreams are endowed with a special function of testing the soul. “The hero-dreamer appears as a kind of mediator between this and that light; the wandering soul of the hero reveals the state of crisis he is experiencing, which is expressed in loss of orientation, inability to answer the questions “where” and “when”.

Transitions from one dream to another metaphorically indicate the hero’s movement into the abyss of chaos. This episode is reminiscent in theme of the scene “Vakula at Patsyuk’s” from the story “The Night Before Christmas”. Dumpling, caught magically into the blacksmith’s mouth in the “hungry kutya”, it was a kind of “agreement” with evil spirits. However, Vakula’s piety did not allow him to commit a sin. Chartkov did not have an inner core, just as many people living in a broken world did not have it. “Beautiful life”, festive festivities with the ladies, delicious dinners - this was the secret dream of the poor artist in a small room on Vasilyevsky Island. Convulsively grabbing the package, Chartkov watched to see if the old man would notice...” This is how “the signing of a contract with the devil” took place. This topic is not new in literature: it worried Goethe and Byron. Pushkin. Lermontov. But Pushkin in “Scene from Faust” developed the idea that “human nature still retains reverence for concepts sacred to the human race.” Love is one of these concepts. When Mephistopheles tears out the root of love from the hero’s soul, he has no choice but to issue the order: “... drown everything.” Life loses all meaning when love turns into an illusion (see the analysis of “Scenes from Faust” in the book. Marantsman V.G. On the way to Pushkin. - M., 1999).

In Gogol's story there is no dialogue between the characters. Its participants (the artist and the moneylender) are in “different spatio-temporal and historical planes.”

At the same time, the dialogue formula is preserved in the story. The characters communicate using gestures and glances, and the bundle of coins is the result of this meeting.

Thus, receiving money is the first “wonderful moment” that “transformed” Chartkov. He settled down well, built a career for himself, and achieved success with the capital's nobility. Money introduced him to an atmosphere where the “despicable cold of trade and insignificance” reigns.

Creative tensions and impulses gave way to negligence and indifference

to your own creativity. “This man who spends several months poring over a painting, to me, is a worker, not an artist. A genius creates boldly, quickly...” – this is how Chartkov now thinks. How can one not recall Pushkin’s lines:

The service of the muses does not tolerate fuss,
The beautiful must be majestic...

Gogol lexically emphasizes the story of the painter’s spiritual death.

“Already he began to reach a time of sedateness of mind and age... Already in newspapers and magazines I read adjectives: “our venerable Andrei Petrovich,”

“our honored Andrei Petrovich”... Already they began to offer him positions of honor.” In all these rows, two opposing plans are revealed: one conveys career advancement, external ascension, and the other plane (internal) reveals the degradation of the artist’s personality (“ Already he began to believe that everything in the world is simple, there is no inspiration from above...”), who exchanged talent for simple trifles.

For his quick success, the hero had to pay with talent and soul.

Seeing the “divine” work of art brought from Italy, Chartkov saw for a moment, his youth returned to him, “as if the extinct sparks of talent flared up again.” Here the hero felt a second “beautiful moment,” which for some time restored the artist’s broken connection with the world of people, with the world of art. At that moment he realized that real talent cannot be bought for any money. Once again, the Faustian motif of the “beautiful moment” illuminated the hero’s life for some time and marked a turning point in his views and character: from blindness to insight, from error to truth. However, restoring his personality turned out to be impossible. Chartkov exhausted himself. When he looked at the painting, “pure, immaculate, beautiful, like a bride, stood before him the artist’s work.” He wanted to make comments, but “his speech died on his lips, tears and sobs burst out discordantly in response, and he ran out of the hall like a madman.” The hero became part of this “discordant” life, forgetting about his high purpose. Chartkorv, like Pushkin's Faust, was overcome by a passion for destruction, but the artist had different motives for such an act. The last days of his life were terrible: he mercilessly destroyed the best paintings, masterpieces of world painting. Evil became indestructible for Chartkov because he was unable to endure and hope. He lacked peace of mind and wise humility to overcome mental turmoil.

The second part of the story tells about the fate of the author of this mysterious portrait, who managed to overcome the painter of a discordant life within himself. The artist, like the young Chartkov, “was looking for that degree of mastery, that creative state that allows one to capture and convey the deep essence of a living human face.” The master, having heard the moneylender’s request to paint a portrait, “the next day, grabbing a palette and brushes, was in his house... “Damn it, how well his face was now illuminated! - he said to himself and began to write greedily, as if fearing that the happy light would somehow disappear.” Chartkov and the bogomaz artist are united by one image - a moneylender. One immortalized it, and the other gave it a second life, “revived it.” Even ancient people endowed portrait images with a magical function (the ability of a portrait to “come to life” and “revive” what is depicted on it.)

The portrait image is associated with a person’s hope of “overcoming” death and posthumous existence in portrait image(the moneylender to the artist: “I may die soon, I have no children; but I don’t want to die at all, I want to live”). The portrait turned out “perfect,” as if a living person was looking from the canvas. The author of the portrait, like Chartkov, strived for an accurate depiction and mastery of nature. The owner of the apartment says about Chartkov: “Here he draws a room... he drew it with all the rubbish and squabbles.” Everyone present in the shop was struck by the eyes of the moneylender, “living” eyes that pierce the soul through and through. Imitation of nature is apparently necessary for art, but clearly not sufficient. As V. A. Favorsky notes, “the living” in art is not where completely living heads look from a portrait, making you shudder, but where the artist manages to create an integral space - a world that in its integrity turns out to be independent, self-existent, and that means already to a very large extent and alive.” The second part of the story reveals the history of overcoming the “givenness” of art, the path of knowledge and overcoming the “impulses of suffering.” Only life in the monastery, fasting and prayer restored the harmony of the spirit of the portrait artist. The painting, created by the artist after his tonsure and hermitage, struck “the extraordinary holiness of the figures.” “The feeling of divine humility and meekness in the face of the Most Pure Mother... holy, inexpressible silence embracing the whole picture - all this appeared in such consistent strength and power of beauty that the impression was magical.”

