Elena Troyanskaya - who is this? A very interesting sculpture has been preserved in the garden.

Somehow we already talked about this wonderful sculptor. But, after looking at many of the originals of his works, I decided to return to this topic again. Recently, I again visited his hometown of Posagno, where he native home, where is his grave, where the world's best masterpieces are created. I took many pictures.

"Antonio Canova" (1757-1822) portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence.

Antonio Canova (Canova) - the most significant of the Italian sculptors of modern times, was born on November 1, 1757.
The son of a poor stonemason, he was orphaned early and entered the service of the Venetian senator Faliero. This latter gave him the opportunity to study sculpture. Having only 16 years of age, Canova performed for his patron the statues of Eurydice and Orpheus, and in 1779, for the Venetian patrician Pisano, a group: Daedalus and Icarus.

Daedalus and Icarus.

Orpheus and Eurydice.

The sculptor went to study ancient art in Rome and Naples, and from 1781 settled permanently in Rome. Here he joined a group of artists and connoisseurs ancient culture, whose work and research contributed to the emergence of a new artistic direction, focused on imitation of the classical art of antiquity.

Canova's first work in this style, which later became known as classicism, is Theseus and the Minotaur (1781-1783, London, Victoria and Albert Museum). It was followed by the tombstone of Pope Clement XIV, which brought fame to the author and contributed to the establishment of the classicist style in sculpture.

Theseus and the Minotaur.

Pope Pius VII, in 1880, made him chief caretaker of all artistic monuments in his domain. Napoleon I invited him, in 1802, to Paris to prepare a colossal statue (Napoleon) and other important works.

After the fall of Napoleon, in 1815, Canova energetically encouraged artistic treasures, taken from Rome by the deposed emperor to France, were returned to the eternal city; in gratitude for this, as well as for his extraordinary artistic talent, Pius VII ordered his name to be entered in golden book Capitol and granted him the title of Marquis d'Ischia.

Cupid and Psyche.

During his lifetime, Canova had a reputation as the most significant of the sculptors of modern times. He played the same key role in the development of classicist sculpture as David played in the development of classicist painting. Contemporaries did not spare strong epithets to describe their admiration for the gift of Canova, who, as it seemed then, could stand comparison with the best sculptors of antiquity.

Paolina Borghese as Venus

Fragment.
Canova's customers were popes, kings and wealthy collectors. Since 1810, he served as director of the Academy of St.. Luke in Rome. AT last years life, the master built his own museum in Possagno, where plaster models of his sculptures were kept. Canova died in Venice on October 13, 1822.

It so happened that Canova has two tombstones. One of them is located in Venice in the church of Santa Maria Del Frari.

But Canova's grave is not here. It is in his hometown Posagno.

I would like to introduce you to this wonderful place.

POSAGNO is a small town in northern Italy in the foothills of the Alps.

According to the project of Canova, a church was built here, where his grave is located.

An olive grove is planted near the church.

All the famous relics of the great sculptor are carefully stored here.

The merit of Canova lies in the fact that after a long period of decline of plasticity, in the age of mannerism, he was the first of all to try to return it to principles and forms. ancient art; but he still failed to completely free himself from the shortcomings of the sculpture of his time and achieve classical simplicity and nobility, which is especially noticeable in the weakest branch of his work in relief, which still retains the character of previous works of this kind.

I would like to tell you more about the town of Posagno, where Canova was born and raised, where his house and large workshop have been preserved. Even during his lifetime, he created a museum here, and also allocated personal funds for the construction of the church.

First of all, let's see the church. It stands on a hill in the foothills of the Alps, from there a beautiful view opens up.

The church itself is domed, which is not at all typical for Catholic churches. It is very similar to the Roman pantheon.

Inside the church is finished with colored marble. It looks very elegant and rich.

Main altar.

The church is designed for a large number of people. View of the main altar.

The dome looks very nice.

Tomb of Antonio Canova.

Near view.

And now let's see his home and the Gypsotheque, where his best works in plaster and marble are collected.

House Museum of Canova.

Patio.

Small garden.

Very well preserved in the garden interesting sculpture.

But the main meritnoteworthy is of course HYPSOTEK

The sculptures here are life-size.

One of the most famous is Paolina Borghese. This work is in plaster, and the original is

In Rome. Borghese Gallery.

Gypsum sculpture Three graces.

The original Three Graces is in the Hermitage.

Canova embodied his ideas of beauty in the images of the graces - ancient goddesses personifying female charm and charm. All three are slender female figures merged in an embrace, they are united not only by the interweaving of hands, but also by a scarf falling from the hand of one of the graces.

Canova's composition is very compact and balanced. The friends stand near the altar, on which are laid three wreaths of flowers and a garland, symbolizing their tender bonds.

The group enjoyed great success among Canova's contemporaries and so embodied their idealbeauty that they said about her: "She is more beautiful than beauty itself."

Hercules kills Lika, plaster.
Sculptural group by Antonio Canova, 1816 original
Gallery contemporary art, Rome.

Penitent Magdalene.

Muse.

He succeeded perfectly in the figures of young women, whom he nearly always gave a partly sensual, partly sentimental shade, a coquettish grace, loved by his time. Somewhat simpler, and therefore more attractive, are his male perfect figures, and even better - tombstones monuments , of which others are really distinguished by the plasticity of the composition, seriousness and dignity.

