The Sins of Reading a Painting, or the False Ekphrasis of Holbein’s Painting The Dead Christ in the Tomb in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Idiot

Abstract

One of the most famous and frequently analysed descriptions in literary and art history is undoubtedly Dostoevsky’s ekphrasis of Holbein’s painting The Dead Christ in the Tomb in his novel The Idiot (Part III. Chapter 6). The painting itself sparked a series of theological and aesthetic controversies with its unusual, non-canonical iconography depicting of the Passion of Christ. Most art historical analyses do not ignore the ekphrasis of that picture in The Idiot. In this study, we proceed from the premise that the “reading of the painting” leads to different results from the point of view of three main characters of the novel: Rogozhin, Myshkin, and Ippolit. Our goal is to prove that ekphrasis is an inseparable part of a speech act—not an objective description, but intentional speech. Therefore, it cannot be interpreted without understanding the speaker’s intention or the character’s situation. This explains the strong distortions and misreading in the ekphrasis. We can capture the meaning reconstructed in the character’s speech through the motifs of copy, epigonism, duplication and misquotation. Ippolit, the subiectum of ekphrasis, proves to be a truly “bad reader,” and his reading becomes devastating in the world of the novel insofar as it anticipates the destruction expressed in the motifs of the Apocalypse. In addition, we also reveal that there is a hidden intention behind Ippolit’s reading, which we can grasp by examining the signs in the text (metaphorical meaning). The most important motifs of ekphrasis (e.g., nature, the number six, actuality, darkness–light) weave through the entire text of the novel and are incorporated into the process of text production and meaning creation.

1. Introduction

One of the most famous and frequently analysed descriptions in literary and art history is undoubtedly Dostoevsky’s ekphrasis of Holbein’s painting The Dead Christ in the Tomb in his novel The Idiot (Part III. Chapter 6).1 The painting itself sparked a series of theological and aesthetic controversies with its unusual, non-canonical iconography depicting of the Passion of Christ. Most art historical analyses do not ignore the ekphrasis of that picture in The Idiot. At the same time, it cannot be disregarded that ekphrasis is part of a literary work and fulfils a specific function in it, nor can it be disregarded that this description does not come directly from Dostoevsky, but from the characters in the novel. In this study, we proceed from the premise that the “reading of the painting” leads to different results from the point of view of three main characters of the novel: Rogozhin, Myshkin, and Ippolit.2 The most detailed description, which belongs to Ippolit, in many ways distorts and misinterprets the painting, as indicated in the critical literature (Kasatkina 2006; Tokarev 2013). It has been pointed out before that Dostoevsky’s views on Holbein’s painting do not necessarily coincide with those of the novel’s characters (Jackson 1966, p. 67). Ippolit finds that “There was nothing good about it in an artistic sense” (Part III. chapter 6) In contrast, Dostoevsky recognized both “artist and poet” in Holbein.3 In this study, we attempt to answer the question of what is the reason for such a “misreading” and what is its poetic function in the construction of the character? To find out, I will try to uncover further misquotations in Ippolit’s confession. I believe that the intention hidden behind the misinterpretations is not developed discursively in the novel: its disclosure and interpretation are the task of textual analysis. In this study, I argue that the misinterpretation of the image is part of the character’s transformation story and fits into a series of other distortions and misinterpretations, just as the hero sees and evaluates his own life.

2. Method

The theoretical and methodological framework of the study is formed by the integration of discursive narratology and text theory grounded in hermeneutics and semiotics. This non-structural narratological approach is based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the utterance (narrative as an act of discourse) (Bakhtin 1984, 1999). By “narrative discourse,” we mean a multi-layered narrative text that we regard as a unified and unique utterance (Schmid 2010). At the core of Bakhtin’s phenomenology of literature lies the phenomenon of the word about the word: the character’s speech, the narrator’s speech, and the implied author’s speech not only constitute structural levels within the narrative text, but their semantic conflict and dialogue elevate the narrative statement to the level of the event (Bakhtin 1981, pp. 259–422). This can be referred to as ‘architectonics’ of narrative text as a communicative event (Tiupa 2013, p. 17).

The subject of speech (the speaker, the narrator), however, finds themselves at odds with the signs (words) they use, as they feel that these words are the words of others (words permeated with literariness, ideology, philosophy, etc.) and therefore cannot express the original intent of the speech (this becomes “the unspeakable, inexpressible thought”). In this way, the speaker’s relationship to his own words is realized in the text as a unique story. The speaker often takes a long time to recognize the inadequacies of their own self-interpretive language.4 As the speaker perceives the inadequacy of words previously considered referential without reflection, self-referential features begin to appear in his text, which reflect the inherently metaphorical nature of language, freeing the speaker from the captivity of a reality described by concepts, thereby creating new meanings in the words.

The reflection on the word (a word that reflects on other words or on one’s own words) is therefore always an act of constituting a subject. The basis of the present approach is thus a kind of discursive narratology that links the event of utterance and naming to the speaking subjects: the purpose of this utterance is for the speaker to find their own authentic, self-interpretive personal language. In this paper, we examine this transformation in relation to the speech act of one of the characters, Ippolit Terentyev, the subiectum of the analysed ekphrasis.

However, we can already refer to this linguistic event as text production, which embodies both the experience of the inadequacy of previous language use and the history of the creation of new signs. This is no longer the competence of the hero or the narrator, but of the author, who comes into being together with the text and whom, following Árpád Kovács’s terminology, we can call the textual subject (Kovács 2009).

Making signs reflective (e.g., the semantic explication of a character’s name within the text, or the unfolding of certain textual motifs into linguistic metaphors—which is the text-forming operation of the author implied within the text)—reconfigures the relationship between signs and the world, leading to a reinterpretation or, to use P. Ricœur’s term, the “redescription and refiguration” of reality.”5 However, the recipient of the linguistic-poetic creation of meaning that constitutes the text is no longer simply a speech act, but a discursive textual event (Ricœur 1971, p. 137) whose addressee may be the Concrete Reader who is reading the work here and now (unlike the model reader of structural narratology, the reader inscribed within the text).