The story “Portrait” presents the ideal of an artist - the author of a “magnificent” painting. Gogol expresses his position in a few phrases, but freely and with inspiration, enjoying the greatness of the master’s spirit. In this picture, “pure, immaculate, beautiful, like a bride,” the freedom of the artist’s creativity that the writer dreamed of was reflected. The artist’s life was spent far from the “free world”. “He didn’t care whether they talked about his character, about his inability to deal with people, about his failure to observe secular decency... He neglected everything, gave everything to art.” As noted in the research literature, the prototype of the young talented artist was Gogol’s friend A.A. Ivanov. “In the appearance of Ivanov, in his creative self-denial, Gogol saw the image of an ideal artist, which he wrote about in “Selected Places...”. The writer met Ivanov in Rome in 1838 with the assistance of V. A. Zhukovsky, when he was working on his main work, “The Appearance of the Messiah.” The acquaintance grew into a friendship that did not end until the writer’s death. Gogol highly valued the painter's talent and his inherent inquisitive, philosophical mindset. Ivanov devoted all the passion of his heart to working on the painting. Around 1833, Ivanov created sketches of his future creation. The painting unfolds a plot taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. In front of us is a lumpy area of the earth's surface; closer to the audience, the soil rises slightly, goes deeper, then drops, again rises steeply into a hill and ends in a valley, behind which stretches a string of mountains. With these movements the artist expanded the space of the painting: each character becomes visible. In the foreground, slightly shifted to the left, under a centuries-old tree, there is a group of apostles, led by John the Baptist. Opposing this group is a crowd descending from the hill, led by the Pharisees. Between these poles there is a line of people who are trying to understand what is happening, listening to what John tells them. The entire apostolic group is directed towards Christ, the group of Pharisees and scribes descending from the hill are directed away from Christ. They did not accept the Lord’s teaching, but they came to listen to Him. Each character chooses his own path: either deliverance from sins, or the opportunity to live as before. “Everyone will get it according to their faith,” according to their sense of self in a changing world. some are in confusion and doubt; the slave longs for freedom; the Pharisees live in the past; in the faces of the “trembling” ones one can feel the awakening of the consciousness of one’s own spiritual unsettlement. Some are still just listening to the calm, even step of Christ. He brings with him a covenant of calm and peaceful harmony. In the sketches there is a figure called “closest” to Christ. This is a man with tousled hair, wearing a lingonberry-yellow robe, with a thin face turned in profile. The whole figure gives the impression of a painful experience of his sinfulness. In the picture, besides him, there is not a single person who would be the bearer of such deeply hopeless dramatic features. In the sketches it is easy to detect facial features characteristic of Gogol in this character. The writer's introduction into the picture of the Messiah in the early period of his acquaintance with Ivanov could not have happened simply with his consent. But

and with his active assistance. Gogol was working on the second edition of “Portrait” during this period, and the repentant mood was very consistent with this process.

The connection between A. S. Pushkin’s “Scene from Faust” and N. V. Gogol’s “Portrait” is based on the commonality of certain aspects of the worldview of the two geniuses. If love is destroyed in a person, it is not found

“divine support”, the moral nature is destroyed, then the whole world may find itself on the brink of spiritual and physical destruction. When students see how Gogol, relying on literary traditions, reveals a new thought and creates a new plot, they are convinced that the events comprehended by the writer, remaining in the memory of mankind, provide an incentive for further creative searches.

Main methodological techniques, with the help of which, in our opinion, the conceptual mastery of the story will occur among students, bearing in mind the fact that calendar planning allocates 2 hours for studying Gogol’s story “Portrait”, is to conduct a seminar lesson.

1. During independent extracurricular work, students should get acquainted with the content, the history of the creation of the story, with contemporaries’ reviews of the work, memories of Gogol during this period, get acquainted with articles, excerpts and letters from the author about the fate of the artist and the purpose of art.

To understand the content of the story, you can suggest the following questions:

What alarmed you about Gogol’s story “Portrait”?
How does Gogol relate to aristocrats, merchants, and commoners?
What is Chartkov’s appearance in his closet on Vasilyevsky Island and in his apartment on Nevsky Prospekt?
Imagine Chartkov at the moment when he finishes drawing Psyche and when he destroys the canvases of talented artists.
What would you call the first and second parts of the story? Is V.G. Belinsky right when he says that the second part is “an addition that is absolutely worthless”?
What is the meaning of the epithet and comparison: “In it (the bundle) there were ducats, all of them new, hot as fire”?
What destroys and what saves an artist’s talent?

Lesson-seminar on the topic: “The ideological concept of the story by N.V. Gogol “Portrait”.

Target: get acquainted with N.V. Gogol’s story “Portrait”; determine its ideological content.

Equipment: Portrait of N.V. Gogol, textbooks, notebooks.

Epigraph for the lesson:“...Talent is the most precious gift of God - do not destroy it...”

Methodical techniques: conversation on the content of the text of the story, student reports, answers to problematic questions.

Progress of the lesson

1. Introductory speech from the teacher.

Teacher: Today we will talk about the St. Petersburg period of N.V. Gogol’s work. In the first half of 1835, Gogol published the collection “Arabesques,” which included three stories: “Nevsky Prospect,” “Portrait,” and “Notes of a Madman.” With the St. Petersburg stories, then supplemented by the story “The Nose” and the story “The Overcoat,” Gogol completed a holistic picture of Russian life, an essential link of which was also the comedy “The Inspector General,” written during these years.

The main theme of the St. Petersburg stories is the deceptiveness of the external splendor of metropolitan life, its imaginary splendor, behind which lies low and vulgar prose. In addition, Gogol is concerned with the topic of creativity and the artist. He is convinced that talent is God’s gift, it is given in order to “comprehend the high mystery of creation.” The story “Portrait” is dedicated to this topic.

