The main idea of Gogol's story is a portrait. Gogol "Portrait" - analysis. Internal confrontation between wealth and talent
In the light of this program in the institutions of the open source, it is proposed for compulsory study of the story
N.V. Gogol's "Portrait".
The study of the story is given 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 to analyze the work, and for this you need to know the history of the creation of the story, master the text, know information from the biography of the writer. This development has a practical focus:
to help the teacher cope with the above tasks, to properly organize the study time, to give a complete idea of this work, the problems that N.V. Gogol posed 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 science articles Professor V.G. Marantzman.
He writes: “Problem-based learning as a 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 the subject, the methods of studying it and develops the qualities necessary for a creative attitude to 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, there are always rich people in the world 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.
AS Pushkin wrote about this in the works “The Queen of Spades” and “Mozart and Salieri”. At present, the problem posed by N.V. Gogol is especially acute. What is more important than true art or easy money? Gogol claims that true talent is God's gift,
the artist simply has no right to waste it in vain for profit.
Therefore, the hero of the story, Chartkov, perishes: he was unable to defend his art in front of the thirst to enrich himself materially.
In my methodological development, I present:
- materials for the teacher from the history of the creation of the story "Portrait";
- development of the lesson in accordance with the calendar planning.
Plan.
1. Introduction.
2. The story of N. V. Gogol "Portrait" (material for the teacher).
4. Methodical development classes based on the story of N. V. Gogol "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”. Through many of the works of the last cycle, the idea of the merciless and destructive power of money passes. "The Portrait" is one such story.
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 frame of the portrait deprived him of peace and suppressed 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 front of the thirst for material wealth. Under the guise of a fantastic incident, Gogol shows the reader the true capital of Russia as it is, the whole of Petersburg, striking with pictures of contradictions and contrasts. All the forces of evil are embodied in the hidden image of the city; it expresses the entire tragedy of Russian reality. All its inhabitants are divided into businessmen and people who want to become them. “Our century has long acquired the boring face of a banker,” Gogol notes in the story. In general, the Petersburg cycle collected all the injustices that were happening in society, and "Portrait" became the embodiment of the struggle 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, true reason which is shrouded 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 usurer. "It was no longer a copy from nature, it was a strange painting that would illuminate the face of a dead man who rose from the grave."
The painting forced one artist to ruin his talent, the other 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 picture that disappeared, but the image of the old man from it, but in the final version the author wanted to make the portrait stolen again, so that a person was found who would become the next victim of the Asian usurer.
The main idea of the story is that true service to art requires moral perseverance and courage from a person, an understanding of the high responsibility to society for talent. Chartkov lacked neither one nor the other.
"Portrait" can be compared with "Mozart and Salieri" by Pushkin. Seduced by the devil, Chartkov “learned that terrible torment ... when a weak talent tries to speak out in excess of it and cannot speak; that terrible torment that makes a person capable of
to terrible atrocities. He was possessed by a terrible envy, envy to the point of rage. " He recognized the torment with which Pushkin's Salieri suffered. But Salieri killed the creator of the music, while retaining the ability to enjoy his works. And Chartkov destroys “all the best that art has produced”, striving to destroy art itself. Salieri committed villainy and thus ruined his talent. Chartkov ruined his talent and his soul and therefore commits villainy.
Nikolai Gogol's story "Portrait".
(Teacher material)
Problem-based learning is one of the ways to comprehend educational material. It fosters conceptual thinking, contributes to the development of a systematic approach to phenomena.
The study of Gogol's story "The Portrait" requires a problematic approach to enhance the attention of students, problematic issues force us to think about the significant issues of the work.
In the works of Gogol, which students of secondary vocational education study, the themes outlined in the previous cycles are deepened. 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 the "Petersburg Tales" the author's concentration on the problems of spiritual self-determination of man, the problems of art, creativity is most clearly revealed; the writer turned his gaze into the depths of the human soul, striving to see the essence behind the form, and the internal behind the external. Gogol always warns the reader: “Oh, don't believe this Nevsky Prospect! Everything is 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, in the familiar he tries to see an anomaly. "In Gogol's principles of the relationship between the real and the fantastic lies the originality of the artistic system of St. Petersburg stories."
In a world turned inside out, a person feels fragile and lonely, like Tyutchev's hero standing on the edge of an abyss:
And a man, like a homeless orphan,
Now 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 sensations of man (it seemed to Piskarev that some demon crushed the whole world into many different pieces and all these pieces mixed together without meaning ”). Shifting proportions, the author shows how the seeming easily replaces the essential, the real becomes fantastic, how a thing easily replaces a person, how the border between good and evil is imperceptibly erased. At the same time, the heroes experience an existential feeling of loneliness and melancholy. People at such critical moments need to learn to live and love with a constant "consciousness 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, musicians. The first two stories echo a number of Arabesque articles on art. The author believed so deeply and sincerely in its saving power that he hoped through it to influence the world order. “... I know that before understanding the meaning and purpose of art, I already felt with the instinct of my whole soul that it should be holy ... Creations are hidden in art, not destruction. Art is the instillation of harmony and order into the soul, not embarrassment 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. VG Belinsky noted: "Portrait" is an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Gogol in a fantastic way. There is talent here. The first part of this story cannot be read without enthusiasm ...
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 problematics, more clearly expressed the aesthetic ideal. In the first part, the implementation problem
artistic gift, the influence of art on the human soul came in sporadically. In the final version, this question is posed with all certainty: "Or is the slavish, literal imitation of nature already a misdemeanor and seems to be a discordant cry?" Real art, according to Gogol, should be illuminated by a higher light 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 finale were changed, the fantasy was veiled.
The story consists of two parts: The first deals with the tragic story of the artist Chartkov; the second tells the story of human transformation. Here NV 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, while the author of the mysterious portrait managed to overcome the painter of “discordant life” in himself? What is the meaning of composition? - answers to these and other questions will help young readers unravel the many secrets of Gogol's text. The lessons will focus on the secret of creativity, on the riddle of the human spirit, on possible ways to comprehend the nature of art, on how important it is for a person not to betray himself, not to change his talent and believe in his vocation. Problem analysis will help students overcome many of the “dislocations” of text perception.
The beginning of the story is promising: before us is a young, talented artist, "who prophesied a lot: in flashes and moments, his brush responded with observation, content, a quick impulse to get closer to nature ...". He knows how to distinguish genuine art from fake, see the "mask" behind the so-called face. So, in the paintings exhibited at the Shchukin yard, not only the mediocrity of their authors, but also the distorted reality is striking first of all: “He stopped in front of the shop and at first internally laughed at these ugly paintings. Here one could see just stupidity, powerless, decrepit mediocrity, which self-rightfully rose to the ranks of the arts ... Flemish man with a pipe and a broken arm, looking more like an Indian rooster than a man. " Examining portrait painting 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 play on Chartkov's canvases; Psyche's pretty head will be replaced by Liza's languid face, on which “one can find heavy traces of indifferent devotion to various arts”.
