The research, for the first time in Ukrainian literary criticism, analyzes the visual imagery in creativity of I. Nechui-Levytskyi and investigates the poetics of realism by means of visual code. The visual code of Nechui-Levytskyi’s realism has been pointed yet by I. Franko, calling the writer «the great artist of sight». Visuality of Nechui-Levytskyi’s prose was to varying degrees outlined by N. Krutikova, O.Biletskyi, A, Nikovskyi, M. Tarnavskyi, O. Sizova, however, there is still no systemic investigation on this subject. The analysis of visuality in terms of author’s strategies support to study the creativity of I. Nechui-Levytskyi in a new way, as well as the realism in Ukrainian literature as a whole. Visuality in prose of I. Nechui-Levytskyi is not limited to visibility and descriptiveness, but it is this very prism that reflects the ideas and poetics of the writer’s creativity. In this context, it becomes obvious that Nechui-Levytskyi’s realism is not just mimetic and factographical method, but represents reality, transforming it largely. Within the visual strategies, the thesis singles out and analyzes the forms of theatricalization, painting, portrait and landscaped representation, as well as such medias of visuality as photography, carpet, picture, vision. Separately, there have been investigated the intermedial visualization strategies of «Kaidasheva simya (Kaidash’s Family)», in particular, an embodiment of the fiction work in illustrations, a play and a movie-dilogy.
The visuality is realized in the creation of I. Nechui-Levytskyi at the level of plot, portraying, visual premonitions and leitmotifs. In the story «Dyvovyzhnyi pokhoron (Amazing Funeral)», visual leitmotifs symbolize the moral death of the heroine. The story «Burlachka (Workhand)» is based on the visual perception of Vasylyna’s beauty, the visualization of premonitions and the change of her portraits. The story «Bidnyi dumkoiu bahatiie (The poor man becomes rich in thought)» consists entirely of visual onyric elements, and the carpet serves as an intermediary (media). The category of visuality in the story «Prychepa (The one, who clings)» is represented by several levels: perceptually (through an unequal response to one visual object); based on visual comparison; metaphorically. Decadent and realistic visual strategies synthesized in the novel «Bez puttia (Without the mind)». The decadent strategy is either visually limited or interpreted realistically: synesthesia is not interpreted symbolically, visual transformations remain undetected, aesthetics is interpreted realistically.
Visuality in the Nechui-Levytskyi’s creation was also provided through the attraction of visual arts (painting and theater) and their visual means. The writer uses «theatricality» to characterize a particular social and ethnic type. The writer draws attention to gestures, clothing, visual changes. Among the pictorial techniques can be called attention to colors and paints, light and shade, the use of background, front and long-range plans, etc. The functions of pictures are ambiguous: «picture» is a visual projection, an object (media), an ekphrasis, a metaphor, and also a mean of disclosing author's ideas. Portraits in the works of Nechui-Levytskyi combine folklore (use of folk forms, sustainable comparisons) and realistic (metonymy, visual code for a specific group of characters) means. Characteristic is the pairing of characters, which are visually opposite. Under the same conditions, they live different lives, which indicates the relationship between portrait and character. The landscape is a textual atlas, which depicts a landscape, plant species and the like. Realistic (cartographic, visual, topographical) and romantic (landscape personification, concurrency) features are inherent in early landscapes, pre-impressionistic (fixation of instant impressions, attention to mood) – in late ones. Comparison of intermedial strategies for the representation of the story «Kaidasheva simia (Kaidash’s Family)», namely, a film, a play and illustrations to a literary text, allows us to assert that visualization allows not only to reveal the text's meaning field, but also to complement it.