Cupid and Psyche. Original in the Louvre.

Ge ba.

"Cupid and Psyche 1793 fragment

"Cupid and Psyche" 1802

Dancer. Hermitage.

THE FATE OF THIS SCULPTURE IS INTERESTING.

Canova worked on the "Dancer" from 1806 to 1812 - it was intended for the French Empress Josephine Beauharnais, who, in addition to this sculpture, ordered Canova statues of "Hebe", "Paris", "Cupid and Psyche", "Three Graces". One of the French art connoisseurs of that time, Quatremer de Quency, wrote to Canova about the sensational success of this sculpture at an exhibition in Paris in the Gallery of the Malmaison Palace (in November 1812):

« I saw your Dancer... after her all the statues seem to be marble". After the death of Josephine in 1814, the "Dancer" was inherited by her son Eugene Beauharnais, who took her to Bavaria, where she was in Munich in the palace of the Duke of Leuchtenberg. When the Duke's son Maximilian married Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna (daughter of Nicholas I), the sculpture moved to Russia with him. As is the case with others famous works Canova, this "Dancer" has a few more author's copies, which are today in different museums peace.

Canova was also an excellent draftsman. One of his drawings.

Three Graces.

Contemporaries did not spare strong epithets to describe their admiration for the gift of Canova, who, as it seemed then, could stand comparison with the best sculptors of antiquity. His tombstones are spectacular, his portraits are idealized.

Nevertheless, neither the “solemn calmness of the composition” nor the “clarity and elegance of proportions” saved Canova from accusations of “cold abstraction of images, sentimental sweetness and salon prettiness, lifelessness of the smooth, polished surface of marble”, which were brought against him by many later art historians. and in particular the authors Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

WHAT IS YOUR OPINION ON CANOVA'S WORK?

Elena - in Greek mythology Spartan queen, the most beautiful of women. According to the most popular version of the myth, Helen was the daughter of the mortal woman Leda and the god Zeus, who appeared to Leda in the form of a beautiful swan. From this union, Leda gave birth to an egg from which Elena emerged. According to another version of the myth, Leda only kept an egg laid by the goddess of retribution Nemesis from her marriage to Zeus and found by a shepherd. When a girl emerged from the egg, Leda raised her as her daughter. In her youth, Helen was kidnapped by Theseus and Pirithous, but when they went to the kingdom of Hades for Persephone, Helen was released and brought back by her brothers Dioscuri.

The rumor about Elena's beauty spreads throughout Greece and several dozens come to woo her. famous heroes, including Odysseus, Menelaus, Diomedes, both Ajax, Patroclus. The earthly father of Elena Tyndareus, the king of Sparta, in order to avoid insults among the suitors, on the advice of Odysseus, binds all the suitors of Elena with an oath to protect the honor of her future husband in the future. After that, Tyndareus chooses Menelaus as the husband of Helen. This choice was clearly influenced by the fact that Clytemestre (another daughter of Tyndareus) was married to Menelaus' brother, Agamemnon, king of Mycenae.

Soon Tyndareus yielded royal power in Sparta, Menelaus and his daughter Helen. In a marriage with Menelaus, Helen gave birth to a daughter, Hermione. serene life Menelaus and Helen lasted about 10 years, until the Trojan prince Paris arrived in Sparta, to whom Aphrodite promised the most beautiful of women (Helen) as a reward for the fact that Paris recognized Aphrodite as the most beautiful of the goddesses. Paris, taking advantage of the absence of Menelaus, takes Helen to Troy. According to the most popular version of the myth, Aphrodite inspired Helen with a love for Paris, which Helen could not resist. There was another version of the myth, expressed by the ancient Greek poet Stesichorus. When he wrote a hymn about the abduction of Helen by Paris, he went blind that very night. The poet prayed to the gods for healing. Then Elena appeared to him in a dream and said that this was a punishment for the fact that he composed such unkind verses about her. Stesichorus then composed a new chant - that Paris did not take Elena to Troy at all, but only her ghost, while the gods transferred the real Elena to Egypt, and she remained there, faithful to Menelaus, until the very end of the war. After this, Stesichorus received his sight. The Greek playwright Euripides relied on this version of the myth in the tragedy "Helen", and from the writers of modern times, for example, Henry Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang in the novel "The Dream of the World".

Arriving in Troy, Helen won the hearts of the Trojans with her beauty. Soon Menelaus and Odysseus arrive in Troy to return Helen peacefully, but the Trojans refuse to extradite Helen and a war begins that lasts 10 years.

