The Painting of Isaac Levitan “Over Eternal Rest” and its Interpretation in Modern Poetic Texts

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Abstract

The article examines the painting of Isaac Levitan “Over Eternal Rest” and its interpretation in modern poetic texts. Any cultural text, whether it is painting, fiction, music, etc., functions in a single socio-cultural space against the background of important modern integration processes in the world. In this regard, the study of the mutual influence and mutual enrichment of different types of art, in particular painting and poetry, is quite relevant. The main general scientific methods of observation, description, analysis and interpretation were used in the analysis of the material. The author explores the very concept of peace in dictionaries, absolute peace as an inhuman cold in the ninth circle of hell in Dante’s “Divine Comedy”. The understanding of peace in the Christian Church is considered, namely: to enter the Heaven, to accept the kingdom there, to commune with God, to rest in the bliss there, to commune with angels, to live an immortal life. “If a man does not know what sorrow is, he will not know what peace is.” The philosophical concept of the Ukrainian philosopher of the 18th century is close to this understanding. Grigory Savvich Skovoroda: peace is the reward for all the earthly sufferings of a “true” person, peace represents eternity, the eternal home. In Levitan’s painting, judging by the image depicted on it, by the predominance of dark and cold colors, by the very plot (a church and an abandoned cemetery), eternal rest is understood by the artist not as death, but as a special state of mind: this is the macrocosm, the microcosm, and the biblical understanding of eternity. The article analyzes the world of poetic images that arise under the influence of I. Levitan’s painting.

About the authors

Elena Yu. Muratava

Vitebsk State University named after P.M. Masherov

Author for correspondence.
Email: mouratova@tut.by
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-5246-8911

Doctor of Philology, Professor, Professor of the Department of General and Russian Linguistics

33, Moskovsky ave., Vitebsk, Republic of Belarus, 210038

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