An earlier version of this article was presented as a conference paper at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies in Honolulu in November 1988. Research for this study was supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities Travel-to-Collections Grant, by a research fellowship from the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, and by an associateship at the Summer Research Laboratory on Russia and Eastern Europe at the University of Illinois, Champaign- Urbana.

1. Abrams, M. H., The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1953), 50 Google Scholar. A wealth of literature is devoted to the question of parallels between literature and painting. Among the best works are Cicely Davies, “Ut Pictura Poesis,” Modern Language Review 30 (1935): 159-169; Hagstrum, Jean H.. The Sister Arts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958 Google Scholar; Howard, W. G., “Ut Pictura Poesis,” Publications of the Modern Language Association 24 (1909): 401–423 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lee, Renssalaer W., “Ut Pictura Poesis: The Humanistic Theory of Painting,” Art Bulletin 22 (1940): 197–269 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Praz, Mario, Mnemosyne: The Parallel between Literature and the Visual Arts (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970)Google Scholar; Saisselin, Remy G., “Ut Pictura Poesis: DuBos to Diderot,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 19 (1961): 145–156 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Steiner, Wendy. The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relation between Modern Literature and Painting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982 Google Scholar; and Krieger, Murray, “Ekphrasis and the Still Movement of Poetry; or, Laokoon Revisited,” in The Poet as Critic, ed. Frederick P. W. McDowell (Evanston, III.: Northwestern University Press, 1967), 3–26 Google Scholar. For more complete bibliographies, see John Graham, “ ‘Ut Pictura Poesis.’ A Bibliography,” Bulletin of Bibliography 29, no. 1 (1972): 13-15, 18; The Relationship of Painting and Literature, ed. Eugene L. Huddleston and Douglas A. Noverr (Detroit: Gale Research, 1978); and A Bibliography on the Relations of Literature and the Other Arts, 1952-1967 (New York: AMS, 1968).

2. Wellek, Rene and Warren, Austin, Theory of Literature (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1956), 126 Google Scholar. See especially chap. 11 ( “Literature and the Other Arts “), 125-135. Wellek, however, cautions against overly facile comparisons between these sister arts in his essay, “The Parallelism between Literature and the Arts,” English Institute Annual, 1941 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1942), 29-63.

3. Auerbach, Erich, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Trask (Garden City, N.J.: Doubleday. 1957)Google Scholar. Vivienne G. Mylne structures her study of the eighteenth century French novel in a similar way: “My basic proposition, in the chapters that follow, is that the history of the novel, like that of painting, was for a considerable period linked with the notions of accurate representation and of creating an illusion of reality.” See The Eighteenth-Century French Novel: Techniques of Illusion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 2. For a discussion of literature as word painting, see Babbitt, Irving, The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the Arts (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1910), 115–159.Google Scholar

4. Belinskii's notion of art as “thinking in images,” Wellek suggests, probably derived from Schlegel. See vol. 2 ( “The Romantic Age “) of Wellek, Rene, History of Modern Criticism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1955), 42.Google Scholar

5. In view of the general similarities between Flemish and Dutch art, critics and scholars have long made interchangeable references to these two schools. For the purposes of this article, I too shall make no distinction between Dutch and Flemish genre paintings of the seventeenth century. For a study that does examine the differences between Flemish and Dutch genre paintings, see Legrand, Francine C., Les peintres flamands de genre au XVIIe siecle (Paris: Meddens, 1963), 245–247 Google Scholar.

6. Slive, Seymour, “Realism and Symbolism in Seventeenth-Century Dutch Painting,” Daedalus 91, no. 3 (1962): 469.Google Scholar

7. Demetz, Peter, “Defenses of Dutch Painting and the Theory of Realism,” Comparative Literature 15, no. 2 (1963): 99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. Beattie, James, Essays (Edinburgh. 1776: rpt. New York: Garland, 1971), 392–393 Google Scholar.