Pierre Delrome. Hector, Helen and Paris. Hector urges Paris to fight

In the Iliad by Homer, Elena is burdened by her position, because the spell of Aphrodite, which caused love for Paris, has already been dispelled. In the 4th song of the Odyssey, Elena tells how during the war she helped Odysseus, who secretly entered the city:

Throwing the drug into the wine and ordering the wine to spread,
Thus began Helen, born of Zeus, to speak:
235 "King Menelaus Atreid, pet of Zeus, and all of you,
Children of brave men! At will, Zeus sends
People are both evil and good, for everything is possible for Kronid.
Sitting here in the high hall, feast in fun, conversation
Amuse yourself, and I would like to tell you the right one.
240 Feats of all Odysseus, in the suffering of a strong spirit,
I can't tell or list them in detail.
But I will tell you what act he dared to fearlessly
In the distant Trojan region, where you, the Achaeans, suffered like that.
Having beaten his body in the most shameful way,
245 With a miserable rag, like a slave, dressing his shoulders,
In the wide-street city of hostile husbands, he made his way.
Hiding himself like that, he was completely like a husband to another -
The beggar, as never before, was seen near the courts.
Having taken the image, he went to Ilion, suspicious
250 Not arousing in anyone. I just recognized him right away.
She began to ask, but he cunningly evaded the answers.
Only when I washed it and rubbed it with oil,
She put on a dress and swore a great oath to him,
That only then will I give Odysseus to the Trojans when he
255 He will return to the camp to himself, to the fleeting Achaean ships, -
Only then did he reveal to me the whole plan of the cunning Achaeans.
There are many Trojans in the city, having beaten them with long-bladed brass,
He returned to the Achaeans, bringing them knowledge of many things.
The other Trojan women sobbed loudly. But full of joy
260 It was my heart: for a long time I was eager to leave
Home again and grieved for the blindness
Aphrodite sent me, taking me away from my homeland,
Throw forcing both the daughter, and the marriage bedroom, and the husband,
Who could compete with everyone in spirit and appearance.

Also during the siege of Troy, Helen helps Odysseus and Diomedes steal a wooden statue of the goddess Athena from a local temple.

Menelaus, after the capture of Troy, is looking for Elena with a sword in his hand to execute her for treason, but at the sight of Elena, shining with her former beauty, he releases the sword from his hands and forgives her.

In the Egyptian version of the myth, Menelaus arrives with Helen's ghost in Egypt to find the real Helen. The ghost of Helen ascends to heaven, and the true Helen returns to Menelaus.
After her death, Helena was transferred to the island of Leuka at the mouth of the Danube, where she joined the eternal union with Achilles (according to one of the myths, Helen and Achilles met on the Trojan Plain shortly before the death of Achilles). However, another myth looks more plausible, according to which, on the islands of the blessed, Achilles was united by an eternal union with Medea. The passionate and strong Medea is much more similar to Penthesilea, once beloved by Achilles, than Elena, submissive to fate. Henry Rider Haggard, relying on information about the meeting of Odysseus and Helen in Troy, in the novel "The Dream of Peace" forever connects the fate of Helen with another hero of the Trojan War - Odysseus.

Beauty saved worlds and destroyed them. She tied destinies and unleashed wars. For her sake, inhuman feats were performed and human sacrifices were made. "Around the World" went to Troy in search of traces of the most beautiful of women

On modern Helen with faces, as if copied from ancient engravings, I began to stare even on the plane that was flying from Moscow to Istanbul. The heads of some were mysteriously wrapped in scarves, others were decorated with lush headbands with artificial flowers. I saw even more such young ladies on the ferry crossing the Dardanelles to Canakkale.

All the women here are beautiful! laughs the passenger, who has covered the deck with a trail of perfume. - And you stay with us for a couple of weeks, you will also get prettier.

It's hard not to get prettier when the means for this come across at every turn. In the mountain village of Yesilyurt, residents sell fragrant handmade cosmetics with thyme oil, thanks to which “in five minutes you will look five years younger.” And on a dashing climb to the ancient city of Assos, a flock of boys is on duty, jumping out of an ambush when tourists appear:

Madam, mountain honey improves the complexion, gives a blush, strength and an easy gait! You will climb the mountain like a doe!

Girl! - and these are already two grandmothers in long aprons. - Come to our cafe, we will drink coffee and guess. We ourselves are from Georgia, we arrived here 20 years ago and have not yet forgotten the Russian language.

Here, every second woman tells fortunes on coffee grounds, because it is fashionable to know your fate. And it is fashionable to wear gold, like thousands of years ago. Trojan beauties adored him. It was believed that magic metal brings good luck. Therefore, the ancient diadems, recovered from the treasures, look like massive wreaths of oak and laurel leaves. The love of the fair sex for jewelry has not been exhausted for centuries - in every Anatolian town the "golden streets" with jewelry shops are longer than grocery ones. In the showcases on the ladies-mannequins are kilograms of jewelry: earrings to the shoulders, bracelets strung from the wrist to the elbow. And this is not an artistic exaggeration; you can meet such “golden girls” on the streets and in cafes.

This is the land of beauties, explains historian Ahmet Tuna. - And heroes. After all, where there is beautiful woman, there will definitely be a strong man nearby.

"Friends, heroes of the Achaeans, fearless servants of Ares!"

The modern descendants of Paris and Hector famously rev on motorcycles, fish with inspiration on boats and from piers, serve kebabs or chorba in cafes, and the owners themselves carry the trays - with massive rings on their hands. Men here also like to adorn themselves.

The accessories of the strong half are impressive. In shops men's shoes prettier than women's. Here are moccasins in size 45: turquoise, orange, azure - and with rhinestones. But belts made of crocodile, snake, ostrich skin with intricate gold and silver buckles. Any man, even with the charisma of a chicken, will feel like a sultan. Or a real colonel - camouflage clothing with portraits of Ataturk, reminiscent of the battles of the First World War, is sold in abundance in the vicinity. True, more and more tourists are taking it apart - as military souvenirs.

