“For me, this is a particularly attractive subject…”: On the Visual Imagination of Pavel Bazhov

Abstract

This article examines the role of the visual in the artistic consciousness and texts of Pavel Petrovich Bazhov, as well as in the reception of his works by illustrators and modern readers. The authors explore the phenomenon of Bazhov’s visual imagery employing the research methods of visual studies, i.e. the study focuses on the “scopic mode”, understood as a constructed and historically determined model of the gaze of the beholder. The analysis of tales (Rus. skazy ), epistolary works, and illustrations to Bazhov’s prose allows the authors to assert that the visual is one of the main semantic codes of the writer’s artistic thinking. For this reason, he was not impartial when evaluating illustrations for his works. Bazhov’s letters reflect the variant of illustrations adequate in the writer’s opinion: the frontispiece to The Malachite Box by artist K. V. Kuznetsov represents an ideal model of the author’s vision. It is characterised by a dominance of the imaginary and a tendency to the visual tradition of Russian modernism, which is especially notable in the accentuation of floral ornaments. The modernist substrate, explicated in the writer’s visual imagination, is latent in the verbal organisation of Bazhov’s texts, which is explained by the peculiarity of their narrative organisation. The genre and stylistic nature of the skaz speech of the narrator, a man of the people, does not imply an imaginary vision, and the perception of beauty by the character, who is a master and an artist, remains in the sphere of his consciousness, which creates an atmosphere of understatement and mystery in Bazhov’s tales. The authors of the article conclude that visual imagination is not only a generative model in Bazhov’s works, but it also sets a code for its reception. Modern interpretations of the writer’s works are characterised by visual representations that reinforce Bazhov’s individual mythology by means of new screen media. The analysis demonstrates that Bazhov’s imagery (especially the Mistress of the Copper Mountain) are in great demand with modern popular culture.