Gogol’s story “Portrait” was written in 1833–1834 and was included in the “Petersburg Tales” cycle. 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 in 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 guy” 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. It seemed that he was offering profitable terms, but people ended up having 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 it depended only on this whether he would 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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N.V. Gogol saw St. Petersburg not only as a flourishing capital, whose life is full of magnificent balls, not only as a city where the best achievements of art in Russia and Europe are concentrated. The writer saw in him a concentrate of depravity, poverty and cowardice. The collection “Petersburg Tales” was dedicated to identifying the problems of society in northern Palmyra, and at the same time throughout Russia, and searching for ways of salvation. This cycle includes “Portrait,” which will be discussed in our article.

The writer came up with the idea for the story “Portrait” in 1832. The first edition was published in the collection "Arabesques" in 1835. Later, after writing “Dead Souls” and traveling abroad, in 1841 Gogol subjected the book to significant changes. In the third issue of Sovremennik, a new version was published. In it, the epithets, dialogues, and rhythm of presentation were changed, and the surname of the leading character became “Chartkov” instead of “Chertkov,” which was associated with the devil. This is the story of "Portrait".

The motif of an image possessing ominous power was inspired by Gogol’s then-fashionable novel by Maturin “Melmoth the Wanderer.” In addition, the image of a greedy moneylender also makes these works similar. In the image of the greedy businessman, whose portrait turns the life of the main character upside down, one can hear echoes of the myth of Agasphere - the “Eternal Jew” who cannot find peace.

Meaning of the name

The ideological concept of the work lies in its title – “Portrait”. It is no coincidence that Gogol names his brainchild this way. It is the portrait that is the cornerstone of the entire work, which allows you to expand the genre range from a story to a detective story, and also completely changes the life of the main character. It is also filled with special ideological content: it is the symbol of greed and depravity. This work raises the question of art and its authenticity.

In addition, this title of the story makes the reader think about the problems that the writer reveals. What else could the title be? Suppose, "The Death of the Artist" or "Greed", none of this would carry such symbolic meaning, and the ominous image would remain only a work of art. The title “Portrait” focuses the reader on this particular creation, forces him to always keep in mind, and subsequently, see in it more than the captured face.

Genre and direction

The direction of fantastic realism set by Gogol showed up relatively little in this work. There are no ghosts, animated noses or other humanized objects, but there is a certain mystical power of the moneylender, whose money brings people only grief; The painting, completed at the end of his life, continues the terrible mission of the man depicted in it. But Gogol gives a simple explanation for all the terrifying phenomena that happened to Chartkov after acquiring the canvas: it was a dream. Therefore, the role of fiction in “Portrait” is not great.

The story in the second part receives elements detective story. The author gives an explanation of where the money could have come from, the discovery of which at the beginning of the work seemed magical. In addition, the fate of the portrait itself has the features of a detective: it mysteriously disappears from the wall during the auction.

The portrayal of the characters of Chartkov's capricious clients, his naive craving for tasteless pomp - all these are comic techniques embodied in the book. Therefore, the genre of the story is correlated with satire.

Composition

The story “Portrait” consists of two parts, but each of them has its own compositional features. The first section has a classic structure:

1. exposition (life of a poor artist)
2. tie-in (purchase of a portrait)
3. climax (Chartkov's mental disorder)
4. denouement (death of the painter)

The second part can be perceived as an epilogue or some kind of author’s commentary on the above. The peculiarity of the composition of “Portrait” is that Gogol uses the technique of a story within a story. The son of the artist who painted the ominous portrait appears at the auction and claims ownership of the work. He talks about the difficult fate of his father, the life of a greedy money lender and the mystical properties of the portrait. His speech is framed by the auctioneers' bargaining and the disappearance of the very subject of the dispute.

About what?

The action takes place in St. Petersburg. The young artist Chartkov is in extreme need, but with his last pennies he buys a portrait of an old man in a shop on Shchukin’s yard, whose eyes “stroking as if they were alive.” Since then, unprecedented changes began to occur in his life. One night the young man dreamed that the old man came to life and stuck out a bag of gold. In the morning, gold chervonets were discovered in the frame of the picture. The hero moved to a better apartment, acquired all the things necessary for painting in the hope of devoting himself entirely to art and developing his talent. But everything turned out completely differently. Chartkov became a fashionable popular artist, and his main activity was painting commissioned portraits. One day he saw the work of his comrade, which awakened his young man former interest in real creativity, but it was already too late: the hand does not obey, the brush performs only memorized strokes. Then he goes berserk: he buys up the best paintings and brutally destroys them. Soon Chartkov dies. This is the essence of the work: material wealth destroys a person’s creative nature.

During the auction, when his property is being sold, one gentleman claims rights to the portrait of an old man, which was bought by Chartkov at Shchukin’s yard. He tells the background and description of the portrait, and also admits that he himself is the son of the artist, the author of this work. But during the auction, the painting mysteriously disappears.

The main characters and their characteristics

We can say that each part of the story has its own main character: in the first it is Chartkov, and in the second the image of a moneylender is vividly presented.

• Character young artist changes dramatically throughout the work. At the beginning of the “Portrait,” Chartkov is a romantic image of an artist: he dreams of developing his talent, learning from the best masters, if only there was money for it. And then the money appears. The first impulse was quite noble: the young man bought everything necessary for painting, but the desire to become fashionable and famous in an easier way than through many hours of work took over. At the end of the first part, the artist is overwhelmed by greed, envy and frustration, which forces him to buy up the best paintings and destroy them, he becomes a “fierce avenger.” Of course, Chartkov - small man, unexpected wealth turned his head and eventually drove him crazy.
• But it can be assumed that the effect of the golden chervonets on the main character is not due to his low social status, but with the mystical effect of the money of the moneylender himself. The son of the author of the portrait of this Persian tells many stories about this. The moneylender himself, wanting to preserve part of his power, asks the artist to paint a portrait of him. The narrator's father took on this job, but could not cope with it. In this painter, Gogol portrayed the true creator in the Christian understanding: to undergo purification, pacify his spirit and only then begin to work. He is contrasted with Chartkov, the artist from the first part of the story.

Themes

This relatively short story touches on many topics relating to quite diverse areas of human life.

• Theme of creativity. Gogol introduces us to two artists. What should a true creator be like? One strives to study the works of masters, but is not averse to gaining fame in an easier way. Another painter first of all works on himself, on his desires and passions. For him, art is part of his philosophy, his religion. This is his life, it cannot contradict it. He feels responsible for creativity and believes that a person must prove his right to engage in it.
• Good and evil. This theme is expressed through both art and wealth. On the one hand, feathered means are needed so that the creator can freely go about his business and develop his talent. But using the example of Chartkov, we see that initially good intentions to invest in one’s improvement can turn into death, first of all, the death of the human soul. Is it only the mystical sweetness of the moneylender's heritage that is to blame? Gogol shows that a person can overcome anything, if only he is strong. Main character but he demonstrated weakness of spirit, and that is why he disappeared.
• Wealth- the main theme in the story “Portrait”. Here it is presented as a way to find happiness. It would seem that just a little money, and everything will be fine: there will be a happy marriage with the first beauty, creditors will leave the family alone, everything necessary for creativity will be acquired. But everything turns out differently. In addition to satisfying needs, money has reverse side: the product of greed, envy and cowardice.

Issues

• The problem of art. In the story, Gogol offers the artist two paths: to paint portraits for money or to engage in self-improvement without any special claims to wealth. The artist faces a difficult choice: to develop, he needs funds for paints, brushes, etc., but many hours of work and infamy will not bring any money. There is a way to get rich quick, but painting portraits does not mean increasing your skill level. When deciding what to do, you need to remember one thing: if the one who follows the path of the master monk makes a mistake, he can still be saved, but he who follows the easy road will no longer get rid of the “hardened forms.”
• Vanity. Gogol shows in the story how Chartkov, who suddenly became rich, gradually comes to vanity. At first he pretends that he does not recognize his teacher, then he agrees to endure the whims of clients for the sake of money and fame. The omen of trouble is the censure of the classics, and the result of this path was madness.
• Poverty. This problem faces most of the characters in "Portrait". Poverty does not allow Chartkov to freely engage in creativity; due to his not very high position, one of the heroes of the second part cannot marry his beloved. But poverty here is not only a material problem, but also a spiritual one. Gold drives the heroes crazy, makes them greedy and envious. According to the author, a cowardly person with a lot of money is not able to cope: it completely destroys him.

The meaning of the story

Always remember about your soul, and not chase wealth - this is the main idea of ​​​​the story “Portrait”. All the possibilities for achieving a goal, finding happiness in a person already exist - Gogol talks about this. Later, Chekhov would turn to this idea in his drama “Three Sisters,” where the girls will believe that the path to joy is Moscow. And Nikolai Vasilyevich shows that it is possible to reach the goal, in this case, to comprehend art, without any special material costs. The main thing is not in them, but in the inner strength of a person.

The narrator in the second part talks about the fatal effect of the moneylender's money, but is it fair to attribute all the troubles to mysticism? A person who puts money first is vulnerable to envy and depravity. That is why wild jealousy awoke in the happy spouse, and despair and vindictiveness awoke in Chartkov. This is where it lies philosophical meaning story "Portrait".

A person with a strong spirit is not subject to such low qualities; she is able to cope with them and get rid of them. This illustrates life path artist, author of the portrait of a moneylender.

What does it teach?

The story “Portrait” warns about the danger of exalting money. The conclusion is simple: wealth cannot be set as the goal of life: this leads to the death of the soul. It is important to note that the image of a little man is characterized not only by material poverty, but also by spiritual poverty. This can explain the troubles of Chartkov and the moneylender’s borrowers. But Gogol does not give a single positive example when money would be beneficial. The author's position is clearly expressed: the only the right way the writer sees it in spiritual improvement, in renunciation of secular temptations. The main character understands this too late: he did not heed the warnings of his teacher, for which he was severely punished.

In this story, Gogol is closest to Hoffman in style and method of correlating the fantastic and the real. Here, every unusual thing can be explained rationally, and the characters are as close as possible to the society of St. Petersburg. Such persuasiveness alarmed the reader of the story and made “Portrait” a relevant work both for Gogol’s contemporaries and for his heirs.

Criticism

Literary criticism of the author's contemporaries was varied. Belinsky disapproved of this story, especially the second part, he considered it an addition in which the author himself was not visible. Shevyrev also adhered to a similar position, accusing Gogol of a weak manifestation of the fantastic in “Portrait”. But Nikolai Vasilyevich’s contribution to the development of Russian classical prose can hardly be overestimated, and “Portrait” also makes its contribution here. Chernyshevsky speaks about this in his articles.

When considering critics' assessments, it is important to keep in mind that the final edition of "Portrait" took place during the late, critical period of Gogol's work. At this time, the writer is looking for a way to save Russia, mired in bribery, greed and philistinism. In letters to friends, he admits that he sees an opportunity to correct the situation in teaching, and not in introducing any newfangled ideas. From these positions one should consider the validity of the criticism of Belinsky and Shevyrev.

