Mythopoetical image of genius artist in K. Balmont’s artistic experience: reception of Spanish artistry

The Russian culture of the turn of the XX century is characterized by actualization of the problems of intercultural dialogue. Thus, the analysis of the Silver age is impossible without considering the fact of such a dialogue as a cultural phenomenon. The problem of hispanism reception is considered in the aspect of creative genius in K. Balmont’s works. In the context of Balmont's symbolism, it is important to take into account his specific conceptualization of the artist's status and interpretation of creativity as dreaming. The task of the research is to study the implementation of this mental usus within the Spanish theme, the discourse of the painter as a genius-overman by Balmont, and the existentials of the poet's spiritual experience correlated with it. Spain by Balmont is primarily a country of great artists. He creates portraits-myths of the great Spaniards, almost overmen for him. In the article “Poetry of horror” Balmont calls Goya's “a poet-symbolist in painting”, and relates his genius with other representatives of world culture: Poe, Bosch, Teniers etc. Spanish artist is declared a predictor of a new art. Goya in Balmont’s interpretation is an actual genius-creator, artist of borderline, mystical experience. Goya’s grotesques are interpreted as a breakout to otherness. Artist's chimeras scare with credibility and live. Goya created an infernal world with the character of universality. Balmont calls “Capricious” a theodicy, as this hymn to the aesthetics of ugliness justifies the existence of evil. The poet highlights in Goya’s aesthetics something close to the era of the early XX century. Cultural fashion finds its source and consonance in Spaniard’s drawing (mysticism of terrible, “attraction” to demonism, themes of disease, suffering and dreams). Also, the great painter in the poet’s interpretation is a dreamer reflecting his prophetic dreams on canvas. If Goya’s dreams are marked by a dark, night element in the poet’s artistic metaphysics, the oneirism of Velasquez is marked as sunny. The artist’s mythological image is embodied in the rhyme “Velasquez”. Solar genius of Velasquez organically becomes one of the main figures in the artistic metaphysics of Balmont's poetic collection “Let's be like the Sun”. The last limit of the volitional effort called for in the title of the collection is specified with Velasquez’s image. By binary logic a dark genius should confront Velasquez-Sun. In the book this role is assigned to the painter Jose de Ribera, Goya’s analog in the context of Balmont’s works. A mythological image was created with reference to the stockpile of ancient myths, the antithesis of Prometheus and Epimetheus. Entering into a dialogue with the culture of Spain and creating myths of Spanish artists, Balmont was looking for a reflection of himself in the Spaniards. Regarding their heroes as the dreamers, he oneirically dreamed about the essence of the Spanish genius basing on his travel impressions but trusting much more his mythic-creative speculation and accentuating the central existentials of his experience.

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