Leo Tolstoy's 186th birthday is is being marked with a Google doodle showing the great author in cartoon form, deep in contemplation as he writes one of his masterpieces by candlelight.
Google, which has previously used its doodles to honour a wealth of literary figures from Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Herman Melville, showed scenes from various works by the Russian writer in a slideshow this morning. Tolstoy was born today in 1828, into an aristocratic family, on the ancestral estate of Yasnaya Polyana.
His novel of ill-starred love among the higher echelons of Russian society, Anna Karenina, is brought to life by Google with an image of Anna and Vronsky as they first meet, or as Tolstoy described it: "In that brief look Vronsky had time to notice the suppressed eagerness which played over her face, and flitted between the brilliant eyes and the faint smile that curved her red lips".
His epic novel, War and Peace, is illustrated with Pierre Bezukhov, looking up at the great comet of 1812:
"He gazed joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having travelled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable space, seemed suddenly – like an arrow piercing the earth – to remain fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars," wrote Tolstoy. "It seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life."
Artist Roman Muradov has also picked out scenes from The Death of Ivan Ilyich for his Google doodle. In a piece written for the search engine, the illustrator, who has also recently designed and illustrated the centennial edition of James Joyce's Dubliners for Penguin Classics, said the tribute to Tolstoy was a "daunting task".
"No set of images can sum up a body of work so astonishing in scope, complexity, and vigour – its memorable scenes come to life with seeming effortlessness, fully realised in the immortal lines and between them," he wrote. "Tolstoy's lasting influence is a testament to the power of his art, which will remain relevant as long as the questions of life and death occupy our minds, which is to say – forever."
Muradov said that the imagery, from a writer like Tolstoy, is "unique for every reader", as the Russian writer's care with words allows "the reader's imagination to collaborate with the text instead of passively taking it in".
"The language of cartooning, likewise, is the language of reduction; it's less descriptive than realistic artwork or film, and is less likely to replace the reader's vision. It seemed fitting to focus on Tolstoy's central theme of dualism and to highlight his stylistic nuances through the rhythm of the sequences – the almost full moon against the almost starless night, the red of Anna's handbag, Ivan's fatal curtains that stand between him and the light of his spiritual awakening," wrote Muradov. "There's a myriad of scenes I'd outlined and sketched in the process, and I wish I could've included some of the lesser-known episodes, like Vronsky and Anna's encounter with the Russian painter in Italy, whose portrait of Anna is kept in the background of the narrative for hundreds of pages until it's seen again through Levin's eyes in one most striking scenes of the book."
The artist said he hoped his doodle would "inspire viewers to discover and revisit these scenes in the way Tolstoy intended: through reading and rereading his timeless narratives".
Tolstoy died in 1910, aged 82.
Comments (…)
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion