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General History of Art
From the editorial board
Origin of art
The main stages in the development of primitive art
Art of Western Asia (I. Loseva)
Introduction
The most ancient culture of the tribes and peoples of Mesopotamia (4th – early 3rd millennium BC)
Art of Sumer (27-25 centuries BC)
Art of Akkad (24th – 23rd centuries BC)
Art of Sumer (23rd – 21st centuries BC)
Art of Babylon (19th – 12th centuries BC)
Art of the Hittites and Mitanni (18th – 8th centuries BC)
Art of Assyria (9th – 7th centuries BC)
Art of the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom (7th – 6th centuries BC)
The art of ancient Egypt (M. Mathieu)
Introduction
Addition ancient egyptian art(4th millennium BC)
Art Ancient kingdom(3200 – 2400 BC)
Art of the Middle Kingdom (21st century - early 19th century BC)
Art of the first half of the New Kingdom (16th – 15th centuries BC)
The art of the time of Akhenaten and his successors (late 15th - early 14th century BC)
Art of the second half of the New Kingdom (14th – 2nd centuries BC)
Late Art (11th century – 332 BC)
Art Ancient Greece(Yu. Kolpinsky)
general characteristics culture and art of ancient Greece
Art of Homeric Greece
Art Greek archaic
Art Greek classics(Early 5th – mid 4th century BC)
Art of the Early Classics (The so-called “strict calm” 490 – 450 BC)
High Classical Art (450 – 410 BC)
Late Classical Art (From the end of the Peloponnesian Wars to the rise of the Macedonian Empire)
Hellenistic art (E. Rotenberg)
Hellenistic Art
The art of ancient Rome (N. Britova)
Art of Ancient Rome
This Russian art
Art of the Roman Republic
Art of the Roman Empire 1st century. n. e.
Art of the Roman Empire 2nd century. AD
Art of the Roman provinces of the 2nd – 3rd centuries. AD
Art of the Roman Empire 3rd – 4th centuries
Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast
Art of Ancient Transcaucasia
Art of Ancient Iran (I. Loseva, M. Dyakonov)
Art Central Asia
Art of Ancient India
Art Ancient China
General History of Art
Volume one
From the editorial board
B.V. Weimarn, B.R. Vipper, A.A. Guber, M.V. Dobroklonsky, Yu.D. Kolpinsky, V.F. Levenson-Lessing, K.A. Sitnik, A.N. Tikhomirov, A.D. Chegodaev
“General History of Art” prepared by the Institute of Theory and History fine arts Academy of Arts of the USSR with the participation of scientists - art historians of others scientific institutions and museums: the State Hermitage, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, etc.
"General History of Art" is a history of painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture and applied arts of all centuries and peoples from primitive art to the art of our days inclusive. This material is arranged in six volumes (seven books) as follows:
Volume one. Art Ancient world: primitive art, art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, art of Ancient Rome, Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, ancient art India and China.
Volume two. Art of the Middle Ages. Book 1: art of Byzantium, medieval Balkans, ancient Russian art (up to the 17th century inclusive), art of Armenia, Georgia, Arab countries, Turkey, Merovingian and Carolingian art Western Europe, Romanesque and Gothic art of France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Italy and Spain. Book 2: art of Central Asia from the 6th to the 18th century, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan; India from the 7th to the 18th century, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia; China from the 3rd to the 18th century, Korea, Japan. The same book contains the art of the peoples of Ancient America and Ancient Africa.
Volume three. Renaissance art: art of Italy from the 13th to the 16th centuries, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland of the 15th - 16th centuries.
Volume four. Art of the 17th - 18th centuries in Europe and America: art of Italy 17th - 18th centuries, Spain, Flanders, Holland 17th century, France 17th - 18th centuries, Russia 18th century, England 17th - 18th centuries, USA 18th century, Latin America 17th - 18th centuries and other countries.
Volume five. Art of the 19th century: art of the peoples of Russia, France, England, Spain, USA, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia, Latin America , India, China and other countries.
Volume six. Art of the late 19th - 20th centuries: Russian art of 1890-1917, art of France, England, USA, Germany and other countries of Western Europe and America of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, soviet art, contemporary art of Western Europe and America, people's democracies, China, India and other countries of the East.
The sixth volume will contain a detailed consolidated bibliography on the entire world history of art.
In addition to illustrations on tables and drawings in the text for each chapter, maps will be given indicating the places of archaeological finds, artistic centers, and locations of architectural structures.
The General History of Art seeks to characterize and evaluate the art of all peoples of the earth who have contributed to the world history of art. Therefore, in the book, along with the art of the peoples and countries of Europe, great place art of the peoples of Asia, Africa and America. The main attention when working on the “General History of Arts” was occupied by those eras of the history of art in which there was a particularly high flowering of realistic art - the art of Ancient Greece, chinese art 10th – 13th centuries, Renaissance art, realistic masters of Europe 17th – 19th centuries, etc.
The General History of Art aims to give a summary current state world science of art. It also contains a number of original studies by Soviet art historians in various fields of art history.