Each new customer will have “different claims”. They will try to hide the traces of deformed reality behind the mask of Mars, Byron, the appearance of Corinna, Undina, Aspazia, Chartkov with “great willingness to agree to everything and will add from himself enough good looks 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 ", as if spellbound, in front of one portrait, in large, once magnificent frames ..."
Let's compare the editions:
II edition:
“It was an old man with a bronze-colored face, cheeky, stunted; the features of the face seemed to have been seized in the moment of the convulsive movement and did not respond with a northern force. A fiery noon was captured in them. He was draped in a wide Asian suit. No matter how damaged and dusty the portrait was, but when he managed to clean the dust from his face, he saw traces of the work of a high artist ... The eyes were extraordinary: it seemed that the artist used all the power of the brush and all his diligent diligence in them. They just looked, looked even from the portrait itself, as if destroying its harmony with their strange liveliness ”
I edition:
“... He began to rub it impatiently with his hand and soon saw a portrait in which the master's brush was clearly visible, although the colors seemed somewhat muddy and blackened. He was an old man with a kind of restless and vicious 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 disease was thinly spread over the face, distorted by wrinkles; his eyes were large, black, dull; but at the same time a strange liveliness was noticeable in them. This portrait seemed to depict
some curmudgeon who spent his life over a chest, or one of those unfortunate people who have been tormented by the happiness of others all their lives ... In the whole portrait, some kind of incompleteness was visible ... "
In the 1st edition, the portrait of the usurer clearly betrays him as a demonic character. In the second edition, Gogol veiled, hid in the subtext the entire infernal essence of the usurer, leaving the reader in an aura of mystery.
Examining the mysterious portrait at home, Chartkov experienced two opposite feelings at the same time: on the one hand, he was greatly frightened, on the other, a kind of longing seized him. The young man tried to fall asleep, thinking about “poverty, about the miserable fate of the artist, about the thorny path ahead of him in this world,” but the portrait did not give him rest: something attracted, beckoned behind the screen. The gold that flashed in the hands of the usurer became a symbol of temptation, a 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 a loss of orientation, inability to answer the questions “where” and “when”.
Transitions from one dream to another metaphorically signify the movement of the hero into the abyss of chaos. This episode is similar in theme to the scene “Vakula at Patsyuk's” from the story “The Night Before Christmas”. The dumpling, which magically fell into the mouth of the blacksmith in the "hungry kutya", was a kind of "agreement" with evil spirits. However, Vakula's piety prevented him from committing sin. Chartkov did not have an inner core, just as many people living in a breaking world did not have one. "Beautiful life", festive festivities with ladies, delicious dinners - this was the secret dream of a poor artist in a small room on Vasilievsky Island. Seizing convulsively the package, Chartkov looked to see if the old man would notice ... ”. This is how the “signing of a treaty with the devil” happened. This topic is not new in literature: it worried Goethe, Byron. Pushkin. Lermontov. But Pushkin's "Scene from Faust" developed the idea that "human nature still retains reverence for concepts that are sacred to the human race." Love is one such concept. When Mephistopheles pulls out the root of love from the hero's soul, he has no choice but to issue an order: "... to drown everything." Life loses all meaning when love turns into an illusion (see the analysis of "Scenes from Faust" in the book. VG Marantzman On the way to Pushkin. - M., 1999).
There is no dialogue between heroes in Gogol's story. Its participants (artist and usurer) reside in “different spatio-temporal and historical planes”.
At the same time, the dialogue formula is preserved in the story. The heroes communicate with the help of gestures, glances, and a roll of coins is the result of this meeting.
Thus, receiving money is the first “wonderful moment” that “transformed” Chartkov. He settled down perfectly, made a career for himself, achieved success with the capital's nobility. Money introduced him to an atmosphere where "the despicable cold of commerce and insignificance" reigns.
Creative tensions and impulses were replaced by negligence, indifference
to your own creativity. “This person who has been digging over a picture for several months is, in my opinion, a hard worker, not an artist. Genius creates boldly, quickly ... ”- this is how Chartkov thinks now. How not to recall Pushkin's lines here:
The ministry of muses does not tolerate fuss,
Beauty must be majestic ...
Gogol lexically emphasizes the history of the artist's spiritual death.
“Already he began to reach the pores of the degree of the mind and years ... Already I read adjectives in newspapers and magazines: "our venerable Andrey Petrovich",
"Our deserved Andrey Petrovich" ... Already they began to offer him places of honor in the service ”. In all these ranks, two opposite planes are found: one - conveys promotion, external ascent, and the other (internal) plane 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.
The hero had to pay for his quick success with talent and soul.
Seeing the “divine” work of art brought from Italy, Chartkov for a moment regained his sight, youth returned to him, “as if the extinguished sparks of talent flashed again”. Here the hero felt the second “wonderful moment”, which for some time restored the artist's interrupted 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 motive of the "beautiful moment" illuminated the hero's life for a while, outlined a turning point in his views and character: from blinding to insight, from delusion to truth. However, the restoration of his personality proved to be impossible. Chartkov exhausted himself. When he looked at the picture, "pure, immaculate, beautiful, like a bride, stood before him the work of the artist." He wanted to comment, but "the speech died on his lips, tears and sobs escaped out of tune in response, and he ran out of the hall like a madman." The hero became a part of this "discordant" life, forgetting about his high destiny. Chartkorv, like Pushkin's Faust, was possessed by a passion for destruction, but the artist's motives for such an act were different. 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 did not have enough peace of mind, 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 discordant life in 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 request of the moneylender to paint a portrait, “the next day, grabbing a palette and brushes, was in his house ...“ Damn it, how well his face now lit up! - he said to himself and began to write eagerly, as if fearing that somehow the happy illumination would disappear. " Chartkov and the bogomaz artist are united by one image - the usurer. One immortalized him, and the other gave him a second life, "revived". Even ancient people endowed the portrait image with a magical function (the ability of the portrait to “come to life” and “revive” what is depicted on it.)
