The Influence of Giovanni Piranesi’s Etchings on the Works of Mstislav Dobuzhinsky

Abstract

The relevance of the article’s topic is determined by the fact that the etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky’s favorite artists, have never been specifically examined as artistic sources of his work.The scientific novelty of this article lies in the fact that it is the first attempt to analyze the influence of G.B. Piranesi’s etchings on the works of M.V. Dobuzhinsky. The author uses a complex method that combined the source analysis of the artist’s memoirs and letters, the traditional formal analysis of his works in comparison with Piranesi’s etchings and architectural monuments of Ancient Rome. The article also examines the industrial city motifs in Charles Dickens’ novels “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Little Dorrit”. This made it possible to significantly expand and deepen the existing understanding of the historical, artistic and literary sources of architectural motifs and architectural fantasies in M.V. Dobuzhinsky’s works.The article reveals that G.B. Piranesi’s etchings from the series “Carceri” and “Vedute di Roma” influenced Dobuzhinsky’s fantasy drawings “Everyday life”, “Holiday” and the landscape “London. On the Bridge”. Piranesi’s etchings from these series also influenced Dobuzhinsky’s fantasy drawings of 1909—1921 on the theme of the city. In the early 1920s, some of the drawings were combined into the series “City Dreams”. The author also reveals the participation of industrial city images from Russian symbolist poetry, especially Valery Bryusov, in the formation of similar motifs in Dobuzhinsky’s works.