The origin of art - N. A. Dmitrieva.
The main stages in the development of primitive art - V.V. Shleev.
Art of Western Asia - I. M. Loseva.
The Art of Ancient Egypt – M.E-Mathieu.
Aegean art - N. N. Britova.
The Art of Ancient Greece - Yu. D. Kolpinsky.
The art of the Hellenistic era - E. I. Rotenberg.
The Art of Ancient Rome - N. N. Britova.
Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast - N. N. Britova.
The art of Transcaucasia in ancient times - V.V. Shleev.
The Art of Ancient Iran - I. M. Loseva (Achaemenid Iran) and M. M. Dyakonov (Sassanian Iran).
Art of Ancient Central Asia - M. M. Dyakonov.
The Art of Ancient India - N. A. Vinogradova and O. S. Prokofiev.
The art of Ancient China - N. A. Vinogradova.
B.V. Weimarn (art of Western Asia, Iran, Central Asia, China) and E.I. Rotenberg (Roman art) took part in editing some chapters of the first volume.
The selection of illustrations and layout of the volume were made by A. D. Chegodaev and R. B. Klimov with the participation of T. P. Kaptereva, A. G. Podolsky and E. I. Rotenberg.
The maps were made by the artist G. G. Fedorov, the drawings in the text were made by the artists Yu. A. Vasilyev and M. N. Mashkovtsev.
The index was compiled by N. I. Bespalova and A. G. Podolsky, explanations for the illustrations by E. I. Rotenberg.
Consultations and review were carried out by the Institute of Art History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Institute of History material culture Academy of Sciences of the USSR, sector Ancient East Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Institute of the History of Georgian Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, Institute of Architecture and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, Sector of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Institute of Theory and History of Architecture of the Academy of Architecture of the USSR, Department of Art History of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikov and the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after. I. E. Repin, State Hermitage Museum, State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, Museum of Oriental Cultures, State Museum arts of Georgia.
The editorial board expresses gratitude to the scientists who provided great assistance with their advice and criticism in the preparation of the first volume: M. V. Alpatov, Sh. Ya. Amiranashvili, B. N. Arakelyan, M. I. Artamonov, A. V. Bank, V. D. Blavatsky, A. Ya. Bryusov, Wang Xun, A. I. Voshchinina, O. N. Glukhareva, Guo Bao-jun, I. M. Dyakonov, A. A. Jessen, R. V. Kinzhalov, T. N. Knipovich, M. M. Kobylina, M. N. Krechetova, V. N. Lazarev, M. I. Maksimova, V. K. Nikolsky, A. P. Okladnikov, V. V. Pavlov, A. A. Peredolskaya, B. B. Piotrovsky, V. V. Struve, Xia Nai, Tang Lan, S. P. Tolstov, K. V. Trever, S. I. Tyulyaev, N.D. Flittner, Han Shou-xuan, Chen Meng-chia.
Primitive art
Origin of art
N. Dmitriev
Art as a special area of human activity, with its own independent tasks, special qualities, served by professional artists, became possible only on the basis of the division of labor. Engels says about this: “... the creation of arts and sciences - all this was possible only with the help of an enhanced division of labor, which was based on a large division of labor between the masses engaged in simple physical labor and the privileged few who manage the work, engage in trade, state affairs, and later also science and art. The simplest, completely spontaneously formed form of this division of labor was precisely slavery" ( F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1951, p. 170).
But since artistic activity is a unique form of knowledge and creative work, then its origins are much more ancient, since people worked and in the process of this work learned the world long before the division of society into classes. Archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years have revealed numerous works fine arts primitive man, whose age is estimated at tens of thousands of years. These are rock paintings; figurines made of stone and bone; images and ornamental patterns, carved on pieces of deer antlers or on stone slabs. They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These are works that appeared long before a conscious idea of artistic creativity could arise. Many of them, reproducing mainly figures of animals - deer, bison, wild horses, mammoths - are so vital, so expressive and true to nature that they are not only precious historical monuments, but also retain their artistic power to the present day.
The material, objective nature of works of fine art determines especially favorable conditions for researchers of the origins of fine arts in comparison with historians studying the origins of other types of arts. If the initial stages of epic, music, and dance must be judged mainly by indirect data and by analogy with the creativity of modern tribes in the early stages of social development (the analogy is very relative, which can only be relied upon with great caution), then the childhood of painting and sculpture and graphics confront us with our own eyes.
It does not coincide with the childhood of human society, that is, the most ancient eras of its formation. According to modern science, the process of humanization of the ape-like ancestors of man began even before the first glaciation of the Quaternary era and, therefore, the “age” of humanity is approximately a million years. The first traces of primitive art date back to the Upper (Late) Paleolithic era, which began approximately several tens of thousands of years BC. so-called Aurignacian time( The Chellesian, Acheulian, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian stages of the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) are named after the places of the first finds.) This was a time of comparative maturity of the primitive communal system: the man of this era, in his physical constitution, was no different from modern man, he already spoke and knew how to make quite complex tools from stone, bone and horn. He led a collective hunt for large animals with the help of a spear and darts. The clans united into tribes, and matriarchy arose.
More than 900 thousand years must have passed between ancient people from a modern type of man, before the hand and brain were ripe for artistic creation.
Meanwhile, the manufacture of primitive stone tools dates back to much more ancient times of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Already Sinanthropus (the remains of which were found near Beijing) had reached a fairly high level in the manufacture of stone tools and knew how to use fire. People of the later, Neanderthal type processed tools more carefully, adapting them to special purposes. Only thanks to such a “school”, which lasted many millennia, did they develop the necessary flexibility of the hand, fidelity of the eye and the ability to generalize what is visible, highlighting its most significant and characteristic features - that is, all those qualities that appeared in the wonderful drawings of the Altamira cave. If a person had not exercised and refined his hand, processing for the sake of obtaining food such a difficult-to-process material as stone, he would not have been able to learn to draw: without mastering the creation of utilitarian forms, he would not have been able to create an artistic form. If many, many generations had not concentrated their thinking ability on capturing the beast - the main source of life for primitive man - it would not have occurred to them to depict this beast.
So, firstly, “labor is older than art“(this idea was brilliantly argued by G. Plekhanov in his “Letters without an address”) and, secondly, art owes its emergence to labor. But what caused the transition from the production of exclusively useful, practically necessary tools to the production, along with them, of “useless” images? It was this question that was most debated and most confused by bourgeois scientists who sought at all costs to apply Immanuel Kant’s thesis about the “purposelessness,” “disinterest,” and “inherent value” of the aesthetic attitude to the world to primitive art. Those who wrote about primitive art, K. Bücher, K. Gross, E. Grosse, Luke, Vreul, W. Gausenstein and others, argued that primitive people They were engaged in “art for art’s sake”; the first and determining stimulus for artistic creativity was the innate human desire to play.
The theories of “play” in their various varieties were based on the aesthetics of Kant and Schiller, according to which the main feature of aesthetic, artistic experience is precisely the desire for “free play with appearances” - free from any practical goal, from logical and moral evaluation.
“The aesthetic creative impulse,” wrote Friedrich Schiller, “imperceptibly builds, in the midst of the terrible kingdom of forces and in the midst of the sacred kingdom of laws, a third, cheerful kingdom of play and appearance, in which it removes from man the shackles of all relationships and frees him from everything that is called coercion as in physically and morally"( F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, p. 291.).
Schiller applied this basic tenet of his aesthetics to the question of the emergence of art (long before the discoveries of genuine monuments of Paleolithic creativity), believing that the “merry kingdom of play” was being erected already at the dawn of human society: “...now the ancient German is looking for more shiny animal skins , more magnificent horns, more graceful vessels, and the Caledonian seeks out the most beautiful shells for his festivities. Not content with introducing a surplus of aesthetics into what is necessary, the free impulse to play finally breaks completely with the shackles of need, and beauty itself becomes the object of human aspirations. He adorns himself. Free pleasure is counted among his needs, and the useless soon becomes the best portion of his joy." F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, pp. 289, 290.). However, this point of view is refuted by facts.
First of all, it is absolutely incredible that cave people, who spent their days in the most severe struggle for existence, helpless in the face of natural forces that confronted them as something alien and incomprehensible, constantly suffering from a lack of food sources, could devote so much attention and energy to “free pleasures.” Moreover, these “pleasures” were very labor-intensive: it took a lot of work to carve large relief images on stone, like the sculptural frieze in the shelter under the rock of Le Roc de Ser (near Angoulême, France). Finally, numerous data, including ethnographic data, directly indicate that images (as well as dances and various kinds of dramatic actions) were given some extremely important and purely practical meaning. Ritual ceremonies were associated with them, aimed at ensuring the success of the hunt; it is possible that they made sacrifices associated with the cult of the totem, that is, the beast - the patron saint of the tribe. Drawings have been preserved reproducing a re-enactment of a hunt, images of people in animal masks, animals pierced by arrows and bleeding.
Even tattoos and the custom of wearing all kinds of jewelry were not caused by the desire to “play freely with appearances” - they were either dictated by the need to intimidate enemies, or protected the skin from insect bites, or again played the role of sacred amulets or testified to the exploits of a hunter, for example, a necklace made of bear teeth could indicate that the wearer took part in a bear hunt. In addition, in the images on pieces of deer antler, on small tiles, one can see the beginnings of pictography ( Pictography is the primary form of writing in the form of images of individual objects.), that is, a means of communication. Plekhanov in “Letters without an Address” cites the story of one traveler that “once he found on the coastal sand of one of the Brazilian rivers, drawn by the natives, an image of a fish that belonged to one of the local breeds. He ordered the Indians accompanying him to cast a net, and they pulled out several pieces of fish of the same species that are depicted on the sand. It is clear that by making this image, the native wanted to bring to the attention of his comrades that such and such a fish was found in this place"( G. V. Plekhanov. Art and Literature, 1948, p. 148.). It is obvious that Paleolithic people used letters and drawings in the same way.