9. The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London. 1798) 2: 370.

10. Ruskin, John, Modern Painters (Boston: Dana Estes. 1873) 1: 178.Google Scholar

11. Realism in Russian painting is identified, of course, with the Peredvizhnik movement, which arose only in 1863, as an aftermath of the rebellion of the fourteen against the strictures of academic art. For studies of this movement, see Gomberg-Verzhbinskaia, E. P.. Peredvizhnik, 2-oe izd. (Leningrad. 1970)Google Scholar. and Burova, G. K., Gaponova, O. I.. and Rumiantseva, V. F.. Tovarishehestvo peredvizhnykh khudozhestvennykh vystavok, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1952-1959)Google Scholar. According to L. R. Varshavskii. the Russian painter Pavel Fedotov, an early realist and forerunner of the Peredvizhniki, was himself inspired by Flemish genre painting. “In the gallery rooms of the Hermitage.” he notes, “Fedotov would stand for a long time in front of the works of the Netherlandish masters: van Ostade, Teniers, Brouwer. They opened up for him the entire area of a new genre, where in tranquil, somewhat ironic treatment was drawn the life of small, gray people.” See Varshavskii, , Russkaia karikatura 40-50-kh gg. XIX veka (Leningrad: OGIZ. 1937). 12 Google Scholar.

12. For a discussion of the “Flemish” qualities of the prose fiction written in the early part of the nineteenth century by Izmaiiov and Narezhnyi, as well as the negative critical reaction to their brand of ten'erstvo, see my article, “Teniersism: Seventeenth-Century Flemish Art and Early Nineteenth-Century Russian Prose,” Russian Review 49, no. 1 (1990): 19-41.

13. V. E. Vatsuro and B. S. Meilakh trace the development of early nineteenth century Russian bytopisanie in their essay, “Ot bytopisaniia k ‘poezii deistvitel'nosti.'” in Russkaia povest’ XIX veka: lstoriia i problematika zhanra, ed. B. S. Meilakh (Leningrad: Nauka, 1973). 200-244.

14. Moskovskii telegraf, chast’ I, no. 2(1825): 143.

15. In his study of the Russian physiological sketch, Aleksandr Tseitlin points out that in some cases the illustrations were artistically superior to the prose texts they were meant to accompany. See Slanovlenie realizma v russkoi literature (Russkii fiziologicheskii ocherk) (Moscow: Nauka, 1965), 73.

16. Writing about Kvitka-Osnov'ianenko's Shel'menko, volostnoi pisar’ (1831), for example, the reviewer in Moskovskii telegraf exclaimed. “This is a lively painting, in the Flemish taste, with coarse figures.” The reviewer went on to defend the “naturalness” of Kvitka's characterizations, rebuking those Russian readers and critics who “continue to complain about the ‘Teniersism’ of the author of Dvorianskie vybory.” The Russian reading public, he continues, “thinks that the author slaps on his colors too thickly and paints his portraits too caricaturishly.” See Moskovskii telegraf'5, no. 19 (1831): 388-390.

17. See Literaturnye lislki, chast’ 4, nos. 19-20 (1824): 49, and Severnaia pchela, no. 8 (1847).

18. Peter Hodgson, From Gogol to Dostoevsky (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1970). 78.

19. See Lee, “Ut Pictura Poesis,” 203, and Howard. “Ut Pictura Poesis,” 87.

20. Severnaiapchela.no. 106(1845).

21. Severnaia pchela, no. 22(1846).

22. Russkii vestnik. no. 56 (1842), as quoted in Russkaia kriticheskaia literatura o proizvedeniiakh N. V. Gogolia, ed. Vasilii A. Zelinskii, 3 vols. (Moscow: V. Rikhter, 1889-1896) 1: 102.