So, the topic of our lesson: “The ideological concept of N.V. Gogol’s story “Portrait”.”

Now we will listen to the students who prepared the reports: “The St. Petersburg period of N.V. Gogol’s creativity” and “The history of the creation of the story “Portrait””.

2. We listen to reports from previously prepared students.

3. Analysis of the story based on questions provided to students in advance:

Questions for analyzing the story.

Part I

What is Chartkov dissatisfied with while looking at the paintings in the shop in the Shchukinsky yard?
Why did Chartkov buy a portrait of an old man for the last two kopecks?
What is the significance of the landscape in the episode of Chartkov’s return home?
Why is Chartkov’s room described in such detail?
Did the professor have reason to fear that Chartkov would become a fashionable painter?
Why does the purchased portrait bother Chartkov and does not seem like a work to him? high art?
What properties of Chartkov indicate the artist’s talent?
Is Chartkov right when he thinks that the portrait has a “secret connection with his fate”?
What opportunities does the unexpectedly discovered treasure give Chartkov, and how does he use it?
Why does wealth arouse the desire for fame in Chartkov?
Why do we recognize Chartkov’s first and patronymic from a newspaper article?
What is Gogol laughing at when he conveys the chatter of a lady ordering a portrait of her daughter?
Why did the work on the portrait “attract” Chartkov? What and why is false in the portrait of an aristocratic girl?
Why is it that in the portraits that Chartkov paints, similarity is inferior to good looks?
Compare the appearance of Chartkov and the furnishings of his house on Vasilievsky Island and on Nevsky Prospekt. How has he and his attitude towards art and great artists changed?
Why did “Gold become... passion, ideal, fear, goal” of Chartkov?
How is it different? Russian artist, perfected in Italy, from Chartkov? What artist and what painting do you think we are talking about?
Why does the shock of a perfect painting in Chartkov turn into “envy and rage”, why does he destroy talented works of art?
Why did Chartkov fall into “hopeless madness” and die?

Part 2.

Why does Gogol compare the auction to a funeral procession?
Why are moneylenders necessary for the “sediment of humanity” that settled in Kolomna, and why is the main characteristic of a moneylender insensitivity?
What is so strange about the moneylender from whom the portrait was painted?
What changes occur in people who associate themselves with a moneylender?
Why does a terrible moneylender order a portrait from an artist and why does he agree to paint it?
What misfortunes did the portrait of a moneylender bring to the artist and how did he cleanse his soul of filth?
Which advice from a father to his son do you consider the most important? What is the connection between these tips and Christ’s Sermon on the Mount?
What is the meaning of art and why “talent...must be the purest soul of all”? What is the difference between Gogol’s thoughts and the words of Pushkin’s Mozart: “Genius and villainy are two incompatible things”?

4. Analysis of the content of the story using problematic questions.

– So we repeated the content of the story, and now let’s pay attention to that fact from Gogol’s life:

It was in 1835 that Gogol collected articles on art (“Painting, sculpture and music”, “A few words about Pushkin”, “On the architecture of the present time”), lectures and articles on history and reflections on historical figures and published them along with the story “ Portrait". This indicates that Gogol is concerned with issues of creativity and the artist’s place in society.

Gogol is counting on the understanding of readers and critics, but imagine the writer’s disappointment when the leading critic of the 30s and 40s, V.G. Belinsky, disapproved of the story “Portrait”: “Portrait is an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Gogol in a fantastic way. Here his talent declines, but even in his decline he remains a talent. The first part of this story is impossible to read without fascination; in fact, there is something terrible, fatal, fantastic in this mysterious portrait, there is some kind of invincible charm that makes you forcibly look at it, although it is scary for you. Add to this many fantastic paintings and essays in the taste of Mr. Gogol; remember the quarterly overseer talking about painting; then this mother, who brought her daughter to Chertkov to have her portrait taken, and who scolds balls and admires nature - and you will not deny the dignity of this story. But the second part of it is absolutely worthless; Mr. Gogol is not visible in it. This is an obvious addition in which it was not the mind that worked, and the imagination did not take any part.”

Please note: Belinsky calls the second part of the story “an addition in which the mind worked, and the imagination did not take any part”...

– A trained student talks about the further fate of Gogol and his story “Portrait”:

Having left Russia after the scandal associated with the premiere of “The Inspector General,” Gogol finds refuge in Italy. He lives in Rome. But nothing pleases the writer’s heart: neither warm weather, nor a comfortable life, nor local beauty... Gogol thinks about Russia. Here, in Rome, he meets artists, in particular, the artist Ivanov, who is working on the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People.”

Gogol sees how selflessly the artist works, making many sketches from life, endlessly changing the poses of the characters in his painting, and the color that illuminates them and nature. He is haunted by the criticism of V. G. Belinsky. And he decides to remake the story “Portrait”. By 1841 this work was completed. Significant changes have appeared: the surname of the main character has changed (previously it was Chertkov, which emphasized his connection with evil spirits; Gogol excluded certain mystical scenes, quite realistic characters appeared: Nikita, a professor, the owner of the house, a policeman, ladies-customers. In the first edition, the appearance the moneylender at the end of the story disappeared from the canvas, and in the second edition the portrait disappears, which went around the world to sow misfortune.

Teacher: What made Gogol pick up the pen again and remake the story?

Student: Gogol was not satisfied with the criticism of his work, since he attached great importance to the idea of the story: he was interested in the problem of true art and the place of the artist in the modern world; a real artist should not think about profit, about money, as this is destructive for real art).

Teacher: How is this shown in the story?

Student: Chartkov takes the path of lies and betrayal in relation to art: initially this manifests itself in the fact that he lied, giving the girl the image of Psyche. Chartkov is pleased: he received a significant amount, then the author shows Chartkov’s further “fall”: “whoever wanted Mars, he shoved Mars in his face; whoever aimed at Byron, he gave him Byron’s position and turn.”