A person's hope for “overcoming” death and posthumous existence in a portrait image is connected with the portrait image (the usurer to the artist: “I may soon die, I have no children; but I don’t want to die completely, I want to live”). The portrait turned out to be “perfect”, as if a living person was looking from a canvas. The author of the portrait, like Chartkov, strove for an accurate depiction, for mastering nature. The owner of the apartment says about Chartkov: "Here he is drawing a room ... he painted it with all the rubbish and squabble." All those present in the shop were struck by the eyes of the usurer, the "living" eyes piercing the soul through and through. Imitation of nature, apparently necessary for art, but clearly insufficient action. As V. A. Favorsky notes, “living” in art is not where completely living chapters 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, but hence, already to a very large extent and alive. " The second part of the story reveals the history of overcoming the "predestination" of art, the path of cognition and overcoming the "impulses of suffering". Only life in the monastery, fasts and prayers restored the harmony of the spirit of the portrait painter. The picture, created by the artist after his tonsure and hermitage, struck by the "extraordinary holiness of the figures." "The feeling of divine humility and meekness in the face of the Most Pure Mother ... holy, inexpressible silence that embraces the whole picture - all this appeared in such a harmonious power and power of beauty that the impression was magical."
The story "Portrait" presents the ideal of the artist - the author of a "magnificent" picture. Gogol in a few phrases, but freely and with inspiration, pronounces his position, enjoys the greatness of the master's spirit. In this picture, “pure, immaculate, beautiful as a bride,” the freedom of the artist's creativity, which the writer dreamed of, is reflected. The artist's life passed away from the “free world”. "He did not care whether they were talking about his character, about his inability to deal with people, about non-observance of 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 guise of Ivanov, in his creative self-denial, Gogol saw the image of an ideal artist, about which he wrote 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 stop until the death of the writer. Gogol highly appreciated the talent of a painter, his inquisitive, philosophical mindset. Ivanov devoted all the passion of his heart to working on the picture. Around 1833 Ivanov creates sketches of the future creation. The picture unfolds a plot taken from the first chapter of the Gospel of John. In front of us is a hilly section of the earth's surface, closer to the audience, the soil rises slightly, goes inward, then descends, again rises steeply with a hill and ends in a valley, behind which stretches a string of mountains. With these movements, the artist expanded the space of the picture: each character becomes visible. In the foreground, slightly shifted to the left, under a century-old tree is a group of apostles, led by John the Baptist. This group is opposed by 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 is telling them. The entire apostolic group is directed towards Christ, the group of Pharisees and scribes descending from the hill are directed from Christ. They did not accept the teachings of the Lord, but they came to listen to Him. Each character chooses his own path: either deliverance from sins, or the ability to live as before. “Everyone will get it according to his faith,” according to the sense of oneself in a changing world. some are in confusion, doubt; the slave longs for freedom; the Pharisees live in the past; in the faces of the “trembling” one can feel the awakening of the consciousness of their own mental disorder. Some are still just listening to the calm, even step of Christ. It carries with it the covenant of tranquility and pacifying harmony. In the sketches there is a figure called the “closest” to Christ. This is a man with tousled hair, in a lingonberry-yellow chlamyd, 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 sketch sketches, it is easy to find in this character the facial features characteristic of Gogol. The introduction of the writer into the picture of the Messiah in the early period of his acquaintance with Ivanov could have happened not just with his consent. but
and with his active assistance. It was during this period that Gogol was working on the second edition of The Portrait, and his penitential attitude was very much in line with this process.
The connection between Scenes from Faust ”by A. Pushkin and“ Portrait ”by N. V. Gogol is based on the commonality of some aspects of the worldview of the two geniuses. If love is destroyed in a person, 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, creates a new plot, they are convinced that the events that are comprehended by the writer and remain in the memory of mankind provide an incentive for further creative searches.
The main methodological techniques, with the help of which, in our opinion, the conceptual mastering of the story by the students will take place, bearing in mind the fact that 2 hours are allocated for the study of Gogol’s story “Portrait” by calendar planning, is to conduct a seminar.
1. During independent extracurricular work, students should get acquainted with the content, history of the creation of the story, with the reviews of contemporaries about the work, memories of Gogol during this period, get acquainted with articles, excerpts and self-written letters of the author about the fate of the artist and the purpose of art.
To comprehend the content of the story, you can suggest the following questions:
- What alarmed you with Gogol's story "Portrait"?
- How does Gogol feel about aristocrats, merchants, and commoners?
- What is Chartkov's appearance in his closet on Vasilievsky Island and in his apartments on Nevsky Prospekt?
- Imagine Chartkov at the moment when he finishes Psyche and when he destroys the canvases of talented artists.
- How would you name the first and second parts of the story? Is VG 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 package) were gold pieces, every one of them new, hot as fire”?
- What destroys and what saves the artist's talent?
Lesson-seminar on the topic: “The idea of \ u200b \ u200bthe story of N.V. Gogol's "Portrait".
Purpose: get acquainted with Nikolai Gogol's story "Portrait"; determine its ideological content.
Equipment: Portrait of N.V. Gogol, textbooks, notebooks.
Epigraph to 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, reports of students, answers to problematic questions.
Course of the lesson
1. Introductory word of the teacher.
Teacher: Today we will talk about the St. Petersburg period of creativity N. V. Gogol. In the first half of 1835, Gogol published the collection Arabesques, which included three stories: Nevsky Prospect, Portrait, and Notes of a Madman. Petersburg stories, then supplemented by the story "The Nose" and the story "The Overcoat", Gogol completed the complete picture of Russian life, an essential link of which was also the comedy "The Inspector General" written during those years.
The main theme of St. Petersburg stories is the deceitfulness of the outward splendor of metropolitan life, its imaginary splendor, behind which lies low and vulgar prose. In addition, Gogol is concerned with the theme of creativity and the artist. He is convinced that talent is a gift from God, it was given to “comprehend the high mystery of creation”. The story "Portrait" is devoted to this topic.
So, the topic of our lesson: "The idea of \ u200b \ u200bthe story of N. V. Gogol's" Portrait "."
Now we will listen to the students who have prepared reports: "The Petersburg period of creativity of N. V. Gogol" and "The history of the creation of the story" Portrait "".
2. We listen to reports of pre-prepared students.
3. Analysis of the story on the questions provided to students in advance:
Questions for analyzing the story.
Part I.
- What is Chartkov dissatisfied with looking at the pictures in a shop on the Shchukinsky yard?
- Why did Chartkov buy the old man's portrait for the last two-kopeck piece?
- 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 any reason to fear that Chartkov would become a fashionable painter?
- Why does the purchased portrait disturb Chartkov and does not seem to him to be a work of high art?
- What properties of Chartkov speak about 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 excite a desire for fame in Chartkov?
- Why do we learn Chartkov's name and patronymic from a newspaper article?
- What is Gogol laughing at, passing on the chatter of a lady ordering a portrait of her daughter?
- Why did the work on the portrait “lure” Chartkov? What and why is false in the portrait of an aristocratic girl?
