@article{ART001256155},
author={Ju-Kwan Cho},
title={Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and },
journal={Cross-Cultural Studies},
issn={1598-0685},
year={2008},
volume={12},
number={1},
pages={299-326},
doi={10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299}
TY - JOUR
AU - Ju-Kwan Cho
TI - Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and
JO - Cross-Cultural Studies
PY - 2008
VL - 12
IS - 1
PB - Center for Cross Culture Studies
SP - 299
EP - 326
SN - 1598-0685
AB - It could be said about the communication of art and literature that they
are an intertextual dialogue to a broader understanding of the human world.
Dostoevsky, who regarded picture as visual literature, praised Raffaello's
Painting, as the "greatest work of art in human history"
and used it as a subject matter of his literary works. The young girls that
usually appear in his novels are imitations or variations of Madonna (the
Virgin Mary). The purpose of this essay is how the novelist uses his artistic
imagination code to look into the union of holiness and worldliness.
Dostoevsky, like Andrei Rublyov, developed his own method in enjoying
art. He is an artist who look at the human world in the wanton Zeus' cunning
view enjoying fully the freedom of imagination. He could be called as the
greatest imaginative artist in the world. Dostoevsky granted a special
meaning to Raffaello's . In Raffaello's religious painting,
the yet young Virgin Mary who has a child in her arms reminds of Sonya's
figure who also has Raskolnikov in her arms. In Crime and Punishment,
Raskolnikov throws himself on Sonya and confesses his crime. Here, Sonya
somehow plays the role of the confession priest. She was deeply distressed
from this but then tells him to go to the broad way to kiss the site where
he has defiled and to confess all his sins. Sonya resembles Virgin Mary
because of her understand of human's agony, and Raskolnikov resembles the
baby who admits of his sin to the Virgin Mary.
The encounter of literary text and artistic text is the communication of
icon and language signs. In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov confesses his crime to the prostitute Sonya and Svidrigaylov finding the images of
Virgin Mary are all only possible with the author's liberal cannibalistic
imagination. In Dostoevsky's work, prostitute girls appear to the
protagonists as saviors because they are Virgin Mary's impersonation. Of
course, in the Christian's viewpoint, associating a young girl and a virgin
statue, and paring her with a lascivious man might be blasphemy or
defilement of the sacred object. Dostoevsky is associating the young girl that
was sold from the Virgin Mary, but that blasphemy of the Holy Mother does
not necessarily mean the varnish of the Holy Mother's essence. In
Dostoevsky's creative world, the Holy Mother is disguised as a wretched
young prostitute girl, but the Holy Mother is portraying the figure of a savior
who saves mankind from suffering and indigence. This point is the reason
why Sonya had been portrayed as the savior in Crime and Punishment.
Originally, the highest value of the Orthodox faith is holiness. Virtue is the
greatest moral which preserves the Russian mind in the Russian secular
world. If Dostoevsky was a drawing artist, he would have drawn religious
paintings portraying young girls as prostitutes like Raffaello, who used his
girl friend as a model to draw the Virgin Mary. The encounter of literature
and art is an open communication that broadens the area of human
comprehension.
KW - Code;Iconography;Intertextuality;Cannibalistic imagination;Blasphemy of
the Holy Mother
DO - 10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
ER -
Ju-Kwan Cho. (2008). Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and . Cross-Cultural Studies, 12(1), 299-326.
Ju-Kwan Cho. 2008, "Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and ", Cross-Cultural Studies, vol.12, no.1 pp.299-326. Available from: doi:10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho "Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and " Cross-Cultural Studies 12.1 pp.299-326 (2008) : 299.
Ju-Kwan Cho. Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and . 2008; 12(1), 299-326. Available from: doi:10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho. "Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and " Cross-Cultural Studies 12, no.1 (2008) : 299-326.doi: 10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho. Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and . Cross-Cultural Studies, 12(1), 299-326. doi: 10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho. Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and . Cross-Cultural Studies. 2008; 12(1) 299-326. doi: 10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho. Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and . 2008; 12(1), 299-326. Available from: doi:10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299
Ju-Kwan Cho. "Dostoevsky's Iconography Code especially in and " Cross-Cultural Studies 12, no.1 (2008) : 299-326.doi: 10.21049/ccs.2008.12.1.299