Guests of the country, especially Russian ones, are surprised at the indifference of local men to their "horses" - one gets the feeling that the Turks do not care what to ride, as long as it is comfortable and the wheels are spinning. It is not uncommon to see how rich people drive up to their own yachts on the seashore in unsightly cars. By the way, car sales ratings in the country from year to year are headed by spacious, simple and reliable models.

It is easy for men to live here - they are infinitely self-confident, and for big things they need a special occasion like the Trojan War ...

HERITAGE Year of Troy 2018 is declared the Year of Troy in Turkey - in connection with the 20th anniversary of the inclusion of the city in the list world heritage UNESCO. “Troy is the source of inspiration for entire civilizations, the mother of mythology, the center of the meeting and struggle between East and West, it has a unique heritage. We want not only to preserve these ancient stones, which we have inherited, but also to turn this place into a world museum and tourist center,” Orhan Tavly, the governor of Canakkale, said on January 10 at the celebration of the event. Concerts will be held throughout the year. symphonic music, theatrical performances, Exhibitions. Next to the historical ruins on Hissarlik Hill, a giant museum will open in August. Its visitors will be able to interactively see what all the cultural layers were ancient city what the clothes and dwellings of people looked like, where what treasure was dug up. "Our country does not have much wealth in the form of oil deposits or natural resources, but Turkey is rich in culture and history," Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Numan Kurtulmus said.

"... And death from Zeus rushes over Troy"

White, gray, red stones of different shapes. Wells, stairs. Mythical Troy, which time could not wipe off the face of the earth, today looks like a pie in ten cultural layers, partly excavated, partly hiding underground. This year, scientists managed to dig up an ancient road, and now tourists are viewing part of it. But there are no traces of the Trojan horse here.

Perhaps Homer just came up with it, - says the chief archaeologist of Troy Rustem Aslan. - For men in ancient times, the horse was a symbol of victory. After all, only riders or warriors on chariots could fully fight and smash the enemy in those days. Therefore, it was the horse that helped the Achaeans (they are Danaans), who, according to legend, besieged it for 10 years, to take the impregnable city, but whether it really was a mystery shrouded in darkness. It should be noted that Homer lived 500 years later than the Trojan War happened. This story came to the poet orally. And if any story is passed from mouth to mouth by more than three generations of storytellers, then there is almost no truth left in it.

“What are you, my horse, prophesying death to me? It's not your concern"

Whether there was a horse or not, it doesn't matter. Modern enterprising businessmen successfully exploit the legend that attracts guests. In the city of Canakkale, the center of the province of the same name, located 30 kilometers from Troy, the horse is the main tourist attraction. In every local souvenir shop you can find vases, plates, paintings with herds depicted on them, and figurines of horses of all stripes.

The main horse of the city is hoisted on the embankment, and there is no such tourist who would not bring his photograph from here against the background of a wooden giant. The bottom line is that this is not just a locally produced board sculpture, but a Hollywood star - the horse starred in the Troy blockbuster in the company of Brad Pitt and Peter O'Toole. Then the filmmakers donated the used props to the townspeople. History really moves in a spiral - after three thousand years this land received a new "Danaan gift", and locals again trustingly "dragged" the wooden horse into the city. Only, unlike the ancient Trojan, this one, Hollywood, brings good luck to everyone. Guests of the city line up to the giant in a queue - to take selfies and make romantic wishes. And merchants in the immediate vicinity of the main attraction successfully sell magnets with hearts or fish sandwiches.

This is the most popular place in Canakkale, there are the most people here at any time of the day or night, says guide Mehmet Shen. - People are still fascinated by the Trojan horse, it seems to hypnotize them.

Whether there was a horse or not, it doesn’t really matter: the “Hollywood gift” removes this question. New generations of tourists know about the Trojan wooden monster more from a Hollywood blockbuster than from Homer's Iliad. And certainly thanks to the film, they imagine what the key characters of the epic drama that unfolded in these places looked like. For example, the main treasure of Troy is Helen the Beautiful performed by Diana Kruger ...

GALLERY Elena's images VI in. BC e. Ancient Greek relief depicting Helen and Menelaus V in. BC e. "Helen's Egg", Magna Graecia, Potenza IV in. BC e. "The Capture of Troy by the Achaeans", the vase painter Nazzano I in. n. e. "Paris and Helena", fresco by an unknown artist 1550 "The Abduction of Helena", a ceramic dish from Urbino, Italy 1606 Judgment of Paris, Peter Paul Rubens 1812 "Helen of Troy", bust, Antonio Canova 1830 "The Kidnapping of Helena" by Antoine-Jean Gros 1863 Helena of Troy, Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1885 Helena on the Walls of Troy by Gustave Moreau 1898 "Helen of Troy", Evelyn de Morgan 1956 Rossana Podesta in the movie "Helena of Troy" 1967 Elizabeth Taylor in the movie Doctor Faust 2003 Sienna Guillory in the mini-series "Helen of Troy" 2004 Diane Kruger in Troy

“Truly, she is like the eternal goddesses in beauty!”

