Features of pictorial ekphrasis in the memoirs and biographical prose of A.N. Benois and M.V. Dobuzhinskiy

In the first third of the 20th century in the climate of diversity trends and directions in art, ekphrasis was claimed both in fiction and in memoirs, and intermediality was a permanent part of memoirs of Russian artists. Many Russian artists of the first third of the 20th century wrote the memoirs, among them I. Repin, K. Korovin, Z. Serebriakova, K. Somov, Eu. Lanceray, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, A. Goncharov, A. Rodchenko, M. Chagall, W. Kandinsky, P. Filonov. The consideration of the memoirs of the artists of the World of Art M. V. Dobuzhinskiy's Memories and A.N. Benois' My Memories is important because the activity of the World of Art was a major cultural event in the Russian art of the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries and had an influence on the related fields of the arts. Unlike most of associations of artists, the range of interests of the World of Art, and especially one of its outstanding representatives A.N. Benois, was very extensive and diverse. The members of the World of Art, besides painting and graphics, created stage sets for performances and ballets, they created the interior design, often appeared in print, made book illustrations - all of this is reflected in the memoirs of the artists. Ekphrasis in the memoirs of A.N. Benois and M.V. Dobuzhinskiy is reflected in the descriptions of the artistic techniques and methods, references of the paintings of the great masters and contemporary artists, narration of their own work on paintings, decorations, pictures, recollections of the exhibitions, visits of galleries and museums. In the autobiographical texts of both artists of the "World of Art", My Memories of A.N. Benois and Memories of M.V. Dobuzhinskiy, ekphrasis is a component of the inter-medial system "art - literature", which becomes a kind of the author's strategy in the cognition of life and art. The ekphrasis of the artists' memoirs becomes a source for the thematic polyphony of the autobiographical works. The visual perception of the reality, including through foreign pictorial imagery, predetermined the fact that the World of Art does not resort to a detailed descriptive ekphrasis and invests more artistic potential in the very mention of the art artifact. Ekphrasis in the memoir works of the artists is a way to appeal to their own art, to identify themselves in an artistic environment reflecting a process of creative search and formation of the artist.

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