Briefly:

An artistic image is one of the aesthetic categories; depiction of human life, description of nature, abstract phenomena and concepts that form the picture of the world in the work.

An artistic image is a conditional concept; it is the result of poetic generalizations; it contains the author’s invention, imagination, and fantasy. It is formed by the writer in accordance with his worldview and aesthetic principles. In literary criticism there is no single point of view on this issue. Sometimes one work or even the entire work of the author is considered as a complete artistic image (the Irishman D. Joyce wrote with such a programmatic approach). But most often the work is studied as a system of images, each element of which is connected with the others by a single ideological and artistic concept.

Traditionally, it is customary to distinguish the following levels of imagery in a text: images-characters, images of living nature(animals, birds, fish, insects, etc.), landscape images, object images, verbal images, sound images, color images(for example, black, white and red in the description of the revolution in A. Blok’s poem “The Twelve”), images-smells(for example, the smell of fried onions wafting through the courtyards of the provincial town of S. in Chekhov’s “Ionych”), images-signs, emblems, and symbols, allegories and so on.

A special place in the system of images of a work is occupied by the author, the narrator and the narrator. These are not identical concepts.

Author's image- the form of existence of the writer in literary text. It unifies the entire character system and speaks directly to the reader. We can find an example of this in A. Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”.

Narrator's image in a work, a generalized abstract person, as a rule, is devoid of any portrait features and manifests himself only in speech, in relation to what is being communicated. Sometimes it can exist not only within one work, but also within a literary cycle (as in “Notes of a Hunter” by I. Turgenev). In a literary text, the author reproduces in this case not his own, but his, the narrator’s, manner of perceiving reality. He acts as an intermediary between the writer and the reader in the transmission of events.

The image of the narrator- this is the character on whose behalf the speech is being conducted. Unlike the narrator, the narrator is given some individual features (portrait details, biographical facts). In works, sometimes the author can lead the narration along with the narrator. Examples of this in Russian literature a lot: Maxim Maksimych in M. Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”, Ivan Vasilyevich in L. Tolstoy’s story “After the Ball”, etc.

An expressive artistic image can deeply excite and shock the reader and have an educational effect.

Source: Student's Handbook: grades 5-11. - M.: AST-PRESS, 2000

More details:

The artistic image is one of the most ambiguous and broad concepts that is used by theorists and practitioners of all types of art, including literature. We say: the image of Onegin, the image of Tatyana Larina, the image of the Motherland or a successful poetic image, meaning the categories of poetic language (epithet, metaphor, comparison...). But there is one more, perhaps the most important meaning, the broadest and most universal: the image as a form of expression of content in literature, as the primary element of art in general.

It should be noted that the image in general is an abstraction, which acquires concrete outlines only as an elementary component of a certain artistic system as a whole. Every work of art is figurative, and so are all its components.

If we turn to any work, for example, to Pushkin’s “Demons,” the beginning of “Ruslan and Lyudmila” or “To the Sea,” we read it and ask the question: “Where is the image?” - the correct answer will be: “Everywhere!”, because imagery is the form of existence of a work of art, the only way of its existence, a kind of “matter” from which it consists, and which, in turn, breaks down into “molecules” and “atoms” "

The artistic world is, first of all, a figurative world. A work of art is a complex single image, and each of its elements is a relatively independent, unique particle of this whole, interacting with it and with all other particles. Everything and everyone in the poetic world is imbued with imagery, even if the text does not contain a single epithet, comparison or metaphor.

In Pushkin’s poem “I loved you...” there is none of the traditional “decorations”, i.e. tropes usually called “artistic images” (the extinct linguistic metaphor “love... faded” does not count), therefore it is often defined as “ugly”, which is fundamentally wrong. As R. Jacobson superbly showed in his famous article “The Poetry of Grammar and the Grammar of Poetry,” using exclusively the means of poetic language, only one skillful juxtaposition grammatical forms, Pushkin created an exciting artistic image of the experiences of a lover, who deifies the object of his love and sacrifices his happiness for him, striking in its noble simplicity and naturalness. The components of this complex figurative whole are private images of purely verbal expression, revealed by an insightful researcher.