Homer in the Iliad described Helen briefly, but succinctly, albeit somewhat vaguely: “blooming wife”, “lily-shaped”, “lepo-haired”.

The sweet-voiced poet was sung by modern writers of Turkish names - women here “sound” with roses, sunsets, springs. Most of all "moon-faced": Aigul - "moon rose", Ayla - "moonlight", Aysu - "moon water", Gulenai - "laughing moon", Gunay - "day moon".

"Beautiful as the moon" - dark-skinned blonde Aysun, an employee of the hotel - revealed her own secret of beauty to me.

You rub a fresh olive with your fingers, a cloudy bitter juice stands out, it must be applied to the face and hands, and the skin becomes velvety and begins to shine, as it will not shine from any cream. This effect is because the fruits are fresh, just taken from the tree, the earth, the sea wind and the sun, - the girl explains, holding out a handful of tight olives to me. - Here, take it. We must return home as Elena the Beautiful!

TRADITIONAL DISHES Pilav, kebab, gozleme (thin cakes with various fillings), syutlach (milk-rice pudding).
TRADITIONAL DRINKS ayran, turkish tea, shira (grape juice).
SOUVENIRS wooden figurines of a Trojan horse, ceramic dishes and clay pots, images of Helen the Beautiful on various objects: vases, paintings, plates with the inscription "Canakkale - the city of love."

DISTANCE from Moscow to Canakkale ~ 1900 km (from 4 hours in flight excluding transfers in Istanbul)
TIME coincides with Moscow
VISA Russians do not need
CURRENCY Turkish lira (10 TRY~ 2,6 USD)

--
* Quotations from Homer's Iliad translated by N. Gnedich are used.

Photo: HEMIS / LEGION-MEDIA , DREAMSFOTO, HEMIS, PHOTONONSTOP (X2) / LEGION-MEDIA , HEMIS (X2), PHOTONONSTOP (X2), FINE-ART-IMAGES , EVERETT (X3), ALAMY / LEGION-MEDIA , GETTY IMAGES (X3), AFP (X2) / EAST NEWS, SAILKO ( CC-BY-SA ), HEMIS / LEGION-MEDIA

Paris, the kidnapper of the beautiful Helen, the culprit of the Trojan War, Canova portrays as a pampered narcissistic youth. He stands in a casual pose, leaning lightly on a tree stump. His slender body arched lazily, his lips slightly touched by a smile. Canova's contemporaries believed that this statue, made by him for Napoleon's wife Josephine, was worthy to stand next to the most beautiful ancient monuments.

Paris is the son of King Priam of Troy. Before the birth of Paris, his mother Hekaba saw nightmare: she saw how the fire threatened to destroy all of Troy. Frightened, Hekaba told her dream to her husband. Priam turned to the soothsayer, and he said that Hekaba would have a son who would be responsible for the death of Troy. Therefore, Priam, when a son was born to Hekaba, ordered his servant Agelay to take him to the high Ida and throw him there in the forest thicket. However, the child escaped - he was fed by a bear. A year later, Agelay found him and raised him as his own son, calling him Paris. Paris grew up among the shepherds and became an unusually beautiful young man. He stood out among his peers with strength. Often he saved not only herds, but also his comrades from the attack of wild animals and robbers, and became so famous among them for his strength and courage that they called him Alexander (affecting husbands).

Canova's sculpture was also very popular for its virtuosity. His works are graceful and decorative. Speaking of Canova's sculpting, J.K. Argan notes that it is “deeply contrasting, torn, as if consisting of intensely illuminated small protruding planes and deep, almost black depressions. light, while perception does not depend on changing conditions, but on the force with which the form affects visual perception.The form of a real thing interested him so little that he achieved a stronger light effect than was necessary, based on the nature of the material. It is useless to try to separate the figure from the surrounding space with which it is merged: there is nothing constant in "perception", its conditions are changeable, just as the ratio of structure and image, object and space is changeable.

And another of the constant and outstanding qualities of Canova is highlighted by Argan - "this is the accuracy of the distance, which the viewer likes so much, his perception of the figure and space as a whole, as an unchanging form based on his own and unchanging attitude to natural reality. From any point of view , in any light, the value of the sculpture, and, consequently, the value will always be the same.
During his lifetime, Canova had a reputation as the most significant of the sculptors of modern times. In the development of classic sculpture, he played the same key role that David played in the development of classic painting. Contemporaries did not spare strong epithets to describe their admiration for the gift of Canova, who, as it seemed then, could stand comparison with the best sculptors of antiquity. His tombstones are spectacular, his portraits are idealized. Nevertheless, neither the “solemn calmness of the composition” nor the “clarity and elegance of proportions” saved Canova from accusations of “cold abstraction of images, sentimental sweetness and salon prettiness, lifelessness of the smooth, polished surface of marble”, which were brought against him by many later art historians. and, in particular, the authors of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia.

Greece is the only country for the sake of traveling to which he decided to leave the British Isles, not counting the crossing of the English Channel in the First World War. And it was not just a trip, but something like honeymoon under the wing of death - the trip was planned during the romantic period, when fatal disease Lewis's wife retreated briefly, and shortly before departure it became known that the disease had returned.

