The book itself is entertaining and interesting. However, in order to make it easier for the reader to endure three hundred pages of solid text, great people invented such a thing as illustrations for them. Agree, the moral load on the brain is wonderful. But in order not to fall into boring monotony, sometimes a drop of visual pleasure on the pages of our favorite book will not hurt us.

Colorful pictures from children's books immediately come to mind, but the more significant the book in world culture, the more serious and deeper the artists approach the matter of creating the image. And here already no drawings of “Aibolit” will be next to what people create under the impression of cult books. Today I want to show you 7 different illustrators' views on books created in different era, but equally left a mark in world literature. They are arranged in chronological order. Enjoy!

"Romeo and Juliet" - Savva Brodsky

And since I decided to follow the chronological sequence, the first on the list will be illustrations for famous tragedy Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Sava Brodsky - soviet artist And book illustrator, whose work for the tragedy could not fail to attract attention. Each of them is literally permeated with the spirit of sad events: dark colors, pale face and shade gothic style- all this gives the images a touch of bitterness, and the pictures - the atmosphere of a truly "sadest story in the world."

Don Quixote - Salvador Dali

Salvador Dali is a restless genius who created as many as four diverse cycles of illustrations for the most famous book after the Bible - Don Quixote. But, perhaps, I will show you fragments to the very first cycle of Cervantes' novel, since it was Dali who loved him the most and admired him alone. These illustrations, unfortunately, are little known in the world, but they deliver aesthetic pleasure no worse than others. famous works great artist.

The ABCs of Edgar Allan Poe - Ero Nel

Poe's works themselves were clearly not famous for their positivity and iridescence. And if you remember his "Black Cat" and "Crow", then in general from Have a good mood the cat's tail will remain, and the body will be covered with trembling from the tickling of the nerves with the black feather "Nevermore". It was this atmosphere that the young artist Anastasia Chernaya (Ero Nel) managed to convey in the so-called “ABC Po”. Each picture is separate story writer. Each capital letter- part of the Allan Poe alphabet.

B - "Berenice"

U - "Murder on the Rue Morgue"

Ch - "Black Cat"

"Jen Eyre" - Elena and Anna Balbusso

In order to create a contrast, after the gloomy and frightening Po, I will introduce you to the “warm” Balbusso sisters. The work of Charlotte Brontë itself, although it contains frightening events in places, is, despite this, a touching and sincere novel, where the dark background is dominated by bright colors love. In the illustrations of the artists big role it is warm shades that pierce with sincerity even the most frightening moments of the book.

"Transformation" - Eda Akaltun

Eda Akaltun is a contemporary illustrator who created a series of images for Franz Kafka's notorious novel The Metamorphosis. The drawings, filled with just three colors, were supposed to capture and denounce the dark humor and atmosphere of the claustrophobia of the story itself rather than its narrative.

"1984" - Andrey Zamura

Mint a step. Walk in formation. No, this is not the army, this is Orwell. It is not enough to say that the famous dystopia “1984” influenced art alone. No, she influenced the vision of the whole world. And how to depict it more clearly and “safer”, except in the image? This is exactly what the modern Russian illustrator Andrey Zamura tried to do. Strict lines, abstract figures and maximalist vision - perfect recipe images inspired by George Orwell's 1984.

"The Old Man and the Sea" - Slava Schultz

Slava Schultz, a student of the Kharkov Academy of Design and Arts, created impressive series illustrations for E. Hemingway's story "The Old Man and the Sea", by which it was difficult to pass without admiring. Oil painting technique on photo paper, add to this book graphics and, of course, cold colors, from which the blood runs cold - this is a near-ideal recipe for brilliant work, warmly received by the public.

The Lord of the Rings - Greg and Tim Hildebrandt

And finally, I still dilute the already created gloomy atmosphere. fabulous illustrations Hildebrant brothers based on Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. More vivid and impressive illustrations are hard to find. They are full of colors, life and emotions. And it seems that, looking at them, any adult person plunges into a fairy tale for a moment and feels this wild desire, taking a book and a flashlight, get under the covers and drown in the biggest world created the most brilliant writer John Tolkien.