- Why in the portraits that Chartkov draws, the resemblance is inferior to goodness?
- Compare Chartkov's appearance and the furnishings of his house on Vasilievsky Island and on Nevsky Prospect. How has he himself and his attitude towards art and great artists changed?
- Why did “Gold become ... a passion, an ideal, a fear, a goal” by Chartkov?
- What is the difference between a Russian artist who improved in Italy and Chartkov? What kind of artist and painting do you think you are talking about?
- Why does the shock from the perfect picture 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 with a funeral procession?
- Why are usurers necessary for the “sediment of humanity” that has settled in Kolomna, and why is insensibility the main property of the usurer?
- What is strange about the usurer from whom the portrait was painted?
- What changes are taking place in people who associate themselves with the moneylender?
- Why does a terrible usurer order a portrait from an artist and why does he agree to paint it?
- What misfortunes did the portrait of the usurer bring to the artist, and how did he cleanse his soul of filth?
- What advice do you find most important from a father to his son? What is the connection between these advice and Christ's Sermon on the Mount?
- What is the meaning of art and why “talent ... should be purer than all in the soul”? What is the difference between Gogol's thought 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.
- Here we have repeated the content of the story, and now let's pay attention to the fact from the life of Gogol:
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 together with the story " Portrait". This indicates that Gogol is concerned about the issues of creativity and the place of the artist in society.
Gogol is counting on the understanding of readers and critics, but what was the writer's disappointment when the leading critic of the 1930s and 1940s, VG Belinsky, disapproved of the novella Portrait: “The portrait is an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Gogol in a fantastic way. Here his talent falls, but in the very fall he remains a talent. It is impossible to read the first part of this story without enthusiasm; even, in fact, there is something terrible, fatal, fantastic in this mysterious portrait, there is some invincible charm that makes you look at it forcibly, even though it’s scary for you. Add to this the multitude of fantastic pictures and essays in the taste of Mr. Gogol; think of the quarterly overseer talking about painting; then this mother, who brought her daughter to Chertkov to take a portrait of her, and who scolds balls and admires nature - and you will not deny the dignity of this story. But the second part 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 fantasy did not take any part. "
Pay attention: Belinsky calls the second part of the story "an addition, in which the mind worked, and fantasy did not take any part" ...
- The prepared student tells 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 well-ordered life, nor local beauty ... Gogol thinks about Russia. Here, in Rome, he gets acquainted with artists, in particular, with 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 nature, endlessly changing the poses of the characters in his painting, and the color that illuminates them and nature. He is haunted by the critic V.G.Belinsky. And he decides to remake the story "Portrait". By 1841, this work was completed. Significant changes have appeared: the name of the protagonist has changed (before 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 quarter, ladies-customers. the usurer in the finale 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 again take up his pen and redo 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 gain, about money, since 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 is manifested 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 the further “fall” of Chartkov: “whoever wanted Mars, he poked Mars in the face; whoever aimed at Byron, he gave him the Byron position and turn. "
Teacher: How was Chartkov punished?
Student: he dies in terrible agony, envy and anger destroyed his soul, talent: “He was possessed by terrible envy, envy to the point of rage ... He began to buy up all the best that art only produced. Having bought a painting at a high price. he carefully brought her to his room and, with the fury of a tiger, rushed at her, tore her, tore her apart, cut her into pieces and trampled her feet, accompanying with laughter of pleasure ... "
Teacher: Struck by the microbe of profit and envy, the protagonist of the story dies in terrible agony, but the story does not end there. Why do you think Gogol is writing the second part, what has he not said yet? After all, it would seem that the thought is expressed very clearly and distinctly: a true artist should not sell his soul to the devil, who has talent, he should serve the beauty on earth. What should the reader be convinced of by the proximity of the first and second parts?
Student: The proximity 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. An artist who has touched evil, who painted the eyes of a usurer, who “looked demonic-crushingly”, can no longer paint good, his brush is guided by “an impure feeling”, and in a picture intended for a temple “there is no holiness in faces”.
Teacher: Quite 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 many things. Life circumstances developed in such a way that in Italy he met a true artist (Ivanov), saw how selflessly he was working on a picture on a divine theme - all these facts forced him to take up Gogol's pen again. In the second part, he tells about the fate of the artist, who, having come into contact with evil, goes the path of inner purification: “... with the blessing of the abbot, he left for the deserts ... There for a long time, for several years, he exhausted his body, reinforcing it in that the same time with the life-giving power of prayer ... ”. Only after that did he allow himself to take up the pen again, and then already from under his brush paintings full of holiness began to emerge: “... the holy higher power drove with your brush and the blessing of heaven rested on your labor,” the abbot tells him.
Only after that he received the right to give instructions to his son-artist, who is going to go to Italy: “A hint of the divine, the heavenly is enclosed for a person in art, and therefore it is already above all alone ... Sacrifice everything to him and love him with all 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 tranquility. For in order to calm and reconcile all, a high creation of art descends into the world ”.
Conclusions: So, in today's lesson we got acquainted with the story of N. V. Gogol "Portrait",
found out what is the ideological concept of the author. "Talent is the most precious gift of God - do not destroy it" - this is how 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.
Returning 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 "refute or confirm the idea of the omnipotence of evil?"
Literature
- Bibliography Gogol N. V. Sobr. Op. : in 9 volumes / Comp. prep. 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 contemporaries. - M. Without M. ed., 1952.
- Khrapchenko M.V. Nikolay Gogol. Literary path. The greatness of the writer. - M., 1984.
- Mashkovtsev N.G. Gogol in the circle of artists. - M .: Art, 1955.
- Marantsman V.G. On the way to Pushkin. - M., 1999.
Case No. 6 Lesson on the topic: “Analysis of the story of N.V. Gogol "Portrait"
Summary of the story
1834
The tragic story of the artist Chartkov began in front of a shop in the Shchukin yard, where, among the many paintings depicting peasants or landscapes, he saw one and, giving the last two-kopeck piece for it, brought it home. This is a portrait of an old man in Asian clothes, it seemed unfinished, but seized with such a strong brush that the eyes in the portrait looked as if they were alive. At home, Chartkov learns that the owner came with the quarterly, demanding payment for the apartment. The annoyance of Chartkov, who has already regretted the two-carpenter and is sitting, out of poverty, without a candle, multiplies. He, not without acrimony, reflects on the fate of a young talented artist, forced to a modest apprenticeship, while visiting painters "with just their usual manner" make noise and collect a fair amount of capital. At this time, his gaze falls on the portrait, already forgotten by him, and his eyes, completely alive, even destroying the harmony of the portrait itself, frighten him, giving him some unpleasant feeling. Having gone to sleep behind the screens, he sees through the cracks a moonlit portrait, also gazing at him. In fear, Chartkov curtains him with a sheet, but now he fancies his eyes shining through the canvas, then it seems that the sheet has been torn off, finally, he sees that the sheets are really gone, but the old man stirred and climbed out of the frames. The old man goes to him behind the screens, sits down at his feet and begins to count the money, which he takes out of the bag he brought with him. One parcel with the inscription "1000 ducats" rolls to the side, and Chartkov grabs it unnoticed. Desperately clutching money, he wakes up; the hand feels the weight that has just been in it. After a series of successive nightmares, he wakes up late and hard. The quarterly who came with the owner, having learned that there is no money, offers to pay with work. The portrait of the old man attracts his attention, and, looking at the canvas, he inadvertently squeezes the frames - a bundle known to Chartkov with the inscription "1000 ducats" falls to the floor.