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Nowhere did so many people stop as in front of the art shop in Shchukin’s courtyard. This shop represented, indeed, the most heterogeneous collection of curiosities: the paintings were mostly painted oil paints, covered with dark green varnish, in dark yellow tinsel frames. Winter with white trees, a completely red evening, similar to the glow of a fire, a Flemish peasant with a pipe and a broken arm, looking more like an Indian rooster in cuffs than a man—these are their usual subjects. To this must be added several engraved images: a portrait of Khozrev-Mirza in a sheepskin hat, portraits of some generals in triangular hats with crooked noses. Moreover, the doors of such a shop are usually hung with bundles of works printed in popular prints on large sheets, which testify to the native talent of a Russian person. On one there was Princess Miliktrisa Kirbitievna, on the other the city of Jerusalem, through the houses and churches of which red paint swept without ceremony, capturing part of the land and two praying Russian men in mittens. There are usually few buyers of these works, but there are a lot of viewers. Some drunken footman is probably already yawning in front of them, holding in his hand containers of dinner from the tavern for his master, who, no doubt, will slurp the soup not too hot. In front of him, probably, is already standing a soldier in an overcoat, this gentleman of the flea market, selling two penknives; a merchant woman with a box filled with shoes. Everyone admires in his own way: men usually point their fingers; gentlemen are considered seriously; footmen boys and craftsmen boys laugh and tease each other with drawn caricatures; old footmen in frieze overcoats look only to yawn somewhere; and the traders, young Russian women, rush by instinct to listen to what the people are babbling about and to see what they are looking at. At this time, the young artist Chartkov, passing by, involuntarily stopped in front of the shop. An old overcoat and an unfashionable dress showed in him a man who was selflessly devoted to his work and did not have time to worry about his outfit, which always has a mysterious appeal to youth. He stopped in front of the shop and at first laughed inwardly at these ugly pictures. Finally, an involuntary thought took possession of him: he began to think about who would need these works. What the Russian people are looking at Eruslanov Lazarevich, on ate And drank, on Thomas And Yeremu, this did not seem surprising to him: the objects depicted were very accessible and understandable to the people; but where are the buyers of these colorful, dirty oil paintings? who needs these Flemish men, these red and blue landscapes, which show some claim to a somewhat higher step in art, but in which all its deep humiliation was expressed? These, it seemed, were not at all the works of a self-taught child. Otherwise, despite all the insensitive caricature of the whole, a sharp impulse would burst out in them. But here one could see simply stupidity, a powerless, decrepit mediocrity, which arbitrarily entered the ranks of the arts, while its place was among the low crafts, mediocrity, which was, however, faithful to its calling and brought its craft into art itself. The same colors, the same manner, the same stuffed, habitual hand, which belonged more likely to a roughly made machine gun than to a man!.. He stood for a long time in front of these dirty pictures, finally not thinking about them at all, and meanwhile the owner of the shop, a little gray man in a frieze overcoat, with a beard that had not been shaved since Sunday, he had been talking to him for a long time, bargaining and agreeing on a price, without yet knowing what he liked and what he needed. For these peasants and for the landscape, I’ll take the little white one. What a painting! It'll just hurt your eye; just received from the exchange; The varnish is not yet dry. Or here it is winter, take winter! Fifteen rubles! One frame is worth it. What a winter it is! Here the merchant gave a slight click to the canvas, probably to show all the goodness of winter. Will you order them to be tied together and taken down after you? Where would you like to live? Hey kid, give me some rope. “Wait, brother, not so soon,” said the artist who woke up, seeing that the nimble merchant had seriously begun to tie them together. He felt somewhat ashamed of not taking anything, having stood in the shop for so long, and he said: But wait, I’ll see if there’s anything here for me, and, bending down, began to take out from the floor the cumbersome, worn out, dusty old paintings, which, apparently, did not enjoy any respect. There were old family portraits, the descendants of which, perhaps, could not be found in the world, completely unknown images with torn canvas, frames devoid of gilding, in a word, all sorts of old rubbish. But the artist began to look, thinking secretly: “Maybe something will be found.” He had heard more than once stories about how sometimes paintings by great masters were found in trash among popular print sellers. The owner, seeing where he was going, abandoned his fussiness and, having assumed his usual position and proper weight, positioned himself again at the door, calling passers-by and pointing to the bench with one hand: “Here, father, here are the paintings!” come in, come in; received from the exchange." He had already shouted enough and mostly fruitlessly, talked his fill to the patchwork salesman who was also standing opposite him at the door of his shop, and, finally remembering that he had a buyer in his shop, turned his back on the people and went inside. “What, father, did you choose something?” But the artist had already stood motionless for some time in front of one portrait in large, once magnificent frames, but on which traces of gilding now shone slightly. 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 his face, he saw traces of the work of the great artist. The portrait, it seemed, was not finished; but the power of the brush was striking. 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. When he brought the portrait to the door, the eyes looked even stronger. They made almost the same impression among the people. A woman who stopped behind him cried out: “He’s looking, he’s looking,” and backed away. He felt some unpleasant feeling, incomprehensible to himself, and put the portrait on the ground. Well, take a portrait! - said the owner. How much? said the artist. Why value it? Give me three quarters! No. Well, what can you give me? “Two kopecks,” said the artist, getting ready to go. What a price! Yes, you can’t buy one frame for two kopecks. Apparently you're going to buy it tomorrow? Mister, master, come back! Just think about a kopeck. Take it, take it, give me two kopecks. Really, just for starters, this is just the first buyer. Then he made a gesture with his hand, as if saying: “So be it, the painting is lost!” Thus, Chartkov completely unexpectedly bought an old portrait and at the same time thought: “Why did I buy it? What use is it to me? But there was nothing to do. He took a two-kopeck piece out of his pocket, gave it to the owner, took the portrait under his arm and dragged it with him. On the way, he remembered that the two-kopeck piece he had given was his last. His thoughts suddenly became dark; vexation and indifferent emptiness embraced him at that very moment. "Damn it! disgusting in the world! he said with the feeling of a Russian whose affairs are bad. And almost mechanically he walked with quick steps, full of insensibility to everything. The red light of the evening dawn still remained in half the sky; more houses facing that side were slightly illuminated by its warm light; and meanwhile the cold bluish glow of the month was becoming stronger. Translucent light shadows fell like tails onto the ground, cast by houses and the feet of pedestrians. Little by little the artist began to look at the sky, illuminated by some transparent, thin, dubious light, and almost at the same time the words came out of his mouth: “What a light tone!” and the words: “It’s a shame, damn it!” And he, straightening the portrait, which was constantly sliding out from under his arms, quickened his pace. Tired and covered in sweat, he dragged himself to his Fifteenth Line on Vasilyevsky Island. With difficulty and shortness of breath, he climbed up the stairs, doused with slop and decorated with traces of cats and dogs. There was no answer to his knock on the door: the man was not at home. He leaned against the window and settled down to wait patiently, until finally the footsteps of a guy in a blue shirt, his henchman, model, paint polisher and floor sweeper, who immediately soiled them with his boots, were heard behind him. The guy was called Nikita and spent all his time outside the gate when the master was not at home. Nikita spent a long time trying to get the key into the key hole, which was not at all noticeable due to the darkness. Finally the door was unlocked. Chartkov entered his hallway, which was unbearably cold, as is always the case with artists, which, however, they do not notice. Without giving Nikita his overcoat, he entered with her into his studio, a square room, large but low, with frosty windows, filled with all sorts of artistic rubbish: pieces of plaster hands, frames covered with canvas, sketches begun and abandoned, drapery hung on chairs. He was very tired, took off his overcoat, placed the absent-mindedly brought portrait between two small canvases and threw himself onto a narrow sofa, which could not be said to be upholstered in leather, because the row of copper nails that had once attached it had long since remained on its own. , and the skin also remained on top by itself, so Nikita stuffed black stockings, shirts and all the unwashed underwear under it. After sitting and lying down for as long as he could on this narrow sofa, he finally asked for a candle. “There’s no candle,” Nikita said. How not? “But it wasn’t even yesterday,” Nikita said. The artist remembered that indeed there had been no candle yesterday, he calmed down and fell silent. He allowed himself to be undressed and put on his tightly and very worn robe. “Yes, here’s the owner,” said Nikita. Well, did you come for the money? I know,” said the artist, waving his hand. “Yes, he didn’t come alone,” Nikita said. With whom? I don’t know with whom... some policeman. Why quarterly? I don’t know why; Then he says that the rent has not been paid. Well, what will come of it? I don't know what will happen; he said: if he doesn’t want to, then let him, he said, move out of the apartment; They both wanted to come tomorrow. “Let them come,” said Chartkov with sad indifference. And a bad mood completely took possession of him. Young Chartkov was an artist with a talent that prophesied many things; in flashes and moments his brush responded with observation, consideration, a strong impulse to get closer to nature. “Look, brother,” his professor told him more than once, “you have talent; It will be a sin if you destroy him. But you're impatient. One thing will lure you, one thing will fall in love with you - you are busy with it, and the rest is rubbish, you don’t care about the rest, you don’t even want to look at it. Be careful that you don't become a fashionable painter. Even now your colors are starting to scream too loudly. Your drawing is not strict, and sometimes even weak, the line is not visible; You are already chasing fashionable lighting, after what catches the first eye. Look, you'll just end up in the English family. Beware; you are already beginning to be drawn to the light; I sometimes see you have a smart scarf around your neck, a hat with a gloss... It’s tempting, you can start painting fashionable pictures, portraits for money. But this is where talent is destroyed, not developed. Be patient. Think about every job, give up panache let other money recruit them. Yours will not leave you.” The professor was partly right. Sometimes our artist really wanted to party, to show off, in a word, to show off his youth here and there. But despite all this, he could take power over himself. At times he could forget everything, taking up his brush, and would tear himself away from it as if from a wonderful, interrupted dream. His taste developed noticeably. He did not yet understand the full depth of Raphael, but he was already captivated by Guid’s fast, wide brush, stopped in front of Titian’s portraits, and admired the Flemings. The still darkened appearance that clothed the old paintings had not entirely disappeared before him; but he already saw something in them, although inwardly he did not agree with the professor that the ancient masters should leave us so unattainably; it even seemed to him that the nineteenth century was significantly ahead of them in some ways, that the imitation of nature had somehow now become brighter, more lively, closer; in a word, he thought in this case as youth thinks, having already comprehended something and feeling it in its proud inner consciousness. Sometimes he became annoyed when he saw how a visiting painter, French or German, sometimes not even a painter by vocation, with just his habitual manner, the quickness of his brush and the brightness of his colors, made a general noise and instantly accumulated monetary capital for himself. This came to his mind not when, completely occupied with his work, he forgot drink, and food, and the whole world, but when the need finally came, when there was nothing to buy brushes and paints, when the unobtrusive owner came ten times a day to demand payment for the apartment. Then the fate of a rich painter was enviably pictured in his hungry imagination; Then even the thought that often runs through the Russian head ran through my mind: to give up everything and go on a spree out of grief in spite of everything. And now he was almost in that position. Yes! be patient, be patient! “he said with annoyance. There is finally an end to patience. Be patient! How much money will I use for lunch tomorrow? No one will give you a loan. And if I were to sell all my paintings and drawings, they would give me two kopecks for everything. They are useful, of course, I feel it: each of them was undertaken for good reason, in each of them I learned something. But what's the use? sketches, attempts and everything will be sketches, attempts, and there will be no end to them. And who will buy it without knowing me by name? and who needs drawings from antiques from nature, or my unfinished love of Psyche, or the perspective of my room, or the portrait of my Nikita, although it is, really, better than the portraits of some fashionable painter? What, really? Why do I suffer and, like a student, fumble over the ABCs, when I could shine no worse than others and be like them, with money. Having said this, the artist suddenly trembled and turned pale: someone’s convulsively distorted face was looking at him, leaning out from behind the canvas he had placed. Two terrible eyes stared directly at him, as if preparing to devour him; a threatening command to remain silent was written on his lips. Frightened, he wanted to scream and call Nikita, who had already started a heroic snoring in his hallway; but suddenly he stopped and laughed. The feeling of fear subsided instantly. It was a portrait he had bought, which he had completely forgotten about. The radiance of the moon, having illuminated the room, fell on him and gave him a strange liveliness. He began to examine it and scrub it. He dipped a sponge in water, passed it over it several times, washed off almost all the accumulated and accumulated dust and dirt, hung it on the wall in front of him and marveled at the even more extraordinary work: his whole face almost came to life, and his eyes looked at him so that he finally shuddered and, backing away, said in an astonished voice: “He looks, he looks with human eyes!” A story that he had heard long ago from his professor suddenly came to his mind, about a portrait of the famous Leonardo da Vinci, over which Great master worked for several years and still considered it unfinished and which, according to Vasari, was, however, respected by everyone for the most perfect and final work of art. The most important thing about him was his eyes, which amazed his contemporaries; even the slightest, barely visible veins in them were not missed and were given to the canvas. But here, however, in this portrait that was now before him, there was something strange. This was no longer art: it even destroyed the harmony of the portrait itself. They were alive, they were human eyes! It was as if they had been cut out of a living person and pasted here. Here there was no longer that high pleasure that embraces the soul when looking at the work of an artist, no matter how terrible the object he took; there was some kind of painful, languid feeling here. "What is this? - the artist involuntarily asked himself. After all, this is, however, nature, this is living nature; Why is this strangely unpleasant feeling? Or is slavish, literal imitation of nature already an offense and seems like a bright, discordant cry? Or, if you take an object indifferently, insensitively, without sympathizing with it, it will certainly appear only in its terrible reality, not illuminated by the light of some incomprehensible thought hidden in everything, it will appear in that reality that is revealed when, wanting to comprehend wonderful person, you arm yourself with an anatomical knife, cut through its insides and see a disgusting person? Why does simple, low nature appear in one artist in some light, and you don’t feel any low impression; on the contrary, it seems as if you have enjoyed it, and after that everything flows and moves around you more calmly and evenly? And why does the same nature in another artist seem low, dirty, and by the way, he was also faithful to nature? But no, there is nothing illuminating in her. It’s just like a view in nature: no matter how magnificent it is, something is still missing if there is no sun in the sky.” He again approached the portrait in order to examine those wonderful eyes, and noticed with horror that they were definitely looking at him. It was no longer a copy from life, it was that strange liveliness that would illuminate the face of a dead man rising from the grave. Whether it was the light of the month, which carried with it the delirium of dreams and clothed everything in other images, the opposite of a positive day, or what else was the reason for this, only he suddenly, for some unknown reason, became afraid to sit alone in the room. He quietly walked away from the portrait, turned in the other direction and tried not to look at it, and meanwhile his eye involuntarily, of itself, glanced sideways at it. Finally he even became afraid to walk around the room; It seemed to him as if that very moment someone else would start walking behind him, and every time he timidly looked back. He was never cowardly; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and that evening he himself could not explain to himself his involuntary fear. He sat down