There are two concepts in aesthetics artistic image as such. According to the first of them, an image is a specific product of labor, which is designed to “objectify” a certain spiritual content. This idea of the image has a right to life, but it is more convenient for spatial types of art, especially for those that have applied value(sculpture and architecture). According to the second concept, the image is like special shape theoretical development of the world should be considered in comparison with concepts and ideas as categories of scientific thinking.

The second concept is closer and clearer to us, but, in principle, both suffer from one-sidedness. In fact, do we have the right to identify literary creativity with some kind of production, ordinary routine work, having well-defined pragmatic goals? Needless to say, art is hard, exhausting work (let us remember Mayakovsky’s expressive metaphor: “Poetry is the same mining of radium: / In a year of mining there is a gram of work”), which does not stop day or night. The writer sometimes literally creates even in his sleep (as if this is how the second edition of the Henriad appeared to Voltaire). There is no leisure. Personal privacy no either (as O"Henry excellently portrayed in the story "Confessions of a Humorist").

Is artistic creativity hard? Yes, undoubtedly, but not only work. It is torment, and incomparable pleasure, and thoughtful, analytical research, and an unbridled flight of free imagination, and hard, exhausting work, and an exciting game. In a word, it is art.

But what is the product of literary labor? How and with what can it be measured? After all, not with liters of ink and not with kilograms of worn-out paper, not with sites posted on the Internet with the texts of works that now exist in purely virtual space! The book, still a traditional way of recording, storing and consuming the results of a writer’s work, is purely external, and, as it turned out, not at all a necessary shell for the imaginative world created in his process. This world is both created in the consciousness and imagination of the writer, and is translated, respectively, into the field of consciousness and imagination of the readers. It turns out that consciousness is created through consciousness, almost like in Andersen’s witty fairy tale “The King’s New Clothes”.

So, an artistic image in literature is by no means a direct “objectification” of spiritual content, any idea, dream, ideal, as this is easily and clearly presented, say, in the same sculpture (Pygmalion, who “objectified” his dream in Ivory, all that remains is to ask the goddess of love Aphrodite to breathe life into the statue in order to marry her!). Literary work does not carry direct materialized results, any tangible practical consequences.

Does this mean that the second concept is more correct, insisting that the artistic image of a work is a form of exclusively theoretical exploration of the world? No, and there is a certain one-sidedness here. Creative thinking V fiction, of course, opposes the theoretical, scientific, although it does not exclude it at all. Verbal-figurative thinking can be represented as a synthesis of philosophical or, rather, aesthetic comprehension of life and its objective-sensory design, reproduction in material specifically inherent to it. However, there is not and cannot be a clear definition, a canonical order, a sequence of both, if, of course, we mean real art. Comprehension and reproduction, interpenetrating, complement each other. Comprehension is carried out in a concrete, sensory form, and reproduction clarifies and clarifies the idea.

Cognition and creativity are a single holistic act. Theory and practice in art are inseparable. Of course, they are not identical, but they are one. In theory, the artist asserts himself practically, in practice - theoretically. For each creative individual, the unity of these two sides of one whole is manifested in its own way.

Thus, V. Shukshin, “exploring,” as he put it, life, saw it, recognized it with the trained eye of an artist, and A. Voznesensky, appealing to “intuition” in knowledge (“If you look for India, you will find America!”), with an analytical gaze architect (education could not help but have an impact). The difference was also reflected in terms of figurative expression (naive sages, “eccentrics”, animated birch trees in Shukshin and “atomic minstrels”, cultural leaders of the NTR, “triangular pear” and “trapezoidal fruit” in Voznesensky).

