”Not a Monotonous Artist”: Graphic Works by L. A. Epple Based on D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak’s Works

Abstract

This article analyses the graphic cycle of L. A. Epple created based on D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak’s works in 1946–1952. Among the artist’s works, there are both illustrations for the collection For Children (1947) and easel compositions commissioned by the writer’s memorial museum in Sverdlovsk. A professional graphic artist, Epple worked thoughtfully and consistently with the works of the writer for many years, achieving expressiveness of images and artistic accuracy. The artist’s special position (a labour soldier in Sevurallag in 1941–1945, then a special settler in Sosva and Irbit in 1946–1952) led to the fact that his creative activity during these years was unknown to specialists. The artist’s name was not mentioned in the data of the collection of Mamin-Sibiryak’s works, and his easel paintings (kept in the collection of the United Museum of Writers of the Urals) were not published. In the late nineteenth — first half of the twentieth centuries, Mamin-Sibiryak’s works were illustrated and decorated by many Ural artists (S. I. Yakovlev, A. V. Kikin, Yu. A. Ivanov, A. A. Zhukov, N. P. Golubchikov, A. A. Kudrin, E. V. Gileva, etc.), but unlike L. A. Epple, the appeal to the literary heritage of the writer was for them only a brief episode of creative activity. Epple’s art project developed within the framework of an official order, hence the stylistics convenient for the mass reader, and a set of visual images was thought out. The principle of narrative fits into the aesthetics of book illustration of the 1940s–1950s, but in Epple’s graphic compositions, there is a feeling of intimacy, softness, some idealisation, and smoothness of images. Following the traditions of his teacher D. N. Kardovsky, Epple strives for the exact choice of the scene, the expressiveness of the entire composition and each character, the elaboration of details, and tries to reveal the psychology of the main characters. Choosing a realistic manner of performance, the artist proceeds from the nature of Mamin-Sibiryak’s oeuvre, with his thoroughness and journalistic narrative, respectful attitude to historical, ethnographic, and everyday realities.