On the same day, Chartkov pays the owner and, consoled by stories about treasures, drowning out the first movement to buy paints and lock himself in a workshop for three years, rents a luxurious apartment on Nevsky, dresses up as a dandy, advertises in a walking newspaper, and the next day he accepts the customer. An important lady, having described the desired details of the future portrait of her daughter, takes her away when Chartkov, it seemed, had just signed and was ready to grab something important in her face. The next time she remains dissatisfied with the similarity that has appeared, the yellowness of the face and shadows under the eyes, and, finally, takes for a portrait Chartkov's old work, Psyche, slightly revived by the annoyed artist.
In a short time, Chartkov became fashionable: seizing one common expression, he painted many portraits, satisfying a variety of claims. He is rich, accepted in aristocratic houses, he speaks harshly and arrogantly about artists. Many who knew Chartkov before are amazed how the talent, so noticeable at the beginning, could disappear in him. He is important, reproaches young people for immorality, becomes a curmudgeon and one day, at the invitation of the Academy of Arts, when he comes to look at a canvas sent from Italy by one of his former comrades, he sees perfection and understands the whole abyss of his fall. He locks himself in the studio and plunges into work, but is forced to stop every minute because of ignorance of the elementary truths, the study of which he neglected at the beginning of his career. Soon a terrible envy takes possession of him, he begins to buy up the best works of art, and only after his imminent death from fever, combined with consumption, it becomes clear that the masterpieces, for the acquisition of which he used all his enormous fortune, were brutally destroyed by him. His death is terrible: the terrible eyes of the old man dreamed of him everywhere.
Chartkov's story had some explanation after a short time at one of the auctions in St. Petersburg. Among the Chinese vases, furniture and paintings, the attention of many is attracted by the amazing portrait of a certain Asian, whose eyes are painted with such art that they seem to be alive. The price quadruples, and here comes the artist B., declaring his special rights to this canvas. In support of these words, he tells a story that happened to his father.
Outlining for a start a part of the city called Kolomna, he describes a usurer who once lived there, a giant of Asian appearance, capable of lending any amount of money to anyone who wants, from the niche of an old woman to wasteful nobles. His interest seemed small and the terms of payment very favorable, but by strange arithmetic calculations, the amount to be returned increased incredibly. Most terrible of all was the fate of those who received money from the hands of a sinister Asian. The story of a brilliant young nobleman, whose disastrous change in character brought the Empress's wrath on him, ended with his madness and death. The life of a wonderful beauty, for the sake of the wedding with which her chosen one made a loan from a usurer (for the bride's parents saw an obstacle to marriage in the upset state of affairs of the groom), a life poisoned in one year by the poison of jealousy, intolerance and whims that suddenly appeared in the previously noble character of her husband. Even encroaching on the life of his wife, the unfortunate man committed suicide. Many not so noticeable stories, since they happened in the lower classes, were also associated with the name of the usurer.
The storyteller's father, a self-taught artist, intending to portray the spirit of darkness, often thought about his terrible neighbor, and one day he himself comes to him and demands to draw a portrait of himself in order to remain in the picture "just like alive." The father happily gets down to business, but the better he manages to grasp the old man's appearance, the more vividly his eyes appear on the canvas, the more a painful feeling takes possession of him. No longer having the strength to endure the growing disgust for work, he refuses to continue, and the pleas of the old man, explaining that after death his life will be preserved in the portrait by a supernatural force, frighten him completely. He runs away, the unfinished portrait is brought to him by the old man's servant, and the usurer himself dies the next day. Over time, the artist notices a change in himself: feeling envy of his student, he harms him, the eyes of the usurer appear in his paintings. When he is about to burn the scary portrait, a friend begs for him. But he too was soon forced to sell it to his nephew; got rid of him and his nephew. The artist realizes that a part of the usurer's soul has taken over a terrible portrait, and the death of his wife, daughter and young son finally assures him of that. He places the elder in the Academy of Arts and goes to a monastery, where he leads a strict life, seeking all possible degrees of selflessness. Finally, he takes up his brush and paints the birth of Jesus for a whole year. His labor is a miracle filled with holiness. To his son, who came to say goodbye before traveling to Italy, he communicates many of his thoughts about art and among some instructions, having told a story with a usurer, he invokes to find a portrait that goes around and exterminate it. And now, after fifteen years of vain searches, the narrator has finally found this portrait - and when he, and with him the crowd of listeners, turns to the wall, the portrait is no longer on it. Someone says, "Stolen." Maybe you are right. Retold by E. V. Kharitonova
PROCESS OF THE LESSON
I... Organizational moment.
II... Announce the topic, the purpose of the lesson. Referring to the epigraph on the blackboard.
Guys, the epigraph to our lesson is the saying of Theodore Dreiser:
Art is the nectar of the soul
collected in labor and pain.
Sacrifice yourself for the sake of art or be content with a well-fed life, putting your art in the service of a crowd of ordinary people?
- What choice to make? Is it easy to do it?
On the one hand, work is in the balance. Service to art, poverty, on the other - money, wealth, fame.
What happens to an artist who succumbed to temptation and changed art? We will find the answer to this question in the first part of Gogol's "Portrait".
- How do we see the young artist at the beginning of the story? Find a description of it appearance, the apartment where he lives. (p. 280, 283)(Before us is a beggar artist who is "devoted to his work with selflessness").
- What are the prospects for him? What is the professor warning him about? (Reading the scene of the conversation between Chartkov and the professor) (p. 285).
OUTPUT: Undoubtedly, Chartkov is "an artist with a talent who prophesied a lot." The professor warns him that a God-given gift can be ruined by winning fame and wealth by drawing "fashionable pictures for money." “Be patient,” he gives advice.
But it's hard not to succumb to temptation. And the young artist, suffering from cold and hunger, thinks about the injustices of life.