Theory in relation to the objective world is a “reflection,” and practice is the “creation” (or rather, “transformation”) of this objective world. The sculptor “reflects” a person—let’s say, a sitter—and creates new item- “statue”. But works of material art are obvious in the most literal sense of the word, which is why it is so easy to trace the most complex aesthetic patterns from their example. In fiction, in the art of words, everything is more complicated.

Exploring the world in images, the artist plunges into the depths of the subject, like a natural scientist in a dungeon. He cognizes its substance, fundamental principle, essence, extracts the very root from it. The secret of how satirical images are created was wonderfully revealed by the character of Heinrich Böll’s novel “Through the Eyes of a Clown,” Hans Schnier: “I take a piece of life, raise it to a power, and then extract the root from it, but with a different number.”

In this sense, one can seriously agree with M. Gorky’s witty joke: “He knows reality as if he did it himself!..” and with Michelangelo’s definition: “This is the work of a man who knew more than nature itself,” which he cites in in his article V. Kozhinov.

Creating an artistic image is less like looking for beautiful clothes for an initially ready-made primary idea; plans of content and expression are born and mature in him in complete harmony, together, at the same time. Pushkin’s expression “the poet thinks in poetry” and almost the same version of Belinsky in his 5th article about Pushkin: “The poet thinks in images.” “By verse we mean the original, immediate form of poetic thought” authoritatively confirm this dialectic.

Help me answer 2 questions about EXHIBIT No. Boris Lvovich Vasiliev 1. Determine the theme of the story. What is the author’s meaning in the title? Is it possible to say that there is hidden irony, a bitter smile in the title? 2. How is the image of Igor created in the story? Tell us in as much detail as possible about his character?

Answers:

1. Theme of memory. In the story, Boris Vasiliev exposes the inhuman, corrupting power of formalism. For Anna Fedotovna, letters are a memory of her son, a whole life, but for young pioneers just a forgotten exhibit. 2. The image of Igor in the story is created from an adult man who went to the front to a little boy, fatherless as only his mother Anna Fedorovna knew him - helpless, crawling, stomping, running away to Spain or solving problems incomprehensible to her - in the end he certainly stood in front of her slowly descending the first flight of stairs. And every evening she saw his narrow back and heard the same phrase: “I’ll be back, mom.” Igor's character: Igor grew up quiet, happy to obey his friend Volodka. (Igor fled to Spain. Boys doomed to fatherlessness grow up either desperately unhearing or quiet, and her son leaned towards the latter type). From his friend’s letter we see that Igor has always been an example for the entire detachment. (“Your Igor, dear Anna Fedotovna, has always been an example for our entire department..."

Analysis of the hero's image

Consider what means are involved in creating the images of the heroes of the second chapter of the novel “The Master and Margarita”.

Proposed image analysis plan hero for in-depth study of school literature. Modify this plan depending on your goals and class level. Download the hero image analysis plan

1. General information.

How is the hero introduced into the work?

Background.

Position in the work (hero-narrator, 3rd person).

If the narrator, show the narrator’s perspective (narrator, participant in events, reflective narrator).

Is there a prototype? How does the hero differ from the prototype?

Degree of participation in events ( main character, minor character).

2. Assessing the hero from different points of view:

What does the hero say about himself?

How do other characters treat the hero? What do they say about him?

How do you feel about the hero? (reader's position)

3. Portrait

Cloth

4. Language

internal monologues
dialogues with other characters

5. Housing
6. Actions:

What does the hero do?
How does he explain the motives for his behavior?
Is the behavior typical for its time?

7. The image of the hero in the structure of the work

What place does the hero occupy in the character system? (Is he involved in a conflict? Are there heroes opposed to this hero? Are there double heroes?)
What motives of the work is the hero connected with?
Features of classicism/romanticism/realism.
How is the character connected to the idea of the work?
Why did the author need this hero in this work?

8. Evaluation of the hero by the writer’s contemporaries.
9. Evaluation of the hero in literary criticism of different years.
10. General conclusion.