Leviza Nikulin

Artist illustrating worldwide famous work literature, must be ready to die in the writer. When this artist achieves the highest truth, you cease to notice the elasticity of his drawing, the thoughtfulness of the composition, the beauty of the color - all this disappears; picking up an illustration, you simply exclaim inwardly: “Lord, Natasha!” “Ah, this is Prince Andrei near Austerlitz! ..” “Well, of course, old Bolkonsky! ..” The path to this natural recognition lies precisely through the logic of portrait interpretation, through knowledge of details, through the accuracy of composition - drawing - color. If there is no illustration deep independent work visual arts, you simply won’t be able to watch it, everything in it will interfere with you: every color spot, every figure. One must be able to die in the writer... or rather, in order to die in the writer, the artist illustrating a book must first of all be born as a completely independent person.

Andrey Nikolaev is one of the best contemporary illustrators L. N. Tolstoy. He is the author of the series graphic drawings to "War and Peace", performed in a virtuoso and strict manner, close to Benois and Russian graphics of the beginning of the century. Working on color illustrations for the great novel, Nikolaev also tried the path of bright color expression. Tried - to discard.

Before us New episode his works - "War and Peace" in color. Volume one. The drawing is simple and realistic, the compositions are natural and logical, the range of colors is strict. This is the same style in which you should not notice the painting, should not linger on the surface of the picture, looking, you immediately go into the depths of the great book: into the alleys of Otradny, into the damp snow of Shengraben. However, it is all the more interesting to see how the purely pictorial logic of the artist allows him to give an independent and consistent reading of the book.

I offer you a short journey through this opening day in postcards. Let's take just one angle of view - color. Not a drawing, not a composition, not the accuracy of detailing, but that decisive component in a color illustration, which could be called coloristic logic.

The series opens with the work "The Salon of Anna Pavlovna Scherer". What a cold! Pearl-gray tones of dresses, walls, mirrors - the light is dead, frozen. The blue of the chairs, the green of the shadows - in all this there is a feeling of some kind of marsh coldness: before us is a ball of the dead, a meeting of ghosts. And in the depths of this balanced realm - in contrast - like a flash vital energy like a stroke of blood - the red collar of Prince Andrei, beaten off by the whiteness of his uniform - a drop of fire in this swamp.

This coloristic contrast is developed, developed, enlarged in the “Portrait of Prince Andrei”. icy, in gray tones a painted face, a thin silhouette against the leaden background of the mirror - the prince is forged into the high world, his thin lips are compressed, nothing can be read on his face, but ... what a stormy explosion of bright scarlet on white! The scarlet collar and lapels of the prince's white cavalry uniform are the color of life, passion, risk, a complete denial of marsh death. And in this color contrast you already perceive a break in the eyebrows, huge eyes, as if looking inward. What passions are driven inside! What a tragedy.

And this hot red dot is lit up with all the colors of life in the painting "Children of the Rostovs": a whirlwind of the sun, naive joy - a warm pink bright color, and only the black uniforms of Nikolai and Boris remotely predict war and death in this light whirlwind of life.

"Ball at the Rostovs" - a complete contrast to the "Scherer Salon". There is an evening by candlelight, and here it is an evening by candlelight, but here the air is completely different: warmth, pagan love of life, laughter, naturalness. There - swamp grayness, here - a thick richness of colors. But here and there - the illusory nature of life: the war has not yet penetrated it with its tension, the stamp of naivety or illusoryness lies on people who have not yet been awakened by 1812. Amazing feeling lethargic sleep in the portrait of the “Old Prince Bolkonsky”: a bright riot of foliage is cut off from us by coldly shiny glass, the blueness of the walls is cold, the gray-blue color of the fur coat, which is worn by the haughty retired aristocrat, is cold, the slippery glare on the lacquered floor is cold - everything is as if under glass aquarium: cold, emptiness, silence. No, Russia has not yet awakened ...

But the test is coming. The hot scale of the painting “Prince Andrei’s Farewell to his Sister”: the red collar burns, the glare of candles rushes about in front of the icons, the white sultan on his hat trembles - an excited, agitated color, Andrei goes to where everything burns and rages, to where death and life argue and where the drama of Russia already begins.