Lewis wrote enthusiastic letters from there, he felt the breath of that Hellas, which he knew so well. In his letters, he says that in Delphi he prayed to Christ sub specie Apollinis, "in the form of Apollo" - in these words there is a lot of Lewis's theology of the image.

There are many ancient motifs in The Chronicles of Narnia, written in the 50s, and leaving teaching, Lewis planned to devote himself to translating the Aeneid, which he had been doing snatches all his life. Among these “projects” inspired by antiquity or closely related to it, a fragment published posthumously entitled “After ten years” occupies a special place.

This is one of the last, and possibly the last piece of art Lewis. In the early 60s, he complained about the loss creative inspiration required for storytelling. According to him, he stopped "seeing pictures", but he does not know how to invent. That is why in these years he focuses on translations and essays.

According to friends, Lewis thought about writing a novel about Helen of Troy in the 50s. The original version of the first chapter was written in 1959, even before the trip to Greece.

The fragment is quite small, smaller than the author's sheet, but extremely interesting and rich in content. The story begins with a scene in a cramped and dark space. Main character, we know that his name is Golden-headed, tightly squeezed between others like him in complete darkness - a real allegory of the state on the eve of birth.

Soon the hero gets out, and we understand that in front of us is Menelaus, the king of Sparta (Golden-Headed is his epithet in Homer), he was sitting in the belly of a wooden horse, and the thing is happening in the besieged Troy.

A description of the battle within the walls of the city follows, interesting with allusions to Homer and Virgil, but Menelaus, in the midst of the battle, keeps returning to Helen in his thoughts. Soon he will find her, what he dreamed about for ten long years will happen. In the head of Menelaus, voluptuous dreams and plans for cruel revenge are fighting - here we have a not too familiar "Lewis for adults". He breaks into the royal chambers, where a woman is sitting with her back to him, sewing.

Menelaus catches himself thinking that only one in whose veins flows the blood of the gods can behave in such a way in the face of mortal danger. Without turning around, the woman says, “Girl. She is alive? She's fine?" - Elena asks about Hermione, their daughter, and Menelaus understands that all his constructions of the last ten years are crumbling.

However, this is not the main shock. When Elena nevertheless turns to him, it turns out that these ten years have not passed without a trace for her - she is no longer the most beautiful of women.

“He never imagined that she could change so much - the skin under her chin is slightly noticeable but still sag, her face becomes puffy and tired, gray hairs appear on her temples, and wrinkles appear in the corners of her eyes. It looks like she's even gotten shorter. The beautiful whiteness and smoothness of her skin, which previously made her arms and shoulders appear to radiate radiance, was gone. Before him sat an aging woman, sad and submissive, who had not seen her daughter for a long time; their daughter".

After the battle in the Achaean camp, Agamemnon explains to his brother that such Helen cannot be shown to the troops. This is not the one for which they were led to death. (However, the real reasons for the war are political, the abduction of Elena became an extremely successful pretext to go to war on dangerous competitor- says Agamemnon.) Menelaus with Helen and the Spartans, who consider her their queen, need to leave the coast of Asia Minor as soon as possible.

Among other things, in Lewis here you can see an interesting metaphor for the possession of a shrine. Menelaus thinks bitterly that everyone except him, her lawful husband, has rights to his wife. Some idolize her, others revere her as a queen, others use her in a political game, others want to sacrifice to the gods. And he doesn't even feel a free man who can dispose of his property is nothing more than an inevitable appendage to the daughter of Zeus, even the rights to the Spartan throne belong to him only as Elena's husband.

The last scene is a conversation in Egypt with local priests. The priests convince Menelaus that the daughter of Zeus has never been to Troy. The gods played a joke on him, they love to joke. The one who shared a bed with Paris was a phantom, a ghost ("such creatures sometimes appear on earth for a while, no one knows what they are"), and the true Helen - now Menelaus will see her ...

“Musicians stopped playing. Slaves were scurrying around. They moved all the lamps to one place, in the far part of the temple chambers, to a wide doorway, so that the rest of the huge room was plunged into twilight and Menelaus painfully peered into the radiance of closely arranged lamps. The music played again.

- Daughter of Leda, come out to us! – said the old man.

And at the same moment it happened. From the darkness behind the doorway

Here Lewis's manuscript breaks off. Friends persistently asked him what Menelaus saw, and which of the Helens was real. But Lewis repeated that he did not know, did not see this scene, and did not want to write from the head.

It is interesting that in this fragment and in the idea of ​​the story of Helen, as far as it can be reproduced, Lewis works with myth and with the ancient plot in the same way as the ancient authors did. Taking one or another well-known plot as a basis, the same tragedians mainly only offered their own explanations of the motives, guided by which the heroes made well-known decisions.

Here we see just such an approach. According to Homer, Menelaus with his army really left Troy before the others, this was really preceded by a quarrel with Agamemnon, and even Menelaus' worries about his worthlessness are justified by ancient material - he received the rights to the Spartan throne only through Helen, daughter of the Spartan king Tyndareus.

Such work with the material is generally characteristic of Lewis. In the story “Until We Have Found Faces,” he, too, strictly speaking, simply retells the story of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, thinking almost nothing of himself, except for the nuances.

