In “The Portrait,” Gogol deviates quite a bit from his conventional writing style; instead of adopting a humorous, even absurd style, he takes a fairly serious tone that is uncommon in his other works. Part of the reason for this change was the underlying purpose behind this piece; unlike his other stories, which had some serious elements but were generally defined by their amusing tone, “The Portrait” was written partly to serve a form of social commentary. The piece was published in a collection of stories called "Arabesques"; in addition to “The Portrait,” "Arabesques" also contained other darker works of Gogol, including arguably his most famous, “The Diary of a Madman." Loosely, scholars have grouped literary works that are focused on the failings of society (such as "Arabesques") during the mid to late 1800s as Petersburg Texts. Dostoevsky is generally considered to be the most influential author of these texts, but many others contributed to them, including Gogol.