The Portrait (short story)
The Portrait (Russian: Портрет) is a short story by Nikolai Gogol, originally published in the short story collection Arabesques in 1835.
It is the story of a young artist, Andrey Petrovich Chartkov, who stumbles upon a terrifyingly lifelike portrait in an art shop and is one of Gogols’ most demonic of tales, hinting at some of his earlier works such as "St. John's Eve". The Academic American Encyclopedia cited the work as an example of the "conflict between Gogol's idealistic strivings and his sad, cynical view of human propensities".[1] First published in Arabesques, the story was received unfavourably by critics, and Gogol returned to the story, reworking it for the 1842 publication. Simon Karlinsky believes that the second version of the story, with its differing epilogue, works better within the context of the story, but writes that the work, while "a serious treatment of an important social problem", is "too slender a theme" to support the central thrust of the work, an attempt to portray "the great mystical concept of the Antichrist".[2]
[edit] Operatic adaptation
The story was the basis of an opera by Mieczysław Weinberg, The Portrait, composed in 1980.
[edit] References
- ^ Academic American Encyclopedia. Grolier Incorporated. 1994. p. 225. ISBN 0717220532.
- ^ Simon Karlinsky (1992). The Sexual Labyrinth of Nikolai Gogol. University of Chicago Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 0226425274.
[edit] External links
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