ILLUSTRATION AND WRITER: THE PROBLEM OF CREATIVE COMMUNICATION (MAXIM GORKY AND PAINTERS)

Abstract

The article deals with graphic illustrations of M. Gorky’s works as well as problems of the writer’s creative communication with the illustrators. In the article the authors specify Gorky’s requirements to the illustrators and demonstrate a unique creative approach to the works illustration that was developed even during M. Gorky’s life due to his aspirations, which has been maintained by contemporary illustrators of his books. The article notes that the first illustrations of M. Gorky’s prose were created by emigrant artists, namely by Jean Lébédeff who illustrated four stories by M. Gorky published in 1000 copies in Paris (1921). The authors single out B.A. Dekhteryov, D.A. Shmarinov, N.N. Kupriyanov, A.A. Brei, V.M. Konashevich, the Kukryniksy, U.A. Molokanov, N.M. Kochergin and A.Z. Itkin as the most significant illustrators of Gorky’s prose. The authors have proved that the present-day publications of M. Gorky’s works lack illustrations and no artists are engaged in the illustration process. Sometimes Russian publishers use successful unique illustrations created by the illustrators of the 1960s. They have performed original graphic cycles that even today remain modern. On the contrary, illustrated children books are published with artwork of the artists worked in the 1970s during the golden age of children literature illustration. Nowadays these illustrations are sometimes selected without any sense. At the same time, the last years many illustrators of M. Gorky’s children prose follow B. Dekhteryov’s experience offering their readers detailed, realistic and psychologically adjusted portraits of the main characters depicted at the culmination points of the plot.