N. V. Gogol is one of the most picturesque and "colorful" writers of the XIX century. He was the first person in Russian literature to use color so skillfully for pictorial purposes. The "color characteristic" is almost always present in it, whether it is a description of a character or just an object.

Gogol changed the attitude to color, V. V. Nabokov noted, destroyed old stereotypes and showed that the sky can be not only blue, " the dawn is scarlet, the foliage is green, the eyes of beauties are black, the clouds are gray, etc. Before the appearance of him and Pushkin, Russian literature was a little blind. The forms that she noticed were only outlines suggested by reason; she did not see color as such and only used the worn combinations of blind nouns and dog-like epithets that Europe inherited from the ancients. <...> Only Gogol (followed by Lermontov and Tolstoy) saw yellow and purple colors. The fact that the sky at sunrise can be pale green, the snow on a cloudless day is deep blue, about-

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it would sound senseless heresy in the ears of a so-called "classic" writer, accustomed to the unchanging, generally accepted color scheme of French literature of the XVIII century. < ... > I doubt that any writer, especially in Russia, has previously noticed such an amazing phenomenon as the trembling pattern of light and shadow on the ground under trees or color pranks sun on the leaves. The description of Plyushkin's garden struck Russian readers almost as much as Manet did the mustachioed philistines of his era" (Nabokov V. V. Lectures on Russian Literature, Moscow, 1999, p. 88; further - only p.).

Gogol's interest in color can be partly explained by the fact that he had an unrealized talent as an artist, constantly reminded of himself from the pages of his works.

"...Gogol's world of colors is an organ of the whole; light, color, color and paint are Gogol's backgrounds, from which the most pictorial style is branched... "(Bely A. Gogol's skill: Research. Moscow, 1996. p. 133, further-only p.). For Gogol, the process of creativity of the writer and artist was equivalent, that is, he thought in terms of painting in the broadest sense of the word, as if projecting the situations described by him onto the artist's canvas, trying on whether they would fit the plot of the picture. Nozdryov's description is significant: "Holding a chub in his hand and sipping from a cup, he was very good for a painter who does not like the fear of gentlemen slicked and curled."

Dead Souls has a rich palette of colors: from blue-black to pink. One particular feature of the poem draws attention to itself - the change of color dominants, the departure from contrasting, flashy colors, the desire for harmony, color "calmness". If the first volume of the poem is" painted " with rich, bright colors, then in the second the diversity decreases, color uncertainty increases.

The question of the writer's color preferences and their evolution is discussed in A. Bely's work "Gogol's Mastery": "The colorful perception of Gogol determines a lot in him; Gogol is an artist, colorist, landscape artist, genre writer; the colorful appearance is bright; selection and control are visible; the colors of nature, the coloring of objects, the combination of spots in costumes-everything reveals"both a decorator, a dresser, and a director, not only a "writer"; color cannot be separated from the life of the image... "(133). A. Bely keeps statistics on the colors used by a brilliant novelist. He notes that" in the total spectrum, the dominant tricolor is red - white - black, "and" pink, orange, and purple are rare in Gogol... Gogol's analysis of the spectrum by period and by group shows the disappearance of red<...>; in the first volume of Dead Souls, white takes the first place; red is not present in the tri-color; here the sum of gray and black is almost equal to white..." (137).

The evolution of color goes from pure, unmixed colors to chiaroscuro, to vaguely complex colors that sometimes do not compare well.

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not with the colors of the spectrum, but with objects; definitions like "colorless" and "indeterminate color" are increasingly appearing. For example, this is the description of Manilov's office:"...The walls were painted with some kind of blue paint like gray"; Sobakevich's tailcoat was "completely bearish in color"; the forest invariably darkens "with some boring bluish color"; Sobakevich's house stands out for its "red roof and dark gray, or better, wild walls"; the day of Chichikov's arrival at Manilov's house was the first day of his visit. "not that clear, not that gloomy, but some kind of light gray color." There are also cases when the epithet does not express color, but "chroma in general": a scarf of "rainbow colors".