3. Interpretations of The Dead Christ in the Tomb in Literary Criticism and the Central Role of the Painting in the Poetics of the Novel

One can agree with the statement that Holbein’s painting is a visual quotation that forms one of the foundations of The Idiot,6 which is developed and recreated in the plot and text of the novel. Therefore, from the exceptionally rich critical literature on Holbein’s painting, I will now turn only to those interpretations that examine the description of the painting in the context of its function in the novel. It can also be said that, as we will see below, the entire interpretation of the novel is determined by how the reader-interpreter approaches Holbein’s painting.

One of the best-known, emblematic interpretations of Holbein’s painting comes from Julia Kristeva (Kristeva 1987). As the epigraph of her study suggests, she bases her interpretation of the painting on the initial reaction of the protagonist, Prince Myshkin: “A man could lose his faith looking at that picture” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 229). As is well known, the dead body in the painting is depicted in an extremely realistic, almost naturalistic manner, and only a few details remind us that we are looking at Christ the Savior himself. Kristeva sees in the image a sense of separation, abandonment by the Father, the dominion of Death, and the corpse of Christ deprived of the promise of Resurrection.7 According to her findings: “The unvarnished representation of human mortality, the almost anatomical exposure of the corpse, conveys to viewers an unbearable anguish in the face of the death of God, which is conflated here with our own death, so absent is any suggestion of transcendence” (Kristeva 1987, p. 120. My translation, S.H.G.). Kristeva’s interpretation appears to depart from the poetics of The Idiot insofar as its aim is not to interpret the novel, but rather to examine the role of Holbein’s painting in the cultural history of melancholy, depression, and anxiety (with particular reference to Reformation and humanism). However, her conclusion is certainly noteworthy: she claims that Holbein leads us to the brink of senselessness, to contemplate the destructive power of death. Kristeva draws a parallel between Christ’s moment of abandonment and the unbearable moment of loss of meaning for the subiectum. And although she does not refer to it, this idea brings us back to the last scene of the novel: Rogozhin and Myshkin share a moment of solitude over the body of the murdered Nastasya Filippovna. As we know, Rogozhin, the murderer, falls into a feverish delirium, and his path leads to prison, that is, to the “House of the Dead,” while Myshkin sinks into idiocy. The murder cannot be prevented, and the main characters go mad or perish. What could this be if not a moment of loss of reason and the apotheosis of hopelessness? Or is it not? According to Kristeva the aesthetic form—painting—becomes a means of confronting mortality and depression. I quote her again: “Only the form—art—restores serenity to this eclipse of forgiveness, with love and salvation finding refuge in the performance of the work” (Kristeva 1987, p. 144). Is it not possible to apply this observation to Dostoevsky’s novel itself?

Victor Stoichita convincingly recontextualizes the occurrences of Holbein’s painting in the novel’s plot: 1. its prehistory during Myshkin’s visit to Rogozhin’s house; 2. the repetition of the encounter with the painting during Ippolit’s visit to Rogozhin; 3. the ekphrasis of the painting in Ippolit’s “Necessary Explanation”; 4. Ippolit’s awakening from his nightmare and his gaze at the icon; 5. Rogozhin’s appearance in the Meyer house as a kind of ghost, the embodiment of death (Stoichita 1995). In Stoichita’s interpretation, Holbein’s painting is positioned at the threshold or door (in Rogozhin’s house, it is located above the door), and by entering this door, the characters descend into darkness, a world of doubt, hopelessness, and death. Stoichita thus regards Holbein’s painting as a kind of “anti-icon” (“negatives Andachtsbild”), which is not directly aimed at the loss of faith, but at the embodiment of doubt. The room and Rogozhin’s house are described by Ippolit as a “graveyard,” which metaphorically identifies the room with Christ’s tomb and foreshadows Nastasya Filippovna’s dead body, which echoes Christ’s situation in the tomb. Stoichita, relying in part on Robert Jackson’s insights8, concludes that this is a case of juxtaposing two aesthetic types: the Western Dead Christ, which—in the interpretation of Ippolit and Dostoevsky—represents formlessness (beozobrazije), a kind of anti-form (Unform), and which differed profoundly from the imagery of Orthodox Christianity, contrasts with the Orthodox icon (obraz), which is an expression of beauty (Stoichita 1995, p. 436).

Sarah Young also sees Holbein’s portrait as the turning point and catalyst of the plot: with this painting, the characters enter a world of uncertainty and ambiguity. She therefore interprets the painting as a symbol of the loss of faith. For Rogozhin, writes Young, who lives in a quasi-sensual, animalistic world before the coming of God, the image accelerates the process of losing his faith and foreshadows all the suffering and destruction he will cause to others and himself (Young 2001, p. 34). For Myshkin, the figure depicted in Holbein’s painting is Christ deprived of his divine nature, who was unable to overcome the laws of nature. This depiction forces Myshkin to face his own inability to fulfill his self-imposed mission, namely, to save a fallen woman, Nastasya Filippovna. It also symbolizes the loss of his “Christ-like abilities,” which he brought with him from Switzerland to Russia, but which he lost here. In Young’s approach, Ippolit is merely Myshkin’s double, who says everything that Myshkin does not express, but thinks when he sees the picture.

Similarly to Victor Stoichita Jan Tück starts from Catholic and Orthodox iconography of the Passion and concludes that Holbein’s painting shows numerous deviations from canonical depictions (Tück 2021). The researcher interprets the naturalism of the painting as a kind of appeal, inviting the viewer to participate in Christ’s agony. The depiction of Christ’s actual suffering is also a theme in Ippolit’s ekphrasis: “I know that the Christian Church laid it down in the first centuries that Christ’s passion was not symbolic but actual, and that his body must have been wholly and entirely subject to the laws of nature on the cross” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 430). However, contrary to the interpretation of the Church, Ippolit does not see Christ’s incarnation and participation in human suffering, i.e., the deepest point of kenosis, as the subject of the painting (one phase of the Passion), but rather a mimetic representation of the destructive power of nature. As Tück puts it, “It seems that Christian aesthetics, marked by glorification, are being supplanted by materialistic aesthetics, marked by death” (Tück 2021, p. 452).

