Portrait of Anton Chekhov.
Osip Braz, oil on canvas. 1898.
Fortune has it that I managed to procure a copy of Murakami’s 1Q84 just before the holidays so I can fully immerse myself within its smooth pages free of distractions. Well, at least until early January, though I’m hoping to have finished the enormous tome by then. (Currently hovering at 263 out of 925 pages, I really can’t say).
That being said, it’s given me the urge to read both Tales of the Heike and Chekhov’s Sakhalin Island. In my research I came across this fascinating portrait by Osip Braz, an artist who I’ve never heard of until now and due to a lack of a English Wikipedia, only managed to gather some sparse facts on the French site.
(On a side note, stubs on the french site are referred to as “pages orphelines”. I love it when different languages produce terms with entirely different connotations.)