in a corner, but even here it seemed to him that someone was about to look over his shoulder into his face. Even Nikita’s snoring, which came from the hallway, did not drive away his fear. He finally timidly, without raising his eyes, rose from his seat, went behind his screen and went to bed. Through the cracks in the screens, he saw his room, illuminated for a month, and saw a portrait directly hanging on the wall. The eyes were even more terrible, staring at him even more significantly and, it seemed, did not want to look at anything else but at him. Full of a painful feeling, he decided to get out of bed, grabbed the sheet and, approaching the portrait, wrapped it all up. Having done this, he lay down in bed more peacefully, began to think about the poverty and pitiful fate of the artist, about the thorny path ahead of him in this world; and meanwhile his eyes involuntarily looked through the crack of the screens at the portrait wrapped in a sheet. The radiance of the moon intensified the whiteness of the sheet, and it seemed to him that the terrible eyes even began to shine through the canvas. With fear, he fixed his eyes more intently, as if wanting to make sure that this was nonsense. But finally, in reality... he sees, sees clearly: the sheet is no longer there... the portrait is completely open and looks past everything that is around, straight into him, just looks inside him... His heart sank. . And he sees: the old man moved and suddenly leaned against the frame with both hands. Finally, he raised himself up on his hands and, sticking out both legs, jumped out of the frames... Through the crack of the screens, only empty frames were visible. The sound of footsteps echoed throughout the room, finally getting 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 from behind the screen. And so he looked, as if behind the screens, with the same bronze face and wide eyes. Chartkov tried to scream and felt that he had no voice, he tried to move, to make some kind of movement - his limbs did not move. With his mouth open and his breath frozen, he looked at this terrible tall phantom, in some kind of wide Asian robe, and waited to see what he would do. The old man sat down almost at his very feet and then pulled something out from under the folds of his wide dress. It was a bag. The old man untied it and, grabbing the two ends, shook it: with a dull sound, heavy bundles in the form of long columns fell to the floor; each was wrapped in blue paper, and on each was displayed: “1000 ducats.” Sticking his long bony arms out of his wide sleeves, the old man began to unwrap the packages. Gold flashed. No matter how great the painful feeling and unconscious fear of the artist, he stared all into the gold, looking motionless as it unfolded in his bony hands, glittered, rang thinly and dully, and wrapped itself again. Then he noticed one package that had rolled away from the others, at the very foot of his bed, in his head. Almost convulsively he grabbed it and, full of fear, watched to see if the old man would notice. But the old man seemed very busy. He collected all his bundles, put them back in the bag and, without looking at him, went behind the screen. Chartkov's heart was beating strongly when he heard the rustle of retreating steps echoing through the room. He clutched his bundle tightly in his hand, trembling with his whole body for it, and suddenly he heard footsteps again approaching the screens; apparently, the old man remembered that one bundle was missing. And so he glanced at him again behind the screen. Full of despair, he squeezed the bundle in his hand with all his strength, made every effort to move, screamed and woke up. Cold sweat covered him all over; his heart beat as hard as it could beat; her chest was so tight, as if her last breath wanted to fly out of her. “Was it really a dream?” “he said, holding his head with both hands, but the terrible vividness of the phenomenon was not like a dream. He saw, having already awakened, how the old man went into the frame, even the hem of his wide robe flashed, and his hand clearly felt that a minute before it was holding some kind of weight. The light of the moon illuminated the room, causing a canvas to emerge from its dark corners, a plaster arm, a drapery left on a chair, trousers and uncleaned boots. It was only then that he noticed that he was not lying in bed, but was standing on his feet right in front of the portrait. How he got here - he just couldn’t understand. He was even more amazed that the entire portrait was open and there really was no sheet on it. He looked at him with motionless fear and saw how living human eyes stared directly at him. Cold sweat broke out on his face; he wanted to move away, but he felt as if his feet were rooted to the ground. And he sees: this is no longer a dream: the old man’s features moved, and his lips began to stretch towards him, as if they wanted to suck him out... With a cry of despair, he jumped back and woke up. “Was this really a dream?” With his heart beating to bursting, he felt around himself with his hands. Yes, he is lying on the bed in the exact position he fell asleep. There are screens in front of him; the sung of the month filled the room. Through the gap in the screens a portrait was visible, properly covered with a sheet, just as he had covered it himself. So, it was also a dream! But the clenched hand feels to this day as if there was something in it. The heartbeat was strong, almost scary; the heaviness in my chest is unbearable. He fixed his eyes on the crack and gazed at the sheet. And then he clearly sees that the sheet is beginning to open, as if hands were floundering under it and trying to throw it off. “Lord, my God, what is this!” He cried out, crossing himself desperately, and woke up. And it was also a dream! He jumped out of bed, crazy, unconscious, and could no longer explain what was happening to him: the pressure of a nightmare or a brownie, delirium of fever or a living vision. Trying to somehow calm down the emotional unrest and the fluttering blood that was beating with a tense pulse through all his veins, he went to the window and opened the window. The cold smelling wind revived him. The moonlight still lay on the roofs and white walls of the houses, although small clouds began to cross the sky more often. Everything was quiet: from time to time the distant rattle of a cabman’s droshky reached his ears, who was sleeping somewhere in an invisible alley, lulled by his lazy nag, waiting for a belated rider. He looked for a long time, sticking his head out the window. Signs of the approaching dawn were already appearing in the sky; Finally he felt the approaching drowsiness, slammed the window, walked away, went to bed and soon fell asleep like the dead, in the deepest sleep. He woke up very late and felt in himself that unpleasant state that takes over a person after a stupor; his head ached unpleasantly. The room was dim; an unpleasant phlegm hung in the air and passed through the cracks of his windows, filled with paintings or primed canvas. Overcast, dissatisfied, like a wet rooster, he sat down on his tattered sofa, not knowing what to do, what to do, and finally remembered his whole dream. As he remembered, this dream seemed so painfully vivid in his imagination that he even began to suspect whether it was really a dream and simple delirium, whether there was something else here, whether this was a vision. Pulling off the sheet, he examined this terrible portrait in daylight. The eyes, indeed, amazed with their extraordinary liveliness, but he did not find anything unusually terrible in them; it was as if some inexplicable, unpleasant feeling remained in my soul. Despite all this, he still could not be completely sure that it was a dream. It seemed to him that in the middle of the dream there was some terrible fragment of reality. It seemed that even in the old man’s very look and expression something seemed to say that he was with him that night; his hand felt the heaviness that had just been lying within it, as if someone had snatched it from him only a minute before. It seemed to him that if he had held the bundle more tightly, it would probably have remained in his hand even after waking up. “My God, if only part of this money!” he said, sighing heavily, and in his imagination all the packages he had seen with the tempting inscription began to pour out of the bag: “1000 red rubles.” The bundles unwrapped, the gold glittered, was wrapped again, and he sat, staring motionless and senseless with his eyes into the empty air, unable to tear himself away from such an object, like a child sitting in front of a sweet dish and seeing, swallowing his saliva, how others eat it . Finally there was a knock at the door, causing him to wake up unpleasantly. The owner entered with the quarterly overseer, whose appearance for small people, as we know, is even more unpleasant than for the rich the face of a petitioner. The owner of the small house in which Chartkov lived was one of the creatures that are usually the owners of houses somewhere in the Fifteenth Line of Vasilievsky Island, on the Petersburg side or in a remote corner of Kolomna, a creation of which there are many in Rus' and whose character is just as difficult determine the color of a worn-out frock coat. In his youth he was a captain and a loudmouth, he was also used in civilian affairs, he was a good carver, he was efficient, a dandy, and a fool; but in his old age he merged all these sharp features into a kind of dull vagueness. He was already a widow, he was already retired, he no longer flaunted, did not brag, did not bully himself, he only loved to drink tea and chat all sorts of nonsense behind him; walked around the room, straightening the tallow candle; At the end of each month he carefully visited his tenants for money; went out into the street with a key in his hand to look at the roof of his house; several times he kicked the janitor out of his kennel, where he hid to sleep; one elephant, a retired man, who, after all his forgotten life and shaking on the crossroads, is left with only vulgar habits. “If you please, see for yourself, Varukh Kuzmich,” said the owner, turning to the policeman and spreading his arms, “he’s not paying the rent, he’s not paying.” What if there is no money? Wait, I'll pay. “I can’t wait, father,” said the owner angrily, making a gesture with the key he held in his hand, “Lieutenant Colonel Potogonkin lives with me, he’s been living for seven years; Anna Petrovna Bukhmisterova rents both a barn and a stable for two stalls, three servants with her, these are the kind of tenants I have. To tell you frankly, I don’t have an establishment where you don’t have to pay rent. If you please, pay the money right now and move out. “Yes, if you’re in order, then please pay,” said the quarterly overseer, with a slight shake of his head and putting his finger behind the button of his uniform. How to pay? question. I don't have a penny now. “In that case, satisfy Ivan Ivanovich with the products of your profession,” said the quarterly, “he may agree to take the paintings.” No, father, thank you for the pictures. It would be nice if there were paintings with noble content, so that you could hang on the wall, at least some general with a star or a portrait of Prince Kutuzov, otherwise he painted a guy over there, a guy in a shirt, rumors that he’s rubbing the paint. I can also draw a portrait from him, a pig; I'll stab him in the neck: he pulled all the nails out of my bolts, the swindler. Look at the objects: here he is painting a room. It would have been nice to have a tidy and tidy room, but this is how he painted it, with all the rubbish and squabbles that were lying around. Look how dirty my room is, if you please see for yourself. Yes, I have tenants who live for seven years, colonels, Anna Petrovna Bukhmisterova... No, I’ll tell you: there is no worse tenant than a painter: a pig lives like a pig, God forbid. And the poor painter had to listen to all this patiently. Meanwhile, the quarterly overseer began looking at the paintings and sketches and immediately showed that his soul was more alive than his master’s and was even no stranger to artistic impressions. Heh, he said, pointing his finger at one canvas, where a naked woman was depicted, an object that is... playful. Why is it so black under his nose? Did he put some tobacco on himself? Shadow, responded to this sternly and without turning Chartkov’s eyes to him. “Well, it could be taken somewhere else, but under the nose is too visible a place,” said the policeman, “whose portrait is this?” he continued, approaching the portrait of the old man, “it’s too scary.” As if he really was so scary; wow, he's just looking! Oh, what a Thunderbolt! Who did you write from? And this is from one... said Chartkov and did not finish his words: a crash was heard. The police officer apparently squeezed the frame of the portrait too tightly, thanks to the clumsy structure of his police hands; the side boards broke in, one fell to the floor, and with it fell, clinking heavily, a bundle of blue paper. Chartkov was struck by the inscription: “1000 chervonnykh.” Like a madman he rushed to pick it up, grabbed the package, squeezed it convulsively in his hand, which sank down from the weight. “No way, the money jingled,” said the policeman, who heard the knock of something falling on the floor and could not see it due to the speed with which Chartkov rushed to clean up. What business is it of yours to know what I have? And the thing is that you now have to pay the owner for the apartment; that you have money, but you don’t want to pay, that’s what. Well, I'll pay him today. Well, why didn’t you want to pay before, but you’re disturbing the owner, and you’re also disturbing the police? Because I didn’t want to touch this money; I’ll pay him everything this evening and move out of the apartment tomorrow, because I don’t want to stay with such a landlord. “Well, Ivan Ivanovich, he will pay you,” said the policeman, turning to the owner. And if about the fact that you will not be properly satisfied this evening, then excuse me, Mr. Painter. Having said this, he put on his triangular hat and went out into the hallway, followed by the owner, holding his head down and, as it seemed, in some kind of thought. “Thank God, the devil took them away!” said Chartkov when he heard the door in the front door close. He looked out into the hall, sent Nikita away for something so that he could be completely alone, locked the door behind him and, returning to his room, began to unwrap the package with a strong heart fluttering. There were chervonets in it, every single one of them new, hot as fire. Almost mad, he sat behind the golden heap, still asking himself if it was all a dream. There were exactly a thousand of them in the bundle; his appearance was exactly the same as he had seen them in his dream. For several minutes he went through them, reviewed them, and still could not come to his senses. Suddenly all the stories about treasures, caskets with hidden drawers left by ancestors for their ruined grandchildren, in firm confidence in the future of their squandered situation, were suddenly resurrected in his imagination. He thought like this: “Hasn’t some grandfather come up with the idea of ​​leaving a gift for his grandson, enclosing it in the frame of a family portrait?” Full of romantic delirium, he even began to think whether there was some secret connection with his fate: wasn’t the existence of the portrait connected with his own existence, and wasn’t its very acquisition already some kind of predestination? He began to examine the portrait frame with curiosity. In one side of it there was a hollowed out trench, pushed in with a plank so deftly and inconspicuously that if the capital hand of the quarterly overseer had not made a breach, the chervonets would have remained alone until the end of time. Examining the portrait, he again marveled at the high workmanship and the extraordinary finishing of the eyes; they no longer seemed scary to him, but an involuntarily unpleasant feeling still remained in his soul every time. “No,” he said to himself, “no matter whose grandfather you are, I will put you behind glass and make you golden frames for it.” Here he threw his hand on the golden heap that lay in front of him, and his heart beat strongly from such a touch. “What should we do with them? he thought, staring at them. Now I am provided for at least three years, I can lock myself in a room and work. Now I have paints; for lunch, for tea, for maintenance, for an apartment; Now no one will bother or bother me; I’ll buy myself an excellent manken, order a plaster torso, shape the legs, pose a Venus, buy engravings from the first paintings. And if I work for three years for myself, slowly, not for sale, I’ll kill them all, and I can be a glorious artist.” So he spoke at the same time as his reason told him; but another voice was heard from inside, more audible and louder. And when he looked at the gold again, his twenty-two years and ardent youth began to speak within him. Now he had in his power everything that he had previously looked at with envious eyes, which he had admired from afar, swallowing his saliva. Wow, how zealous he was when he just thought about it! Dress in a fashionable tailcoat, break his fast after a long fast, rent himself a nice apartment, go that same hour to the theater, to the pastry shop, to... and so on, and he, having grabbed the money, was already on the street. First of all, he went to the tailor, dressed himself from head to toe and, like a child, began to examine himself incessantly; bought perfume, lipsticks, rented, without haggling, the first magnificent apartment he came across on Nevsky Prospekt, with mirrors and solid glass; I accidentally bought an expensive lorgnette in a store, accidentally bought a whole lot of ties, more than I needed, curled my hair at the hairdresser, rode around the city twice in a carriage for no reason, ate too much sweets in a pastry shop and went to a French restaurant, about which I had hitherto heard the same vague rumors as about the Chinese state. There he dined with his arms akimbo, casting rather proud glances at others and constantly straightening his curled locks of hair against the mirror. There he drank a bottle of champagne, which was also previously more familiar to him by ear. The wine began to make some noise in his head, and he went out into the street alive, lively, in the Russian expression: no brother to the devil. He walked along the sidewalk like a nog, pointing his lorgnette at everyone. On the bridge he noticed his former professor and dashed dashingly past him, as if not noticing him at all, so that the dumbfounded professor stood motionless on the bridge for a long time, depicting a question mark on his face. All things and everything: the machine, the canvas, the paintings were transported to the magnificent apartment that same evening. He placed what was better in prominent places, what was worse, he threw it into a corner and walked around the magnificent rooms, constantly looking into the mirrors. An irresistible desire was revived in