# The Artist — Short Fiction character guide

> The Artist in Short Fiction by Nikolai Gogol.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0036-the-mysterious-portrait

## Snapshot

A painter who steps forward at an auction to claim a cursed portrait, then tells the story that explains why.

## Who they are

He is a man of thirty-five with the unmistakable bearing of an artist — careless dress, black curls, a face free of worldly fret. At the auction he interrupts the bidding not out of greed but recognition, insisting the portrait belongs to him. His tale of Kolomna and its ash-coloured inhabitants draws the room into a darker register, shifting the story from comic to uncanny.

## Relationships

### [Tchartkoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters/tchartkoff)

_psychological_

Tchartkoff is a struggling painter who becomes obsessed with and corrupted by a mysterious portrait created by the Artist.

### [Tchartkoff](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters/tchartkoff)

_psychological_

Tchartkoff is a struggling painter who becomes obsessed with and corrupted by a mysterious portrait created by the Artist.

## In the story

### [The Mysterious Portrait](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/the-mysterious-portrait)

The painter of the mysterious portrait, whose identity and fate are intertwined with the painting.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/i)

Tchartkoff's former comrade who perfected his art in Italy and created the masterpiece that triggers Tchartkoff's crisis.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/chapters/ii)

The painter B., narrator of the story about the cursed portrait, interrupts the auction to claim the portrait.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters/the_artist
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_40_se/characters