Images of the G. A. Bürger’s ballad "Lenora" in the visual arts
The ballad of Gottfried August Burger «Lenora» (1773) quickly gained fame after its publication in many European countries, including Russia. Many of the European artists were quick to respond to this ballad in their work. In their drawings, engravings and paintings, you can see how the mystical rider on horseback rushes through the air in the night, barely touching the ground and embracing a sensual girl. The images of this ballad were extremely popular in the art of the 19th century. Russian-speaking readers with the ballads of G. A. Bürger was introduced at the beginning of the 19th century to V. A. Zhukovsky, having compiled a poetic arrangement of Lenora into Russian in as many as three versions (Lyudmila (1808), Svetlana (1812), Lenora (1831)), only one of them is close to the original, the other two are a more free arrangement of the burgher text with the use of the Russian national flavor. For domestic artists of the 19th century, this plot in the free interpretation of V. A. Zhukovsky; they are attracted by the prospect of transferring the national color, the opportunity to describe the details of the Old Russian interior and national costume with ethnographic accuracy.