Teacher: How was Chartkov punished?

Student: he dies in terrible agony, envy and malice destroyed his soul and talent: “A terrible envy took possession of him, envy to the point of rage... He began to buy up all the best that art had produced. Having bought a painting at a high price. carefully brought it to his room and, with the fury of a tiger, rushed at it, tore it, tore it apart, cut it into pieces and trampled it with his feet, accompanied by laughter of pleasure...”

Teacher: Affected by the microbe of profit and envy, main character the story dies in terrible agony, but the story does not end there. Why do you think Gogol writes the second part, what has he still left unsaid? After all, it would seem that the idea is expressed extremely clearly and clearly: a true artist should not sell his soul to the devil; one with talent, he should serve the beautiful on earth. What should the proximity of the first and second parts convince the reader of?

Student: The juxtaposition of the first and second parts in Gogol’s “Portrait” is intended to convince the reader that evil can take possession of any person, regardless of his moral nature. The artist who touched evil, who painted the eyes of the moneylender, which “looked demonically destructive,” can no longer paint good, his brush is driven by an “unclean feeling,” and in the picture intended for the temple, “there is no holiness in the faces.”

Teacher: Absolutely right, the second part of the story is of great importance for the ideological content of the story. Belinsky's criticism made the great writer think about a lot. Life circumstances were such that in Italy he met a true artist (Ivanov), saw how selflessly he worked on a painting on a divine theme - all these facts forced him to take up Gogol’s pen again. In the second part, he talks about the fate of the artist, who, having come into contact with evil, goes through the path of internal purification: “...he withdrew with the blessing of the abbot into the desert... There for a long time, for several years, he exhausted his body, strengthening it at that time. time with the life-giving power of prayer...” Only after this did he allow himself to take up the pen again, and then pictures full of holiness began to emerge from under his brush: “...holy higher power drove your brush and the blessing of heaven rested on your work,” the abbot tells him.

Only after this did he gain the right to give instructions to his son, an artist, who is going to go to Italy: “The hint of the divine, the heavenly is contained for man in art, and therefore alone it is already above all... Sacrifice everything to him and love him with all a passion breathing with earthly lust, but with a quiet heavenly passion: without it, a person cannot rise from the earth and cannot give wonderful sounds of peace. For to calm and reconcile everyone, a high creation of art descends into the world.”

Conclusions: So, in today’s lesson we got acquainted with N.V. Gogol’s story “Portrait”,

found out what ideological plan author. “Talent is God’s most precious gift - don’t destroy it,” this is what the old artist teaches his son, this is the main idea of the work. In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to the ending of the story in order to link it with your homework.

Let's return to the ending of the story, we know that Gogol, having remade the end of the story, takes away the hope of eradicating evil: the portrait that brought so much evil to people disappears without a trace, which means that evil has not been destroyed, it continues to roam the world.

6. Homework

Write an essay on the topic: “Does the second part of the “Portrait” refutes or confirms the idea of the omnipotence of evil?”

Literature

Bibliography Gogol N.V. Collection. op. : in 9 volumes / Comp. preparation text and commentary by V. A. Voropaev and V. V. Vinogradov. – M.: Russian Book, 1994.
Belinsky V. G. From articles and letters. // Gogol in the memoirs of his contemporaries. – M. Without m. ed., 1952.
Khrapchenko M. V. Nikolai Gogol. Literary path. The greatness of the writer. – M., 1984.
Mashkovtsev N. G. Gogol among artists. – M.: Art, 1955.
Marantsman V. G. On the way to Pushkin. – M., 1999.

Gogol wrote the story "Portrait" in 1835; in 1842 he partially reworked it. Such a work - revised, but preserving the same plot and stylistic basis - in the science of literature is usually called an edition. When opening modern reprints of Gogol’s prose, you and I usually read the second edition of “Portrait,” that is, the 1842 version; we will analyze it.

So, who should be considered the hero of this story? The artist Chartkov? Demonic loan shark? Or perhaps the hero here is the fantastic city of St. Petersburg itself, in which the action takes place? Let's try to figure it out.

Judging by the external outline of events, by the plot of the work, then at the center of the story, undoubtedly, is the artist Andrei Petrovich Chartkov, his fate, his downfall. The very name of the hero hints in advance that he is under the power of evil spells fraught with devilry. And this is not at all contradicted by the fact that at the beginning of the story Chartkov is depicted with undisguised authorial sympathy, his gift is undoubted, his sincerity is obvious.

Moreover, remember exactly how Evil, which the Usurer personifies, first invades Chartkov’s life? The artist uses his last two kopecks to buy an old portrait “in large, once magnificent frames” in an art shop on Shchukin Yard; the portrait depicts “an old man with a bronze-colored face, cheekbones, stunted,” but endowed with “non-northern strength.” So, the artist gives the money needed for food for a work of art. He does nothing wrong; he is faithful to art; his previous life is blameless and deeply moral. But from the second part of the story we learn that all the owners of the ill-fated painting became its victims. This means that having bought it, the artist is doomed to share their fate. Chartkov’s only “guilt” lies only in the fact that he was unable to resist the devilish obsession, which approached him at a dangerous distance and sucked him into himself like a quagmire. Waking up in the morning after a repeated nightmare (an old moneylender emerges from the frames of a portrait, counting his chervonets), Chartkov discovers a bundle with 1000 chervonets. His soul seems to be split into two: a true artist, dreaming of three years of calm and selfless work, and a twenty-year-old youth, who loves to party and is prone to fashionable flamboyance of colors, are arguing in him. Worldly passion wins; the artist in him begins to die.

In Gogol’s picture of the world, this is what usually happens: a heavenly calling seems to attract demonic forces; the power of gold, opposing the power of creativity, encroaches on the human soul, and in order to resist this power, you need to have a special strength and a special, ascetic personality. Otherwise, evil will win; an artist who succumbs to everyday temptation will not only ruin his talent, but will also turn into a servant dark forces. This means he is an enemy of art.