The most interesting thing is that even using the ancient plot as the basis for a story about spiritual experience, the author relies on a rich tradition. “Metamorphoses” is a story about a mystical experience, dressed in the form of a frivolous adventure novel (or disguised as one), and an inserted short story about Cupid and Psyche is its semantic center, always perceived as an allegory of the ordeals of the human soul.

Undertaking to retell this story, Lewis turns out to be the continuer of the tradition in which, besides Apuleius, such authors as Marcianus Capella, Fulgentius and Boccaccio worked.

In taking up the legend of Helen, Lewis also draws on a serious and full-flowing tradition. The version that instead of Helen in Troy was her ghost (likeness, εἴδωλον - a concept dating back to Plato and developed in the Neoplatonic tradition) is not at all an invention of a modern author.

The legend that Helen has never been to Troy goes back to the "Palinody" of Stesichorus, a Greek lyric poet of the 6th century, and is apparently associated with the cult of Helen as a deity. According to legend, Stesichorus wrote poems about Elena, where, following Homer, he accused her of betraying her husband and called her the culprit of the war. For this, the poet was stricken with blindness, after which he wrote a “counter song”, saying that he was wrong, and in Troy, in fact, there was only the ghost of Helen, while the real Helen was in Egypt all the time of the Trojan War.

About a hundred years later, the famous historian Herodotus visited Egypt, who talked there with the priests, who told him that, indeed, Elena lived there, and she and Paris did not reach Troy due to a storm.

A few decades later, this plot was given the most complete form by Euripides in the tragedy "Helen". According to Euripides, Helen's εἴδωλον, who was in Troy, was created by Hera to save Helen. The tragedy begins with how Menelaus, on his way home from Troy, finds himself in Egypt and meets his wife - at this moment the ghost accompanying him flies away, returning to the ether from which he was woven.

It is no coincidence that this tradition uses the word εἴδωλον, akin to the basic concept of Plato's philosophy - this is a very Greek train of thought. Actually, we are talking about the fact that the ideal cannot be involved in the "low life". The real Elena is divine, she cannot be a traitor, she cannot be a source of misfortune, she is virtuous and perfect.

In fact, the well-known hooligan, atheist and subverter of authority Euripides - and his predecessors - do not undermine the tradition at all. The version of the immaculate Helen and the Trojan ghost is just as natural its development as Plato's idealism is the development of early Greek philosophy. Elena as an ideal accompanies the European literary tradition(however, not forgetting about Helen the harlot - see the Fifth canticle of Dante's "Hell"), in late XIX centuries, finding expression, for example, in the novel by Rider Haggard and Andrew Lang "The Wanderer" (The World's Desire).

But most interestingly, what was on Lewis's mind, how was he going to solve the dilemma of the two Helens? Although Lewis himself emphasized in every possible way that he did not know the continuation of the intended plot, the main twist is quite obvious. It follows from the whole work of Lewis, all the features of his processing of old subjects and their transformation. And this case is even especially eloquent.

Whenever rethinking ancient, especially pre-Christian material, Lewis tries to see it in a Christian perspective (to worship Christ sub specie Apollinis).

For Lewis, this is not a purposeful Christianization, but an attempt to see the relative from a universal point of view. He works with his sources extremely seriously, taking not meanings that lie on the surface, but deeply thinking through their potencies and intentions. He tries to give the myth a voice, to understand, in the language of Aristotle, that this or that plot “can” and what it “wants”.

It turns out, as when reworking the story of Cupid and Psyche, Platonic (and Platonic) motifs in Narnia, Dante and Miltonian motifs in the Cosmic Trilogy, Lewis tries to tear them away from the context determined by the era and test them for strength in a universal coordinate system.

And it turns out that Dionysianism, fauns, Arthurian legends and Platonic dialogues are quite compatible with Christianity, but modern science when she forgets about ethics, no. A similar turn, apparently, Lewis was going to make in the story of Helen.

Judging by everything we know about the Lewis method, "After ten years" should have become Euripides' "Helen" in reverse. Beautiful and divine, not knowing old age, torment, not changing Helen, which Egyptian priests show to Menelaus is a ghost and an obsession, a projection of the dreams of the Spartan king. And having lost its former beauty, but the real Trojan prisoner is his real wife, and most importantly - it is she, not ideal, but alive - the love of his life. The difficult path of Menlai to the understanding of this wisdom was to become the plot of the story.

This version, in the afterword to the publication of the fragment, is also supported by Lewis's friend, the writer and literary historian Roger Lancelin Green, who discussed the idea of ​​the story with Lewis and accompanied them with Joy on a trip to Greece.

“Menelaus dreamed of Elena, yearned for her, created her image in his thoughts and worshiped him as a false idol. In Egypt, this very idol was shown to him, εἴδωλον ... He was to find out in the end that the elderly and faded Helen, whom he brought from Troy, was real, and between them was real love or its possibility; while εἴδωλον would be belle dame sans merci…”(meaning the image from the poem of the same name by John Keats - a ruthless beauty, a haze from the world of fairies).

But perhaps the most surprising thing here is that in this story Lewis, more unwittingly than deliberately, repeats the legend of Stesichorus with its song and countersong. This concerns the rethinking, or rather the adjustment, of two very important topics for Lewis - romantic love and Platonism.

