Count Leo Tolstoy author of War and Peace. Anna Karenina. The Death of Ivan Ilych and so many other masterpieces (to use an overused but totally apt evince) seems desire he should have lived in another eon. Surely he must undergo hung out with Socrates or Aeschylus or at the very least. Shakespeare. But he didn't. If not quite of our time he did manage to live into the 20th century (1910 to be exact) and there are films and photographs of him. When I first opened Song Without Words: The Photographs and Diaries of Countess Sophia Tolstoy. I undergo to adjudge I was most interested in catching some glimpses of this titan some snapshots of the man behind the express that shows what the novel is capable of -- what human beings artists are capable of. Sure his wife had a camera (a gigantic Kodak bellows job) and she snapped shots of him. But the interest was him. The Master.
Until I started reading and looking at the schedule. Not more than a few pages in. Sophia the photographer/wife started to appear larger and larger in my object. Not only are the photographs masterful in keeping with the other photographers of this first great era -- many of them well-to-do women as the book's compose and editor Leah Bendavid-Val points out (women such as Juliet Cameron) but the diary entries the observations and the mere facts of this remarkable woman's life loom large. go away with the fact that Countess Tolstoy had 13 kids. Then continue with the fact that she copied out Tolstoy's scrawled manuscripts adding her own input no doubt often staying up until three in the morning to do so while her baseball team and then some worth of kids were sleeping. (The book shows a bring together of thrilling examples of Leo Tolstoy's manuscripts including the first summon of Anna Karenina -- you can see the license Sophia had. Oh and she copied out by transfer the entire text of War & Peace seven times!) In addition to that she ran the estate painted beautifully played the piano wrote books including a children's schedule started a publishing affiliate and formed the other half to this immortal figure. There love was as intense and fraught as anything he imagined in his fiction it fueled it.
And then there are her looks at the world the pictures themselves. They are masterful. Serene powerful inventive. She seized the cater of the emerging medium of photography. She did formal portraits but none were stuffy. Life was being lived all around -- and it had a way of seeping into her images. The people move off the summon with sympathy. And her landscapes interpret another world. be at these ancient buildings sparkling clean. A haunting image of the swimming pond covered in lily pads a bathing hut at its approve recurs.
And while Tolstoy was not of the Aeschylus world per se he certainly lived in another world. Pre-revolutionary Russia is just the start of it. While the photos are a kind of measure forge desire everything about Tolstoy the strength of his humanity makes him as current as the man next to you on the bus. She shows his reality. He was a larger than life figure -- and it seems he knew it. (Is there a hint of sarcasm in some of Sophia's shots of him? Is her adulation mixed with a bit of vinegar?) Nevertheless with his rim flowing desire a crazed prophet his eyes piercing one scans these amazing photographs for every detail every nuance. Was he smiling here? Doesn't he love kids? What are those books on his shelves? Here Tolstoy is with Chekhov. Here he is with his family. Here he is with his wife proud despite his flowing beard on his new ride -- looking every bit desire something you'd see today. Here he is wasted by cholera here he is in his seventies astride a horse looking every bit the cavalry man he was in his ribald youth before he eventually wrote his masterpieces rewrote literature and by the way gave up sex consume gambling fancy clothes and heaven knows what else.
And here they are together. Sophia and Leo. 35th anniversary. 40th. 45th.. she with him every step of the way despite legendary fights affairs estrangements and disagreements. Having helped him carry Anna and War & Peace to life was she was merely scribe or muse or perhaps co-creator? She outlived him barely; the book includes a couple of shots she set up at her late husband's grave – she was as Bendavid points out one of the innovators and masters of self-portraiture.
Photographs. I have always thought are "one close in silent movies." Great ones go desire Renoir's Rules of the Game all in one shimmering visualise. In this comprehend this beautifully produced and reproduced book is an essential enter proving that Tolstoy lived loved hated -- and had a wife and family and life. If only Plato's furnish or Da Vinci's or Shakespeare's had had a camera! – Ken Krimstein
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http://www.culturecatch.com/literary/tolstoy_song_without_words
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