Nikolai Gogol

The Mysterious Portrait Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol's "The Portrait" is a short story about art. First written in 1835 and then significantly revised in 1842, the work explores a central concern in Romantic aesthetics: the role of the artist and his creation. Through a series of ekphrases, i.e. literary representations of visual art, the narrative of "The Portrait" examines the act of representational painting ...