Chartkov's transition to a new quality is depicted as a betrayal, a betrayal, a religious fall. Having moved to luxury apartments on Nevsky Prospekt, he painted the first “fashionable” portrait in his life. After several sessions, moving further and further away from fidelity to the original, he transfers the embellished features of young Lise, who has already experienced a passion for balls, onto his old sketch. This sketch depicted the mythological heroine Psyche; translated into Russian, Psyche means Soul. Thus, it turns out that the artist remakes and sells his Soul for the sake of success and money; he seems to be placing it under a false image. Moreover, the name of his first model, Lise, reminds the reader of Karamzin’s “Poor Liza.” And, as you well know, Karamzin’s Liza served in Russian literature as a symbol of perishing naturalness.

Gradually, Chartkov becomes one of the “moving stone coffins with a dead man instead of a heart.” He condemns Michelangelo, and here Gogol again uses the same technique of a significant name. After all, Chartkov denies the work of the artist, in whose name the image of a shining angel is “encrypted”. And the reader gradually becomes imbued with the idea that Chartkov himself has turned into a fallen angel. No wonder, after meeting with a former classmate at the Academy, who chose the opposite path in life and art, he spent many years in Italy, his homeland European painting, and created a great final picture, Chartkov is desperately trying to create a portrait of the Fallen Angel. That is, a portrait of his soul, the fallen Psyche. But he even lost technique - having become an enemy of harmony, he simply forgot how to draw...

But his own face becomes a portrait, artistically his fall, evidence of the loss of his soul. “Blasphemy against the world” sounds in the features of his face; from a creator endowed with a heavenly gift, he turns into a satanic destroyer of masterpieces: Chartkov spends all the gold received as if in exchange for sold talent on buying up the greatest creations of European genius - and destroys them, just as he destroyed and disfigured himself...

Does this mean that evil is omnipotent? That it is impossible to resist it, since the world is structured in such a way that the purest and brightest, that is, art, attracts, attracts to itself the darkest, the most evil? No, that doesn't mean it. Although the world, as Gogol portrays it, is indeed distorted and unfairly arranged; Having bought a terrible picture, Chartkov must inevitably go astray. Evil is irremovable. However, it is not omnipotent. It is impossible to avoid temptation, but the finale, the denouement of the drama may be completely different; here Gogol's heroes are free in their choice. The story about the fate of Chartkov is shaded by the story of the artist who created a portrait of the Moneylender during the time of Catherine the Great; it is told in the second part by the son of the portrait painter. He lived in the same place where Chartkov later lived - on the outskirts of St. Petersburg; both knew what envy was (Chartkov - towards a fellow student at the Academy, the portrait painter - towards his own student, who received an order to paint a rich church); both stumbled and became dependent on the devil's spell. But the portrait painter finds the only possible way out of this situation, the only reliable shelter from evil - a monastery. Here he creates the painting “The Nativity of Jesus”. The personal fate of the portrait painter, his soul, is saved. Despite the fact that evil as such cannot be defeated: at the end of the story, everyone notices that the mysterious Portrait has disappeared and, therefore, the temptation embodied in it will continue its terrible march through the world.

Thus, judging by the external outline of events, the main character of the story turns out to be Chartkov. But if we talk about the role that the characters play in the construction of the story as a whole, then the center of the author’s attention is undoubtedly the Moneylender. The fabulously rich lender lived in the era of Catherine the Great, that is, long before Chartkov was born; his animated image, the devilish Portrait, retains its monstrous power even after the death of the painter.

Who is he, this Moneylender? No one knows where the “Asian” with the incomprehensibly terrible complexion came from; It is not known exactly whether he was Indian, Greek or Persian. The money he lent, seemingly on favorable terms, had the ability to rise to exorbitant interest rates; in addition, the Moneylender offered clients certain secret conditions that made the hair of the debtors “stand on end.” Anyone who borrowed from him, even for good purposes, ended badly.

An attentive reader of Gogol knows: the theme of the Antichrist constantly sounds in his works. Sometimes seriously and mystically, as in the early stories, especially in “Terrible Revenge,” sometimes mockingly, as in “Dead Souls.” Gogol's ideas about the Antichrist are akin to some popular beliefs: this enemy of Christ cannot come into the world until the end of time, when the laws of nature created by God are finally weakened. But for the time being, the Antichrist can be embodied, as it were, partially, in individual people, testing his strength and preparing for the last battle for earthly history. The Moneylender is such a “trial” incarnation of the Antichrist. It is not for nothing that in the first edition of the story “Portrait” the Moneylender bore the name Petromikhali: Peter the Great called himself Peter Mikhailov, whom folk beliefs identified with the Antichrist... He is not yet omnipotent, and therefore seeks to extend his earthly days and continue his dirty work after death - with the help of great art.

The image of the Moneylender is inextricably linked with three themes that especially worried Gogol while working on the cycle of “Petersburg stories”: the incomprehensible, secret power of gold over human soul; art, which is intended to be a “hint of the divine,” but can also become an instrument of evil; the desire of devilish forces to subjugate art at the price of gold. But all these themes are condensed into one key image, emerging both from the pages of “Portrait” and from the pages of other St. Petersburg stories. This is an image of the dual, majestic and dangerous, rich and poor, deceptive and beautiful city of St. Petersburg. And from the point of view of the concept of the “Petersburg stories”, from the point of view of the cycle as an artistic whole, the main character of “Portrait” should be considered Petersburg itself.