Find his reflections in the text. What words, from your point of view, are important, key to understanding his nature?
“Sometimes it became annoying to him when ... even not at all a painter by vocation, he made a general noise with his usual manner, the briskness of the brush and the brightness of colors and accumulated capital in an instant ... enviably the fate of a rich man - a painter was drawn in his hungry imagination ... to give up everything and wrap up with grief to spite everything ».
- Remember where we first met the artist? Why exactly in the Shchukin Dvor? What artistic value, from the point of view of the author, are the paintings exhibited there?
Gogol is very ironic in describing the masterpieces that are popular with the people: "tinsel frames", "a Flemish man with a pipe and a broken arm, like ... on an Indian rooster in cuffs ”and the like.
- What is the opinion of the artist about these works?
"The same colors, the same manner ... belongs to a crudely made automaton, rather than a man ..."
- What impressed him with the portrait of the old man?
Looking at the portrait, everyone felt the reality of the person depicted. But the eyes of the elder are especially attractive, possessing terrible destructive power.
- What fantastic power is hidden in this portrait? Tell us about the artist's strange dream.
Chartkov is unable to resist the portrait: he unexpectedly buys it for himself, cannot take his eyes off it.
(Guys, you noticed that the word “unexpectedly” is often repeated in the story. Chartkov does a lot unexpectedly for himself, as if against his will).
The artist's dream is a fantastic reality. The old man comes to life. He, like the devil, beckons the unfortunate Chartkov with the glitter of gold. And the artist finds himself in the hands of an evil creature.
Guys, follow the feelings and movements of Chartkov, who saw the bundle of money, which rolled a little further than the rest. (We work with the text. Find the keywords:“I stared all over the gold, looking motionless, convulsively grabbed it, full of fear, etc., my heart was beating hard, gripping the bundle tighter, full of despair squeezed the bundle, used all my efforts).
- Why did Chartkov find money in the portrait? Is this in itself fantastic or real?
Realistically, but Gogol emphasizes the fantastic nature of money in the portrait - this is a particle of evil that makes up the essence of the usurer.
- How does the artist manage this money? What does he decide to spend it on?
Let's follow his actions: first he went to the tailor's, then, bargaining, he hired the first magnificent apartment he came across, unintentionally bought an expensive lorgnette, unintentionally bought an abyss of ties, for no reason he was ignited in a wheelchair, etc.
OUTPUT: Chartkov takes care of his pleasures. The bad side of nature begins to triumph in him. We feel a dramatic change in the artist. Having become rich, Chartkov does not notice his teacher, orders articles about the extraordinary talents of the newly-made painter, admires himself, looking at his reflection in the mirrors.
- How has his attitude towards art changed?
Considering himself an unsurpassed master, he overthrows the authorities, criticizes Raphael and Michelangelo, Chartkov declares that "too much has already been attributed to the former artist", and "genius creates boldly, quickly."
Let's remember: he worked on the first portrait of a young girl, as it seemed to the lady - the customer, too long, but “soon he ... he himself began to marvel at the wonderful speed ... your brush. "
Now he has been painting for only two days.
- Does the creative process bring the same joy and satisfaction?
"Already he began to get bored with the same portraits and faces ...", "... his brush grew dull and dull, and he ... was enclosed in monotonous, definite, long-worn out forms ...".
Guys, let's compare these feelings of the artist with those that he experienced at the Shchukin yard.
The conclusion is disappointing: he became a fashionable, famous artist, but gradually the realization that his paintings – talentless daub, completely far from real art.
- What happened to the artist? How does the author feel about this rebirth?
Gogol pronounces a harsh sentence: "Glory cannot give pleasure to those who stole it and did not deserve it." The artist is reborn as a curmudgeon "with a dead man instead of a heart."
- Why, having seen a picture of his former classmate, the hero was unable to make a "vulgar judgment of stale artists" about it?
- What impression did the painting make on him?
Comrade Chartkov, "like a hermit, plunged into labor." He passed the trials of life with dignity, preserving the purity of his soul. His spiritual strength was embodied in a “pure, immaculate, beautiful as a bride,” a work of art.
- Did Chartkov realize that he ruined his talent?
So, a person always faces a certain choice - the choice of fate. It happens that, choosing, a person makes a mistake, and again he is tormented by a choice - what to do next: to realize his mistake and correct it is a good way; or to understand that you are mistaken, but pride does not allow you to correct yourself, then the final fall is an evil choice, an immoral one.
- What choice does Chartkov make?
Chartkov became a vandal. He bought and destroyed all "the best that art only produced." Never a single monster of ignorance has destroyed as much as this fierce avenger destroyed. "
The complete degradation of the artist's personality is terrifying.
OUTPUT: A talented artist accidentally rises from poverty to wealth, but this is evil, and it does not bring good either to him or to people. Talent cannot serve immorality.
What, according to Gogol, should a real artist be? (Referring to the epigraph, which reflects the main idea of the reasoning).
Homework; read carefullyIIpart of the story, choose all the judgments of the heroes and the author about art, prepare for written independent work.
Vocabulary work: temptation, usurer.
Analysis of Gogol's "Portrait" helps to reveal the writer's intention, as well as to consider the techniques with which N. V. Gogol was able to convey the main idea of the work. This summary will help you prepare for your 10th grade literature lesson.
Brief analysis
Year of writing- the first edition - 1833-1834, the second edition - 1841-1842.
History of creation- in 1832 the idea of "Portrait" appeared, only in 1842 N. V. Gogol completely finished work on the story.
Subject- art, creativity.
Composition- the story is divided into two parts: the first part, which includes the exposition, the setting, the development of the action, the culmination and the denouement, tells about the fate of the artist Chartkov, the second part, which was written using the method of the story in the story, tells about the origin of the sinister portrait.
Genre- a story.
Direction- a combination of the traditions of romanticism and realism.
History of creation
In 1832, N. V. Gogol came up with the idea of creating a "Portrait", in 1833 the writer began to work on the work, and in 1834 he finished it. The story was first published as part of the collection "Arabesques" in 1835.
After numerous negative critical articles, N.V. Gogol decides to change his story: the plot, the name of the protagonist, the style of presentation, many dialogues. Recycling takes the writer a year: from 1841 to 1842. The edited work was published in the well-known magazine "Contemporary" with a note that this story is not original.
Subject
The main theme of the work is the theme of art and creativity. N.V. Gogol opposes true talent to craft. The main character Chartkov strives for money and fame, therefore he chooses the path of immorality. Material values turned out to be more important for Chartkov than creativity, so he gradually loses his talent. The main character dies when he betrays real art and ruins his talent. Moral death entails physical death.