In the second volume of "Dead Souls" (especially in landscapes), green is the dominant color, while yellow, gray, brown, and blue play an increasing role. Tint covers the purity of colors, obscures them: there are such colors as coffee, bottle, "Navarinsky smoke with a flame". Colors become more of a background than they function as components of artistic images.

B. Zaitsev notes the change in the style of late Gogol: "There are few visual images. There's nothing to shine with. And not to shine. A kind of smooth, grayish-pearly coating over its pages. And the line sounds subtle, amazing, Gogol - not yet studied rhythms "(Zaitsev B. Life with Gogol. Sovremennye zapiski, Paris, 1935. N 59. P. 284).

It is interesting that in the second volume of "Dead Souls" there is quite a lot of gold color, while in the first volume it is almost absent:"...The ancient church raised its five playing tops. All of them had gold slotted crosses attached to the domes with gold slotted chains, so that from a distance the hanging gold glittered, as if in the air, as if it were not attached to anything" (Gogol N. V. Dead Souls. Poem. M., 1995. p. 290; further - only volume and page); "only the golden church poppy that flashed like a spark let you know that it was a crowded, large village" (2, 291). A. Bely notes that " the gold of the second volume is not the gold of vessels, helmets,etc. the gold of church crosses, which raise the trend of Orthodoxy; the "golden" ringing here opposes the "red ringing" of Cossack glory " (Bely A. Decree, op. p. 175). Indeed, the appearance of the golden color is not accidental at all: the gold of church crosses for the first time in the poem recalls God and Chichikov's future spiritual rebirth.

Another aspect of studying the problem of color in the poem is the function of color designation.

From this point of view, the image of Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov is interesting: we know about the hero that he is "a middle-class gentleman", "not handsome, but also not of bad appearance, neither too fat nor too thin; one cannot say that he is old, but not so much that he is too young." But not

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these details make him a "bright" personality, and the tailcoat is a lingonberry color with a spark.

A. K. Yugov's article is partly devoted to the problem of why Chichikov has "cloth of lingonberry flowers with a spark". He talks about Gogol's historicism, about the correlation of some of his works with ancient Russian monuments: chronicles and "A Word about Igor's Regiment". According to Yugov, Gogol also showed a good knowledge of history in Dead Souls: in the second volume of the poem, there is an episode when Chichikov enters the shop of a cloth merchant for fabric "with a spark of olive or bottle flowers approaching, so to speak, lingonberries." He is dissatisfied with what the merchant offers him, and adds: "It's all right, but it's not the same<...>. - After all, I served at the customs, so I have the highest grade, which is more sparkly, not to the bottle, but to the lingonberry to approach" (2, 499-500). It turns out that the color was known in the XVII century. During the Time of Troubles, the voivode M. Tatishchev was executed, but "an inventory of his belongings remained, among which we find both "lundysh lingonberry cloth" and "kholodnaya kaftan, bonfire sizov syskroy cloth" (Vremennik O-va istorii. 1856. Book VII. p. 31).

In addition to the descriptive function, the color expresses the author's worldview. Let us recall a forest that darkens with a "boring bluish color". This is a mood-tinged paint. Blue for Gogol is the color of sadness; white is a virgin purity that does not reflect traces of time: the face of the governor's daughter glows with "transparent whiteness"; the new church is "whitewashed like snow"; the white trunk of a birch tree "rounded in the air like a regular marble sparkling column".

Color is an integral part of the images created by Gogol. Each character is colored with a certain color in accordance with the author's idea. This is not a rule, but a trend. Yu drew attention to this. Mann (Mann Yu. V. Gogol's Poetics. Variations on the theme. Moscow, 1996. pp. 474, 251; further-only p.). Let's observe this phenomenon by looking at some descriptions of landlords from the first volume of "Dead Souls".

Manilov's colors are yellow, green, and blue; Nozdryov's is a contrast of black and white, bright red; Sobakevich's is brown; Plyushkin's is dark tones, worn yellow.

