Retro-Atelierretroatelier.livejournal.comThe photographic studio Retro-Atelier and the people who make it up are inspired by the aesthetics of bygone eras (as one might guess from the name). Fortunately for us, the years of The Master and Margarita are now quite a long time ago. So when the sponsor of the Kyiv Museum of Bulgakov, Ukrsibbank, suggested to Retro-Atelier that they create a large, beautiful calendar with photographic illustrations for the novel, the result was beyond all praise. It was so well-received that the project didn't stop at just one calendar, and for a couple of years, visitors to the Retro-Atelier blog could follow the unfolding story, which resulted in several dozen illustrations.
The artists' overriding goal (business is business, but what is an artist without an overriding goal?) was to catch up with and surpass the world-famous works of Jean-Daniel Lorieux. Let the first person who says they didn't succeed cast the first stone at me.
“And it was just at that time, when Mikhail Alexandrovich was telling the poet about how the Aztecs made a figurine of Huitzilopochtli out of dough, that the first person appeared in the alley.”
“In a white cloak with a blood-red lining, with a shuffling cavalry gait, in the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, emerged into the covered colonnade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great.”
Or, perhaps, this way
“Is it me you call a good person?”
“Leading the arrested man from beneath the columns into the garden, Ratslyer took the scourge from the hands of the legionary standing at the foot of the bronze statue...”
“The Roman procurator should be called Hegemon. Say no other words.”
“‘I don't have any donkey, Hegemon,’ he said. ‘I arrived in Yershalaim precisely through the Susa Gate, but on foot, accompanied by only Matthew Levi, and no one shouted anything to me, as no one in Yershalaim knew me then.’”
”This is me telling you—Pilate of Pontus, the Golden Lance Knight.”
“‘The names of the criminals are Dismas, Gestas, Var-ravvan, and Ha-Notsri. Here they are before you!‘ Pilate pointed his hand to the right, seeing no criminals but knowing that they were there, where they were supposed to be.”
“At that very moment, the tram came flying up, turning onto the newly laid line from Yermolayevsky Lane to Bronnaya Street. Turning and heading onto the straight section, it was suddenly lit up from inside by electricity, howled, and sped up.”
“Ivan gasped, looked into the distance, and saw the hateful stranger. He was already at the exit to Patriarch's Lane, and not alone. The more-than-dubious choirmaster had managed to join him. But that wasn't all: the third member of this company turned out to be a cat who had appeared from who knows where, as huge as a boar, as black as soot or a rook, and with a desperate cavalry mustache.”
“The stranger did not allow Styopa’s amazement to develop into a painful state and skillfully poured him half a shot of vodka.”
“‘You don't look like a bishop, Azazello,’ the cat remarked.”
“Hello! I consider it my duty to inform you that our chairman of the residents' cooperative of house number three hundred and two-bis on Sadovaya Street, Nikanor Ivanovich Bosoy, is a currency speculator.”
“And the door opened again, and in came that very one...
‘It's her!’ Rimsky thought with a kind of anguish.”
“The girl, though a little husky, began to sing sweetly, with a slight burr, something not very understandable, but, judging by the women's faces in the stalls, very tempting:
‘Guerlain, Chanel No. 5, Mitsouko, Narcisse Noir, evening dresses, cocktail dresses...’”
“Just then, in the crimson light from the fireplace, a sword flashed before the bartender, and Azazello placed a sizzling piece of meat on a golden plate, poured lemon juice over it, and offered the bartender a golden two-pronged fork.”
“Hella turned, the bartender mentally spat and closed his eyes. When he opened them, Hella was handing him his hat and a sword with a dark hilt.”
(In this project, all the actors are good, but Hella... Hella is simply magnificent! Perhaps the best of all the Hellas I have ever seen).
There's also this Hella
“‘So why did you end up here?’
‘Because of Pontius Pilate,’ Ivan replied, looking gloomily at the floor.”
“You shouldn't have such big plans, my dear neighbor, really! I, for example, wanted to travel all around the globe. Well, it turns out it wasn't meant to be. I only see an insignificant piece of this globe. I think it's not the best there is, but, I repeat, it's not so bad. Summer is coming to us, and ivy will twine on the balcony...”
“She carried in her hands some repulsive, disturbing yellow flowers. And these flowers stood out very distinctly against her black spring coat.”
Or even this way
“She came to me every day, and I would start waiting for her in the morning. This waiting was expressed by me rearranging the objects on the table. Ten minutes before she arrived, I would sit down at the window and begin to listen, wondering if the old wicket gate would creak.”
“When the May thunderstorms came and water loudly rolled past the dim windows into the gate, threatening to flood the last refuge, the lovers would light the stove and bake potatoes in it.”
Manuscripts don't burn!
“Twilight fell, and lightning furrowed the black sky. Suddenly, fire burst from it, and the centurion's cry, ’Take off the chain!‘ was drowned in the roar. The happy soldiers rushed down the hill, putting on their helmets. Darkness covered Yershalaim.”
“‘Then please receive this,’ said Azazello, and taking a round golden box from his pocket.”
“From the mirror, a naturally curly, dark-haired woman of about twenty looked back at the thirty-year-old Margarita.”
“Whether the rook knew his business well, or whether the machine was good, but soon Margarita, opening her eyes, saw not the darkness of the forest below her, but the trembling lake of Moscow's lights.”
“The cat, holding the binoculars away from his eyes, quietly nudged his king in the back.”
“Neither Gaius Caesar Caligula nor Messalina interested Margarita any longer, just as none of the kings, dukes, cavaliers, suicides, poisoners, hanged men and procuresses, jailers, swindlers, executioners, informers, traitors, madmen, detectives, or seducers interested her. All their names became jumbled in her head, their faces melding into one enormous pancake.”
“No one knew, and probably no one ever will, what this woman did in Moscow or by what means she existed. All that was known about her was that she could be seen daily with either a can or a bag, or both a can and a bag together—either at the kerosene shop, or at the market, or under the gates of a house.”
“‘I am not being naughty, I am not bothering anyone, I am mending my primus stove,‘ the cat said, frowning unfriendily, ‘and I also consider it my duty to warn you that a cat is an ancient and inviolable animal.’”
By the way, according to the photographer, the model didn't like being photographed, and as a result, he scratched everyone.
“A pale and bored citizen in white socks and a white beret with a tassel sat on a Viennese chair at the entrance to the veranda in the corner, where the entrance to the restaurant was arranged in the greenery of the trellis. On a simple kitchen table in front of her lay a thick, ledger-style book, in which the citizen, for some unknown reason, was writing down those who entered the restaurant. It was this very citizen who had stopped Koroviev and Behemoth.”
“Woland sat on a folding stool, dressed in his black soutane...”
“Thus they flew in silence for a long time...”
”He was walking accompanied by Banga, and next to him walked the wandering philosopher. They were arguing about something very complicated and important, and neither of them could get the better of the other. They disagreed on everything, and this made their argument especially interesting and endless.”
“Oh, thrice romantic Master, do you really not want to walk with your beloved during the day under the cherry trees that are just beginning to blossom, and listen to Schubert's music in the evening?”
P.S. And a photo for memory
”He who loves must share the fate of the one he loves.”
Banga in a Moscow communal apartment