Another artist, who painted a sinister portrait of a usurer, has a real talent, since he was able to give up material goods and go to a monastery.
Composition
The story "Portrait" is divided into 2 parts. The parts are complete, but interconnected. The connecting element is the portrait of the bad-luck moneylender.
The first part tells about the life of Chartkov, an aspiring artist. The narrative is built from the episode of Chartkov's purchase of the painting to the terrible death of the protagonist. That is, in this part there is an exposition associated with Chartkov's former life, the plot associated with the purchase of a portrait, the development of the action associated with Chartkov's enrichment, the culmination associated with the mental breakdown of the protagonist, and the denouement associated with the death of Chartkov.
The second part tells about the ominous portrait that people are so eager to buy. The son of the artist who painted the portrait tells about the misfortunes this work of art brought. Compositionally, this technique can be assessed as a story within a story.
The compositional feature of the story is also that the images and parts are opposed to each other. Chartkov chooses the commercial path and fame, losing his talent and life, the artist's father B. chooses true art, abandoning worldly life.
Genre
"Portrait" by N. V. Gogol is a story in terms of genre. This is indicated by one storyline associated with the theme of art and with the image of the portrait of the usurer, a small number of characters and a small volume of the work.
Direction
Analysis of the story "Portrait" by Gogol is impossible without considering the direction in which the writer worked. Working on his work, N. V. Gogol was between romanticism and realism, therefore "Portrait" has absorbed the features of these two directions. From romanticism N. V. Gogol took the fantastic world and the method of antithesis. However, the elements of mysticism are explained by Chartkov's dream, all the events that take place are described realistically.
This article, which will help write the essay "Analysis of the" Portrait "of Gogol", will consider the history of the creation of the story, its theme, compositional features, genre and direction.
Story test
Analysis rating
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The work "Portrait", which we will analyze now, is included in the collection "Petersburg Stories" by Nikolai Gogol, which also includes "Nevsky Prospect", "Nose", "Overcoat", "Notes of a Madman". With all the difference in plots, they are united not only by the scene of the action, but also by common problems. Of course, an analysis of this story will help you better understand Gogol's idea, which will help you, for example, when writing an essay or simply if you are doing a short analysis of the story “Portrait” by Gogol.
Problems of the story "Portrait" by Gogol
The work is dedicated to the theme of true and false art, which is important for any writer, and the artist's responsibility for his creation. No less significant is the cross-cutting theme that unites all Petersburg Tales - the issue of real and imaginary values, the deceptive attractiveness of metropolitan life, behind which lies vulgarity, mediocrity, unnecessary vanity and ghostly beauty. Sounds in the story "Portrait", which we are analyzing, the theme of lost illusions, which during this period was actively developed by many European writers, for example, the French novelists O. de Balzac, F. Stendhal.
Analysis of the story "Portrait" by Gogol - composition
The work has a two-part composition. The first is dedicated to the fate of the artist Chartkov, traced his life from early youth to old age, shows the destruction of talent and spiritual degradation under the influence of serving the golden calf.
The second part shows a true artist who understands the responsibility for the work of art created by him. Having made a mistake, he seeks to correct it, goes the path of spiritual purification.
Two parts are opposed to each other, two artists are two moral poles: one is destruction, the second is creation. Let's continue our analysis of the story "Portrait".
The theme of art and the image of the artist in the story "portrait" of Gogol
Analysis of the story "The Portrait" shows that the problem of creativity occupies a central place. If you are writing an essay on this topic, keep this point in mind. In preparation, you will also be helped by summary story "Portrait".
In the first part, the reader sees a young, promising artist Chartkov. He is poor, dreams of having his own workshop in order to immerse himself in creativity, without being distracted by any everyday problems. The professor predicts a great future for him, seeing in him a real, but not yet fully developed talent. The teacher warns him against haste, explains that talent requires thoughtful, constant work. But chance interferes with the fate of the artist. In the shop, he unexpectedly finds a portrait of an old usurer, which struck him with piercing, as if alive, eyes. Although their gaze is unpleasant, they are seen as attractive evil. Chartkov is shocked by the art of an unknown artist and buys a portrait with his last money. At night, he has a long dream about how the usurer comes out of the frame and counts the gold pieces. Waking up, the young man finds the money hidden in the frame of the portrait.
Thanks to the analysis of the story "The Portrait", it is clear that outwardly the narrative fits into the framework of the traditional motive of selling the soul to the devil: Satan, appearing in the guise of a usurer, tempts the hero with money, and he succumbs to temptation. However, a thoughtful analysis of the story shows: Gogol repeatedly emphasizes that it is not a blind chance and not even the devil who are to blame for the fate of the hero. Chartkov's further behavior is the result of his own choice. So, after receiving the money, the young man thinks about what to spend it on. The first impulse was to rent a small room and work on perfecting the paintings. But then he decides to go to a hairdresser to curl his hair, go to the best restaurant, rent a huge, richly furnished apartment, and even order a commendable article about himself for a journalist.
The choice of the artist is the subject of the composition
When the artist has his first clients, he is again faced with a choice: to succumb to their requirements and paint a mediocre portrait that the lady and her daughter like, or to work on the image of Psyche, putting talent and soul into it. But in pursuit of money, Chartkov chooses the easy path and, in a few years, exchanges his talent for gold. Choose this topic in order to reveal it in your essay, and the analysis of the story "Portrait" by Gogol will help you with this, as well as a summary.
Only when he saw a beautiful picture of a true artist who had lived in Italy as a recluse for many years, improving his skills, Chartkov realizes that he wasted his life. But resurrection does not occur: on the contrary, he goes crazy, buys up paintings of great artists and destroys them in anger.
In Gogol's story, Chartkov is contrasted with a real artist. In the second part, we hear the story of the man who painted the portrait of the usurer. This is a spiritualized self-taught artist who has comprehended the high meaning and spiritual depth of art. What else becomes clear to us when we analyze the story "Portrait" by Gogol?
The artist understands that by creating this picture, he let evil into the world: the portrait brings misfortune to all owners. The hero tries to atone for his guilt by going to a monastery, atonement for his sin. Only after cleansing his soul, he decides to write a work of pictorial art on a religious theme. The artist bequeathed to his son to find a portrait that brings evil, and "destroy" it.
The words of this artist about art express the thoughts of the writer himself: talent is “the most precious gift of God”, “whoever contains talent must be purer than everyone else,” a real “high creation of art” descends into the world “to calm and reconcile everyone”.