It should be noted, however, that the interpreters listed above (Kristeva, Stoichita, Young, Tück) do not consider the actual polemical context that Ernest Renan’s Vie de Jesus represented for Dostoevsky (Renan 1863). It was not so much Renaissance natural philosophy or the theses of Erasmus’ radical Reformation that made Dostoevsky think about the divine and human nature of Christ, but rather a work on religious history published four years before he wrote The Idiot, which he had become acquainted with during his travels in Western Europe. As is well known, Renan radically denies the “divine nature” inherent in Jesus and regards the Savior as merely an ideal existing in the human world, a prophet. So, it was not only the iconographic canon of Western European secular painting that had a profound effect on Dostoevsky.9 The writer perceived the depiction of Christ’s death and the painting itself in the context of Renan’s interpretation. Perhaps Ippolit’s viewpoint, which is close to Renan’s, explains why he calls the Savior a “martyr” (muchenik) and “teacher” (uchitel’) in his ekphrasis.

In contrast, Russian interpreters of The Idiot place particular emphasis on this context and view Dostoevsky’s novel as a polemic against Renan (Kiiyko 1980; Mat’ Kseniia 2001; Kasatkina 2006). Tatiana Kasatkina’s interpretation is particularly interesting and provocative. The researcher claims that Dostoevsky—who, as we know, stood on a chair to get a closer look at the painting in the Basel art gallery—saw something different in the painting than his wife, Anna Grigorievna, who only saw the painting from perspective “below”. According to Kasatkina, Dostoevsky saw the seeds of resurrection in the painting: that is, not the transition from life to death, but the moment of the beginning of Resurrection. Kasatkina’s arguments are as follows: in the picture, we see the signs of the beginning of movement, the tensing of the body, the fingers of the right hand forming a cross, the movement of the eyeball returning to its place, and the movement of the head preparing to rise. According to the researcher’s observation, Christ’s body is located on the border between the two ontological spheres—His hair seems to cross this border. Furthermore, a greenish light penetrates the closed tomb, which can only be explained by the radiance of the Resurrection, and which also divides the space into two parts: the realm of darkness and the illuminated part. In other words, the picture does not depict what is obvious and what our superficial vision perceives, but also another, equally visible yet hidden intention, which Dostoevsky discovered.

This interpretation of Holbein’s painting naturally has significant consequences for the meaning of the novel. In Rogozhin’s case, it may explain why he tells Myshkin that he likes to look at this painting. Myshkin accordingly perceives Rogozhin’s intention in his inner monologue as a desire to regain his faith.10 In the case of Ippolit, we must read the text as a “double-voiced discourse” (Bakhtin 1984, pp. 198–99), which is reflected in the use of upper and lower case letters: the capitalization of Christ the Savior in the ekphrasis serves to indicate Christ’s divine nature, while the use of lowercase pronouns refers to His human nature. More importantly, however, Kasatkina notes that Ippolit significantly distorts what is seen in the picture, as he is talking about “Christ just taken down from the cross”, whereas Holbein’s painting depicts Christ in solitude on Holy Saturday.

From our perspective, it is not insignificant that Dmitry Tokarev characterizes Kasatkina’s interpretation as a peculiar misreading. In his view, Kasatkina creates her own narrative and talks about what she thinks Dostoevsky saw in the picture—which is, in fact, nothing more than what the researcher herself would like to see in the picture (Tokarev 2013). For this reason, she regards the painting as a kind of icon. However, Holbein’s painting is far from functioning as an icon. Just as, according to Tokarev, it is far from functioning as an anti-icon. He argues that the uniqueness and artistic merit of Holbein’s painting lies in its ability to present both absence and presence at the same time. This is related to the fact that it sharpens the problem of reference, that is, what does the image refer to, what does it convey? In the picture we see a corpse depicted with the detail of a portrait. This absence is compensated by the inscription and the wounds, which make it clear that we are seeing the body of the dead Jesus, who, as Christ, conquered death with his death. “It is precisely Christ’s absence in the body of the dead Jesus that makes the Resurrection possible” (Tokarev 2013, p. 71). Dostoevsky called Holbein a great artist and poet because he masterfully conveyed the horrors of death while also incorporating the promise of Resurrection into this terrifying depiction. He did all this without visually representing the Resurrection: the invisible, the hidden cannot be made visible, because this would completely distort it. The invisible is present in the sense that it is not visually represented, or in other words, “the invisible manifests itself precisely in its absence” (Tokarev 2013, p. 72).

I would add to Tokarev’s convincing argument that, in my opinion, the image becomes non-canonical precisely because it depicts Christ in the tomb at a “moment in time”. Namely, the moment between the burial and the Resurrection. From a theological point of view, however, it is completely clear: Jesus’ tomb is the place of the Resurrection. Pascal expressed this most accurately in Pensées: “Jesus Christ was dead, but seen on the Cross. He was dead, and hidden in the Sepulchre. […] It is there, not on the Cross, that Jesus Christ takes a new life. It is the last mystery of the Passion and the Redemption” (Pascal 1958; Fragment 551). Only the “saints” can see this place, and the painter. In other words, Holbein’s panting provides a glimpse into “the most sacred of secrets”, which the uninitiated viewer “cannot see.” It “gives form to that which has no form.”11 In fact, it is a “timeless time,” a time of waiting, in which the event of the Resurrection promised by Jesus can only be certain for the disciples and believers: this is the lowest point, which, however, also encompasses the unpredictability, doubt, and agonizing anticipation of the Resurrection. This is the moment of not knowing, of uncertainty, of deepest doubt, if you will, of unpredictability?12 I believe that this is precisely why it can serve as the central organizing principle of the entire novel.