Now remember the cover of the series: on the "wide screen" - the suffering face of Kutuzov, and there, behind him, behind him, in the gray and damp Austrian December twilight, are Russian soldiers at weak fires. They are cut off from their homeland, they are drawn into a war that has not yet become Patriotic for them ...

And here they are on the march: white teeth sparkle in a smile, white bayonets sparkle, and as if the soldiers are pulled from the outside with one white belt belt, and a new color has already reigned in everything - the smoky color of war, and in this color scheme everything is decided battle scenes: white, red, fiery, green, yellow sparkles - through this clouding everything, torn, shapeless smoke. War is treated as hard work, as work. In this vein, the topic “Tushin’s Battery”, and “Attack at Austerlitz”, and “Retreat at Shengraben” are solved ...

And in a different way in this color accompaniment, peaceful scenes again appear: their gamut has changed a little. Here is a soft, uncertain, scattered coloring in the Natasha and Sonya scene. And here is the aggravated deceptiveness of the treacherous, yellow color of lies in the scene "Pierre and Helene". The cheerful and naive lost their confidence, the self-confident lost their support, the smoke of war seemed to remove the audacity of colors from these plots... , where the white crosses of soldier's belts show through the gray veil, where people suffer and die, and where the fate of Russia begins to rise in full growth in the smoke of battles.

And from this dense, ragged kaleidoscope of torn and tangled color spots intertwined with smoke - life, blood, death, faith, despair - stands out, like the sound of a trumpet, a "monoline" of color: a piercing and pure, oppressive cold blue. "Wounded Prince Andrei on the Pratsen Heights". Take a look at how this purity is born from the smoke that has not yet been dispelled: something has been determined in this whirlwind, something has become clear. Illusions are shattered, and the person returns to himself and sees the sky above him. Contrary to the long-standing tradition of the illustrators of War and Peace, Nikolaev refuses to draw this Austerlitz sky - he does not want the completeness of the drawing to close this infinity, and he cuts the drawing from above, giving us the opportunity to continue this opened blue, this opened infinity, this path to the future ; the path of Tolstoy's heroes - to the Battle of Borodino ... to the truth ... to the Motherland.

Salon of Anna Pavlovna Sherer

Anna Pavlovna's evening was started. spindles with different parties evenly and without ceasing noise.

Ball at the Rostovs

...Suddenly, several men and women ran to the door from the next room. female legs, the roar of a hooked and thrown chair, and a thirteen-year-old girl ran into the room, wrapping something around her short muslin skirt, and stopped in the middle of the room.

spiritual service

Above the chair stood the clergy in their majestic shining robes, with long hair, with lighted candles in their hands, and slowly solemnly served.

Old Prince Bolkonsky

General-in-chief Prince Nikolai Andreevich, nicknamed in society le roi de Prusse *, since the time when Paul was exiled to the village, he lived without a break in his Bald Mountains with his daughter, Princess Marya, and with her companion, m-lle Bourienne **.

* King of Prussia
** Mamzel Bourienne

Farewell of Prince Andrei with his sister

She crossed herself, kissed the icon and handed it to Andrey.
— Please, Andre, for me…
From big eyes beams of kind and timid light shone from her. These eyes illuminated the whole sickly, thin face and made it beautiful.

Song of the soldiers

The drummer sang ... sang a drawn-out soldier's song, which began: “Is it not dawn, the sun was engaged ...” and ended with the words: “So, brothers, there will be glory to us with Kamensky, father ...” This song was composed in Turkey and was now sung in Austria, only with the change that in place of "with Kamensky-father" the words were inserted: "Kutuzov-father."

Denisov on horseback

Denisov, leaning back and shouting something, drove past.

Rostov in battle

- Add lynx! - a command was heard, and Rostov felt how his back was giving in, interrupting his Grachik at a gallop. He guessed ahead of him his movements, and he became more and more cheerful ... "Oh, how I will chop him," thought Rostov, clutching the hilt of his saber in his hand.

Battery Tushin

In the smoke, stunned by incessant shots that made him shudder every time, Tushin, without letting go of his nose warmer, ran from one gun to another, now aiming, now counting charges, now ordering the change and hauling of dead and wounded horses, and shouting at his weak, thin , in a hesitant voice.