There are many eyewitness accounts of hunting dances of Australian, African and other tribes and of rituals of “killing” painted images of animals, and these dances and rituals combine elements magical ritual with exercise in appropriate actions, that is, with a kind of rehearsal, practical preparation for the hunt. A number of facts indicate that Paleolithic images served similar purposes. In the Montespan cave in France, in the region of the northern Pyrenees, numerous clay sculptures of animals were found - lions, bears, horses - covered with traces of spear blows, apparently inflicted during some kind of magical ceremony ( See the description, according to Beguin, in the book by A. S. Gushchin “The Origin of Art”, L.-M., 1937, p. 88.).
The indisputability and numerousness of such facts forced later bourgeois researchers to reconsider the “game theory” and put forward a “magic theory” as an addition to it. At the same time, the theory of play was not discarded: most bourgeois scientists continued to argue that, although works of art were used as objects of magical action, the impulse for their creation lay in the innate tendency to play, to imitate, to decorate.
It is necessary to point out another version of this theory, which asserts the biological innateness of the sense of beauty, supposedly characteristic not only of humans, but also of animals. If Schiller's idealism interpreted "free play" as a divine property human spirit- specifically human, - then scientists, prone to vulgar positivism, saw the same property in the animal world and accordingly connected the origins of art with the biological instincts of self-decoration. The basis for this statement was some observations and statements of Darwin about the phenomena of sexual selection in animals. Darwin, noting that in some breeds of birds, males attract females with the brightness of their plumage, that, for example, hummingbirds decorate their nests with multi-colored and shiny objects, etc., suggested that aesthetic emotions are not alien to animals.
The facts established by Darwin and other naturalists are not in themselves subject to doubt. But there is no doubt that it is just as illegitimate to deduce from this the origin of the art of human society as to explain, for example, the reasons for travel and geographical discoveries, carried out by people, by that instinct that prompts birds to their seasonal migrations. Conscious human activity is the opposite of the instinctive, unconscious activity of animals. Well-known color, sound and other stimuli actually have a certain influence on the biological sphere of animals and, being consolidated in the process of evolution, acquire the meaning of unconditioned reflexes (and only in some, relatively rare cases, the nature of these stimuli coincides with human concepts of the beautiful, the harmonious).
It cannot be denied that colors, lines, as well as sounds and smells, affect the human body - some in an irritating, repulsive way, others, on the contrary, strengthening and promoting its correct and active functioning. This is one way or another taken into account by a person in his artistic activity, but in no way lies at its basis. The motives that forced Paleolithic man to draw and carve figures of animals on the walls of caves, of course, have nothing to do with instinctive impulses: this is a conscious and purposeful creative act of a creature that has long ago broken the chains of blind instinct and has embarked on the path of mastering the forces of nature - and, consequently, and understanding these forces.
Marx wrote: “The spider performs operations reminiscent of those of the weaver, and the bee, with the construction of its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that was already in the worker’s mind at the beginning of this process, i.e. ideal. The worker differs from the bee not only in that he changes the form of what is given by nature: in what is given by nature, he at the same time realizes his conscious goal, which, like a law, determines the method and character of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will"( ).
To be able to realize a conscious goal, a person must know natural object, with which he deals, must comprehend its natural properties. The ability to know also does not appear immediately: it belongs to those “dormant forces” that develop in a person in the process of his influence on nature. As a manifestation of this ability, art also arises - it arises just when labor itself has already moved away from the “first animal-like instinctive forms of labor”, “freed from its primitive, instinctive form” ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, 1951, p. 185.). Art and, in particular, fine art, at its origins, was one of the aspects of labor that developed to a certain level of consciousness.
A man draws an animal: thereby he synthesizes his observations of it; he more and more confidently reproduces his figure, habits, movements, and his various states. He formulates his knowledge in this drawing and consolidates it. At the same time, he learns to generalize: one image of a deer conveys features observed in a number of deer. This in itself gives a huge impetus to the development of thinking. It is difficult to overestimate the progressive role of artistic creativity in changing human consciousness and his relationship to nature. The latter is now not so dark for him, not so encrypted - little by little, still by touch, he studies it.
Thus, primitive fine art is at the same time the embryos of science, or more precisely, primitive knowledge. It is clear that at that infant, primitive stage of social development, these forms of knowledge could not yet be dismembered, as they were dismembered in later times; At first they performed together. It wasn't art yet in full This concept was not knowledge in the proper sense of the word, but something in which the primary elements of both were inseparably combined.
In this regard, it becomes understandable why Paleolithic art pays so much attention to the beast and relatively little to man. It is aimed primarily at understanding external nature. At the same time when they have already learned to depict animals in a remarkably realistic and vivid way, human figures are almost always depicted in a very primitive, simply inept manner - with the exception of some rare exceptions, such as the reliefs from Lossel.
1 6. Woman with a horn. Hunter. Reliefs from Loselle (France, Dordogne department). Limestone. Height approx. 0.5 m. Upper Paleolithic, Aurignacian time.