his soul to grab fame this very hour by the tail and show himself to the world. He could already imagine shouts: “Chartkov, Chartkov! Have you seen Chartkov's painting? What a fast brush Chartkov has! What a strong talent Chartkov has!” He walked around his room in an ecstatic state, rushing off to God knows where. The next day, taking ten ducats, he went to one publisher of a walking newspaper, asking for generous help; was received cordially by the journalist, who immediately called him “most respectable,” shook both hands, asked him in detail about his name, patronymic, place of residence, and the very next day an article with the following title appeared in the newspaper, following the announcement of newly invented tallow candles: “About Chartkov’s extraordinary talents”:“We hasten to please the educated residents of the capital with a wonderful acquisition, one might say, in all respects. Everyone agrees that we have many the most beautiful physiognomies and the most beautiful faces, but until now there has not been a means of transferring them to the miraculous canvas, for transmission to posterity; Now this deficiency has been replenished: an artist has been found who combines what is needed. Now the beauty can be sure that she will be conveyed with all the grace of her airy, light, charming, wonderful beauty, like moths fluttering among spring flowers. The venerable father of the family will see himself surrounded by his family. Merchant, warrior, citizen, statesman - everyone: will continue his career with new zeal. Hurry, hurry, come from a party, from a walk to a friend, to a cousin, to a brilliant store, hurry, from wherever you are. The artist’s magnificent studio (Nevsky Prospekt, such and such a number) is filled with portraits by his brush, worthy of Vandykov and Titian. You don’t know what to be surprised at: the fidelity and similarity to the originals or the extraordinary brightness and freshness of the brush. Praise be to you, artist! you took out a lucky ticket from the lottery. Vivat, Andrei Petrovich (the journalist, apparently, loved familiarity)! Celebrate yourself and us. We know how to appreciate you. A general crowd, and at the same time money, although some of our fellow journalists rebel against them, will be your reward.” The artist read this announcement with secret pleasure; his face lit up. They started talking about him in print; it was news to him; He reread the lines several times. The comparison with Vandyck and Titian greatly flattered him. The phrase “Vivat, Andrey Petrovich!” I also really liked it; in print they call him by his first name and patronymic, an honor completely unknown to him to this day. He quickly began walking around the room, ruffling his hair, then sat down on chairs, then jumped up from them and sat on the sofa, imagining every minute how he would receive visitors, approached the canvas and made a dashing brush stroke over it, trying to convey graceful hand movements. The next day the bell rang at his door; he ran to open the door. A lady entered, led by a footman in a fur-lined livery overcoat, and along with the lady entered a young eighteen-year-old girl, her daughter. “Are you Monsieur Chartkov?” said the lady. The artist bowed. So much is written about you; your portraits, they say, are the height of perfection. Having said this, the lady pointed her lorgnette at her eye and ran quickly to inspect the walls, on which there was nothing. Where are your portraits? They took it out, said the artist, somewhat confused, I just moved into this apartment, so they are still on the way... haven’t arrived yet. Have you been to Italy? said the lady, pointing her lorgnette at him, not finding anything else to point him at. No, I wasn’t, but I wanted to be... however, now I put it off for now... Here are the chairs, sir, are you tired?.. Thank you, I sat in the carriage for a long time. Ah, I finally see your work! said the lady, running to the opposite wall and pointing her lorgnette at his sketches, programs, perspectives and portraits standing on the floor. C"est charmant! Lise, Lise, venez ici! The room is in Tenier's style, you see: a mess, a disorder, a table, on it there is a bust, a hand, a palette; there is dust, you see how the dust is painted! C"est charmant! But on another canvas there is a woman washing her face, quelle jolie figure! Ah, man! Lise, Lise, a man in a Russian shirt! look: man! So you don't just do portraits? Oh, this is nonsense... So, I was naughty... sketches... Tell me, what is your opinion about current portrait painters? Isn’t it true that now there are no people like Titian? There is no that power in color, there is no that... what a pity that I cannot express to you in Russian (the lady was a lover of painting and ran around all the galleries in Italy with a lorgnette). However, Monsieur Zero... oh, how he writes! What an extraordinary brush! I find that he has even more expression in his faces than Titian. You don't know Monsieur Nohl? Who is this Zero? asked the artist. Monsieur Zero. Oh, what talent! he painted a portrait of her when she was only twelve years old. We definitely need you to be with us. Lise, show him your album. You know that we came so that we could begin a portrait of her right away. Well, I'm ready this minute. And in an instant he moved the machine with the finished canvas, took the palette in his hands, and fixed his eyes on his daughter’s pale face. If he had been a connoisseur of human nature, he would have read on him in one minute the beginning of a childish passion for balls, the beginning of melancholy and complaints about the length of time before and after dinner, the desire to run around in a new dress at festivities, heavy traces of indifferent diligence in various arts , inspired by the mother to elevate the soul and feelings. But the artist saw in this gentle face only the almost porcelain transparency of the body, tempting for the brush, the captivating light languor, the thin light neck and the aristocratic lightness of the figure. And he was already preparing in advance to triumph, to show the lightness and brilliance of his brush, which until now had dealt only with the hard features of rough models, with strict antiques and copies of some classical masters. He was already imagining in his mind how this light little face would come out. “You know,” said the lady with a somewhat touching expression on her face, “I would like... she’s wearing a dress now; I confess that I would not want her to be in the dress to which we are so accustomed; I would like her to be dressed simply and sit in the shade of greenery, in view of some fields, with herds in the distance or a grove... so that it would not be noticeable that she is going somewhere to a ball or a fashionable evening. Our balls, I admit, so kill the soul, so kill the remnants of feelings... simplicity, simplicity so that there is more. Alas! It was written on the faces of both mother and daughter that they had danced so hard at the balls that they both became almost waxen. Chartkov got down to business, sat down the original, figured it all out somewhat in his head; he ran a brush through the air, mentally establishing points; He narrowed several eyes, leaned back, looked from afar, and in one hour began and finished the underpainting. Pleased with her, he began to write; the work attracted him. He had already forgotten everything, even forgot that he was in the presence of aristocratic ladies, sometimes even began to show some artistic skills, pronouncing various sounds out loud, sometimes singing along, as happens with an artist immersed with all his soul in his work. Without any ceremony, with one movement of his brush, he forced the original to raise its head, which finally began to spin violently and express complete fatigue. “That’s enough, that’s enough for the first time,” said the lady. “A little more,” said the forgotten artist. No, it's time! Lise, three o'clock! she said, taking out a small watch hanging on a gold chain from her sash, and cried out: Oh, how late! “Just a minute,” said Chartkov in the simple-minded and pleading voice of a child. But the lady, it seems, was not at all inclined to please his artistic needs this time and promised instead to sit longer next time. “This, however, is annoying,” Chartkov thought to himself, “the hand has just moved apart.” And he remembered that no one interrupted or stopped him when he was working in his workshop on Vasilyevsky Island; Nikita used to sit stiffly in one place - write from him as much as you like; he even fell asleep in the position ordered for him. And, dissatisfied, he put his brush and palette on a chair and stood vaguely in front of the canvas. A compliment said by a society lady awakened him from his slumber. He rushed quickly to the door to see them off; on the stairs he received an invitation to visit, to come for dinner next week, and with a cheerful look he returned to his room. The aristocratic lady completely charmed him. Until now, he had looked at such creatures as something inaccessible, who were born only to rush along in a magnificent carriage with livery footmen and a dandy coachman and cast an indifferent glance at a man walking on foot in a poor raincoat. And suddenly now one of these creatures entered his room; he paints a portrait and is invited to dinner at an aristocratic house. An extraordinary contentment took possession of him; he was completely intoxicated and rewarded himself for this with a glorious dinner, an evening performance, and again rode in a carriage around the city without any need. During all these days, ordinary work did not come to his mind at all. He was just getting ready and waiting for the minute the bell would ring. Finally, the aristocratic lady arrived with her pale daughter. He sat them down, moved the canvas with dexterity and pretensions to social manners, and began to paint. The sunny day and clear light helped him a lot. He saw in his light original a lot of things that, if captured and transferred to the canvas, could give high dignity to the portrait; he saw that something special could be done if everything was done in such finality as nature now seemed to him. His heart even began to flutter slightly when he felt that he would express something that others had not yet noticed. The work occupied him entirely; he immersed himself entirely in his brush, again forgetting about the aristocratic origin of the original. As I caught my breath, I saw how his light features emerged and the almost transparent body of a seventeen-year-old girl. He caught every shade, a slight yellowness, a barely noticeable blue under his eyes, and was even preparing to grab a small pimple that had popped up on his forehead, when he suddenly heard his mother’s voice above him. “Oh, why is that? “This is not necessary,” the lady said. You too... here, in some places... it seems to be somewhat yellow and here it’s completely like dark spots.” The artist began to explain that these spots and yellowness are played out well, that they make up the pleasant and light tones of the face. But they answered him that they would not make up any tones and were not played out at all; and that it only seems so to him. “But let me touch a little yellow paint here in just one place,” said the artist innocently. But this was not allowed to him. It was announced that Lise was just a little out of sorts today, and that there was no yellowness in her, and her face was particularly striking with the freshness of her paint. With sadness, he began to erase what his brush had forced to appear on the canvas. Many almost imperceptible features disappeared, and along with them the similarity partially disappeared. He insensitively began to convey to him that general coloring that is given by heart and turns even faces taken from life into some kind of coldly ideal one, visible in student programs. But the lady was pleased that the offensive coloring had been completely banished. She only expressed surprise that the work was taking so long, and added that she had heard that he finished a complete portrait in two sessions. The artist couldn’t find anything to answer to this. The ladies got up and were about to leave. He put down his brush, walked them to the door, and after that for a long time remained vaguely in the same place in front of his portrait. He looked at him stupidly, and meanwhile in his head there were those light feminine features, those shades and airy tones that he noticed, which his brush mercilessly destroyed. Being completely full of them, he put the portrait aside and found somewhere the abandoned head of Psyche, which he had long ago sketched on the canvas. It was a face, cleverly painted, but absolutely ideal, cold, consisting only common features, which has not taken on a living body. Having nothing else to do, he now began to walk through it, remembering on it everything that he had happened to notice in the face of the aristocratic visitor. The features, shades and tones he captured lay down here in the purified form in which they appear when the artist, having looked at nature, moves away from it and produces a creation equal to it. The psyche began to come to life, and the barely visible thought began to little by little take on a visible body. The type of face of a young society girl was involuntarily communicated to Psyche, and through this she received a peculiar expression, giving the right to the name truly original work. It seemed that he had taken advantage, piece by piece and together, of everything that the original had presented to him, and had become completely attached to his work. For several days he was occupied only with her. And at this very work he was caught by the arrival of some ladies he knew. He did not have time to remove the painting from the machine. Both ladies let out a joyful cry of amazement and clasped their hands. Lise, Lise! Oh, how similar! Superbe, superbe! How nice of you to dress her in Greek costume. Oh, what a surprise! The artist did not know how to get the ladies out of their pleasant delusion. Feeling ashamed and lowering his head, he said quietly: This is Psyche. In the form of Psyche? “C"est charmant! said the mother, smiling, and the daughter smiled too. Isn’t it true, Lise, it suits you best to be depicted as Psyche? Quelle idée délicieuse! But what a job! This is Corregge. I confess, I read and I heard about you, but I didn’t know that you had such talent. No, you should definitely paint a portrait of me too. The lady, apparently, also wanted to appear in the form of some kind of Psyche. “What should I do with them?” thought the artist. “If they themselves want it, then let Psyche go for what they want,” and said out loud: Take the trouble to sit down a little more, I’ll touch something a little. Oh, I'm afraid that somehow you won't... she looks so much like that now. But the artist realized that there were concerns about yellowness, and calmed them down, saying that it would only give more shine and expression to the eyes. And to be fair, he was too ashamed and wanted to at least give it some more resemblance to the original, so that no one would reproach him for decisive shamelessness. And sure enough, the pale girl’s features finally began to emerge more clearly from Psyche’s appearance. “Enough!” said the mother, who was beginning to fear that the resemblance might finally come too close. The artist was rewarded with everything: a smile, money, a compliment, a sincere handshake, an invitation to dinner; in short, he received a thousand flattering awards. The portrait created a stir throughout the city. The lady showed it to her friends; everyone was amazed at the art with which the artist was able to preserve the resemblance and at the same time give beauty to the original. The latter was noticed, of course, not without a slight hint of envy on his face. And the artist was suddenly besieged by works. It seemed that the whole city wanted to write with him. The doorbell rang every minute. On the one hand, this could be good, presenting him with endless practice with variety, many faces. But, unfortunately, these were all people with whom it was difficult to get along, a people who were hasty, busy or belonged to the world - therefore, even busier than anyone else, and therefore impatient to the extreme. From all sides they just demanded that it be good and soon. The artist saw that it was absolutely impossible to finish, that everything had to be replaced with dexterity and quick agility of the brush. Capture only one whole, one general expression and not go deeper with a brush into subtle details; in a word, it was absolutely impossible to follow nature in its finality. Moreover, it must be added that almost all of those who wrote had many other claims for different things. The ladies demanded that predominantly only the soul and character be depicted in portraits, and that sometimes the rest should not be adhered to at all, that all corners should be rounded, all flaws should be lightened, and even, if possible, avoided altogether. In a word, so that you can stare at the face, if not completely fall in love. And as a result, when they sat down to write, they sometimes adopted expressions that amazed the artist: one tried to portray melancholy in her face, another dreaminess, the third wanted to make her mouth smaller at all costs and squeezed it to such an extent that he finally turned to one point, no larger than the head of a pin. And, despite all this, they demanded from him similarity and effortless naturalness. The men were no better than the ladies either. One demanded to portray himself in a strong, energetic turn of the head; another with inspired eyes raised upward; the guards lieutenant absolutely demanded that Mars be visible in his eyes; The civil dignitary strove to have more directness and nobility in his face and to have his hand rest on a book on which it would be written in clear words: “I always stood for the truth.” At first, the artist was challenged by such demands: all this had to be figured out, thought through, and yet very little time was given. Finally he figured out what the matter was, and there was no difficulty at all. Even from two or three words, he figured out who wanted to portray himself with what. Whoever wanted Mars, he shoved Mars in his face; whoever aimed at Byron, he gave him Byron's position and turn. Whether the ladies wanted to be Corinne, Undine, or Aspasia, he agreed with great willingness to everything and added plenty of good looks of his own, which, as we know, does not spoil anything and for which sometimes even the very dissimilarity will be forgiven the artist. Soon he himself began to marvel at the wonderful speed and agility of his brush. And those who wrote, it goes without saying, were delighted and proclaimed him a genius. Chartkov became a fashionable painter in all respects. He began to go to dinners, accompany ladies to galleries and even to festivities, dress smartly and publicly assert that an artist should belong to society, that his title should be supported, that artists dress like shoemakers, do not know how to behave decently, do not observe the highest tone and deprived of any