The artist and his model: problems of love, power, and sacrifice in the novella by L.D. Zinovieva-Annibal “Thirty three geaks”

The paper proves that problems of questions, artistic creation, and artist's mask in the “Thirty Three Geaks” novella by Zinovieva-Annibal are positiones in a way redefining religious-philosophical and aesthetic ideas as problems of highly dramatic node of interpersonal relationships of love, power, and sacrifice between the artist-creator (a tragedy actress) and his model (an unnamed girl). The composition of the novella underlines the artistic side of the question of love: emotions of the artist-creator and of his model reveal tragedy of unity of “ascent” and “descent” in creative act. The source of the tragedy of love and art is loving artist's aspiration towards “the most real thing” in the object of love as artist's model. In the art this is the mask of tragic roles of Vera in the theatre, shifting her personal love drama to extra-personal dimension, so that this purely artistic position forms her love and attitude to a model understood not as particular person, but as “the most real thing” inside her that should be isolated from contradictorial life filfuling the object of love or the artist's model: I will teach myself to you. The image of licking panther mentions creative will in artist's love, which is directed at realization of “the eternal moment” in particular bodily image, so Vera's fierce and authoritative love becomes sacrifice of the girl to heavenly beauty perceived in her by the artist: so the girl is both a goddess and a sacrifice. The creative act of “ascending” can be performed only by means of “descending” as reduction of “the most real thing” to reality of bodily image of particular personality. All attempts to fix “the most real thing” discover tragic problem of real love and real creative act.