In Paleolithic art there is not yet that primary interest in the world of human relationships that distinguishes art, which delimited its sphere from the sphere of science. From the monuments of primitive art (at least fine art) it is difficult to learn anything about the life of a tribal community other than its hunting and related magical rituals; The most important place is occupied by the object of the hunt - the animal. It was its study that was of main practical interest, since it was the main source of existence, and the utilitarian-cognitive approach to painting and sculpture was reflected in the fact that they depicted mainly animals, and such species, the extraction of which was especially important and at the same time difficult and dangerous, and therefore required particularly careful study. Birds and plants were rarely depicted.
Of course, people of the Paleolithic era could not yet correctly understand both the patterns of the natural world around them and the patterns of their own actions. There was still no clear awareness of the difference between the real and the apparent: what was seen in a dream probably seemed to be the same reality as what was seen in reality. From all this chaos of fairy-tale ideas, primitive magic arose, which was a direct consequence of the extreme underdevelopment, extreme naivety and inconsistency of the consciousness of primitive man, who mixed the material with the spiritual, who out of ignorance ascribed material existence to immaterial facts of consciousness.
By drawing the figure of an animal, a person, in a certain sense, really “mastered” the animal, since he knew it, and knowledge is the source of mastery over nature. The vital necessity of figurative knowledge was the reason for the emergence of art. But our ancestor understood this “mastery” in a literal sense and performed magical rituals around the drawing he made to ensure the success of the hunt. He fantastically rethought the true, rational motives of his actions. True, it is very likely that visual creativity did not always have a ritual purpose; here, obviously, other motives were also involved, which were already mentioned above: the need for the exchange of information, etc. But, in any case, it can hardly be denied that the majority of paintings and sculptures also served magical purposes.
People began to engage in art much earlier than they had a concept of art, and much earlier than they could understand its real meaning, its real benefits.
While mastering the ability to depict the visible world, people also did not realize the true social significance of this skill. Something similar to the later development of sciences happened, which were also gradually liberated from the captivity of naive fantastic ideas: medieval alchemists sought to find the “philosopher’s stone” and spent years of hard work on this. They never found the philosopher's stone, but they acquired most valuable experience in the study of the properties of metals, acids, salts, etc., which prepared the subsequent development of chemistry.
Saying that primitive art was one of the original forms of knowledge, the study of the surrounding world, we should not assume that, therefore, there was nothing aesthetic in it in the proper sense of the word. The aesthetic is not something completely opposite to the useful.
Already the labor processes associated with the manufacture of tools and, as we know, which began many millennia earlier than the occupations of drawing and modeling, to a certain extent prepared a person’s ability of aesthetic judgment, taught him the principle of expediency and correspondence of form to content. The oldest tools are almost shapeless: they are pieces of stone, hewn on one side, and later on both sides: they served for different purposes: for digging, and for cutting, etc. As tools become more specialized according to function (pointed points appear , scrapers, cutters, needles), they acquire a more defined and consistent, and thereby more elegant form: in this process the Meaning of symmetry, proportions is realized, and that feeling is developed the necessary measure, which is so important in art. And when people, who sought to increase the efficiency of their work and learned to appreciate and feel the vital significance of a purposeful form, approached the transfer of complex forms of the living world, they were able to create works that were already aesthetically very significant and effective.
Economical, bold strokes and large spots of red, yellow and black paint conveyed the monolithic, powerful carcass of the bison. The image was full of life: you could feel the trembling of tensing muscles, the elasticity of short strong legs, you could feel the readiness of the beast to rush forward, bowing its massive head, sticking out its horns and looking from under its brows with bloodshot eyes. The painter probably vividly recreated in his imagination his heavy run through the thicket, his furious roar and the warlike cries of the crowd of hunters pursuing him.
In numerous images of deer and fallow deer, primitive artists very well conveyed the slender figures of these animals, the nervous grace of their silhouette and that sensitive alertness that is reflected in the turn of the head, in the perked ears, in the bends of the body when they listen to see if they are in danger. Depicting with amazing accuracy both the formidable, powerful bison and the graceful doe, people could not help but assimilate these very concepts - strength and grace, roughness and grace - although, perhaps, they still did not know how to formulate them. And a slightly later image of a mother elephant, covering her baby elephant with her trunk from an attack by a tiger - doesn’t it indicate that the artist was beginning to be interested in something more than appearance beast, that he looked closely at the very life of animals and its various manifestations seemed interesting and instructive to him. He noticed touching and expressive moments in the animal world, manifestations of maternal instinct. In a word, a person’s emotional experiences were undoubtedly refined and enriched with the help of his artistic activity already at these stages of its development.
About the book
"General History of Art" in six volumes
Editorial team
Academy of Arts of the USSR Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts
"General History of Art" volume one
Art of the Ancient World under the general editorship of A.D. Chegodaev
State Publishing House "Art" Moscow 1956
VII volume 1
"General History of Art" Volume I
Editor R. B. Klimov
Design by artist I. F. Rerberg
Art editor V. D. Karandashov
Technical editor A. A. Sidorova
Proofreaders N. Ya. Korneeva and A. A. Pozin
Delivered on November 15, 1955. Sub. to the stove 25/IX 1956 Form, paper 84x108 1/16
Pech. l. 58 (conditional 95.12). Academic ed. l. 77.848. Circulation 75000. III 11453.
