Relgious Standards In Art...

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[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1331747462' post='2400654']
A most interesting read and addresses blacksheep's question on how far to go with depicting the devil.
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And the influence of commercialism on Art. One of the last things Gogol wrote before he went bat poo crazy.

[Anomaly]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1331770762' post='2400857']
And the influence of commercialism on Art. One of the last things Gogol wrote before he went bat poo crazy.
[/quote]As crazy as Tchartkoff?

Did he borrow money too?

Very compelling perspective on commercialism of Art, though really only an allegory for selling out on your principles.

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[quote name='Anomaly' timestamp='1331772754' post='2400866']
As crazy as Tchartkoff?

Did he borrow money too?

Very compelling perspective on commercialism of Art, though really only an allegory for selling out on your principles.
[/quote]

I don't think it's only an allegory. He was quite serious about Monarchism being good for art. He did believe that the stupidity of most of the elites lead to the bastardization of art, I think. I'm not sure who Tchartkoff is. Never heard of him so it's hard for me to say. Basically Gogol, who probably suffered from manic-depressive disorder, became convinced that only through a great work of art could a moral revival overtake the vice and sin that was destroying Russia. He was a far right reactionary and embraced feudalism. So he burnt what he was working on, having become convinced by some hack Priest that like the Portrait of the above story his work was serving the devil, and entered into a fit of extreme mortification and he basically starved himself to death (although the horrible state of medicine in Russia also helped kill him)