4. The Lack of Originality: The Problem of a Copy and Duplication

In fact, we do not really know what the author, Dostoevsky, thought about the painting or how he saw it. There is no mention of this in any reliable source. We can only read his wife Anna Grigorievna’s description of the enormous impact the painting had on him. It is important to note, however, as Rogozhin emphasizes that the painting in his possession is a copy, even if it is a very good one. By emphasizing that it is a copy, it is very likely that Dostoevsky is already alluding to the “lack of originality.” In other words, the painting does not depict what the subject of the description is talking about. According to the fiction, Myshkin was the only one who could see what was in the painting in Basel and immediately recognizes both the author and the fact that it is a copy (“Yes, it is… a copy of Hans Holbein’s…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 228)). The division of the image into an original and a copy foreshadows the dissonance that will later emerge in the interpretation of the picture. However, Ippolit consistently refers to the painting as “Rogozhin’s”, probably knowing nothing about the actual author of the painting (i.e., he is unaware of the existence of the original picture). Ippolit does not present the ekphrasis of Holbein’s painting, but rather the depiction of “Rogozhin’s painting”, that is, the ekphrasis of the copy.

The obvious distortions in the description are striking. One of the most important is the observation that the image depicts “a man just taken down from the cross”, which clearly does not correspond to reality, as the image shows Christ already laid in the tomb and buried. Related to this is Ippolit’s remark that the face still “preserves a great deal of the warmth of life…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 430). Ippolit also mentions the eyes (“the eyes open and unfocused”), although only the right eye is visible in the painting, and the swollen face (“the face is ‘swollen, with terrible, swollen bloody bruises’”), even though only the lips can be described as swollen in the painting, and the face is distinctly narrow and pointed.

The role of the copy here is different, not just a deviation from the original.13 This ekphrasis appears in Ippolit’s confession, entitled “My Necessary Explanation”. Ippolit is terminally ill and decides that there is only one way to escape the laws of nature: he will commit suicide before the disease deals him a fatal blow (this is what Ippolit calls his ‘final conviction’). Ippolit’s rebellion is against determinism: in his “atomized, outcast” situation, he cannot accept that the “great, dark force,” which sometimes appears before him in the form of a scorpion, sometimes in the form of a tarantula, destroys him too. His rebellion and arguments seem logically irrefutable: since I have been given self-awareness and will, and I have understood that “I am,” then the only thing I can still do in this situation of my own free will, with clear self-awareness, is to destroy myself prematurely. In other words, I will not wait for the judgment imposed on me by the Creator, which he intends to carry out with the power of the laws of nature, to be fulfilled upon me. Ippolit finds it humiliating and, with his “Euclidean” mind, incomprehensible that he, a creature of God, for whom the entire universe was created, should have to perish in this way. His description emphasizes those features that demonstrate the destruction and triumph of the dark forces of nature over Christ. He thus compares his own suffering—indirectly—to the suffering of Jesus, who was abandoned by God. His suicide is a profaned version of Christ’s sacrificial death, a copy, if you will: he also wants to conquer death with death, but he wants to embark on the path of individual self-redemption, seeking a way out of his own trap through voluntary death.14 Ippolit thus bends the image to his own interpretive code, which fits into his rhetoric: his goal is to explain the inevitability of his suicide and to explain its causes. Furthermore, he names the picture “Rogozhin’s painting”: word rogozha in Russian means ‘coarse-woven canvas’ or ‘sackcloth’, which we most often associate with death. For Ippolit, therefore, the painting conveys the meaning of a death filled with suffering and loneliness.

At the same time, meaning of the copy is particularly reevaluated here. On the surface, we are apparently reading an original confession, the last words of a man condemned to death, addressed to his companions as his “final conviction.” According to the speaker’s intention, the function of the explanation is precisely to support or explain the final conviction using rhetorical devices. At least, that is how Ippolit frames his text, saying: “he was writing it all day yesterday, then all night, and he finished it this morning…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 404). Furthermore, he was in such a hurry to finish it by morning that he did not have time to proofread or correct it. However, he claims that there will not be a single lie in the text, only the pure truth. In this regard, there is a noteworthy slip: although Ippolit claims in the text that he did not correct anything, or even read it, he still had time to make a copy of it—for Aglaya.15 All this shifts the meaning of the text toward rhetoric (calculated, deliberate effectiveness), and the sincere confession increasingly becomes Rousseauian excuses and self-admiration, narcissism, which Dostoevsky deeply condemned.16 Even the epigraph of the text reflects theatricality and role-playing—“Après moi le déluge!”—from which Ippolit immediately distances himself during the public reading of the document: “Oh, hell […] ‘Could I really have put a such stupid epigraph?” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 406)

All this leads us to a complex problem: it is noteworthy that the meaning of the written confession in Dostoevsky is always incomplete, insofar as it must be supplemented by the revelation of the written text in a specific speech situation—before the other, the audience, the reader.17 Written confessions are always provocative and challenging: while on the surface they hide behind a mask of sincere revelation, the underlying intention is quite different.

On the one hand, the subiectum of the confession mocks his audience, wants to rise above them, despises them, anticipates their opinions, and thus elevates himself to the status of a hero. In other words, he does not renounce his ego (as in the case of a genuine, repentant confession), but rather inflates it even more, hypertrophying the self. Paradoxically, the subiectum of the confession wants to become a hero in the eyes of others by exaggerating and admitting his sins. It is precisely this practice of self-denigration that Dostoevsky condemns in Rousseau’s Confessions.

On the other hand, the purpose of provocation and mockery is to elicit a response. The subiectum of the written confession expects a response to his “heroic deed” and wants to provoke a reaction from his audience. In Ippolit’s case, the heroic deed would be suicide, fulfilling the logical conclusion. This is what cannot be fulfilled but instead turns into a ridiculous scene.