Questions for analyzing the images of heroes

Image of Yeshua

a) What do we learn about Yeshua before he appears?

b) Analyze the portrait of the hero. What can we tell about it by its appearance?

c) Read Yeshua’s lines in the scene with Mark the Ratcatcher. What do the author's remarks in this dialogue say about the prisoner?

d) Analyze the language of Ha-Nozri as a separate text. Offer your interpretation.

e) What do we learn about Yeshua from the denunciation?

f) What does the arrested person tell about himself?

g) Why does Pilate call Yeshua a vagabond, a liar, a robber? What makes him called a strange robber? How and why does Pilate’s attitude towards Yeshua change in the future?

h) How is Yeshua's fearlessness demonstrated?

j) Why didn’t Yeshua take advantage of the opportunity to be saved?

k) What can we tell you about Yeshua’s philosophy? What words in the novel convey these meanings?

m) Compare Yeshua and the gospel Jesus Christ. How did Bulgakov change and interpret the biblical legend?

m) Trace how the image of Yeshua is connected with the motif of the sun.

o) Compare the image of Yeshua with his prototype using historical and religious literature.

Image of Pontius Pilate

a) Read the beginning of the chapter. How is the hero's portrait created?

b) Select from the text the most important details of the hero’s behavior in your opinion. Pay attention to body language and tone of conversation.

c) How does Bulgakov describe the details of the procurator’s clothes and house? What do these details tell us?

d) What does Pilate say about himself?

e) What does Yeshua say about him?

f) Why did the procurator call M. Ratboy? Why didn’t you look after him when he led Yeshua away?

g) What can we say about Pontius Pilate from his remarks in dialogue with Yeshua and Caiaphas?

h) Consider how the hero’s internal monologues are introduced.

How do they change the created image?

i) How does Pilate appear in the first part of the chapter? (before the words “everything about him...”).

j) How does Pilate try to help Yeshua? Why is he doing this?

k) Why does Pilate break into a scream, asserting the inviolability of the emperor’s power?

m) Summarize the previous 3 questions. How is the image of a hero created by describing his behavior?

m) How does the motif of illness help in creating the image of Pilate?

o) Compare Bulgakov's Pontius Pilate with the prototype using historical literature.

Tags: image of the hero, Bulgakov, Pontius Pilate, Yeshua, analysis plan, text analysis
Yulia Fishman
Certificate of publication No. 890397 dated November 19, 2016

System of images. Tools for creating an artistic image

I. SYSTEM OF IMAGES (CHARACTERS)- the totality and principles of organization of images of the author, characters, narrator, storyteller.

AUTHOR-NARRATOR- in an epic work, a way of presenting artistic material in the third person. The author-narrator is impersonal, but omniscient: “The author must be assumed to be an omniscient being who does not sin” (Dostoevsky).

NARRATOR- the person on whose behalf the story is told work of art. The narrator can be one of the characters or the author if he participates in the action and expresses an emotional and evaluative attitude to what is happening.

CHARACTER, HERO- the protagonist of the work.

OFF-STAGE CHARACTER- a person mentioned in a dramatic work, but not appearing on stage.

CHARACTER- an image of a character presented with sufficient completeness.

TYPE- an image of a character that is natural for a given era, people, social group, age, psychological or ideological make-up.

LYRICAL HERO- the character closest to the author, on whose behalf the narration in a lyric poem is conducted.

2. ARTISTIC MEANS OF IMAGE CREATION

Types of speech as an artistic means of creating images

NARRATION- a story about something.

REASONING- a conclusion, a series of thoughts presented in a logically consistent form.

DESCRIPTION- image of something (verbal drawing):

A. LANDSCAPE- description of nature.

The role of landscape in a work of art

The background of the story, the events taking place.
The lyrical background is a way of emotionally influencing the reader.
Psychological background is one of the ways to reveal the psychology of characters.
Symbolic background is a way of symbolically reflecting the reality depicted in the work.
One way to create artistic time.