Only here, in this fantastic city, on the gloomy outskirts of Kolomna, can the fabulous luxury of the Moneylender bloom in false color; only here can an instantaneous transition be made from the conscientious poverty of creativity to the deadened luxury of the salon, the transfer from Vasilyevsky Island to Nevsky Prospekt; only here at night demonic portraits come to life, real chervonets fall out of the frame, and dangerous portraits suddenly disappear from auction... St. Petersburg in Gogol’s image is similar to the negative of another great and at the same time bright city, Rome; it is from there, from the Italian South to the cold and gloomy North, that Chartkov’s former classmate returns with his final picture; It was precisely before his son’s departure to Italy that the gray-haired, “almost divine old man,” the author of the ill-fated Portrait, bequeathed to find the painting and “destroy” it. And with it comes evil.

The story “Portrait” by Gogol was written in 1833–1834 and was included in the cycle “Petersburg Tales”. The work consists of two parts, which tell us about two different destinies of the artists. The connecting link between the stories is the mystical portrait of a moneylender, which had a special influence on the lives of both heroes.

Main characters

Chartkov Andrey Petrovich- a talented artist who, after purchasing a portrait of a moneylender, ruined his talent by starting to paint portraits to order.

The artist's father B.- a self-taught Kolomna artist, who painted paintings for the church, painted a portrait of a moneylender, and went to a monastery.

Other characters

Artist B.- the son of the artist who painted the portrait of the moneylender, the narrator in the second part.

Moneylender- a tall, dark man with large “eyes of extraordinary fire.” He was an Indian, Greek or Persian by nationality, and always wore Asian clothes.

Part 1

In an art shop on the Shchukin yard, the young artist Chartkov buys a portrait “by a great artist” for the last two kopecks. The painting depicted “an old man with a bronze-colored face, cheekbones, and stunted,” and his eyes especially stood out.

At home, Chartkov feels as if the eyes of the old man from the painting are staring straight at him. At some point, the old man in the portrait came to life and “jumped out of the frames.” Sitting down near Chartkov, he pulled out a bag from the folds of his clothes and poured out bundles of chervonets from it. While the old man was counting the money, Chartkov quietly took one of the rolled away packages for himself. Having counted his wealth, the old man returned to the picture. The young man had nightmares all night.

In the morning, the owner of the property and the neighborhood supervisor came to Chartkov to find out when the young man would pay the money for the house. During the conversation, the policeman, examining the portrait of the old man, damaged the frame of the picture, and one of the packages the artist dreamed of fell to the floor.

With the money he miraculously received, Chartkov buys new clothes, rents a beautiful apartment and advertises in the newspaper that he is ready to paint paintings to order. The first to come to him is a rich lady and her daughter Lisa. The woman asks to remove the “defects” of her daughter’s face and in the end, satisfied, buys an unfinished sketch of Psyche’s face, mistaking it for a portrait of Lisa.

Chartkov becomes a famous artist in the city, he is loved in high society. He learned to draw portraits mechanically, distorting facial features, depicting real people, and custom masks.

Once, at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts, Chartkov was asked to evaluate a painting by his old friend. The hero wanted to make critical remarks, but the picture was so skillfully painted that he was speechless. Only now Chartkov realized how mediocre the pictures he painted were. The hero is trying to create something really worthwhile, but nothing comes of it. Chartkov orders the portrait of the old man to be thrown away, but this did not help.

Jealous of other artists, the hero spent all his wealth on buying paintings, and at home he cut them and trampled them under his feet, laughing. “It seemed that he personified that terrible demon that Pushkin ideally portrayed.” Gradually, the artist fell into madness - he saw the eyes of the old man from the portrait everywhere, and he died.

Part 2

The auction is in full swing. At stake is a portrait of “some Asian” with “extraordinary liveliness of eyes.” Suddenly one of the visitors intervenes in the auction - the young artist B. The young man reports that he has a special right to this painting and tells a story that happened to his father.

Once upon a time in Kolomna there lived a moneylender who could always provide the necessary amount of money to any person in the city. He seemed to offer favorable terms, but in the end people had to pay “exorbitant interest rates.” However, the strangest thing was that everyone who took loans from him “ended their lives in an accident” - the young nobleman went crazy, and the noble prince almost killed his own wife and committed suicide.

Once the artist B.’s father was ordered to depict the “spirit of darkness.” The man believed that the ideal prototype would be a moneylender, and soon he himself came to the artist with a request to draw his portrait. However, the longer the man painted, the more disgusted he became with the work. When the artist announced his intention to refuse the order, the moneylender threw himself at his feet and began to beg him to finish the portrait, since this alone determines whether he will remain in the world. Frightened, the man ran home.

In the morning, the moneylender's maid brought the artist an unfinished portrait, and in the evening he learned that the moneylender had died. Since then, the man’s character has changed; he began to envy young artists. Once, in competition with his own student, the artist painted a picture in which “he gave almost all the figures the eyes of a moneylender.” In horror, the man wanted to burn the ill-fated portrait, but his friend took it from him. Immediately after this, the artist’s life improved. He soon learned that the portrait did not bring happiness to his friend either, and he gave it to his nephew, who, in turn, sold the canvas to some art collector.

The artist realized what a terrible thing he had done when his wife, daughter and son died. Having sent his eldest son to the Academy of Arts, the man goes to a monastery. For many years he did not paint, atone for his sin, but in the end he was persuaded to paint the Nativity of Jesus. Seeing the finished painting, the monks were amazed by the artist’s skill and decided that his brush was guided by a “holy higher power.”

After graduating from the academy, artist B. visits his father. He blesses and instructs his son, saying that the artist-creator must be able to find the inner “thought” in everything. Saying goodbye, the father asks to find the portrait of the moneylender and destroy it.

When artist B. finishes his story, it turns out that the painting is missing. Apparently someone stole it.

Conclusion

In the story “Portrait,” N.V. Gogol, using the example of the destinies of two artists, described two opposing approaches to the tasks of art: consumer and creative. The author showed how destructive it can be for an artist to give up his gift for the sake of money and not understand that “talent is the most precious gift of God.”

The retelling of Gogol’s “Portrait” will be of interest to schoolchildren, students and anyone interested in classical Russian literature.