Finally, the third characteristic of the written confession is what Ippolit himself emphasizes: during the reading, he wants to see what effect the text he has written has on him. “I’m curious to see what impression it makes on me personally at the time, the minute I begin to read it.” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 408)

Thus, the subiectum of the public reading is distinguished well in advance from the subiectum of the written text, and is thereby, as it were, split in two. This results in a duality within the text itself: “I have the feeling that I have just written something dreadfully stupid; but I have no time to correct it, as I said; besides I have promised myself deliberately, not to correct a single sentence in this manuscript, even if I notice that I am contradicting myself every few lines. What I want to do during tomorrow’s reading is to determine whether logical flow of my ideas is correct; whether I can detect my own mistakes…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 408).

In view of the above, I believe that Ippolit’s ekphrasis cannot be interpreted in isolation from the full text of “Explanation”. The speech intention and the rhetoric of the text—with its contradictions, ambiguities, and distortions—are part of the creation of artistic meaning. This, of course, greatly undermines Ippolit’s “credibility” and the meaning of his description. The hero undoubtedly wants to exert influence with his text, so in his written confession he does not describe Rogozin’s picture, but creates a specific—one that aligns with his own speech intent—copy of it (in fact, he presents a “copy of a copy”), thereby distorting/recreating it. During the reading, however, he also partially distances himself from his own words, thereby destabilizing the meaning inscribed in the written text. For Dostoevsky, however, this is precisely what matters: how Ippolit interprets the image, how he constructs his own narrative—including the ekphrasis—and how, through this, he establishes his own subjectivity.

5. Copying as Quotation: Epigonism and Misquotations, or Ippolit as a Bad Reader

The text of the painting’s misinterpretation is also interspersed with other texts that are partly distorted and partly plagiarized. The literature has already mentioned that Ippolit’s confession appears to be a rather bookish, literary web of truths constructed on the basis of texts: some see Rousseau’s works behind Ippolit’s “sincere confession,” while others see Boratinsky, Zhukovsky’s and Belinsky’s works (Bocharov 2001; Perlina 2017). We have already mentioned Rousseauism. According to Perlina, the suicide composed to the sight of the “rising sun” is also based on rumors about Rousseau’s death (Perlina 2017, p. 95). Now, however, we will examine one of the most effective “logical arguments” of ekphrasis: Ippolit’s reference to the laws of nature.

“The compulsion would be to think that if death was so dreadful, and nature’s laws so powerful, how could they possibly be overcome? […] Looking at that picture, one has the impression of nature as some enormous, implacable, dumb beast, or more precisely, strange as it may seem—in the guise of a vast modern machine which has pointlessly sized, dismembered, and devoured, in its blind and insensible fashion, a great and priceless being…”

(Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 430).18

I believe that both the glorification and degradation of nature, as well as its portrayal as a destructive force in the “Explanations”, have their origins in German sentimentalism. The latter is reminiscent of the prototype of sentimentalism, The Sorrows of Young Werther:

“It is as if a curtain had been drawn from before my eyes, and, instead of prospects of eternal life, the abyss of an ever open grave yawned before me. Can we say of anything that it exists when all passes away… […] My heart is wasted by the thought of that destructive power which lies concealed in every part of universal nature. Nature has formed nothing that does not consume itself, and every object near it: so that, surrounded by earth and air, and all the active powers, I wander on my way with aching heart; and the universe is to me a fearful monster, for ever devouring its own offspring.”

(Book I., August 18, Goethe 1902)

In my opinion, behind the “meaningless eternity” (besmyslennaia večnost’, in Ippolit’s text: “senselessly infinite force”) lies the eternal cycle of nature, which is indifferent to individual human lives. The sharp metamorphosis that appears in the evaluation of nature occurs precisely because Werther is confronted with the limitations of earthly existence. It should be added that Werther’s name derives from the comparative form of the German adjective wert, meaning ‘valuable’. The hero of the novel is werter, or “more valuable” than others, but he is unable to reach the superlative wertest, the highest Being, the creator and infinite Being.19 It is interesting to compare this with Ippolit’s assessment of Christ: “great and priceless being” “a being worth all of nature” “worth the entire earth”.

Werther’s anxiety, the mythologization of death, the exaggeration of the power of passion, suicide as an escape from earthly prison, the symbol of free action—all these connect Werther and Ippolit. From this point of view, even the attempt at suicide with a pistol is a “copy”—an imitation of the young Werther’s action. However, precisely because it has no basis in reality, it does not happen. It is worth mentioning here Ippolit’s hopeless love for Aglaya, which parallels Werther’s love for Lotte. Ippolit is therefore also an imitator, a “copyist”. In this respect, he is a plagiarist of Werther, as his texts on the power of nature do not derive directly from his impressions of the image, but are filtered through his previous readings.

Another sentimental text draws attention to a misquotation—probably intentional on the part of the author—based on the commentary in the 30-volume Complete Works of Dostoevsky.

Ippolit awaits sunrise, which will provide the stage for his theatrical suicide “As soon as the sun rises and “resounds” in the sky (who was it wrote “in the sky the sun “resounded”? It makes no sense but it’s grand—then I’ll go to sleep.” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 391). This is probably a distorted quotation from the Prologue to Goethe’s Faust, originating from the archangel Raphael, which in its original form reads as follows: “Die Sonne tönt, nach alter Weise,/ In Brudersphären Wettgesang…”20 It is characteristic that Ippolit is uncertain about the author of these lines, and it is unclear whether he is aware of the significance of these opening lines, which praise the perfection and completeness of divine Creation. At the end of “Explanation,” this image reappears and becomes a symbol of free will, foreshadowing Ivan Karamazov’s rebellion. The man excluded from the world order cannot accept the harmony of the world if he cannot find his place in it, so he prefers to “return his ticket” to the creator God. This is expressed by the rejection of life at the beginning of life and creation: “When I reach these lines, the sun will probably rise and begin to ’resound in the sky’, and its mighty immeasurable power will pour forth on all below. So be it! I shall die, looking directly at the source of power and life, and I shall not want this life!” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 437) Werther and Faust both become literary precursors to Ippolit.21