B. INTERIOR- description of the premises.

V. PORTRAIT- description of a person’s appearance.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PICTURE- a portrait that reveals the character’s character through appearance.

DIRECT SPEECH (SPEECH CHARACTERISTICS OF THE HERO)

A. DIALOGUE - a conversation between characters.

B. MONOLOGUE- a detailed, significant statement actor, addressed to oneself or to other characters, but, unlike dialogue, does not depend on their remarks.

B. REPLICA- a relatively small statement by the character.

D. INTERNAL MONOLOGUE, INTERNAL SPEECH- the thoughts of the character conveyed by himself or the author.

Other artistic means of creating images

B. CHARACTERISTICS OF OTHER CHARACTERS

B. AUTO CHARACTERISTICS

2. ARTISTIC DETAIL- expressive detail that has a significant semantic and emotional load: everyday objects, portraits, landscapes, psychological details.

3. SUBTEXT- internal, hidden meaning of the text. Subtext is contained, in particular, in almost all types of allegory

You may be interested in other topics:

Portrait It can be expositional - a detailed description, as a rule, at the beginning of the story, and dynamic - details of the external appearance are, as it were, scattered throughout the work.

Psychologism can be direct - internal monologues, experiences, and indirect - facial expressions, gestures.

In addition to these criteria, the character's image includes surrounding area.

Landscape is an image of an open space. It is often used to describe the internal state of the hero (N. Karamzin “ Poor Lisa") and to deepen the understanding of the character of the created character (the Kirsanov brothers in “Fathers and Sons” by I. Turgenev).

Interior– image of a closed space. It may have a psychological function that allows us to evaluate the preferences and characteristics of the character; the interior helps us find out the social status of the hero, as well as identify the mood of the era in which the action takes place.

Actions and behavior character (sometimes, at first glance, contradicting his character) also influence the creation of a complete image. For example, Chatsky, who does not notice Sophia’s passion, is incomprehensible to us at the beginning of the work and even funny. But later we understand that the author thus reveals one of the main traits of the hero - arrogance. Chatsky has such a low opinion of Molchalin that the current outcome of events cannot even occur to him.

And the last (but not least) criterion that influences the creation of a character’s image is detail.

Artistic detail(from the French detail – detail, trifle) - expressive detail of a work, carrying a significant semantic and ideological-emotional load, characterized by increased associativity.

The artistic technique is often reproduced throughout the entire work, which allows, upon further reading, to associate the detail with a specific character (“radiant eyes” of Princess Marya, “marble shoulders” of Helen, etc.)

A.B. Esin identifies the following types of parts: plot, descriptive, psychological.
The dominance of one of the listed types in the text sets a certain style for the entire work. “Plot content” (“Taras Bulba” by Gogol), “descriptiveness” (“ Dead Souls"), "psychologism" ("Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky). However, the predominance of one group of details does not exclude others within the same work.

L.V. Chernets, discussing details, writes: “Any image is perceived and assessed as a certain integrity, even if it was created with the help of one or two details.”

List of sources used

1. Dobin, E.S. Plot and reality; The art of detail. – L.: Soviet writer, 1981. – 432 p.
2. Esin, A.B. Russian psychologism classical literature: tutorial. – M.: Flinta, 2011. – 176 p.
3. Kormilov, S.I. Interior // Literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts / Ch. ed. A.N. Nikolyukin. – M.: 2001. – 1600 p.
4. Skiba, V.A., Chernets, L.B. Artistic image // Introduction to literary studies. – M., 2004. – p.25-32
5. Chernets, L.V., Isakova, I.N. Literary theory: Analysis of a work of fiction. – M., 2006. – 745 p.
6. Chernets, L.V. Character and character in a literary work and its critical interpretations // Principles of analysis literary work. – M.: MSU, 1984. – 83 p.