Jaspar de Isaac’s Engraving “Narcissus”: On the Sources of Konstantin Somov’s Early Art

Abstract

The article reveals and introduces into scientific circulation the previously unknown artistic source of Konstantin Andreyevich Somov’s early art – Jaspar de Isaac’s engraving “Narcissus”. There is traced the course of work with this one along with other art sources (works of European masters of the 16th—18th centuries depicting hunting scenes, paintings by Antoine Watteau, Jugendstil graphics), revealed the context of reference to it, and analyzed the stylistic features of including this source in Somov’s work on the watercolor “Rest after a Walk”. These tasks are addressed in the context of the role of artistic sources from the heritage of past eras in early works of Konstantin Somov. The topic’s relevance is determined by the fact that Jaspar de Isaac’s engraving “Narcissus”, made at the very beginning of the 17th century for a French edition of the “Imagines” by Philostratus the Elder, for the first time becomes the object of research as a source of Somov’s art. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time it attempts to identify (basing on a combination of formal and contextual analysis), and to use a source from the artistic heritage of France of the beginning of the 17th century in the work of K. Somov on the themes of the 18th century. The reveal of the source — the engraving “Narcissus” by J. de Isaac — made it possible to reconstruct the artist’s work on the “Rest after a Walk”. The article examines not only the sketch for this work from the collections of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, but also the drawing “A Date” from the State Tretyakov Gallery. There is stated that it is a preparatory drawing for the watercolor “Rest after a Walk”, basing on the general iconography of the watercolor, sketch and engraving “Narcissus”. The author concludes that Somov’s appeal to the engraving by J. de Isaac was not conscious, it should be attributed to the phenomenon of artistic memory, and his probable acquaintance with it had taken place before the artist left for Paris in the autumn of 1897.