All these errors may be Dostoevsky’s mistakes or inaccuracies, but considering the above, I believe that they are systematic in the context of the novel’s poetic structure. Even more so because Ippolit’s “Explanation” already contained a misquotation that, to my knowledge, had not previously been linked to the misinterpretation of Holbein’s painting. This is the unmarked Pascal quote that Ippolit uses to describe his peculiar relationship with Rogozhin. “…despite all the differences and contrasts between us—les extremités se touchent” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 429). The referenced passage appears in French in the original text, so Dostoevsky deliberately wanted to make the quotation recognizable, which is not self-evident, as the quotation is incomplete, and in a rather revealing way. The original quotation is: “Ces extrémités se touchent et se réunissent à force de s’être éloignées et se retrouvent en Dieu, et en Dieu seulement.”22 Ippolit omits the second part of the quotation, leaving the idea undefined. To find out the meaning of this omission, we must turn to the text of the Pensées to reconstruct the place of the text.23

The said passage (“Les extrémités se touchent…”) deals with “man’s place in the bosom of nature” and his disproportionality in being and in this respect, it is very closely related to the interpretation of Ippolit’s situation and the questions he raises about the relationship between nature and man. According to Pascal, the ‘material shell’ in which man is enclosed is held on the edge of two abysses—the abyss of infinity and the abyss of nothingness.24 Man is unable to comprehend either the nothingness from which he has been extracted or the infinity that will swallow him up. Thus, the human mind, because of its limitations, is unable to encompass the universe and grasp the essence of things. Pascal says precisely about these two extremes—infinity and nothingness—that “these extremes meet and unite by force of distance, and find each other in God, and only in God.” Humans are located somewhere in the middle: in their existence, they fluctuate between the two extremes of All and Nothing:

“For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret, he is equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is swallowed up.”

(Pascal 1958, Fragment 72)

Furthermore, the meeting point of the two extremes (All and Nothing) is the limit of the human mind and symbolizes the maximum extent of understanding reality (according to the Euclidean mind), since humans are unable to see the infinite in the infinitely small or understand the infinitely large because their senses are incapable of comprehending extremes. Man’s inability to grasp reality condemns him to resign himself to his position in Being. This position is characterized by complete changeability, lack of a firm foundation and vulnerability.25

This is precisely the point that Ippolit places at the centre of his argument. He does not understand what role the infinitely small plays in the infinitely large order, and therefore cannot understand how providence works.26 As he writes, the human mind is incapable of understanding and comprehending the workings of divine providence, and so Ippolit rejects the harmony and order of the world. “…we understand nothing of that future life, nor anything of the laws that govern it. But if it so difficult, even absolutely impossible, to comprehend, how could I be held responsible for failing to make sense of the incomprehensible?” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 437)

Pascal, however, encourages us to accept and bear the uncertainty to which man is condemned in the world by his situation. Accepting the principle of uncertainty brings us back to the problem posed by Holbein’s painting: can one bear the uncertainty and doubt one feels when looking at this painting? A painting that reminds us of our own vulnerability and fragility, as it embodies the unpredictability, doubt, and agonizing anticipation of Resurrection.27 Ippolit, who is unable to reach the final state (certainty and knowledge of the ultimate causes of things), chooses nothingness, that is, self-destruction.28 In other words, Ippolit chooses one of the two extremes (All and Nothing), rather than the meeting of the two extremes, or paradox, if you will, which—according to the omitted second half of Pascal’s quote—is only possible in God.

All this suggests that the questions raised by Ippolit require deeper reflection, but not only on the level of philosophy, rather on that of artistic language. Ippolit quotes Pascal’s words almost casually, as a kind of turn of phrase or slogan, without attributing any deeper meaning to them. It is as if Ippolit only reads Pascal’s works (and all other texts he unknowingly quotes) superficially, although he only indirectly refers to having read them and does not oppose them. It is as if Dostoevsky were suggesting that superficial reading only captures cultural phenomena at the level of banality, triviality, and fragmentation, and therefore necessarily distorts their meaning. The character’s utterance and the actual author’s (or implicit author’s) text clearly do not coincide: the author knows and says more than his character can know and say.

6. The Hidden Intention and Metaphorical Meaning of Textual Motifs

Returning to ekphrasis, let us not forget that Ippolit’s “Explanation,” which plagiarizes Rousseau’s exhibitionism, Werther’s sanctimonious sentimentality, and Belinsky’s radical atheism, is, as Bakhtin noted in relation to Underground Man, a “double-voiced confession with a loophole”.29 This text, though provocative and challenging, is at the same time open and unfinished from within: it is on its own path to its own meaning—on the path to personal understanding.30 In other words, we could say that the position expressed in the text, which is interwoven with superficial literary (mis)quotations,31 also conveys a completely opposite, second voice and hidden intention. The more vehemently a character argues for a particular point of view, the more likely it is that their words are laden with the idea of another, unspoken, hidden truth, which lurks in the unconscious of the speaking character (Ippolit) and only realized in the metaphorical nature of the text and its linguistic-poetic structure. All this results in a doubling and ambiguity of meaning.

We have already mentioned that public reading is a kind of test for Ippolit: he wants to see what consequences the utterance of the text has in the world, what effect it has on those around him and on himself. However, another aspect arises in the written text: Ippolit writes that in the case of every truly important thought, the real intention of the text always remains hidden. Self-revelation can therefore only ever be apophatic speech; the unspoken is always more significant than the spoken word.

“I would add, however, that in every human idea that possesses genius or originality, or in any serious human idea at all that arises in someone’s mind, there is always something that can’t be conveyed to others by any means whatever, even if whole tomes were written about it and thirty-five years were spent explaining it; something always remains that doesn’t want to leave your head for anything, and stays with you for eve; you’ll die without ever having passed on the crucial point of your idea to anyone.”

(Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 416).

All this prescribes a reading strategy for the recipient that examines the meaning of the text below text at the level of signs, not at the level of utterance.32 In what follows, we will attempt to identify a few motifs of the ekphrasis that express this dual meaning. More precisely, we will explore the process of the birth of new meaning through the discovery of figurative meanings.

The first refers to time, to the time of Christ’s Passion, about which Ippolit writes: “and finally the agony of the cross lasted six hours (according to my calculations at least)” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 430). The personal comment in parentheses is interesting, as it immediately draws the Passion into the realm of subjective interpretation. The six hours of suffering are may be related to the six months of agony: Ippolit has known about his terminal illness for exactly six months. At first glance, all this suggests the fulfillment of the Apocalypse.

The apocalyptic interpretation is also supported by the expectation of the “end of time” Furthermore, this meaning is also suggested by Ippolit’s theatrical behavior, which “breaks the seal.”33 Reading the text aloud in front of an audience—part of which is the ekphrasis under examination—becomes equivalent to “breaking the seal” and “the appearance of the mighty angel in the Apocalypse” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 404). All this is consistent with the meaning of the name Ippolit: it is a combination of the Greek words hippos and lyō, which means ‘to release, to let go of the horses’ (Petrovsky 2000, p. 151) i.e., the horse of death, which also fits with the symbolic interpretation. And indeed, we can say that Ippolit’s text unleashes the apocalypse—which can be interpreted as the “sin of reading” in this situation. Ippolit’s text will have a devastating effect on the world of the novel. It is no coincidence that Myshkin wants to prevent the text from being read aloud in front of an audience. What is this about?

Ippolit’s text has a double reference: he speaks simultaneously about himself and Rogozhin (as well as Rogozhin’s painting). Ippolit describes Rogozhin as a kind of demon and angel of death, a ghost who is already damned. In Ippolit’s interpretation, Rogozhin has already been consumed by that dark, deaf, and senseless force—the power of human passions, especially the passion for self-destruction, symbolized by the repulsive tarantula spider. This interpretation suggests that Rogozhin has no other option: he cannot free himself from the captivity of this eternal and senseless force; he is in fact already a ghost in the human world, his house is already a cemetery, he is not his own master, his fate has been fulfilled, he has been consumed and crushed by darkness. Ippolit claims that Rogozhin is part of the dark, destructive force that destroys “a great and priceless being,” that is, Jesus in the painting, or Nastasya Filippovna in the world of the novel. In this sense, he anticipates the murder and the final downfall of Rogozhin. Ippolit believes that Rogozhin “likes to look at the painting” precisely because he sees in it the embodiment of the final loss of faith and hope, the impossibility of Resurrection and transformation. However, we know that this interpretation does not correspond, for example, with Myshkin’s explanation, who sees in Rogozhin the struggle—the suffering and the will—to resist this force and regain his faith.

We could say that Ippolit’s misreading act lets the genie out of the bottle, amplifying Rogozhin’s “second voice” and thereby promoting the power of “eternal and senseless force” over Rogozhin. Let us not forget that Rogozhin is also present when the document is read aloud.

Here, I would like to draw attention to two motifs that express the second, hidden intention of the Ippolit’s utterance: one is the dual interpretation of the number six, and the other is the motif of the Sun/light.

There is no need to prove the connection between the number six and the Apocalypse (trivial meaning). In my opinion, however, this interpretation reduces the meaning of the number six in the novel. Dostoevsky’s conscious construction is evident in the fact that number six accompanies the entire plot of the novel. Six months pass between the first and second parts, which the characters spend in Moscow, and neither the reader nor the narrator has any information about these six months. (These are the same six months during which Ippolit develops lung disease). The characters only hint at what happened during these six months—for example, Myshkin becomes convinced that Nastasya Filippovna is insane, yet feels endless suffering and torment when he looks at her face. It is as if Dostoevsky deliberately shapes the story so that its most important turning point remains hidden from the reader. The six months hidden from the plot strangely converge with Holbein’s painting: there we see what we cannot see (Jesus in the tomb), while in the story we do not see what we need to see in order to understand the characters’ motivations. Finally, we must not forget that Ippolit’s Explanation is read aloud in Chapter 6.

Ippolit refers to the past six months in his text in a rather metaphorical way: “…reality (dieistvi’el’nost’) has been seeking to snag even me hook last six months…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 416) Let us compare this with Ippolit’s ekphrasis, where a ‘number six’ and ‘reality’ (dieistvi’el’nost’) are linked by “six hours of suffering and agony”. Christ’s six hours of agony (“the agony of the cross lasted six hours”) Ippolit explains it as follows: “I know that the Christian Church laid it down in the first centuries that Christ’s Passion was not symbolic but actual…” (diestvitel’no stradal)” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 430). What could this mean regarding the protagonist (Ippolit), and what could it mean in context to ekphrasis?

On the one hand, in the first sentence, the Russian text uses the word actuality (dieistvi’el’nost’) instead of reality (real’nost’). Vladimir Zhukovsky notes that the difference between the two words is that “if reality is understood as the world of things (Latin realis —‘material’), then actuality is the world of things with which one acts (Latin dei—‘actor’ (Zhukovsky 2011, p. 97). Actuality can therefore always be linked to the acting subiectum. At the same time, while reality is the totality of things, the material world, actuality is reality that has become actual, so to speak, the reality that someone has experienced and come to know. This can be a fantastic or unrealistic experience: actuality is the opposite of appearance.34 Perhaps it is no coincidence that Ippolit uses this strange tautology (which cannot be translated into English) in his assessment of the past six months: “In the past six months, I have done things” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 416). In the original text: “ya dielal diela”. And with that, he concludes his “Necessary Explanation”: “I want to make use of my last opportunity to act” (diela) (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 416). This is one of the hidden intentions behind Ippolit’s verbose, graphomaniacal writing: he talks about how he has been searching for the possibility of active participation in life, that is, actuality, over the past six months.35 When faced with death, existence is able to experience its own presence (its being here) most intensely, that is, to manifest itself as actuality. The public reading of his ‘Explanation’ in Chapter 6 is part of this search.