"Art", Moscow, I-51,
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Ministry of Culture of the USSR. Main Directorate of the Printing Industry.
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Price 70 rub.
“The General History of Arts” was prepared by the Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the USSR Academy of Arts with the participation of scientists - art historians of other scientific institutions and museums: the State Hermitage, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, etc. “The General History of Arts” is the history of painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture and applied art of all centuries and peoples from primitive art to the art of our days inclusive. Volume one. Art of the Ancient World: primitive art, the art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, the art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, the art of Ancient Rome, the Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, the ancient art of India and China.
From the editorial board
B.V. Weimarn, B.R. Vipper, A.A. Guber, M.V. Dobroklonsky, Yu.D. Kolpinsky, V.F. Levenson-Lessing, K.A. Sitnik, A.N. Tikhomirov, A.D. Chegodaev
“General History of Art” was prepared by the Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the USSR Academy of Arts with the participation of scientists - art historians of other scientific institutions and museums: the State Hermitage, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, etc.
“General History of Art” is a history of painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture and applied art of all centuries and peoples, from primitive art to the art of our days, inclusive. This material is arranged in six volumes (seven books) as follows:
Volume one. Art of the Ancient World: primitive art, the art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, the art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, the art of Ancient Rome, the Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, the ancient art of India and China.
Volume two. Art of the Middle Ages. Book 1: the art of Byzantium, the medieval Balkans, ancient Russian art (up to the 17th century inclusive), the art of Armenia, Georgia, Arab countries, Turkey, Merovingian and Carolingian art of Western Europe, Romanesque and Gothic art of France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland , Estonia, Latvia, Italy and Spain. Book 2: art of Central Asia from the 6th to the 18th century, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan; India from the 7th to the 18th century, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia; China from the 3rd to the 18th century, Korea, Japan. The same book contains the art of the peoples of Ancient America and Ancient Africa.
Volume three. Renaissance art: art of Italy from the 13th to the 16th centuries, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland of the 15th - 16th centuries.
Volume four. Art of the 17th - 18th centuries in Europe and America: art of Italy 17th - 18th centuries, Spain, Flanders, Holland 17th century, France 17th - 18th centuries, Russia 18th century, England 17th - 18th centuries, USA 18th century, Latin America 17th - 18th centuries and other countries.
Volume five. Art of the 19th century: art of the peoples of Russia, France, England, Spain, USA, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia, Latin America , India, China and other countries.
Volume six. Art of the late 19th - 20th centuries: Russian art of 1890-1917, art of France, England, USA, Germany and other countries of Western Europe and America of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, Soviet art, contemporary art of Western Europe and America, people's democracies , China, India and other Eastern countries.
The sixth volume will contain a detailed consolidated bibliography on the entire world history of art.
In addition to illustrations on tables and drawings in the text for each chapter, maps will be given indicating the places of archaeological finds, artistic centers, and locations of architectural structures.
The General History of Art seeks to characterize and evaluate the art of all peoples of the earth who have contributed to the world history of art. Therefore, in the book, along with the art of the peoples and countries of Europe, a large place is given to the art of the peoples of Asia, Africa and America. The main attention when working on the “General History of Art” was occupied by those eras of the history of art in which there was a particularly high flowering of realistic art - the art of Ancient Greece, Chinese art of the 10th - 13th centuries, the art of the Renaissance, realistic masters of Europe of the 17th - 19th centuries, etc. .
“General History of Art” aims to provide a summary of the current state of the world science of art. It also contains a number of original studies by Soviet art historians in various fields of art history.
The origin of art - N. A. Dmitrieva.
The main stages in the development of primitive art - V.V. Shleev.
Art of Western Asia - I. M. Loseva.
The Art of Ancient Egypt - M.E-Mathieu.
Aegean art - N. N. Britova.
The Art of Ancient Greece - Yu. D. Kolpinsky.
The art of the Hellenistic era - E. I. Rotenberg.
The Art of Ancient Rome - N. N. Britova.
Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast - N. N. Britova.
The art of Transcaucasia in ancient times - V.V. Shleev.
The art of Ancient Iran - I. M. Loseva (Achaemenid Iran) and M. M. Dyakonov (Sassanian Iran).
Art of Ancient Central Asia - M. M. Dyakonov.
The Art of Ancient India - N. A. Vinogradova and O. S. Prokofiev.
The art of Ancient China - N. A. Vinogradova.
B.V. Weimarn (art of Western Asia, Iran, Central Asia, China) and E.I. Rotenberg (Roman art) took part in editing some chapters of the first volume.
The selection of illustrations and layout of the volume were made by A. D. Chegodaev and R. B. Klimov with the participation of T. P. Kaptereva, A. G. Podolsky and E. I. Rotenberg.
