Overcoat. Artist S. Brodsky

The novella «Overcoat» — one of Gogol's best works, from which emerged perhaps not all of Russian literature, but much of it, — was illustrated by many artists. Savva Brodsky, who worked on «Overcoat» from 1978 to 1981, particularly succeeded in creating figurative metaphors. The earth, shrouded in gray overcoat cloth;
the cold St. Petersburg sky, sagging with the edges of the same overcoat;
the figure of a small lonely person, floundering in a vast hostile city… Starting from specific Gogolian images, reinterpreting them, the artist revealed the historical time that bore them. The overcoat in Brodsky's interpretation is not «a bright guest… momentarily enlivening the poor life» of a petty official, but a symbol of the entire Nicholas era. Unfortunately, «Overcoat» became the artist's last work. The book was published without him…