education. At home, in his studio, he introduced neatness and cleanliness to the highest degree, appointed two magnificent footmen, got smart students, changed clothes several times a day in different morning suits, curled his hair, began to improve the various manners with which to receive visitors, and began decorating in every possible way. by means of his appearance in order to make a pleasant impression on the ladies; in a word, soon it was impossible to recognize him at all as that modest artist who had once worked unnoticed in his shack on Vasilyevsky Island. He now spoke sharply about artists and art: he argued that too much dignity had already been attributed to previous artists, that all of them before Raphael painted not figures, but herrings; that the thought exists only in the imagination of the observers, as if the presence of some kind of holiness is visible in them; that Raphael himself did not even write everything well and many of his works retained their fame only by legend; that Miquel Angel is a braggart because he only wanted to boast of his knowledge of anatomy, that there is no grace in him and that true brilliance, power of brush and color must be sought only now, in this century. Here, naturally, involuntarily, the matter came to itself. “No, I don’t understand,” he said, “the stress of others to sit and pore over work. This man, who spends several months poring over a painting, is, to me, a worker, not an artist. I don't believe he has any talent. A genius creates boldly and quickly. “For me,” he said, usually addressing visitors, “I painted this portrait in two days, this head in one day, this in a few hours, this in just over an hour. No, I... I confess, I don’t recognize as art what is put together line by line; This is a craft, not an art. This is what he told his visitors, and the visitors marveled at the strength and agility of his brush, they even uttered exclamations when they heard how quickly they were produced, and then told each other: “This is talent, true talent! Look how he speaks, how his eyes sparkle! Il y a quelque chose d"extraordinaire dans toute sa figure!" The artist was flattered to hear such rumors about himself. When printed praise for him appeared in magazines, he rejoiced like a child, although this praise was bought by him with his own money. He carried such a printed sheet everywhere and, as if inadvertently, showed it to his acquaintances and friends, and this amused him to the point of his most simple-minded naivety. His fame grew, his works and orders increased. He had already begun to tire of the same portraits and faces, whose positions and expressions had become memorized to him. Already without much desire, he wrote and tried to sketch out only one head, and let the rest be completed by his students. Before, he was still looking to give some new position, to amaze with force and effect. Now he was getting bored with this too. The mind was tired of inventing and thinking. He couldn’t bear it, and he didn’t have time: his distracted life and society, where he tried to play the role of a secular man, all this took him far from work and thoughts. His brush grew cold and dull, and he insensitively enclosed himself in monotonous, definite, long-worn forms. The monotonous, cold, always tidy and, so to speak, buttoned-up faces of officials, military and civilians did not provide much field for the brush: it forgot the magnificent draperies, and strong movements, and passions. There was nothing to say about the groups, about the artistic drama, about its high premise. Before him were only a uniform, a corset, and a tailcoat, before which the artist feels cold and all imagination fades. Even the most ordinary merits were no longer visible in his works, and yet they still enjoyed fame, although true experts and artists only shrugged their shoulders when looking at his latest works. And some who knew Chartkov before could not understand how a talent could disappear in him, the signs of which were already clearly visible in him at the very beginning, and in vain they tried to figure out how a talent could fade away in a person, while he had only just reached its full potential. development of all your powers. But the intoxicated artist did not hear these rumors. He was already beginning to reach the age of sedateness of mind and years; began to get fat and apparently expand in width. Already in newspapers and magazines he read adjectives: “our venerable Andrei Petrovich,” “our honored Andrei Petrovich.” They have already begun offering him positions of honor, inviting him to exams and to committees. He had already begun, as always happens in years of honor, to strongly take the side of Raphael and the ancient artists, not because he was fully convinced of their high dignity, but because he wanted to poke them in the eyes of young artists. He had already begun, as is the custom of everyone entering such years, to reproach the youth without exception for immorality and the bad direction of the spirit. He was already beginning to believe that everything in the world was done simply, there was no inspiration from above, and everything must necessarily be subjected to one strict order of accuracy and uniformity. In a word, his life has already touched those years when everything that breathes with impulse is compressed in a person, when a powerful bow weaker reaches the soul and does not wrap around the heart with piercing sounds, when the touch of beauty no longer turns virgin forces into fire and flame, but everything burnt-out feelings become more accessible to the sound of gold, listen more attentively to its tempting music and little by little insensitively allow it to completely lull itself to sleep. Fame cannot give pleasure to those who stole it and did not deserve it; it produces constant awe only in those worthy of it. And therefore all his feelings and impulses turned to gold. Gold became his passion, ideal, fear, pleasure, goal. Bunches of banknotes grew in the chests, and like anyone who receives this terrible gift, he began to become boring, inaccessible to everything except gold, a causeless miser, a dissolute collector, and was already ready to turn into one of those strange creatures of which one comes across a lot in our insensitive light, at which a person full of life and heart looks with horror, to whom they seem to be moving stone coffins with a dead man inside instead of a heart. But one event greatly shocked and awakened his entire life. One day he saw a note on his desk in which the Academy of Arts asked him, as a worthy member of it, to come and give his opinion on a new work sent from Italy by a Russian artist who had perfected himself there. This artist was one of his former comrades, who from early years carried within himself a passion for art, with the fiery soul of a worker, plunged into it with all his soul, broke away from friends, from relatives, from sweet habits and rushed to where, in the sight of the beautiful skies, the majestic hotbed of arts was singing, to that wonderful Rome, with the name which the artist’s fiery heart beats so fully and strongly. There, like a hermit, he plunged into work and unentertained activities. He did not care whether they talked about his character, about his inability to deal with people, about failure to observe social decency, about the humiliation that he caused to the title of artist with his scanty, unfashionable attire. He didn't care whether his brothers were angry with him or not. He neglected everything, gave everything to art. Tirelessly visited galleries, stood for hours in front of the works of great masters, catching and pursuing a wonderful brush. He did not finish anything without speaking with these great teachers several times and reading silent and eloquent advice for himself in their creations. He did not engage in noisy conversations and arguments; he stood neither for the purists nor against the purists. He equally gave his due to everything, extracting from everything only what was beautiful in him, and finally left only the divine Raphael as his teacher. Just as a great poet-artist, having read many different works, filled with many charms and majestic beauties, finally left only Homer’s Iliad as his reference book, discovering that it contains everything you want, and that there is nothing that is not reflected here already in such deep and great perfection. And on the other hand, he took from his school the majestic idea of ​​creation, the mighty beauty of thought, the lofty charm of the heavenly brush. Entering the hall, Chartkov already found a whole huge crowd of visitors gathered in front of the painting. The deepest silence, which rarely happens between crowded connoisseurs, this time reigned everywhere. He hastened to assume the significant physiognomy of a connoisseur and approached the painting; but, God, what he saw! Pure, immaculate, beautiful, like a bride, stood before him the artist’s work. Modest, divine, innocent and simple, like a genius, it rose above everything. It seemed that the heavenly figures, amazed by so many gazes fixed on them, shyly lowered their beautiful eyelashes. With a feeling of involuntary amazement, experts contemplated the new, unprecedented brush. Everything here seemed to come together: the study of Raphael, reflected in the high nobility of the positions, the study of Correggius, breathing in the final perfection of the brush.” But most powerfully visible was the power of creation, already contained in the soul of the artist himself. The last object in the picture was imbued with it; in everything they will comprehend the law and inner strength. Everywhere one could catch this floating roundness of lines, contained in nature, which is seen only by one eye of the artist-creator and which comes out at the corners of the copyist. It was clear how the artist first enclosed everything extracted from the external world into his soul and from there, from the spiritual spring, directed it into one consonant, solemn song. And it became clear even to the uninitiated what an immeasurable gap exists between the creation and a simple copy from nature. It was almost impossible to express that extraordinary silence that involuntarily enveloped everyone who had their eyes fixed on the picture - not a rustle, not a sound; and meanwhile the picture seemed higher and higher every minute; brighter and more wonderfully separated from everything and everything finally turned into one moment, the fruit of a thought that flew from heaven onto the artist, a moment for which all human life is only preparation. Involuntary tears were ready to roll down the faces of the visitors surrounding the painting. It seemed that all the tastes, all the daring, irregular deviations of taste merged into some kind of silent hymn to the divine work. Chartkov stood motionless, with his mouth open, in front of the painting, and finally, when little by little visitors and experts began to make noise and began to talk about the merits of the work, and when they finally turned to him with a request to announce his thoughts, he came to his senses; I wanted to assume an indifferent, ordinary look, I wanted to say the ordinary, vulgar judgment of callous artists, like the following: “Yes, of course, it’s true, you can’t take talent away from an artist; there is something; it is clear that he wanted to express something; however, as for the main thing...” And after this add, of course, such praise that would not be good for any artist. He wanted to do this, but the speech died on his lips, tears and sobs burst out discordantly in response, and he ran out of the hall like a madman. For a minute, motionless and emotionless, he stood in the middle of his magnificent workshop. His entire composition, his whole life was awakened in an instant, as if youth had returned to him, as if extinguished sparks of talent flared up again. The bandage suddenly came off his eyes. God! and destroy so mercilessly best years of his youth; to destroy, to extinguish the spark of fire, perhaps, which was warming in the chest, perhaps, would now develop in greatness and beauty, perhaps, also tearing out tears of amazement and gratitude! And destroy it all, destroy it without any pity! It seemed as if at that moment, at once and suddenly, those tensions and impulses that were once familiar to him came to life in his soul. He grabbed the brush and approached the canvas. The sweat of effort appeared on his face; He turned entirely into one desire and was fired up by one thought: he wanted to portray a fallen angel. This idea was most in agreement with the state of his soul. But alas! his figures, poses, groups, thoughts lay forced and incoherently. His brush and imagination were already too confined to one measure, and the powerless impulse to transgress the boundaries and fetters he had thrown over himself already felt like irregularity and error. He neglected the tedious, long ladder of gradual information and the first fundamental laws of the great future. Annoyance penetrated him. He ordered all the latest works, all the lifeless fashionable pictures, all the portraits of hussars, ladies and state councilors to be taken out of his studio. He locked himself alone in his room, did not order anyone to be let in, and completely immersed himself in work. Like a patient youth, like a student, he sat at his work. But how mercilessly and ungratefully was everything that came out from under his brush! At every step he was stopped by ignorance of the most primitive elements; a simple, insignificant mechanism cooled the entire impulse and stood as an unsurpassable threshold for the imagination. The hand involuntarily turned to rigid forms, the arms folded in one memorized manner, the head did not dare to make an unusual turn, even the very folds of the dress responded to the rigid form and did not want to obey and drape in an unfamiliar position of the body. And he felt, he felt and saw it himself! “But did I really have talent?” he said finally, “was I deceived?” And, having uttered these words, he approached his previous works, which were once worked so purely, so disinterestedly, there, in a poor shack on the secluded Vasilyevsky Island, far away from people, abundance and all sorts of whims. He now approached them and began to carefully examine them all, and along with them his whole previous poor life began to appear in his memory. “Yes,” he said desperately, “I had talent. Everywhere, on everything, its signs and traces are visible...” He stopped and suddenly shook with his whole body: his eyes met those motionless eyes staring at him. It was that extraordinary portrait that he bought at Shchukin’s yard. It was closed all the time, cluttered with other pictures and completely out of his thoughts. Now, as if on purpose, when all the fashionable portraits and paintings that filled the studio had been taken out, he looked up along with the previous works of his youth. How he remembered his whole strange story, how he remembered that in some way he, this strange portrait, was the reason for his transformation, that the treasure of money he received in such a miraculous way gave birth to all the vain impulses in him that ruined his talent - he was almost ready for rage. was to break into his soul. He immediately ordered the hated portrait to be taken away. But the emotional unrest did not pacify because of this: all the feelings and the entire composition were shaken to the bottom, and he recognized that terrible torment that, as a striking exception, sometimes appears in nature when a weak talent tries to express itself in a size that exceeds it and cannot express itself; that torment that gives birth to great things in a young man, but when he has gone beyond dreams turns into fruitless thirst; that terrible torment that makes a person capable of terrible atrocities. He was overcome by terrible envy, envy to the point of rage. Bile appeared on his face when he saw a work that bore the stamp of talent. He gnashed his teeth and devoured him with the gaze of a basilisk. The most hellish intention that a person had ever harbored was revived in his soul, and with frantic strength he rushed to bring it into execution. He began to buy up all the best that art produced. Having bought the painting at a high price, he carefully brought it to his room and, with the fury of a tiger, rushed at it, tore it, tore it, cut it into pieces and trampled it with his feet, accompanied by laughter of pleasure. The countless riches he collected provided him with all the means to satisfy this hellish desire. He untied all his golden bags and opened his chests. Never has any monster of ignorance destroyed so many beautiful works as this ferocious avenger destroyed. At all the auctions where he was shown, everyone despaired in advance of acquiring an artistic creation. It seemed as if an angry sky had deliberately sent this terrible scourge into the world, wanting to rob it of all its harmony. This terrible passion cast some terrible color over him: eternal bile was present on his face. Blasphemy against the world and denial were depicted naturally in his features. It seemed that he personified that terrible demon that Pushkin ideally portrayed. Apart from poisonous words and eternal reproach, his lips uttered nothing. Like some kind of harpy, he came across him on the street, and everyone, even his acquaintances, seeing him from afar, tried to dodge and avoid such a meeting, saying that it would be enough to poison the whole day. Fortunately for the world and the arts, such an intense and violent life could not last long: the size of the passions was too irregular and colossal for her weak forces. Attacks of rage and madness began to appear more often, and finally it all turned into the most terrible disease. A severe fever, combined with the most rapid consumption, took possession of him so fiercely that in three days only a shadow remained of him. Added to this were all the signs of hopeless madness. Sometimes several people could not hold him. He began to imagine the long-forgotten, living eyes of the extraordinary portrait, and then his rage was terrible. All the people surrounding his bed seemed like terrible portraits to him. He doubled, quadrupled in his eyes; all the walls seemed hung with portraits, staring at him with their motionless, living eyes. Terrible portraits looked from the ceiling, from the floor, the room expanded and continued endlessly to accommodate these motionless eyes. The doctor, who had taken upon himself the responsibility of using it and had already heard a little about its strange history, tried with all his might to find the secret relationship between the ghosts he dreamed of and the events of his life, but could not manage to do anything. The patient did not understand or feel anything except his torment, and uttered only terrible screams and incomprehensible speeches. Finally, his life was interrupted in the last, now silent, burst of suffering. His corpse was terrible. They also could not find anything from his enormous wealth; but, having seen the cut pieces of those high works of art, the price of which exceeded millions, they realized their terrible use.

