The Peculiarity of Nikolai Kochergin’s Creative Method in Illustrations to Chinese Fairy Tales

The article is devoted to the study of the creative heritage of Nikolai Mikhailovich Kochergin (1897—1974) in the field of illustrating Chinese fairy tales. The relevance of the topic is conditioned by the insufficient degree of study of the artist’s heritage in this area with the general interest of practitioners and art theorists in book illustration for children’s literature in the 20th century.

The aim of the article is to theoretically comprehend the artistic heritage of N.M. Kochergin on the basis of revealing the originality of the artist’s creative method of illustrating Chinese fairy tales. The following tasks are solved: to trace the creative path of N.M. Kochergin, in particular, his work in the field of illustrating literature of Eastern and Asian countries; to make a list of illustrated editions of Asian fairy tales by the artist; to reveal the influence of traditions of Chinese Gohua art on the artist’s work, specifically to study the compositional solution, the use of diffused perspective, other expressive means; to analyze the methods of stylization of images and symbols of Chinese culture and folklore in illustrations.

The presented research allows not only to determine the originality of N.M. Kochergin’s creative method of illustrating Chinese fairy tales, but also to identify the specificity of representation of Chinese culture for Russian readers. This problematic can contribute to the emergence of a holistic view of the synthesis and integration of Chinese art and culture in the Russian and world artistic process. The article studies illustrations by N.M. Kochergin for such editions of Asian fairy tales as “Chinese Folk Tales” (1953), “Ten Little Friends” (1954), “The Yellow Stork and the Mountain of the Sun” (1954), “The Liu Brothers” (1955), “Persistent Yun Su” (1955), “Fairy Tales of the Peoples of Asia” (1959).

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