Retreat near Shengraben

Juncker was Rostov. He held the other with one hand, was pale, and his lower jaw was trembling with feverish trembling.

Pierre and Helen

- Pierre, during the seeing off of the guests, remained alone for a long time with Helen in the small living room where they sat. He had often before, in the last month and a half, been left alone with Helen, but he had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt it was necessary, but he couldn't bring himself to take that last step.

Natasha and Sonya

Do you remember him? Natasha suddenly asked after a moment's silence. Sonya smiled.
Do I remember Nicolas?
“No, Sonya, do you remember him in such a way that you remember him well, that you remember everything,” Natasha said with a studious gesture, apparently wanting to attach the most serious significance to her words. “And I remember Nikolenka, I remember,” she said. I don't remember Boris. I don't remember at all...
- How? Do you remember Boris? Sonya asked in surprise.

Attack at Austerlitz

Prince Andrei with the battalion was already twenty paces from the guns. He heard the unceasing whistle of bullets above him, and incessantly to the right and left of him the soldiers groaned and fell.

Wounded Prince Andrei on the Pratsen Heights

On Pratsenskaya Hill, on the very spot where he fell with a flagpole in his hands, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky lay bleeding, and, without knowing it, moaned with a quiet, pitiful and childish moan ... Suddenly he again felt alive and suffering from burning and tearing pain in the head.
“Where is it, this high sky, which I did not know until now and saw today? was his first thought. - And I did not know this suffering either, - he thought. Yes, I didn't know anything until now. But where am I?

Portrait of Prince Andrei

Prince Andrei Bolkonsky was short, a very handsome young man with definite and dry features. Everything in his figure, from the tired, bored look to the quiet measured step, represented the sharpest contrast with his little lively wife. He, apparently, was not only familiar with everyone in the drawing room, but he was so tired of it that it was very boring for him to look at them and listen to them.

Based on thorough sociological surveys of my public opinion a rating of the characters of The Master and Margarita was compiled, in the best way embodied by the artists.

The Roman procurator opens our hit parade. Perhaps I have not seen Pontius Pilate, who could compete with the procurator, drawn artist Evgeny Gritchin. All the features of Pilate - from strength and majesty to obliviousness and fatigue - can be seen in this drawing.


Great ball with Satan

Epigraph to the novel:
“I am part of that power that always wants evil and always does good.”

The best Woland was harder to find. Perhaps this is Woland, who was born thanks to the French photographer Jean Lurie.

"And then the sultry air thickened in front of him, and a transparent citizen of a strange appearance was woven from this air. On a small head was a jockey cap, a checkered short airy jacket ... A citizen a sazhen tall, but narrow in the shoulders, incredibly thin, and a physiognomy, please note, mocking."

"He was barefoot, in a torn whitish sweatshirt, to which a paper icon with a faded image of a famous saint was pinned to his chest with a safety pin, and in striped white underpants. Ivan Nikolaevich carried a lit wedding candle in his hand."

"She carried in her hands disgusting, disturbing yellow flowers. The devil knows what their names are, but for some reason they are the first to appear in Moscow. And these flowers stood out very distinctly against her black spring coat."

"The night thickened, flew nearby, grabbed the jumpers by the raincoats and, tearing them off their shoulders, exposed the deceptions. And when Margarita, blown by the cool wind, opened her eyes, she saw how the appearance of everyone flying towards her goal was changing."

When choosing the title pair, on the contrary, there were no hesitation. Master and Margarita, frozen in an eternal embrace, best of all succeeded sculptor Alexander Rukavishnikov. The master, who hung his arms helplessly, is embraced by Margarita in a naked body raincoat. Pay attention to their legs: lovers soar in the air without touching the ground.

And here better picture meeting of the Master and Margarita, showing the inevitability of this meeting, belongs Sergei Tyunin.

Procurator of Judea and Wandering Philosopher

Hippo on a chandelier

Photographer Retrograd gave us the best Hella in the world ( "Did you come without a sword?").

“Ivan gasped, looked into the distance and saw a hated unknown. He was already at the exit to Patriarchal Lane, and more than one. More than a dubious regent managed to join him. huge as a boar, black as soot or a rook, and with a desperate cavalry mustache.

