Modernist ekphrasis in Marina Tsvetaeva’s essay “Natalia 
Goncharova. Life and Work” Cover Image

Модернистский экфрасис в эссе Марины Цветаевой „Наталья Гончарова. Жизнь и творчество”
Modernist ekphrasis in Marina Tsvetaeva’s essay “Natalia Goncharova. Life and Work”

Author(s): Aleksandr A. Medvedev
Subject(s): History, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, History of Art
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Marina Tsvetaeva; Natalia Goncharova; Martin Heidegger; Paul Gauguin; Vasily Rozanov; painting; modernism; avant-garde; ontology; ekphrasis

Summary/Abstract: This article examines Marina Tsvetaeva’s modernist perception of the personalityand paintings of the greatest representative of the Russian avant-garde of the20th century in the essay “Natalia Goncharova. Life and Work” (“НатальяГончарова. Жизнь и творчество”, 1929). Goncharova’s paintings that Tsvetaevadescribes in her essay are indicated. The principles of modernist poetics andekphrasis are revealed (lyrical subjectivism, ontology, consonance, anagrammaticdisclosure of the inner form of a word, mythologization, reader co-creation,dialogism). The similarity between Tsvetaeva’s understanding of painting andpoetry is compared to the ontological understanding of art by Martin Heidegger.This can be explained by the tradition of ontological poetry (Friedrich Hölderlinand Rainer Maria Rilke), which is important for both. The ontology of Goncharova’s painting is also considered in the context of the ontology ofanimals in Russian philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century (VasilyRozanov) and in the Tahitian Painting of Paul Gauguin. Special attention is paidto ekphrastic poetics (style, tropes, consonance), with the help of which Tsvetaevaauthentically transfers the ontologism of Goncharov’s painting in its stylisticdiversity (cubism, neo-primitivism, rayonism) to the verbal level. Tsvetaeva andGoncharova in the respective Russian and European context (Gauguin, Rozanov,Heidegger, Rilke) appear as exponents of the ontological turn in the culture ofthe first half of the 20th century.

  • Issue Year: 2021
  • Issue No: 14
  • Page Range: 196-223
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Ukrainian