The prose of Nikolai Gogol in Russian literature is on a par with the works of Pushkin, Turgenev and Tolstoy. His stories allow us to immerse ourselves in the life of the inhabitants Russian Empire, immerse yourself in its atmosphere, understand what questions the Russian intelligentsia of that time was trying to find answers to.

His story “Portrait” reveals to us not only the problems of society that the writer saw before himself, but also the human soul itself in all its ambiguity. The many-wise Litrecon offers you an analysis of the “Portrait” according to plan.

The history of writing the story “Portrait” is Interesting Facts from the life and work of Gogol, which are worthy of your attention:

1. The story “Portrait” became one of Gogol’s first creations. The idea for this piece came to him after living in St. Petersburg in the twenties. During this period, Gogol was unable to enter drama school, lived in poverty and was in great need of money. In this regard, he perceived the northern capital as a gloomy and cold city in which there is no place for warmth and kindness.
2. The very idea of ​​the work came to the writer’s mind in 1832, when that difficult period of his life was already far behind. Gogol began working on the story in 1833 and finished it a year later.
3. The first version of “Portrait” was not to the liking of critics, in particular V.G. Belinsky, so Gogol significantly revised the book and published a new version in the Sovremennik magazine in 1842. This is what we know as the main one.
4. Contemporaries guessed A.A. as the prototype of the artist who painted the fatal portrait. Ivanov, who worked on the religious painting “The Appearance of the Messiah.”