The main feature of Manilov is uncertainty. The writer ranked him among "so-so people, neither this nor that, neither in the city of Bogdan nor in the village of Selifan, according to the proverb" (I, 68). He leads a regular, boring life; his household is outwardly kept in order, but in reality this is not so; at first glance, Manilov is a pleasant person, "but during this pleasantness, it seemed, too much was transferred to sugar..." (I, 69).

These features in Gogol are expressed in colors: yellow, associated with everyday life, is accompanied by the adverb "forever": for example, the upper floor of the hotel where Chichikov stayed, "was out of place".-

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shen eternal yellow paint... "(I, 52); blue-is associated with the dreaminess of Manilov and his "projects": recall the blue columns at the "Temple of Solitary Reflection"; green means desolation, dilapidation-this is indicated by the ironic description of a reservoir that no one has cleaned for a long time: "a pond covered with greenery, which, however, is not a rarity in the Anglitsky gardens of Russian landowners " (I, 67).

Nozdryov has an unpredictable character - he can change his decision in one minute. This trait is reflected in his appearance, which is dominated by contrast, a mixture of colors:"... His dark-haired companion came in, throwing his cap off his head on the table, and running a smart hand through his thick black hair. He was of medium height, a very well-built fellow, with full, ruddy cheeks, teeth as white as snow, and whiskers as black as pitch" (I, 107). Red here is the color of vital energy, which is full of Nostrils.

Sobakevich is distinguished by "clumsiness", but at the same time strength and monumentality. He resembles a bear in everything; this is indicated not only by his clumsiness, his habit of stepping on everyone's feet, but also by his name - Mikhailo Semyonovich, his tailcoat - "bear color". It is this detail that is the most expressive in Sobakevich's appearance - we have no doubt that he is a "perfect bear"!

Plyushkin is the epitome of avarice, spiritual desolation. The "mire of small things" consumed his life. In the chapter about him, the author is stingy with colors: only green, white and black-these colors appear in the description of the landowner's garden: green domes of trees, sometimes illuminated by the sun, white marble columns of birches, and between them - thick darkness.

So, we can say that color is one of the dominants of the image, its integral part, it sets the mood in each chapter, conveys the author's worldview, his psychology, and idea of reality.

The evolution of the color spectrum in Gogol's oeuvre in general and in Dead Souls in particular is already observed in the first volume of the poem. Y. Mann writes that as the plot develops, "dark, gloomy tones" begin to prevail, but "this happens not because the subsequent hero is deader than the previous one, but because everyone brings their share of "vulgarity" to the overall picture, and the overall measure of vulgarity, "the vulgarity of everything together" it becomes unbearable" (Mann Yu. V. Edict. op. p. 274).

In the chapter about Manilov, the tragic notes are not yet heard; his family life, at first glance, has succeeded, he is full of various plans. His shortcomings are marked with a " dotted line "and are not very noticeable, while the negative traits of Plyushkin's character are outlined in"bold lines". Maybe that's why he seems "souller" than the rest of the characters. We judge it more strictly, because we know the history

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his life, but we also sympathize with him more than others. The writer's heart screams with pain at the sight of a person's spiritual impoverishment: "And to what insignificance, pettiness, nastiness a person could condescend! Could have changed so much! And does this sound like the truth? Everything seems to be true, everything can happen to a person" (I, 170).

The evolution of color in "Dead Souls" is connected precisely with the change in Gogol's worldview. Moving away from bright colors, turning to chiaroscuro, uncertainty of color solutions indicates his inner spiritual concentration. His style has become more restrained, leaving everything "spectacular", immediately attracted the eye. "It is embedded in a completely different world. His very word becomes spiritualized. There is no longer anything sharp and flashy, striking in the eyes of paint or grotesque drawing. Everything is now internal-easier, more spiritual. The air of his prose is calm, the music is restrained and slightly muffled" (Zaitsev B. Edict op. p. 284).

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