The maps were made by the artist G. G. Fedorov, the drawings in the text were made by the artists Yu. A. Vasilyev and M. N. Mashkovtsev.
The index was compiled by N. I. Bespalova and A. G. Podolsky, explanations for the illustrations by E. I. Rotenberg.
Consultations and reviews were carried out by the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Ancient Orient Sector of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Institute of the History of Georgian Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, the Institute of Architecture and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Sector of the History of Arts of the Academy Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Institute of Theory and History of Architecture of the USSR Academy of Architecture, Department of Art History of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikov and the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after. I. E. Repin, State Hermitage Museum, State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, Museum of Oriental Cultures, State Museum of Arts of Georgia.
The editorial board expresses gratitude to the scientists who provided great assistance with their advice and criticism in the preparation of the first volume: M. V. Alpatov, Sh. Ya. Amiranashvili, B. N. Arakelyan, M. I. Artamonov, A. V. Bank, V. D. Blavatsky, A. Ya. Bryusov, Wang Xun, A. I. Voshchinina, O. N. Glukhareva, Guo Bao-jun, I. M. Dyakonov, A. A. Jessen, R. V. Kinzhalov, T. N. Knipovich, M. M. Kobylina, M. N. Krechetova, V. N. Lazarev, M. I. Maksimova, V. K. Nikolsky, A. P. Okladnikov, V. V. Pavlov, A. A. Peredolskaya, B. B. Piotrovsky, V. V. Struve, Xia Nai, Tang Lan, S. P. Tolstov, K. V. Trever, S. I. Tyulyaev, N.D. Flittner, Han Shou-xuan, Chen Meng-chia.
General history of art. Volume 1
Art of the Ancient World: primitive art, the art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, the art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, the art of Ancient Rome, the Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, the ancient art of India and China.
*From the editorial board
*Primitive art
o Origin of art
o The main stages in the development of primitive art
* Art of Western Asia (I. Loseva)
o Introduction
o The most ancient culture of the tribes and peoples of Mesopotamia (4th - early 3rd millennium BC)
o Art of Sumer (27-25 centuries BC)
o Art of Akkad (24th - 23rd centuries BC)
o Art of Sumer (23rd - 21st centuries BC)
o Art of Babylon (19th - 12th centuries BC)
o Art of the Hittites and Mitanni (18th - 8th centuries BC)
o Art of Assyria (9th - 7th centuries BC)
o Art of the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom (7th - 6th centuries BC)
* The art of ancient Egypt (M. Mathieu)
o Introduction
o Formation of ancient Egyptian art (4th millennium BC)
o Art of the Old Kingdom (3200 - 2400 BC)
o Art of the Middle Kingdom (21st century - early 19th century BC)
o Art of the first half of the New Kingdom (16th - 15th centuries BC)
o The art of the time of Akhenaten and his successors (late 15th - early 14th century BC)
o Art of the second half of the New Kingdom (14th - 2nd centuries BC)
o Late Art (11th century - 332 BC)
* Aegean art
* Art of Ancient Greece (Yu. Kolpinsky)
o General characteristics of the culture and art of Ancient Greece
o Art of Homeric Greece
o Greek Archaic Art
o The Art of Greek Classics (Early 5th - mid 4th century BC)
o The art of the early classics (the so-called “strict calm” 490 - 450 BC)
o High Classical Art (450 - 410 BC)
o Late Classical Art (From the end of the Peloponnesian Wars to the rise of the Macedonian Empire)
* Hellenistic art (E. Rotenberg)
o Hellenistic Art
* The art of ancient Rome (N. Britova)
o The Art of Ancient Rome
o Etruscan art
o Art of the Roman Republic
o Art of the Roman Empire 1st century. n. e.
o Art of the Roman Empire 2nd century. AD
o Art of the Roman provinces 2 - 3 centuries. AD
o Art of the Roman Empire 3rd - 4th centuries
* Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast
* Art of Ancient Transcaucasia
* Art of Ancient Iran (I. Loseva, M. Dyakonov)
* Art of Central Asia
* Art of Ancient India
* Art of Ancient China
Primitive art
Origin of art
N. Dmitriev
Art as a special area of human activity, with its own independent tasks, special qualities, served by professional artists, became possible only on the basis of the division of labor. Engels says about this: “... the creation of arts and sciences - all this was possible only with the help of an enhanced division of labor, which was based on a large division of labor between the masses engaged in simple physical labor and the privileged few who manage the work, engage in trade, state affairs, and later also science and art. The simplest, completely spontaneously formed form of this division of labor was precisely slavery" ( F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1951, p. 170).
But since artistic activity is a unique form of knowledge and creative work, its origins are much more ancient, since people worked and in the process of this work learned about the world around them long before the division of society into classes. Archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years have revealed numerous works of visual creativity of primitive man, the age of which is estimated at tens of thousands of years. These are rock paintings; figurines made of stone and bone; images and ornamental patterns carved on pieces of deer antlers or on stone slabs. They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These are works that appeared long before a conscious idea of artistic creativity could arise. Many of them, reproducing mainly figures of animals - deer, bison, wild horses, mammoths - are so vital, so expressive and true to nature that they are not only precious historical monuments, but also retain their artistic power to this day.