Genre and direction

The story "Portrait" refers to literary direction fantastic. The author strives for a reliable reflection of reality. Despite some fantastic assumptions, the characters themselves, their words and actions look authentic and organic. The reader can believe in the reality of the events described by Gogol.

The genre of the work “Portrait” can be defined as a fantasy story. The narrative covers a relatively short period of time and includes a small number of characters, while the narrative is filled with a large number of details and clarifications designed to emphasize the atmosphere. The plot is based on a fantastic assumption.

Composition and conflict

The story “Portrait” is divided into two parts: the first tells about Chartkov, and the second about the history of the portrait he acquired.

The composition of each part of the story is classical and is divided into an exposition in which we are introduced to the main character, a beginning in which an ill-fated portrait appears in the story, a climax in which the hero’s conflict with himself reaches its apogee, a denouement in which the hero dies and a finale in which which everything storylines logically complete.

The conflict of the work is based on the confrontation between the individual and society and himself. The artist's painful choice between true art and recognition from the crowd.

Meaning of the name

The title of the story “Portrait” contains the name of the object that triggered all the events of the book, radically influencing the fate of the hero. Thus, Gogol immediately highlights the main detail in his work, which unites both parts around itself.

The name also carries a hidden meaning. Gogol sought to give a portrait of society, to show all its vices to readers. Thus, the title contains the main idea of ​​the entire work.

The point: what is the story about?

The story “Portrait” tells us about the poor but extremely talented artist Chartkov. One day, in a shop in Shchukin's yard, he sees a portrait of an old man in Asian clothes. The painting fascinates Chartkov, and he buys it with his last money.

Returning home, the hero cannot get rid of an uneasy feeling. It seems to him that the portrait is watching him. At night, he has a dream about how the portrait comes to life, and the old man begins to count bundles of money.

In the morning they begin to demand payment from Chartkov for his wretched home. The hero has no money, but suddenly a package containing a thousand ducats is hidden in the frame of the portrait. The hero begins a bright streak in his life. He pays off his debts, buys a new apartment, buys a laudatory article in the newspaper, and soon receives his first order.

The hero begins to work on a portrait of a rich girl, he tries to do his work efficiently, perfectly. But the customer demands something different, and as a result, Chartkov creates a beautiful, but soulless product. The initial confusion begins to dissipate after receiving the reward.

After some time, Chartkov becomes a famous painter: he earns a lot of money, is popular, but his paintings are soulless, and the fire of true creativity in him has died out. The hero turned into a skilled but limited artisan serving the rich.

But one day, after visiting an exhibition and seeing a painting of an angel created by his longtime acquaintance, who devoted his entire life to art, Chartkov realizes that his creations are terrible.

The hero works hard, trying to regain his lost talent, but turns out to be no longer able to create something truly beautiful. Chartkov becomes mentally damaged and begins to buy masterpieces of painting and destroy them.

As a result, the hero dies. After some time, the same portrait of an old man appears at an auction, and we learn that it depicts an old moneylender. The son of the author of the painting comes there and tells the story of his father. The artist decided to work with a moneylender who ruined and killed many people. But with each session he felt how the devilish power was growing stronger in this portrait. He began to quarrel with loved ones, get angry and experience negative feelings. Realizing the reason, he quit his job, despite the persuasion of the moneylender. He sent him the painting, but did not pay, and soon died. The artist wanted to destroy the portrait, but he was prevented by a friend who took away the canvas, saying, why should something good disappear? But all the owners of the painting encountered misfortunes and did not die a natural death.

The artist who created it went to a monastery and instructed his son to destroy the portrait, claiming that the devilish part of the old man’s soul remained in the portrait. The son of that same artist attends the auction, intending to fulfill his father's will, but the portrait mysteriously disappears.

The Many-Wise Litrekon wrote more about the plot of “Portrait” in.

