Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Note on Abbreviations and References
- 1 Nabokov and the Two Sister Arts
- 2 The ‘Mad Pursuit’ in Laughter in the Dark
- 3 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Its Colours and Painting
- 4 Pnin and the History of Art
- 5 Lolita and Aubrey Beardsley
- 6 Pale Fire Zemblematically
- 7 Leonardo and ‘Spring in Fialta’
- 8 A Shimmer of Exact Details: Ada’s Art Gallery
- 9 Ada and Bosch
- Appendix I Passages in Nabokov’s Novels, Stories or Autobiography Referring or Alluding to Paintings
- Appendix II Painters Mentioned or Obviously Referred to in Nabokov’s Works
- Notes
- Bibliography
- List of Illustrations and Acknowledgements
- Corresponding Pages in the Volumes Published by Vintage International and Penguin Books
- Index of Authors
- Index of Artists
- Plate Section
Appendix I - Passages in Nabokov’s Novels, Stories or Autobiography Referring or Alluding to Paintings
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Note on Abbreviations and References
- 1 Nabokov and the Two Sister Arts
- 2 The ‘Mad Pursuit’ in Laughter in the Dark
- 3 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Its Colours and Painting
- 4 Pnin and the History of Art
- 5 Lolita and Aubrey Beardsley
- 6 Pale Fire Zemblematically
- 7 Leonardo and ‘Spring in Fialta’
- 8 A Shimmer of Exact Details: Ada’s Art Gallery
- 9 Ada and Bosch
- Appendix I Passages in Nabokov’s Novels, Stories or Autobiography Referring or Alluding to Paintings
- Appendix II Painters Mentioned or Obviously Referred to in Nabokov’s Works
- Notes
- Bibliography
- List of Illustrations and Acknowledgements
- Corresponding Pages in the Volumes Published by Vintage International and Penguin Books
- Index of Authors
- Index of Artists
- Plate Section
Summary
Nabokov's works include many references to painters and paintings, real and fictitious. A number of these passages refer to existing painters and their work. However, some of the paintings referred or alluded to may be nonexistent. In this section, the relevant passages are presented (in a chronological order) and an attempt is made to match or link these descriptions with the individual works of these painters. (Painters who are mentioned without a specific reference to their work are not listed in this appendix.)
‘La Venezia’.
Page 92: ‘the portrait of a woman by Luciani’.
Artist: Fra Sebastiano (Luciani) del Piombo, c. 1485-1547, Italian.
Title of work: Portrait of a Young Roman Lady, c. 1512, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Page 100: ‘Flemish canvas with the Holy Family in the foreground, against a smooth, limpid landscape’.
Page 101; ‘a Madonna with an azure corona, by the delicate Raffaello’.
Artist: Raphael (Rafaello Sanzio) 1483-1520, Italian.
Title of work: Madonna in the Meadow, 1505 or 1506, Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna Comment: Raphael painted many Madonnas, several of them against a blue sky. The selected one has a sky of a tender blue.
Page 101: ‘Bernardo Luini … His best Madonna has long, caressingly lowered eyes, and her apparel has light-blue, rose-red, misty-orange tints. A gaseous, rippling haze encircles her brow, and that of her reddish-haired infant. He raises a pale apple toward her, she looks at it lowering her gentle, elongated eyes – Luinesque eyes’.
Artist: Bernardo Luini, c. 1481-1532, Italian.
Title of work: Madonna with Child, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Page 101: ‘the foggy, yellow skating rink of one of the Dutchmen’.
Artist: Hendrick Avercamp, 1585-1634, Dutch.
Comment: Avercamp painted many winterscapes. Some of them have frozen lakes and rivers of the same amber colour as the sky above, as The Delights of the Winter, c. 1610 (Mauritshuis, The Hague) which shows many skaters as well.
Mary
Page 36: ‘Böcklin's The Isle of the Dead’.
Artist: Arnold Böcklin, 1827-1901, Swiss.
Title of work: Island of the Dead
Comment: Böcklin painted five variations on this theme, all with the same title, Die Toteninsel. The
first version (1880) is in the Kunstmuseum Basel.
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- Information
- Nabokov and the Art of Painting , pp. 167 - 177Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2005