Lewis knew the romantic love tradition better than others, in which earthly love is not just a feeling, but a reflection and image of divine love. He himself did not escape her charm when he wrote a book about the allegorical love tradition and, later, when, under the influence of the “romantic theology” of Charles Williams, he developed the theme of love of the first people before the fall of Milton.

All the more remarkable is the rather sober look at this feeling in the book "Love", written just when Lewis, having married, was able to try on the "romantic model" for himself.

“When I wrote about medieval poetry many years ago,” says Lewis in the section on falling in love, “I was so blind that I took the cult of love as a literary convention. Now I know that falling in love requires a cult by its very nature. Of all kinds of love, she, on her heights, is most like God and always strives to turn us into her servants. “If we worship her unconditionally,” he adds, “she will become a demon.”

Lewis's Platonism is an undeservedly under-researched topic. Meanwhile, this is perhaps the main key to his theology and worldview in general. This world is like an imperfect likeness of the Kingdom of God, the country of Aslan or the real Narnia, Paradise from the "Dissolution of Marriage", the sea to which our parents want to take us, while we are digging in a puddle.

Like no one who appreciated the beauty of the intellectual construction, Lewis could not help but use the Platonic model, although he made reservations every now and then about its difference from Christianity. But in recent years, he has seriously corrected his position, although he does not abandon his previous constructions. AT later works the theme of God as the destroyer of the images we build in order to cognize Him, but as a result obscure the Antitype, sounds distinctly. Sometimes this theme is so distinct that the reader gets the impression that Lewis has been losing faith in recent years. But it is not. It is an energetic impulse from concepts to the Living God.

“Perhaps images are useful, otherwise they would not be so popular,” Lewis writes in Exploring Grief, compiled from diaries he kept immediately after his wife’s death. (It doesn't really matter if we're talking about pictures and statues of the outside world or creations of our imagination.) And yet, to me, their harm is much more obvious. Images of the sacred are amazingly easily transformed into sacred images, which means they become inviolable.

But my ideas about God are by no means divine ideas. They just need to be smashed to smithereens from time to time. And He Himself does this, for He Himself is the greatest Iconoclast. It may even be one of the signs of His presence. The Incarnation is an extreme example of the iconoclasm of God; it leaves no stone unturned from all previous ideas about the Messiah.”

But what is especially striking in light of what we know about the intention of the Trojan Tale is the following passage from the second notebook of diaries published as a book Exploring Sorrow. Previously disparate themes suddenly come together in a single picture - both the iconoclastic theology of Lewis, and the theme of marriage as a meeting with reality, and even those very “ten years” that served as the title of the fragment.

But the most striking, and perhaps, on the contrary, natural and logical, when reading Lewis's diaries dedicated to his wife, we remember that her name was also Elena - Helen Joy Davidman - and that is how Lewis calls her in the diary. (I thank Boris Kayachev for reminding me of this place in the diaries, a fragment of which is given in his translation.)

“Already now, less than a month after her death, I feel the process slowly, stealthily beginning to turn the Helen I think of into an increasingly imaginary woman. Accustomed to proceeding from facts, I certainly will not mix anything fictional into them (or I hope I will not). But won't their combination into a whole image inevitably become more and more my own? There is no longer that reality that could hold me back, sharply besiege me, as Helen often did - so unexpectedly and so completely being herself, and not me.

The most valuable gift that my marriage gave me was this constantly tangible presence of something very close and dear, but at the same time unmistakably different, stable - in a word, real. Is it all going to die now? Will the fact that I will still continue to call Helen now mercilessly dissolve into my bachelor fantasies? Oh, my dear, my dear, come back just for a moment and drive away this pitiful ghost! Oh, God, God, why did You force this creature to come out of its shell with such effort, if now it is doomed to crawl - to be sucked - back?

Today I was to meet a man whom I had not seen for ten years. And all this time I thought that I remember him well - how he looked and talked and what he talked about. The first five minutes of communication with real person shattered this image. Not that he has changed. Against. The thought constantly jumped in my head: “Yes, yes, of course, of course, I forgot that he thought this, or did not like that; that he was familiar with such and such, or that he threw his head back in this way.

All these features were once familiar to me, and as soon as I met them again, I recognized them. But in my memory they were all erased in his portrait, and when he himself appeared in their place, the overall impression was strikingly different from the image that I had carried in myself for these ten years. How can I hope the same doesn't happen to my memory of Helen? What is not happening already?

Slowly, silently, like snowflakes - the way small flakes fall when it is going to snow all night - little flakes of myself, my feelings, my preferences, cover her image. The true outlines will eventually be completely hidden. Ten minutes—ten seconds—of the real Helen could fix everything. But even if those ten seconds were given to me, in another second the little flakes would start falling again. The sharp, sharp, cleansing taste of her otherness was gone.”

If the reconstruction of the idea of ​​the story about Helena that we propose is correct, we have before us an incredibly beautiful rethinking of the themes of romantic love and Platonic idealism. In some ways, even more beautiful than in "Until We Have Found Faces." There, fears and superstitions are destroyed by meeting with God. Here, the tale of ideal love is shattered—or tested—by meeting one's own wife.

Delphi, May 2015