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Gogol called his story "Portrait". Is it because the portrait of the moneylender played a fatal role in the fate of his heroes, the artists, whose fates are compared in two parts of the story? Or because the author wanted to give a portrait of contemporary society and a talented person who perishes or is saved in spite of hostile circumstances and the humiliating properties of nature? Or is this a portrait of art and the soul of the writer himself, trying to get away from the temptation of success and prosperity and cleanse the soul with high service to art?

Probably, in this strange story by Gogol there is a social, moral, and aesthetic meaning, there are reflections on what a person, society, and art are. Modernity and eternity are intertwined here so inextricably that the phenomena of real life in the Russian capital of the 30s of the 19th century are linked with biblical thoughts about good and evil, about their endless struggle in the human soul.

We first meet the artist Chartkov at that moment in his life when, with youthful ardor, he admires the genius of Raphael, Michelangelo, Correggio and despises handicrafts that replace art for the average person. Seeing a strange portrait of an old man with piercing eyes in the shop, Chartkov is ready to give his last two kopecks for it. Poverty did not take away his ability to see the beauty of life and work with passion on his sketches. He reaches out to the light and does not want to turn art into an anatomical theater and expose the “disgusting person” with a knife-brush. He rejects artists whose “nature itself... seems low and dirty,” so that “there is nothing illuminating in it.” However, Chartkov, according to his painting teacher, is talented, but impatient and prone to worldly pleasures and vanity. And as soon as the money, miraculously falling from the portrait frame, gives Chartkov the opportunity to lead an absent-minded social life, enjoy prosperity, wealth and fame, and not art, become his idol. Chartkov owes his success to the fact that, while painting a portrait of a society young lady, who turned out bad for him, he was able to rely on selfless work talent - a drawing of Psyche, in which one could feel the dream of an ideal being. But the ideal was not alive, and only by connecting with the impressions of real life did it become attractive, and real life acquired the significance of the ideal. However, Chartkov lied, giving the insignificant girl the appearance of Psyche. Having flattered for the sake of success, he betrayed the purity of art. And Chartkov’s talent began to leave him and betrayed him. “Whoever has talent within himself must have a purer soul than anyone else,” says the father to his son in the second part of the story. This is an almost verbatim repetition of Mozart’s words in Pushkin’s tragedy “Mozart and Salieri”: “Genius and villainy are two incompatible things.” But for Pushkin, goodness is in the nature of genius. Gogol writes a story that the artist, like all people, is subject to the temptation of evil, but destroys himself and his talent more terribly and quickly than ordinary people. Talent not realized in true art, talent, separated from goodness, becomes destructive for the individual.

Chartkov, who has given up truth to beauty for the sake of success, ceases to feel life in its multicolor, variability, and trembling. His portraits console customers, but do not live; they do not reveal, but hide personality, nature. And despite the fame of a fashionable painter, Chartkov feels that he has nothing to do with real art. A wonderful painting by an artist who perfected himself in Italy caused a shock in Chartkov. Probably, in the outline of this painting, Gogol gives a generalized image of the famous painting by Karl Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii”, a direct review of which is included as an article in the second part of the collection “Arabesques”.

But the shock that Chartkov experienced from the beautiful painting does not awaken him to a new life, because for this he must give up the pursuit of wealth and fame, kill the evil in himself. Chartkov chooses a different path: he begins to expel talented art from the world, buy and cut magnificent canvases, and kill goodness. And this path leads him to madness and death.

What was the reason for this terrible transformation: a person’s weakness in the face of temptations or the mystical witchcraft of the portrait of a moneylender, whose scorching gaze absorbed all the evil of the world? Gogol answers this question in two ways. A real explanation of Chartkov’s fate is just as possible as a mystical one. The dream that leads Chartkov to gold may be both the fulfillment of his subconscious desires and the aggression of evil spirits, which is mentioned whenever the portrait of a usurer is discussed. The words “devil”, “devil”, “darkness”, “demon” turn out to be the speech frame of the portrait in the story.

Pushkin in “The Queen of Spades” essentially refutes the mystical interpretation of events; Gogol does not deny it.

The story, written by Gogol in the year of the appearance and general success of The Queen of Spades, is a response and objection to Pushkin. Evil affects not only Chartkov, who is subject to the temptations of success, but also the father of the artist B., who painted a portrait of a moneylender who resembled the devil and who himself became an evil spirit. And “a strong character, an honest, straightforward person,” having painted a portrait of evil, feels “incomprehensible anxiety,” disgust for life and envy for the success of his talented students.

The artist who touched evil, who painted the eyes of the moneylender, which “looked demonically crushing,” can no longer paint good; his brush is driven by an “unclean feeling,” and in the picture intended for the temple, “there is no holiness in the faces.”

All people associated with a moneylender in real life die, betraying the best qualities of their nature. The artist who reproduced evil expanded its influence. The portrait of a moneylender robs people of the joy of life and awakens “such melancholy... just as if I wanted to stab someone to death.” Stylistically, this combination “exactly as if” is typical. Of course, “exactly” is used in the sense of “how” to avoid tautology. At the same time, the combination of “exactly” and “as if” conveys Gogol’s characteristic manner of detailed realistic description and gives a certain illusory, fantastic quality to the meaning of events. This manner was observed in Pushkin. Let us recall the description of Hermann’s vision in Chapter V of “The Queen of Spades”:“He woke up at night: the moon illuminated his room. He looked at his watch: it was a quarter to three. His sleep passed; he sat up on the bed and thought about the funeral of the old countess... A minute later he heard the door in the front room being unlocked. Hermann thought that his orderly, drunk as usual, was returning from a night walk. But he heard an unfamiliar gait: someone was walking, quietly shuffling their shoes. The door opened and a woman in a white dress entered. Hermann mistook her for his old nurse and wondered what could have brought her to such a time. But white woman, gliding, she suddenly found herself in front of him - and Hermann recognized the countess! The distinctness of Hermann’s everyday consciousness does not seem to exclude the possibility of vision, but the ghost appears and speaks. The ghost itself is given stylistically in the same contradiction: “shuffling shoes” and “slipping.”