On the other hand, the expression “Christ’s Passion was not symbolic but actual” in theological language refers to kenosis, the highest point of the Savior’s self-emptying, self-abasement, “plundering” of himself, and humiliation.36 It refers to the point when Jesus most perfectly surrendered himself to earthly nature, perfectly participating in and sharing human suffering. Although Ippolit rejects the idea of “Christian humility” and reconciliation, this is precisely what can be seen in Holbein’s (!) painting, albeit not in accordance with the canons of Orthodox icons (Tück 2021, p. 421). We see the dying body (human nature), which signifies the event of kenosis; what we do not see, because it has no visual form, is the event of Resurrection (divine nature). The Christ’s Passion is an attribute of lived, experienced reality (i.e., actuality), not imagined, conceived reality. According to Pascal: “Jesus will be in agony even to the end of the world. We must not sleep during that time. […] Jesus being in agony and in the greatest affliction, let us pray longer (Pascal 1958, Fragment 552). This means that agony is happening here and now and is repeated in every human life; it is precisely this that creates the actuality of human existence. The philosophical/ideological suicide here is an absurd form of this search, since through it, the expression of the desire to exist can only be expressed in the denial of life. Suicide does not occur because it is not actual, but imagined, an apparent reality.

Another motif with ambivalent meaning is the sun/light. As already mentioned, the timing of the philosophical/ideological suicide coincides with the appearance of the sun. “My intention was to die in Pavlovsk, in the park at sunrise…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 434). Ippolit waits for sunrise with increasing anxiety, turning more and more frequently to those around him: “Is it long till daylight?’ […] The point is that I want to see the rim of the sun” […] the sun’s the source of life, isn’t it? (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 392) […] As soon as the rim of the sun comes up, I’ll lie down, I told you that…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 403) However, the repetition suggests that there is more to it than the realization of a planned act: the intensity of the anticipation increases, and the reader gets the feeling that behind the nihilistic self-destruction suggested by the idea, paradoxically, there is actually a desire for life (zhazhda zhizni). To use Dostoevsky’s lovely phrase: the desire for “living life” (zhivoi zhizni).37 The tense expectation of sunrise may prompt the reader to reconsider the meaning of sunlight as the anticipation of the birth of light.38

It should be noted that it is precisely the appearance of the beam of light in Holbein’s painting that may most confuse viewers and interpreters: how can light penetrate a closed tomb?39 Ippolit does not mention this light in his ekphrasis (of Rogozin’s copy), yet it is present in Holbein’s painting. The sunlight forms an opposition to the dark force appearing in the ekphrasis. According to Ippolit’s interpretation, the painting reflects the workings of this very force: “The picture is, as it were, the medium through which this notion of some dark, insolent, senselessly infinitive force to which everything is subordinated is unwittingly conveyed (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 431). However, Dostoevsky’s characters often act in ways that contradict what they say or think. Like other protagonists (such as Ivan Karamazov or Zosima starets), Ippolit is searching for light and the sun as “the source of life”. And this is precisely why ideological suicide fails: hidden, unspoken intentions prevent it. Perhaps this is what the following sentence at the beginning of the reading refers to: “Lebedev picked up the candles and moved them closer to Ippolit so that he could read by a better light.” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 405).

The rising sun, when the sun appears in the sky, symbolizes the moment when two worlds, darkness and light—two extremes, if you will—meet. In Dostoevsky’s texts, the sun is an attribute of Christ (see, for example, The Brothers Karamazov). The ideologically open question (an incomplete quote from Pascal) is complemented and compensated for on the metaphorical level of the novel’s text.

The hidden intention transforms the text into a document of heightened desire for life and its public reading into a genuine confession. Perhaps we are not mistaken in thinking that the light thematized here can be linked to the dawn (rassvet) that appears at the end of the novel, at the moment of deepest despair for the two characters, Myshkin and Rogozhin, who are keeping vigil beside the body of Nastasya Filippovna: “Meanwhile it had grown quite light…” (Dostoevsky 2008a, p. 648).

7. Conclusions

In this study, we have demonstrated that the ekphrasis examined is an inseparable part of a speech act—not an objective description, but intentional speech. Therefore, it cannot be interpreted without understanding the speaker’s intention or the character’s situation. This explains the strong distortions and misreading in the ekphrasis. We can capture the meaning reconstructed in the character’s speech through the motifs of copy, epigonism, duplication and misquotation. It is through these motifs that the character’s story (the plot of the misunderstanding) and the shaping of his language are constructed.

Ippolit, the subiectum of ekphrasis, proves to be a truly “bad reader,” and his reading becomes devastating in the world of the novel insofar as it anticipates the destruction expressed in the motifs of the Apocalypse. Furthermore, we have also revealed that there is a hidden intention behind Ippolit’s reading, which we can grasp by examining the signs in the text (metaphorical meaning). The most important textual motifs of ekphrasis (e.g., nature, the number six, actuality, darkness–light) weave through the entire text of the novel and are integrated into the process of text-production and meaning creation. Dostoevsky’s utterance (the meaning of the novel’s text in its entirety) is therefore not limited to the meaning of the character’s utterance.

Dostoevsky deeply believed that human existence cannot be justified or determined solely by the laws of nature. I think the writer saw in Holbein’s painting the potential, the contradiction, the meeting of the infinites: the hopelessness of devastating death and faith in the suffering of the redeeming Christ. The verbal expression of the verbally inexpressible was only possible through the depiction of a complex speech act. The painting speaks of this actuality, which is at least as much a turning point as Myshkin’s epileptic vision, which is the counterpoint to the low point discussed here.