23. Severnaia pchela, no. 80(1846).

24. Severnaia pchela, no. 69 (1847). In the same issue of his newspaper, Bulgarin characterized members of the natural school as “writers who began to copy the tasteless and dirty side of humanity, to define talent not as wealth of thought and power of feeling, but as the ability to draw dirty pictures and express the base urges of the soul. The classic Olympus and the romantic Valhalla were replaced by the eating-house, and in the literary world there appeared heroes in torn trousers and with black eyes, who spoke the language of entrance halls and roadside inns. New journals named this nature or nalura, and they called cheap popular prints artistic works of genius. “

25. Grech, , Chteniia o russkom iazyke (St. Petersburg: Tip. N. Grecha, 1840) 2: 138, 333Google Scholar. Bulgarin, in his review of Revizor, likewise sought to dismiss the characterizations as mere caricatures. “This is a hilarious farce,” he wrote, “a series of funny caricatures, which cannot help but make you laugh.” See Severnaiapchela, no. 98(1836).

26. Sevemaia pchela, no. 181 (1854).

27. V. Veresaev, Gogol’ v zhizni (Moscow-Leningrad: Academiia, 1933), 138.

28. Debreczeny, Paul, “Nikolay Gogol and His Contemporary Critics,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 56, part 3 (1966): 17 Google Scholar.

29. Sevemaia pchela, nos. 97-98 (1836). Calling the town in Revizor a mythical Sodom and Gomorrah, Grech asserted that the world Gogol’ created in his play “never existed and could not exist” in tsarist Russia. See ibid., no. 137 (1842).

30. Even critics in late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Russia continued to maintain that Gogol’ and Narezhnyi, by their poetics and style, belonged more to a Ukrainian than to a Great Russian literary tradition. See, for example, Iurii Sokolov, “V. T. Narezhnyi. Dva ocherka,” Besedy (Moscow, 1915), 96, and Peretts, V, “Gogol’ i malorusskaia literaturnaia traditsiia,” in N. V. Gogol'. Rechi posviashchennye ego pamiati (St. Petersburg, 1902), 49 Google Scholar.

31. David B. Saunders discusses the problematic national identity of Gogol’ in “Contemporary Critics of Gogol's Vechera and the Debate about Russian Narodnost’ (1831-1832),” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 5, no. 1 (1981): 66-82. For the identity crisis suffered by writers who were born in the Ukraine but who wrote in Russian, see Luckyj, George S. N., Between Gogol’ and Sevcenko: Polarity in the Literary Ukraine, 1798-1847 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1971.Google Scholar

32. Literaturnye listki, chast’ 4, nos. 19-20 (1824): 50.

33. Sevemaia pchela, nos. 219-220 (1831). Part of that peculiar Little Russian “physiognomy,” according to Polevoi, included the Ukrainian's distinctively coarse sense of humor. “In the Russian man,” he writes, “there is hardly any of this unforced, cheerful, yet at the same time trivial and not very profound humor.” See Moskovskii telegraf, chast’ 44, no. 6 (1832): 263. Grech, meanwhile, observed that the habits and manners of many of the characters in Revizor (especially those of the women) were “not actually Russian, but more White Russian.” See his Chteniia o russkom iazyke 2: 138.

34. Biblioleka dlia chteniia, 53, otd. 6 (1842): 33 and 57: otd. 6 (1843): 28. In the latter article, Senkovskii noted mockingly that in the Ukrainian language “dirt” (griaz) means “poetry” (55). “Parodies of Gogol “s ‘dirty realities’ may be found throughout Sekowski's works.” observes Louis Pedrotti. “When Baron Brambeus arrives in Little Russia on his Poetic Journey’ in search of strong feelings, he finds ‘poetry’ in the ocean of mud and filth that surrounds his carriage.” See Pedrotti, Louis. Jozef-Julian Sekowski: The Genesis of a Literary Alien (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1965), 124.Google Scholar

35. Belinskii once characterized Bulgarin as a writer who lacked his own worldview and who looked at Russia “not with his own eyes but through the glass of foreign authors.” See Moskovskii vestnik. chast’ 7, no. 1 (1828): 78.