In Pushkin's vision of Hermann, a separation of the soul from the real existence of man is revealed. Gogol has a scene of alarming and strange dream Chartkov is illuminated, as in Pushkin, by the moon, the “goddess of secrets,” as she is called on the pages of Eugene Onegin: “Is it the light of the month, carrying with it the delirium of dreams and clothing everything in other images, opposite to the positive day, or what else was the cause he just suddenly felt, for some unknown reason, scared to sit alone in the room.” Gogol explains to the reader what the light of the moon brings with it. Instead of a certain clarity of Pushkin’s phrases, syntactically spare and precise, there appears a swing created by an abundance of participial phrases, introductory constructions, and impersonal sentences. The specificity of the description of actions, as in Pushkin, is preserved, but it is subordinated to a more frank disclosure of the hero’s feelings: “The sound of footsteps was heard throughout the room, which finally became closer and closer to the screens. The poor artist's heart began to pound faster. With a deep breath of fear, he expected that the old man was about to look at him behind the screen.”

Gogol describes a dream that is so similar to reality that Chartkov thinks he is waking up, but then it turns out that he seemed to have woken up, woke up in a dream. The infinity of this dream, haunting the artist, has the character of an obsession. Pushkin, in Hermann’s vision, shows how conscience mysteriously appears in the hero’s soul, interrupted by the desire to win. Gogol writes a scene that reveals to the reader how the artist is possessed by evil.

The juxtaposition of the first and second parts in Gogol’s “Portrait” is intended to convince the reader that evil can take possession of any person, regardless of his moral nature. The artist, whose fate is traced in the second part, is similar in his height of spirit and manner of work to Alexander Ivanov, with whom Gogol became such close friends in Rome and who painted the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” hoping for the awakening of good in the light of genuine truth. Constantly painting Gogol, Ivanov made him first one, then another, then the third character in the picture, but in the end he assigned him a place in the figure closest to Christ. However, location does not determine the spiritual height of a figure. On the contrary, the manifestation of genuine good turns the “nearest” into a shadow, which is embarrassedly covered in a cloak with a hood. This was the verdict pronounced by Alexander Ivanov on Gogol. Is he fair?

In his works, Gogol really wants to take on the mission of a biblical prophet. Seeing the self-interest, insignificance, and “earthliness” of people, the writer is indignant and lectures.

The artist, the father of the narrator of the second part, B., atoning for the evil he committed by painting a portrait of a moneylender, goes to a monastery, becomes a hermit and reaches that spiritual height that allows him to paint the Nativity of Jesus. But the ascent to goodness, which requires severe sacrifices from a person, is recognized in the story not as a manifestation of nature, but as its suppression. The devil or God reigns, according to Gogol, in the soul of a person, whose nature is open to both good and evil. It is not for nothing that the abbot, struck by the “extraordinary holiness of the figures” in the painting of the Nativity of Jesus, says to the artist: “No, it is impossible for a person, with the help of human art alone, to produce such a picture: a holy, higher power guided your brush, and the blessing of heaven rested on your work.” Inversions and archaisms, characteristic of church speech, are characteristic not only of the rector. The instruction that the artist gives to his twenty-year-old son, encouraged by the joyful hope of traveling to Italy, is designed in the tones of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount both in style and in meaning: “Your path is pure, do not stray from it... Talent is the most precious gift of God - do not destroy his".

Gogol’s hymn to art is colored religiously: “The hint of a divine, heavenly paradise is contained for man in art, and for that alone it is already above all... Sacrifice everything to him and love him with all your passion, not a passion breathing earthly lust, but quiet heavenly passion; Without it, a person does not have the power to rise from the earth and cannot give wonderful sounds of calm. For to calm and reconcile everyone he descends into the world high creature art." This is aesthetic program Gogol, colored by the idea of religious service and the affirmation of the artist as a sacred person. The ponderous solemnity of Gogol’s style in this teaching from father to son turns out to be a plastic expression of the writer’s conviction that man is sinful by nature, that his ascent up the stairs of purgatory is painful and difficult. As in The Queen of Spades, Dante is mentioned in The Portrait. The Empress says that “Dante could not find a corner in his republican homeland; that true geniuses arise during the splendor 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.”

It is characteristic that for Pushkin, Dante’s thoughts about the integrity of the human soul, which is not capable of containing “two immovable ideas,” and about man’s devotion to his homeland (“other people’s bread is bitter...”) are important. For Gogol, Dante’s idea of atonement for sin through purification and the artist’s homelessness in his homeland turns out to be more important if a firm, monarchical order is not established in it. However, in the actual practice of his works, Gogol deviates from this program. The story “Portrait” does not bring reassurance, showing how all people, regardless of their character traits and the height of their convictions, are susceptible to evil. Gogol, having remade the ending of the story, takes away the hope of eradicating evil. In the first edition, the image of the moneylender mysteriously evaporated from the canvas, leaving the canvas blank. In the final text of the story, the portrait of the moneylender disappears: evil has again begun to roam the world.

Questions and tasks

1. What connects the story “The Queen of Spades” by Pushkin and “Portrait” by Gogol?

2. What is the difference between the attitudes of Pushkin and Gogol towards people?

3. Does the second part of the story “Portrait” refutes or confirms the idea of the omnipotence of evil?

4. What explains the stylistic difference between the works of Pushkin and Gogol?

5. Consider reproductions from the paintings “The Last Day of Pompeii” by K. Bryullov and “The Appearance of Christ to the People” by A. Ivanov. What brings these paintings together and what distinguishes them?

Works by N.V. Gogol. St. Petersburg, 1900. T. 9. P. 132. 228

Belinsky V. G. Full collection op. M., 1953. T. 1. P. 303.