Untitled (from the series White Nights)
Artist name
Artist year born
1903
Artist year deceased
1992
Artwork make date
1955
Artwork material
wood engraving
translucent paper
translucent paper
Artwork dimensions
height: 17cm
width: 11cm
width: 11cm
Artwork type (categories)
Print
Accession method
Donated by Alex Gama 1995
Accession number
69:3-1995
Label text
In this image we see the narrator of Dostoyevsky's story in the grip of his own overactive imagination. On the second 'white night', when he meets Nastenka for the second time, he pours out the story of how he veers between ecstatic visions and gloomy despair. He is tortured by the idea that he is wasting his life as 'a slave of shadows' and that he will grow old without ever managing to experience any of life's delights for himself. Unlike Nastenka, who in the second print in the series is in control of the dreams in her heart, here the whole composition reinforces the narrator's helplessness: his haggard face and bony hands weighed down and distorted by the enveloping black phantom, and the shadowy wings, ever-ready to carry him away again.
Valerie Fraser
Valerie Fraser
Last updated date
2009