Virginia Woolf, and Dostoevsky

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This text is a continuation of the text for the Dostoevsky portrait that I posted yesterday. And what does Virginia Woolf have to do with Dostoevsky? Nothing that I am aware of, but the text for the Dostoevsky drawing talks about how he must have been influenced by the photographs he saw during his lifetime, since photography was just beginning in the middle to late 19th century. I gave several examples of Dostoevsky’s writing that I thought illustrated a kind of photographic perception. Later I remembered that there is a passage in “The Idiot,” in which Dostoevsky actually has his principal character describe a photograph.

Below is the passage, the character is Prince Mishkin and he is describing a photograph of a woman whom he will later fall in love with.


“It is a wonderful face, and I feel sure that her destiny is
not an ordinary one. Her face is smiling enough, but she
must have suffered terribly - hasn't she? Her eyes show
it- those two bones there, the little points under her eyes,
just where the cheek begins. It’s a proud face too, terribly
proud. And I can’t say whether she is good and kind or not.”
“And would you marry a woman like that?”
“I cannot marry at all, I am an invalid”


And what has this to do with Virginia Woolf? Descriptions in literature can never hope to create a truly specific image, instead we think of some image that we know, that the text reminds us of. This text from “The Idiot,” makes me think of this archetypical image of Virginia Woolf.

"Virginia Woolf" Richard Britell, painting, oil on canvas, 8.5" x 6" 2003
Location: Britell Studio , Pittsfield, MA
Price: $1200.00