36. Otechestvennye zapiski 23. otd. 6 (1842): 89.

37. Sovremennik, no. 2 (1836). I am quoting here from Viazemskii. Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh, 2 vols. (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura. 1982) 2: 149-150.

38. For an interesting discussion of this debate, see Peter Demetz. “Defenses of Dutch Painting and the Theory of Realism,” 97-115.

39. Syn otechestva, chast’ 3, no. 6 (1842): 19.

40. Moskvitianin, chast’ 4, no. 8 (1842): 346. AleksandrO. Orlovskii (1777-1832) was an artist and graphic illustrator whose scenes of everyday Russian life were noted for their representational accuracy.

41. Moskvitianin, chast’ 4, no. 7 (1842): 222. In Mertvye dushi, Gogol’ would voice a similar sentiment, asserting that it requires a great artist “to illuminate a picture taken from despised life and transform it into a pearl of creation.” See part 1, chap. 7, of Mertvye dushi in Gogol', Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk, 1940-1952) 6: 134.

42. Terras, Victor, Belinskij and Russian Literary Criticism: The Heritage of Organic Aesthetics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1974), 21.Google Scholar

43. “Belinskij always makes it clear,” Terras notes, “that a poetic image is by no means the same thing as a mere faithful description, or copy, of reality.” See ibid., 138.

44. Belinskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 13 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk, 1953-1959) 8: 56. Viazemskii echoes these sentiments when he writes, “many people are rejoicing that lithographs and daguerreotypes have been introduced. But it seems to me that for all that we should bemoan the fact that Raphaels and Correggios have not been born for a long time.” See “Vzgliad na literaturu nashu v desiatiletie posle smerti Pushkina,” in his Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh 2: 197.

45. The article originally appeared in the journal Sovremennik 6, no. ll.otd. 3 (1847): 29-75. lam quoting here from Belinskii's PSS 10: 242.

46. Belinskii, PSS 10: 242.

47. Gogol', PSS 8: 292. For his views on the pictorial arts (as well as his relation with Russian painters), see Antonova, N. N., “Problema khudozhnika i deistvitel'nosti v povesti Gogolia ‘Portret, '” in Problemy realizma russkoi literatury XIX veka, ed. B. I. Bursov and I. Z. Serman (Moscow-Leningrad: Akademiia nauk, 1961), 337–353 Google Scholar, and Mashkovtsev, N. G., Gogol’ v krugu khudozhnikov (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1955.Google Scholar

48. For a discussion of the enemy camp's reaction to Vybrannye mesta iz perepiski s druz'iami, see Ruth Sobel, Gogol's Forgotten Book: “Selected Passages” and Its Contemporary Readers (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1981), 181-186.

49. Gogol', MS 8: 427.

50. “What is a vital ingredient of every work of art,” Hegel writes, “is the observance of what generally concerns our humanity, the spirit and characterization of man, in other words, what man is and what each individual is. This vital grasp of the conscious life of human nature and the external forms of its appearance, this native delight and artistic freedom, this freshness and cheerfulness of imaginative sympathy, this absolute directness of execution is what constitutes the poetry that underlies the work of the majority of the Dutch painters of this period.” See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, trans. Francis P. B. Osmaston, 4 vols. (London: Bell and Sons, 1920) 3: 336-337.

51. See A. V. Druzhinin's review of Ivan Goncharov's Russkie v iaponii v kontse 1853 i v nachale 1854 godov (Iz putevykh zametok) in Sovremennik 55, no. 1 (1856)Google Scholar. I am quoting here from Druzhinin, , Prekrasnoe i vechnoe (Moscow: Sovremennik, 1988), 129 Google Scholar. Druzhinin elaborates upon the poetic component within realistic art—and rebukes the narrow (and negative) evaluation of ten'erstvo proffered by opponents of the natural school—in his comparison of Goncharov's prose with Flemish art: “We do not know for sure whether Mr. Goncharov is inclined toward painting, but it seems to us that he would value highly and understand completely the great school of Flemish artists. At one time our critics loved to draw affinities between one or another Russian writer and a Flemish artist, but such comparisons were spurious since they revolved around only an external similarity of subject matter and never penetrated to the essence of the question. Izmailov was a hundred times called a Teniers; Butkov, it seems, was compared with van Ostade, as if a Flemish artist is a Flemish artist only because he depicts drunken peasants or the kitchens in taverns. The meaning of these geniuses from the Netherlands does not reside in this; it is not for their depiction of feasting merrymakers that we love them and it is not for a similarity in subject matter that we are prepared to recognize Mr. Goncharov as perhaps the single contemporary writer who has something in common with the great figures of the Flemish school of art. An identical artistic direction, a great technical ability in their work, an uncovering of pure poetry in that which everyone considered lifeless prose—this is what brings Goncharov close to van der Neer and van Ostade, and what will perhaps, with time, make him a contemporary Fleming… . It seems to us that the author of Obyknovennaia istohia and Son Oblomova has quite the right to go into the gallery of the Imperial Hermitage, stop in the middle of the room filled with the greatest works of the Flemish masters, take a joyous look around him and feel his soul brighten. At that moment he should feel himself to be fully an artist and fully delight in the works by artists who are similar to him in that spirit which animates them. And he should pronounce the immortal names of van Ostade, Mieris, Teniers, Dou, van der Neer, Hobbema, and van de Velde as the names of great yet kindred artists.” See Prekrasnoe i vechnoe, 128-129.

52. Beattie, Essays, 392-393.

53. Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, , Sochineniia v dvukh lomakh, 2 vols. (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literature, 1981)2: 229.Google Scholar

54. Dmitriev-Mamonov, E. A. as quoted in Sergei Aksakov, Istoriia moego inakomstva c Gogolem (Moscow: Akademiia nauk, 1960), 256, n. 57.Google Scholar

55. Sovremennik, no. 10, otd. 1 (1853): 141-142.

56. Belinskii, PSS 10: 248.

57. Patricia Carden, “Ornamentalism and Modernism.” in Russian Modernism: Culture and the Avant-Garde, 1900-1930, ed. George Gibian and H. W. Tjalsma (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. 19761. 52. “'Pushkin’ and ‘Gogol’ came to stand for two ‘schools’ of writing, each thoroughly national, but each very different.” writes Robert A. Maguire, “and Russians have been classifying their literature ever since. To the ‘Pushkin’ school are assigned mainly poets, such as Afanasy Fet. Anna Akhmatova, and the later Pasternak, as well as a few prose writers like Tolstoy and Turgenev. To the ‘Gogol’ school belongs most of the better novelists, such as Dostoevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Bely. and Nabokov.” See “Introduction: The Legacy of Criticism,” in Gogol from the Twentieth Century, ed. and trans. Robert A. Maguire (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), 5. V. V. Sipovskii goes back even earlier to delineate the two main currents in modern Russian literature: one made up of Karamzin, Pushkin, Turgenev and Tolstoi; the other of Chulkov, Gogol', Goncharov, and Dostoevskii. See his Ocherki iz istorii russkogo romana (St. Petersburg: Trud, 1910) 1: 915.

58. Comparing the depictions of everyday life by Pushkin and Gogol'. Abram Lezhnev notes that Gogol’ transfers hytopisanie to a lower plane than Pushkin and that many of Gogol “s unsavory details “would have seemed too ‘Flemish’ to Pushkin.” See Pushkin's Prose, trans. Roberta Reeder (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1983), 65.

