AUTOR „ZAPISEK MYŚLIWEGO” JAKO PEJZAŻYSTA
THE AUTHOR OF 'A SPORTSMAN’S SKETCHES' AS A LANDSCAPIST

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt at a comprehensive formal analysis of the landscape inIvan Turgenev’s 'A Sportsman’s Sketches'.The early works of this series written in the forties exemplify the prepotent influence of a physiological sketch poetics. Hence the descriptions of nature which they containare in principle objective, matter-of-fact, but a drysource of information worthy of a geographer and explorer of nature, full of superfluous details lacking in perspective and light-and-shade effects. The statics of the picture which is entirely controlled by the narrator, is enlivened by figures introduced into the descriptions. This trick corresponds to Turgenev’s contemporary painting. The fundamental turning point in the technique of landscape took place round 1848. Beginning with his story 'The Forest and the Steppe' Turgenev observed carefully the changes in the sparing scale of colours under the influence of rich light-and-shade effects. This time, too, it was a reflection of analogical trends in painting. A marked tendency for selecting facts and phenomena care over aesthetic values of description are seen. The scarce digressions on the part of the author are replaced by lyrical recitations manifesting the narrator’s mood. The 'Biezyn Meadow' brings a new type o f sparing lyricism. Its landscape is characterized by marked dynamics. Yet it is still an analytical landscape depicting singular phenomena without exposing their typical characteristics. Turgenev attempted an exposure of characteristics typical for given seasons of the year and places in the story 'The Forestand the Steppe' which is an example of synthetic landscape. Thus the evolution that Turgenev the landscapist underwent lead from a reportrelated in technique to physiological drawings, through marked influences of plein-air of the forties, to pictures combining exactness of observation with lyrical digression.

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