The main characters and their characteristics

The system of images and characteristics of the heroes of “Portrait” are reflected by the Many-Wise Litrecon in the table:

The main characters of "Portrait"	Characteristic
Chartkov	A carefree and gifted young man of twenty-two years old, who goes from a talented but poor artist serving art to a popular but mediocre painter who cares only about money. The portrait awakens in the hero the worst traits of his character: vanity, greed and weakness of spirit. Chartkov is a small man who did not have enough strength to develop his gift. He fell victim to the vain and cold city.
Old man	a moneylender hated by everyone who died before the story begins. This is a smart, cunning and powerful man whom everyone was afraid of. The money given to them brought only misfortune. Symbolizes all the evil and depravity of people.
Portrait image	The portrait had a hypnotic effect and terrified observers. The heroes of the story especially note the old man’s eyes, which watch the victim from any angle. They contain the magical power of the painting, releasing the dark forces of the soul.
Artist, author of the painting	A conscientious and gifted painter, an exemplary family man, a deeply religious person who devoted his entire life to art. He agreed to paint a portrait only in order to later depict a biblical character. When he realized the effect of the picture, he immediately quit the business, despite the money. Then he lived in a monastery for a long time and atone for his sin in prayer. This was the only way he managed to restore the purity of his brush.
Image of St. Petersburg	A city of dishonest and greedy people, where everyone lives by deception. Here, everyone only needs money from you, so any city dweller is ready to sell himself for the recognition of the crowd and material well-being. Petersburg is destroying and corrupting.

The images of the characters in “Portrait” can be supplemented if you write in the comments what exactly is missing.

Themes

The theme of the story “Portrait” is close to everyone who has a relationship or interest in art:

1. Art- according to the writer, creative person, who has chosen the path of serving real art, takes on a heavy burden. A true creator becomes the owner of the enormous power of art, which is capable of changing human souls themselves. Often the creator himself never finds his happiness, but, for Gogol, it is worth it.
2. Craft– in the person of Chartkov, the author portrayed a typical artisan who works for money and popularity, and not to change the world. Such an artisan, who left real art for the sake of profit, may become rich and adored, but he will never be truly happy. He is doomed to disappointment and spiritual death. Gogol's view of art is dictated by his own biography: he never started a family, but devoted all his energy to the literary field.
3. The fate of the artist– Gogol shows that the creator has two paths: serving real art or pursuing profit. The writer undoubtedly chooses the path of a true artist, despite all the misfortunes that await a person along it.
4. Petersburg– as usual, St. Petersburg is depicted by Gogol as a gloomy and cold place where there is no place for pity and compassion, and people are subject to numerous vices.
5. Small man. Chartkov is not the owner, but the victim of the city. He is weak, dependent on public opinion and even goes crazy at the end of the story. His path to his dream ended in complete disappointment, because false values they confused him and led him into a thicket, from which the hero was not destined to find a way out. Unlike a real creator, he was unable to overcome temptations.
6. Faith. Religion serves as a guiding star for the creator. She helps him cleanse his soul and brush for real masterpieces.

Problems

The issues in the story “Portrait” are no less significant for understanding the text:

• good and evil– evil in the novel is personified by the portrait of an old moneylender. According to Gogol, the most terrible sin of humanity is greed. It is greed that overcomes Chartkov, kills the good in him and ultimately leads him to such a tragic ending. As a result, the portrait disappears, Gogol makes it clear that the struggle between light and darkness is not over yet. We see goodness in the author of the portrait, who quelled the devilish temptations within himself and was able to cleanse himself of filth in the monastery, which is opposed to the sinful capital.
• Greed- according to the writer, money - main reason of all evil. Having chased money and succumbed to the temptations of the material world, a person will no longer be able to find a way back. He is doomed to slowly sink into the abyss.
• Vanity– Chartkov, having managed to achieve popularity and wealth, became proud, beginning to consider himself a real artist. However, the creative power of just one painting created by a real artist destroyed his illusions and showed him the baseness of his fall.
• Talent and its loss– Gogol showed that talent can be found and developed with great difficulty, but you only have to slip up once, and real talent will be lost forever.

What problems does Gogol pose in “Portrait”, besides those listed above? The many-wise Litrekon will supplement the section and answer this question, if necessary. Write to him in the comments.

main idea

The story “Portrait” shows us the society of the Russian Empire of the nineteenth century through the eyes of Gogol. The writer showed the depravity and soullessness of his contemporaries, the atmosphere of general decay that he felt while living in St. Petersburg. He contrasted it with the strength of the Orthodox faith and the purity of true art. This is the main idea of ​​the story “Portrait”.

The book is also Gogol’s reflection on what a real creator should be. The writer comes to the conclusion that serving art is a difficult path, but only by following this path can you truly change the world and immortalize your name. The meaning of the story “Portrait” is the need for moral purity for the artist, who is responsible for what he creates for people.

What does it teach?

The story “Portrait” teaches us to despise greed and stinginess. Tells us how important it is to think not only about the body, but also about the soul. These are moral lessons book and its author.

"Portrait" shows us the power of true art to have a profound impact on a person, and tells us the price an artist must pay to gain such power. The moral of the story “Portrait” testifies to the responsibility of the creator for what he leaves behind for posterity.

Criticism

Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky did not rate “Portrait” very highly. He noted the humor and atmosphere of the work, but ultimately considered the story not outstanding and generally not original.

“Portrait” is an unsuccessful attempt by Mr. Gogol in the fantastic genre. Here his talent declines, but even in his decline he remains a talent.

A reviewer from the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski shared the same opinion:

...probably, feeling its [the story “Portrait”] shortcomings, Gogol recently remade it completely. And what came out of this alteration? The first part of the story, with a few exceptions, has become incomparably better, precisely where it comes to depicting reality (one scene of the policeman talking about Chartkov’s paintings, in itself, taken separately, is already a brilliant sketch); but the rest of the story is unbearably bad and from the outside main idea and from the details side

However, the writer also found like-minded people. For example, S.P. Shevyrev:

“During my illness, I also read “Portrait,” which you revised. In it you revealed the connection between art and religion in a way that it has never been revealed anywhere else. You bring a lot of light into our science and prove with yourself, in spite of the Germans, that creativity can be combined with a full consciousness of one’s work.” (letter from S.P. Shevyrev to N.V. Gogol, March 26, 1843)

Many years later, the famous journalist Korolenko saw in “Portrait” not only one of the first fantastic stories Gogol, but the key to understanding the writer’s soul and his tragedy, as a writer and a person.

The tragic story of the artist Chartkov began in front of a bench in the Shchukinsky yard, where, among many paintings depicting peasants or landscapes, he spotted one and, having given the last two kopecks for it, brought it home. This is a portrait of an old man in Asian clothes, seemingly unfinished, but captured 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 a policeman, demanding payment for the apartment. The annoyance of Chartkov, who has already regretted the two-kopeck piece and is sitting, due to poverty, without a candle, is multiplied. He reflects, not without bile, on the fate of the young talented artist, forced to a modest apprenticeship, while visiting painters “with just their usual habits” make noise and collect a fair amount of capital. At this time, his gaze falls on the portrait, which he has already forgotten - and the completely alive eyes, even destroying the harmony of the portrait itself, frighten him, giving him some kind of unpleasant feeling. Having gone to sleep behind the screens, he sees through the cracks a portrait illuminated by the moon, also staring at him. In fear, Chartkov curtains it with a sheet, but then he imagines eyes shining through the canvas, then it seems that the sheet has been torn off, and finally he sees that the sheet is really gone, and the old man has moved and crawled out of the frame. The old man comes behind the screen to him, sits down at his feet and begins to count the money that he takes out of the bag he brought with him. One package with the inscription “1000 chervonets” rolls to the side, and Chartkov grabs it unnoticed. Desperately clutching the money, he wakes up; the hand feels the heaviness that was just in it. After a series of successive nightmares, he wakes up late and heavy. The policeman who came with the owner, learning that there is no money, offers to pay with work. The portrait of an old man attracts his attention, and, looking at the canvas, he carelessly squeezes the frames - a bundle known to Chartkov with the inscription “1000 chervonets” falls on the floor.

On the same day, Chartkov pays the owner and, consoled by stories about treasures, drowning out the first impulse to buy paints and lock himself in the studio for three years, rents a luxurious apartment on Nevsky, dresses like a dandy, advertises in a popular newspaper, and the next day 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 the shadows under the eyes, and finally mistakes Chartkov’s old work, Psyche, slightly updated by the disgruntled artist, for a portrait.

In a short time, Chartkov becomes fashionable: grasping one general expression, he paints many portraits, satisfying a variety of demands. He is rich, accepted in aristocratic houses, and speaks harshly and arrogantly about artists. Many who knew Chartkov before are amazed how his talent, so noticeable at the beginning, could disappear. He is important, reproaches young people for immorality, becomes a miser, and one day, at the invitation of the Academy of Arts, coming to look at a canvas sent from Italy by one of his former comrades, he sees perfection and understands the entire abyss of his fall. He locks himself in the workshop and plunges into work, but is forced to stop every minute due to ignorance of elementary truths, the study of which he neglected at the beginning of his career. Soon he is overcome by terrible envy and begins to buy best works art, and only after his early death from a fever combined with consumption, it becomes clear that the masterpieces, for the acquisition of which he used all his enormous fortune, were cruelly destroyed by him. His death was terrible: he saw the old man’s terrible eyes everywhere.

Chartkov's story had some explanation a short time later at one of the auctions in St. Petersburg. Among the Chinese vases, furniture and paintings, the attention of many is attracted by an amazing portrait of a certain Asian man, whose eyes are painted with such art that they seem alive. The price quadruples, and then the artist B. comes forward, declaring his special rights to this canvas. To confirm these words, he tells a story that happened to his father.

Having first outlined a part of the city called Kolomna, he describes a moneylender who once lived there, a giant of Asian appearance, capable of lending any amount to anyone who wanted it, from old women to wasteful nobles. His interest seemed small and the payment terms were very favorable, but by strange arithmetic calculations the amount to be returned increased incredibly. Worst of all was the fate of those who received money from the hands of the sinister Asian. The story of a young brilliant nobleman, whose disastrous change in character brought upon him the wrath of the empress, ended in his madness and death. The life of a wonderful beauty, for the sake of her wedding with whom her chosen one made a loan from a moneylender (for the bride’s parents saw an obstacle to the 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. Having even encroached on the life of his wife, the unfortunate man committed suicide. Many less remarkable stories, since they happened in the lower classes, were also associated with the name of the moneylender.

The narrator’s father, a self-taught artist, planning to portray the spirit of darkness, often thought about his terrible neighbor, and one day he himself came to him and demanded that he draw a portrait of himself in order to remain in the picture “exactly as alive.” The father happily gets down to business, but the better he manages to capture the old man’s appearance, the more vividly his eyes appear on the canvas, the more painful a feeling takes over him. No longer able to bear the growing disgust for work, he refuses to continue, and the old man’s pleas, explaining that after death his life will be preserved in the portrait by supernatural power, completely frighten him. He runs away, the old man’s maid brings him the unfinished portrait, and the moneylender himself dies the next day. Over time, the artist notices changes in himself: feeling envious of his student, he harms him, the eyes of a moneylender appear in his paintings. When he is about to burn a terrible portrait, a friend begs him. But he too is forced to soon sell it to his nephew; his nephew also got rid of him. The artist understands that part of the moneylender’s soul has entered into the terrible portrait, and the death of his wife, daughter and young son finally assures him of this. 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 Nativity of Jesus for a whole year. His work 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, telling the story of the moneylender, he conjures to find a portrait passing from hand to hand and destroy it. And now, after fifteen years of futile 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.