In the Domain of European Models: The Depiction of Emotions in Russian Book Illustrations in the 1790s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2019.2.392Keywords:
depiction of emotions; book illustrations; 18th-century book engravings; European-Russian artistic connections; Ovid’s MetamorphosesAbstract
This article considers illustrations in 18th-century Russian translations of foreign literature: these can help us study the way in which different emotional states were depicted at the time. The author focuses on the description and analysis of emotions in a Russian series of illustrations: these were made with reference to Western European illustrations which served as prototypes. Thus, the author examines illustrations for the Russian edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Moscow, 1794–1795), which were copied from and reflected the changes made to a Dutch-French edition published in French (Amsterdam and Paris, 1732). To study emotions, the author uses the comparative historical method. The study compares the depiction of emotions not only in the Russian illustrations with prototypes from 1732 but also with earlier European illustrations for Metamorphoses. The article describes and compares the characters’ emotional reactions and analyses artistic techniques, paying attention to those postures, gestures, and mimicry referring to Charles Le Brun’s treatise Méthode pour apprendre à dessiner les passions (1698). The author attempts to identify the iconographic and textual origins of the depiction of emotions and finds Italian, Flemish, French, and Dutch-French sources for the Russian illustrations. It is concluded that the Russian series of illustrations is archaic and relies on stylistic and emotional models of the fête galante style. The author concludes that the illustrations of the book do not reflect the emotional repertoire of 1790s Sentimentalism, Classicism, and Romanticism, which would be more relevant but lie within the tradition of the fête galante style.
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