You have read the analysis of the story "Portrait" by Gogol, and we hope that this information turned out to be useful and interesting for you. Visit our literary blog, where hundreds of articles on similar topics will help you get acquainted with famous works, and will also be a good help when writing essays. Also read
Gogol wrote the story "Portrait" in 1835; in 1842 he partially revised it. Such a work - a revised one, but retaining the same plot and stylistic basis - in the science of literature is usually called a revision. When we open modern re-editions of Gogol's prose, we usually read the second edition of The Portrait, that is, the 1842 version; we will analyze it.
So, who should be considered the hero of this story? The artist Chartkov? A demonic usurer? Or maybe the hero here is the fantastic city of Petersburg itself, in which the action takes place? Let's try to figure it out.
Judging by the external outline of the events, by the plot of the work, then the artist Andrei Petrovich Chartkov, his fate, his downfall, is undoubtedly at the center of the story. The very name of the hero hints in advance that he is in the grip of an evil spell, fraught with devilry. And this is by no means 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 how exactly the Evil, which the Usurer personifies, first invades Chartkov's life? The artist buys for the last two-kopeck piece in an art shop on Shchukin Dvor old portrait"In large, once magnificent frames"; the portrait depicts "an old man with a bronze-colored face, cheeky, stunted," but endowed with "not northern strength." So, the artist gives the money needed for food for the 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 picture became its victims. So, having bought it, the artist is doomed to share their fate. Chartkov's only "fault" lies only in the fact that he could not resist the devilish delusion, which approached him at a dangerous distance and sucked into himself like a quagmire. Waking up in the morning after a multiple nightmare (an old usurer emerges from the frame of the portrait, who is counting his gold pieces), Chartkov discovers a bundle with 1000 pieces of gold. His soul seems to double: a true artist, dreaming of three years of calm and selfless work, and a twenty-year-old boy, who loves to go out and is inclined to fashionable boldness of colors, argue in him. Everyday passion wins; the artist begins to die in him.
In Gogol's picture of the world, this usually happens: the heavenly vocation 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, selfless personality. Otherwise, evil will prevail; an artist who succumbed to the temptation of everyday life will not only ruin his talent, but also turn into a servant of dark forces. And that means - into the enemy of art.
Chartkov's transition to a new quality is depicted as a betrayal, as treason, a religious fall. Having moved to luxurious apartments on Nevsky Prospekt, he painted the first "fashionable" portrait in his life. After several sessions, moving further and further from fidelity to the original, he transfers the embellished features of the young Lise, who already knew a passion for balls, to 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 kind of puts it under a false image. Moreover, the name of his first model, Lise, reminds the reader of "Poor Liza" by Karamzin. And, as you well know, Liza of Karamzin served in Russian literature as a symbol of dying 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 device of a significant name. After all, Chartkov denies the work of the artist, in whose name the image of the shining angel is "encrypted". And the reader is gradually imbued with the thought that Chartkov himself has turned into an angel - a fallen one. No wonder, after meeting with a former fellow student at the Academy, who chose the opposite path in life and art, spent many years in Italy, the homeland of European painting, and created a great final picture, Chartkov, in despair, tries to create a portrait of the Fallen Angel. That is, a portrait of your soul, the fallen Psyche. But he even lost his technique - having become the enemy of harmony, he simply forgot how to draw ...
But his own face becomes a portrait, an artistic image of 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: all the gold received, as it were, in exchange for a sold talent, Chartkov spends on buying up the greatest creations of European genius - and destroys them, as he destroyed and disfigured himself ...
Does this mean that evil is omnipotent? That it is impossible to resist it, since the world is arranged in such a way that the purest and brightest, that is, art, attracts, attracts the darkest, the most evil? No, it doesn't. 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 unavoidable. However, it is not omnipotent either. It is impossible to avoid temptation, but the ending, the denouement of the drama can be completely different; here Gogol's heroes are free in their choice. The story about the fate of Chartkov is underscored by the story of the artist who created the portrait of the Usurer during the time of Catherine the Great; it is told in the second part by the portraitist's son. He lived in the same place where Chartkov later lived - on the outskirts of Petersburg; both knew what envy was (Chartkov - to a fellow practitioner at the Academy, portraitist - to his own student, who received an order to paint a rich church); both have stumbled, become addicted to the devil's spell. But the portrait painter finds the only possible way out of this situation, the only reliable shelter from evil - the monastery. Here he creates a 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 around the world.
Thus, judging by the external outline of events, the protagonist of the story is Chartkov. But if we talk about the role that the characters play in the construction of the story as a whole, then the Moneylender is undoubtedly in the center of the author's attention. The fabulously rich lender lived in the era of Catherine the Great, that is, long before Chartkov was born; his reviving image, the devil's Portrait, retains its monstrous power even after the death of the painter.
Who is he, this Moneylender? No one knows where the "Asian" with an incomprehensibly terrible complexion came from; it is not known exactly whether he was Indian, Greek, or Persian. The money he borrowed, seemingly on favorable terms, had the ability to rise to exorbitant interest; in addition, the Usurer offered clients some secret conditions, from which the debtors' hair "stood on end." Anyone who borrowed from him, even for good purposes, ended badly.
An attentive reader of Gogol knows that the theme of the Antichrist is constantly heard in his works. Sometimes seriously and mystically, as in the early stories, especially in "Terrible Vengeance," 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 incarnated, as it were, in part, in individuals, trying his hand and preparing for the last battle for earthly history. The Usurer is such a "trial" embodiment of the Antichrist. No wonder in the first edition of the story "Portrait" the Usurer bore the name Petromikhali: Peter Mikhailov called himself Peter the First, whom folk beliefs identified with the Antichrist ... He is not yet omnipotent, and therefore seeks to prolong his earthly days and continue his dirty work after death - with the help of great art.
Three themes are inextricably linked with the image of the Usurer, which especially worried Gogol during his work on the cycle of "Petersburg stories": the incomprehensible, secret power of gold over the 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 at the price of gold to subjugate art. But all these themes are condensed into one key image, which rises both from the pages of the "Portrait" and from the pages of other Petersburg stories. This is the image of a double, 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, Petersburg itself should be considered the main character of the "Portrait".
Only here, in this fantastic city, on the gloomy Kolomna outskirts, can the fabulous luxury of the Usurer bloom in a false color; it is only here that the transition from the conscientious poverty of creativity to the dead luxury of the salon can instantly take place, the transfer from Vasilievsky Island to Nevsky Prospect; only here demonic portraits come to life at night, real gold pieces fall out from behind the frame, and dangerous portraits suddenly disappear from the auction ... St. Petersburg in Gogol's image resembles 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; just before the departure of his son to Italy, the gray-haired, "almost divine old man", the author of the ill-fated Portrait, bequeathed to find the picture and "destroy" it. And with her - and evil.
