Ekphrasis of the Dutch paintings in the prologue of the novel “Still life” by A.S. Byatt

The article is devoted to the analysis of ekphrastic elements in the prologue of the novel “Still Life” (1985) written by a contemporary British writer Antonia Susan Byatt and that became the second novel in the tetralogy about the Potter family (“The Virgin in the Garden”, “Babel Tower” and “A Whistling Woman”). Ekphrasis of the paintings of George Hendrik Breitner, Piet Mondrian and Xavier Mellery is presented through the eyes of Daniel Orton, one of the main characters of the novel. Reference to Breitner sends the reader to several paintings with the images of Amsterdam, that is described by Daniel as “gloomed and glittering”, and the Mondrian’s painting, that is not named directly, was called “somber and cloudy”. Ekphrasis of the Mellery’s painting “After Evening Prayers” is analyzed by Daniel doubly: firstly, descriptively, secondly, when he memorizes his son’s birth, fate and their difficult relationships, the perception of the painting acquires personal features. Ekphrasis of the Dutch paintings is motifly and subjectly connected with the image of Daniel in the novel and in the whole tetralogy, that is highlighted with the characters’ common vision of Dutch paintings in the rooms of the gallery and his point of view on life full of tragedy – “he knew about the light shining in darkness”. Ekphrasis of the Dutch paintings makes the opposition to the ekphrasis of the paintings of French postimpressionists of the XIX-XX, that are presented in the first part of the prologue, just as the images of the Dutch Fine art highlight the contrast between dark and somber image of Daniel and image of English society of the middle of the XXth century.