Visualization of Images from F.M. Dostoyevsky’s Novel “Crime and Punishment” in Works of the Book Graphic Artist I.T. Bogdesko

In 1970–1971, Academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of the USSR Ilya Trofimovich Bogdesko (1923—2010) created a linocut series for the socio-psychological novel “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoyevsky. The illustrations were made specifically for the Leipzig Book Fair in 1971. The artist’s idea had been limited to the competition task: he created only three illustrations in the linocut technique, and their artistic solution was based on the conditional-decorative principle of composition organization. The main characters are depicted almost two-dimensionally, “purified” of everyday details, environment, entourage. Using a minimum of visual means, I.T. Bogdesko achieved a sensation of stunning drama in the illustrations. For this work, the artist was awarded a gold medal in Leipzig. At the end of 1971, “Kartya Moldovanyaske” published the book “Crime shi pedyapse” (“Crime and Punishment”) in the Moldovan language. In the design of that book, his illustrations were used — “Raskolnikov” (on the dust cover) and “The Old Pawnbroker” (on the title page). A different vision of Sonya’s image appeared on the dust cover. The preserved sketches, a number of which are presented in this article, allow recognizing the artist’s work hidden from prying eyes. In 1995, Bogdesko applied to Dostoevsky again. He created the writer’s portrait against the background of the characteristic St. Petersburg landscape. In those years, the artist was working on “Don Quixote”, inspired by Dostoevsky’s expressing about the novel by Cervantes: “There is nothing in the whole world deeper and stronger than this composition”. Bogdesko upheld this assertion with 36 illustrations (by chisel engraving) for the famous novel: a titanic work that lasted more than two decades. The artist executed the portrait of the Russian writer in the same unique technique of classical engraving as the illustrations for “Don Quixote”. Changes in graphic techniques dramatically alter the plasticity of images of the characters of “Crime and Punishment”: a quarter of a century later, the tragically flat vision of linocuts turned into a sharp, nervous, frequent movement of the chisel. Bogdesko created three illustrations for Dostoevsky’s novel in the technique of chisel engraving.

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