On Osip Mandelstam’s Poem “Impressionism”

Abstract

This article focuses on Osip Mandelstam’s poem “Impressionism”. The main objective of this work is to analyze the key motifs and images of the poem and to offer an integral, non-contradictory reading of the poem based on its immediate context as well as on the specific features of Mandelstam’s poetics. Mandelstam treated impressionism with great enthusiasm considering it an innovative phenomenon in art; impressionism in its broad meaning most fully corresponded with his idea of the life-giving capacities of art as reflected in this poem. The article discloses the plot of the gradual immersion in the world of an impressionist painting in Mandelstam’s poem. A verse-by-verse analysis of the text complemented by the parallel reading of the fragments of Mandelstam’s prose, and also with impressionist paintings the poet was familiar with as a backdrop, allows me to define the particularities of Mandelstam’s symphonic and solid perception of plastic arts, including impressionist painting. The article shows how the antinomies of Mandelstam’s creative art affect the poetic text. “Impressionism” is not a reflection of specific motifs of particular paintings but a cocreative effort of resurrecting reality in art that Mandelstam thought to be the art’s prime purpose.

Keywords

• mandelstam
• lyrics
• poetics
• semantics
• motifs
• impressionism
• ekphrasis.