"The stranger did not let Stepin's amazement develop to a degree of pain and deftly poured him half a shot of vodka."

“Then take the trouble to get it,” Azazello said, and taking a round golden box from his pocket

“The cat, putting the binoculars away from his eyes, quietly pushed his king in the back”

Oh, and a souvenir photo...

The absolutely beautiful Koroviev came out at Gennady Kalinovsky. See how he rejoices at Nikanor Ivanovich.
“At the table of the deceased sat an unknown, skinny and long citizen in a plaid jacket, a jockey cap and pince-nez ... well, in a word, the same one.
- Ba! Nikanor Ivanovich, - the unexpected citizen shouted in a rattling tenor and, jumping up, greeted the chairman with a violent and sudden handshake. This greeting did not please Nikanor Ivanovich in the least.

"Ivan gasped, looked into the distance and saw a hated unknown. He was already at the exit to Patriarch's Lane, and not alone. More than a dubious regent managed to join him. But that's not all: the third in this company was a cat who had come from nowhere, huge as a boar, black as soot or a rook, and with a desperate cavalry mustache... Ivan rushed after the villains and was immediately convinced that it would be very difficult to catch up with them.

“The cat grabbed hold of the entertainer’s thin hair and, howling wildly, tore off this head from his full neck in two turns. Two and a half thousand people in the theater screamed as one. handed the head to Fagot, who picked it up by the hair and showed it to the public, and this head desperately shouted to the whole theater:
- The doctors!"

“The light came close, and Margarita saw the illuminated face of a man, long and black, holding this very lamp in his hand. It was Koroviev, aka Fagot. True, Koroviev’s appearance had changed a lot. to throw it in the trash, but in a monocle, however, also cracked. The mustache on his impudent face was twisted and pomaded, and Koroviev's blackness was explained very simply - he was in a tailcoat. Only his chest turned white.

“The room was already swaying in the crimson pillars, and together with the smoke three people ran out of the door, climbed the stone stairs up and ended up in the courtyard. The first thing they saw there was the builder’s cook sitting on the ground, crumbling potatoes and several bunches of onions were lying next to her The cook's condition was understandable. Three black horses were snoring by the shed, trembling, blowing up the ground with fountains.

And here in the role of Woland - Alexander Shirvindt.

And here is Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, the chairman of the housing association of house 302-bis.

"A third person was lying on a jeweler's pouffe in a cheeky pose, namely, a black cat of terrible size with a glass of vodka."

The wife of Monsieur Jacques was already getting down on one knee in front of Marguerite and, pale with excitement, was kissing Marguerite's knee.
"Queen," muttered Mr. Jacques's wife.
“The queen is in admiration,” shouted Koroviev.
- Queen ... - said the handsome man, Mr. Jacques, quietly.
“We are delighted,” howled the cat.

"Above the black abyss, into which the walls went, an immense city caught fire with sparkling idols reigning over it over a garden that had grown magnificently over many thousands of these moons. The lunar road, long awaited by the procurator, stretched straight to this garden, and the sharp-eared dog was the first to run along it."

“A wide lunar road stretches from the bed to the window, and a man in a white cloak with a bloody lining rises onto this road and begins to walk towards the moon. Next to him is a young man in a torn tunic and with a disfigured face. Those who are walking about something talk with fervor, argue, want to agree on something.

Koroviev looks at the surprised head of Berlioz

Bifurcation of Ivan:
“But-but-but,” he suddenly said sternly somewhere, either inside, or above the ear, former Ivan Ivan new - about the fact that Berlioz's head will be cut off, after all, he knew in advance? How not to get excited?

The best Berlioz (and Bezdomny, perhaps, too (and Woland, damn it, is not bad!) turned out to be an etching by Viktor Efimenko.

Immortality for cowardice

Kidnapping (“Civilian art historians know everything!”)

Phantasmagoria #1
("Fact is the most stubborn thing in the world")

Well, in conclusion. Mikhail Bulgakov himself, surrounded by the heroes of the novel, is beautifully drawn Seventh Proof

duel between professor and poet

Bifurcation of Ivan

Forgiveness and eternal shelter