Akhmatova’s “Leonaderschi”: A Commentary on the Pictorial Reality

Abstract

This article explores why N. Nedobrovo mentioned Il Sodoma (Giovanni-Antonio Bazzi) among the artists of da Vinci School in her poem that was of particular importance to Anna Akhmatova. The referenced studies by Merezhkovsky, Freud, and Muratov, explain the convergence of Sodoma’s art with the work of Leonardo da Vinci. The author argues, however, that the real reason of this convergence was the joke narrative of Vasari about Il Sodoma that was reinterpreted by the 20 th century authors in the spirit of “Romantic irony.” Placing “Romantic irony” in the context of the conversation about painting as the mirror of the world influenced Nedobrovo and Akhmatova and shaped their understanding of existence in terms of the “looking-glass.” Thus, the theme of the mirror in Akhmatova’s poetry, dominant in her poetic world, not only can be explained by autobiographical motives but also related to the mirror topoi in painting and Vasari’s story about Sodoma as the artist who was both serious and entertaining and building his own self-image on self-parody. This allows us attenuate the Doppelgänger motif in Akhmatova’s poetry.

Keywords

• Akhmatova
• Nedobrovo
• leonardeschi
• images of painting in poetry
• poetic space