An article by Lydia Enova, the curator of the exhibition at the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the birth of F.M. Dostoevsky, was published in the Tretyakov Gallery magazine No. 4 for 2021: “The Meeting that Changed the World”.
In November 2021, on the 200th anniversary of the birth of F.M. Dostoevsky in the State Museum of A.S. Pushkin in Moscow opened the exhibition “The Meeting that Changed the World”, at which the artist Viktor Apukhtin presented his works for the first time - graphic reflections on the problems inherent in the novel “The Idiot”, their timeless essence. Viktor Olegovich Apukhtin (born 1952) is known as a graphic artist and book artist: he illustrated such works as Goethe’s Faust, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Cervantes’ Don Quixote, Alisher Navoi’s poems, a collection of Uzbek folklore (the cycle about Khoja Nasreddin), “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin (in the edition of the novel in Uzbek). Having visited the exhibition “Writings of Heaven” at the A. Solzhenitsyn House of Russian Abroad in Moscow, Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova called Viktor Apukhtin the successor of the tradition of the development of book illustration.
Apukhtin is fluent in the language of graphics, masterfully uses the expressive capabilities of various techniques, experiments, and creates new things. His works are in many museums of the once united country, including Moscow - the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of Fine Arts of the Peoples of the East, the State Literary Museum of A.S. Pushkin.
A descendant of a famous noble family from the city of Bolkhov (relatives of the Turgenevs), an artist and philosopher, Apukhtin set himself a noble task - to heal with art. This mission also permeates the artist’s new series of graphic works dedicated to the novel “The Idiot.”
Apukhtin is one of those masters who are concerned about the similarity of F.M.’s ideas. Dostoevsky, the poetics of his prose and biblical themes, in particular the problem of the Savior’s lack of recognition by his contemporaries, expressed in the lines of the Gospel of John: “There was the true Light, which enlightens every person who comes into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him” (Gospel of John 1:9-10). The artist explores the theme of human tossing from good to evil, when a person, suffering endlessly, either idealizes or demonizes the process of life.
For Viktor Apukhtin, the main character of the novel, Lev Myshkin, personifies Light and therefore has no shadow when visualized. Its essence is “to enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace” (Gospel of Luke 1:79), because the ability to see the Light is the path to salvation.
A subtle psychologist, the artist guides us through the transformation of the novel's heroes. The disembodiment of Prince Myshkin contrasts with the down-to-earth characters - their images are shown somewhat ironically. But the moment of contact illuminates them with a different light, and the old life becomes impossible.
One of the features of Apukhtin's characters is that they are alive and pulsating. They reside in the cosmic dimension, embodying the connection of times. They, as entities, are either similar to the creatures of the Ocean in A. Tarkovsky’s film “Solaris”, emerging from the “furnace of bubbling passions”, or born of the Divine Light.
The works of Viktor Apukhtin expand the iconography of illustrations of the works of F.M. Dostoevsky, laid down by the classics of modern Russian art A.D. Goncharov, D.A. Shmarinov, I.S. Glazunov, F.D. Konstantinov, M.M. Shemyakin, M.M. Verkholantsev...
Victor Apukhtin about the novel “The Idiot”
Masterpiece F.M. Dostoevsky’s “The Idiot” was written on the theme of the lines of the Gospel of John (chapter 1 verse 10): “He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him.” The Russian language of the novel is pure, precise and poetic. Russian landscape. Russian Christ. Russian soul, sublime and low. Russian sadness, laziness, debauchery, humility, delight, everything is true, like beauty. The beauty that will save the world After all, beauty is a manifestation of Truth. Truth - the savior who came into the world - Dostoevsky has the name Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin. “Idiot” is a text about how in St. Petersburg or in any other city the Savior crucifies people every minute. In a world where good and evil are parts of this world, and man is a borderline creature, living on the border of worlds: the human world, woven from the sensations of this man, and the world that created this man. A conflict, a collision, a miracle occurs at the moment of the meeting of two worlds - the world of people and the world of the Absolute. It is transformation that is the nerve of this novel. Everyone who meets Lev Myshkin changes. They clearly see the dark and light sides of their soul... Two lights are present in the pictorial interpretation: the internal light, sanctifying, and the consuming light emanating from the fireplace with banknotes disappearing in the fire. The final chord of the novel is murder, repentance and forgiveness.
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