Paola Dmitrievna Volkova, an outstanding art historian and thinker, reveals to us the intertwining of reflections on world art and the nature of the human being—its purpose and connections to God, space, and time.
But the author writes not only about this. This book contains personal memories, portraits of outstanding figures from the distant past and of our contemporaries, and an analysis of masterpieces of painting, theater, and cinema. On the pages of the book, very interestingly and accessibly, the unity and contradiction of the continuous movement toward light is presented—toward what is called the “path into infinity.”
Contents:
[*]PORTRAITS AND IMAGES
From a letter by a literary scholar and translator
Alexander Morozov (October 1955)
When I was 14 years old
Three books
A guest on the stove
The musician
“Vocal parallels”
Irony and tenderness
Black on white
Indistinguishable copy
The stylist and the actress
A Moscow pianist
“The secret romance”
Seva Turkin
“Farewell, Garden Ring”
[*]THE INNER FIELD
An address to the mask
Connection to memory
A conversation with a double
How to become an emperor
“A world portrait”
Roman anecdotes
“The Book of the Dead”
Originals
Unknown Russians
Layers of consciousness
Reading “Hoffmanniana”
Memory sealed by genius
In the circle of Venice
A conversation with Alla Demidova about Theodore
Terzopoulos
He hears the breath of the Universe
The name of God in all languages
[*]FRAGMENTS
Intermission
Self-portrait
Immortality
Biography
Age
Higher courage
Perception
Time
Money
The cherished ring
An icon
Cinema
Culture
Personality
Mom
Misunderstanding
Nostalgia
Memory
A character
Betrayal
Indifference
Saints
Mummers
Blindness
Death
“Dog’s Heart”
Conscience
Consciousness
Stalin
Passion
Fear
Tragedy and comedy
Apathy of the soul
Numbers
The Cheshire cat
A miracle
Christian values
Aeschylus
I
[*]BORN IN THE USSR
The Tarkovsky line
Born in the USSR
Painting and cinema
“Remember the strange man”
The poet Leonid Zavalnyuk