59. In “Portret” (1835), for instance, the narrator asks disparagingly, “who needs these Flemish peasants, these red and blue landscapes, which show some pretensions to a higher level of art, but which merely express all the depths of its degradation?” (3: 80). The narrator later speaks approvingly of a Russian artist (living in Italy) who rejected all teachers except “the divine Raphael alone” and who gained from his study of the works of the great master “a lofty conception of creative artistry, an intense beauty of thought, and the sublime loveliness of a divinely inspired brush” (3: 111). See vol. 3 of Gogol', PSS. In a seminar paper titled “The Artist of ‘The Portrait': Gogol and the Flemish School,” delivered at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University on 13 October 1988, Elizabeth Shepard argued cogently that Gogol', in the subtext to “Portret,” effectively refuted the Flemish school label that many of his contemporaries—friend and foe alike—applied to his writings.

60. For background on the 1860s ideological battle over the legacy of Pushkin, see Pushkin. Itogi i problemy izucheniia (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1966), 50-77. For the debate over Shakespeare during this same period, see Shekspir i russkaia kul'tura. ed. M. P. Alekseev (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1965), 407-472.

61. V. A. Zaitsev, for instance, who contributed to the journal Russkoe slovo, repeatedly blasted the advocates of art for art's sake. “They have been enraptured for two thousand years by the Venus de Milo,” he wrote, “and for three hundred years by Raphael's Madonnas, without realizing that by these raptures they actually undermine the purpose of art.” See Zaitsev, Izbrannye sochineniia, 2 vols. (Moscow: Izd. Vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politkatorzhan i ssylno-poselentsev, 1934) 1: 172.

62. Levin, Iurii, “Dostoevskii i Shekspir,” in Dostoevskii: Materialy i issledovaniia (Leningrad: Nauka, 1974) 1: 118.Google Scholar

63. Turgenev, I. S., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem, 28 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad: Nauka, 1962-1966) 8: 238.Google Scholar In “Dovol'no” (1861-1864), Turgenev sounded a similarly anti-utilitarian note by placing the Venus de Milo above Roman law and the principles of the French Revolution. See ibid. 9: 119.

64. Ibid. 8: 219, 247.

65. F. M. Dostoevskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972-1986) 10: 23. In “Gospodin Shchedrin, ili Raskol v nigilistakh” (1864), Dostoevskii attacked the editors of Sovremennik in much the same way that Stepan Verkhovenskii does the young nihilists in Besy. “From now on,” he wrote, “you should take as your rule that boots in any event are better than Pushkin, because one can easily get by without Pushkin, but one can in no way dispense with boots. So therefore Pushkin is a luxury and nonsense … . Even Shakespeare himself is nonsense and a luxury.” See ibid. 20: 109.

66. Herzen, Aleksandr, “Diletantizm v nauke,” Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati lomakh, 30 vols. (Moscow: Nauka, 1954-1965) 3: 35 Google Scholar. In Besy, Varvara Stavrogina, who becomes increasingly seduced by (and gradually converts to) the utilitarian aesthetics of the younger generation during the course of the novel, attempts to discourage Stepan from speaking about Raphael's Madonna. Interestingly enough, Varvara had earlier lent Stepan a painting by Teniers in order that her friend might make a favorable impression upon the newly arrived Karmazinov. Indeed, she even instructs Stepan to hang the Teniers painting above his portrait of Goethe, where it will not only be more visible, of course, but also manage to make a statement to the famous visitor about their (Varvara's and Stepan's) fashionably modern and progressive aesthetic preferences. See Dostoevskii, PSS 10: 72.

67. Dostoevskii, PSS 10: 372. In Prestuplenie i nakazanie (1866), Dostoevskii has the pseudonihilist Lebeziatnikov voice the opinion that useful work “is much higher than the activity of any Raphael or Pushkin” (6: 285). This statement was no doubt intended to echo Zaitsev's assertion that “every craftsman is more useful than any poet.” See Zaitsev, Izbrannye sochineniia 1: 216.

68. In one of his notebook entries, Dostoevskii wrote of his fear that “the Paris Commune and western socialism … want equality and will chop off the heads of Shakespeare and Raphael.” See “Iz zapisnoi knizhki F. M. Dostoevskogo,” Russkoe bogatstvo, no. 1 (1883), 6.