The material, objective nature of works of fine art determines especially favorable conditions for researchers of the origins of fine arts in comparison with historians studying the origins of other types of arts. If the initial stages of epic, music, and dance must be judged mainly by indirect data and by analogy with the creativity of modern tribes in the early stages of social development (the analogy is very relative, which can only be relied upon with great caution), then the childhood of painting and sculpture and graphics confront us with our own eyes.
It does not coincide with the childhood of human society, that is, the most ancient eras of its formation. According to modern science, the process of humanization of the ape-like ancestors of man began even before the first glaciation of the Quaternary era and, therefore, the “age” of humanity is approximately a million years. The first traces of primitive art date back to the Upper (Late) Paleolithic era, which began approximately several tens of thousands of years BC. so-called Aurignacian time( The Chellesian, Acheulian, Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian stages of the Old Stone Age (Paleolithic) are named after the places of the first finds.) This was a time of comparative maturity of the primitive communal system: the man of this era in his physical constitution was no different from modern man, he already spoke and was able to make quite complex tools from stone, bone and horn. He led a collective hunt for large animals with the help of a spear and darts. The clans united into tribes, and matriarchy arose.
More than 900 thousand years had to pass, separating the most ancient people from modern man, before the hand and brain were ripe for artistic creativity.
Meanwhile, the manufacture of primitive stone tools dates back to much more ancient times of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. Already Sinanthropus (the remains of which were found near Beijing) had reached a fairly high level in the manufacture of stone tools and knew how to use fire. People of the later, Neanderthal type processed tools more carefully, adapting them to special purposes. Only thanks to such a “school”, which lasted many millennia, did they develop the necessary flexibility of the hand, fidelity of the eye and the ability to generalize what is visible, highlighting its most significant and characteristic features - that is, all those qualities that appeared in the wonderful drawings of the Altamira cave. If a person had not exercised and refined his hand, processing for the sake of obtaining food such a difficult-to-process material as stone, he would not have been able to learn to draw: without mastering the creation of utilitarian forms, he would not have been able to create an artistic form. If many, many generations had not concentrated their thinking ability on capturing the beast - the main source of life for primitive man - it would not have occurred to them to depict this beast.
So, firstly, “labor is older than art” (this idea was brilliantly argued by G. Plekhanov in his “Letters without an address”) and, secondly, art owes its emergence to labor. But what caused the transition from the production of exclusively useful, practically necessary tools to the production, along with them, of “useless” images? It was this question that was most debated and most confused by bourgeois scientists who sought at all costs to apply Immanuel Kant’s thesis about the “purposelessness,” “disinterest,” and “inherent value” of the aesthetic attitude to the world to primitive art. Those who wrote about primitive art, K. Bücher, K. Gross, E. Grosse, Luke, Vreul, V. Gausenstein and others, argued that primitive people were engaged in “art for art’s sake”, that the first and determining stimulus for artistic creativity was the innate human desire to play .
Theories of “play” in their various varieties were based on the aesthetics of Kant and Schiller, according to which the main feature of aesthetic, artistic experience is precisely the desire for “free play with appearances” - free from any practical goal, from logical and moral evaluation.
“The aesthetic creative impulse,” wrote Friedrich Schiller, “imperceptibly builds, in the midst of the terrible kingdom of forces and in the midst of the sacred kingdom of laws, a third, cheerful kingdom of play and appearance, in which it removes from man the shackles of all relationships and frees him from everything that is called coercion as in physically and morally"( F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, p. 291.).
Schiller applied this basic tenet of his aesthetics to the question of the emergence of art (long before the discoveries of genuine monuments of Paleolithic creativity), believing that the “merry kingdom of play” was being erected already at the dawn of human society: “...now the ancient German is looking for more shiny animal skins , more magnificent horns, more graceful vessels, and the Caledonian seeks out the most beautiful shells for his festivities. Not content with introducing a surplus of aesthetics into what is necessary, the free impulse to play finally breaks completely with the shackles of need, and beauty itself becomes the object of human aspirations. He adorns himself. Free pleasure is counted among his needs, and the useless soon becomes the best portion of his joy." F. Schiller, Articles on Aesthetics, pp. 289, 290.). However, this point of view is refuted by facts.
First of all, it is absolutely incredible that cave people, who spent their days in a fierce struggle for existence, helpless in the face of natural forces that confronted them as something alien and incomprehensible, constantly suffering from a lack of food sources, could devote so much attention and energy to “free pleasures.” . Moreover, these “pleasures” were very labor-intensive: it took a lot of work to carve large relief images on stone, like the sculptural frieze in the shelter under the rock of Le Roc de Ser (near Angoulême, France). Finally, numerous data, including ethnographic data, directly indicate that images (as well as dances and various kinds of dramatic actions) were given some extremely important and purely practical meaning. Ritual ceremonies were associated with them, aimed at ensuring the success of the hunt; it is possible that they made sacrifices associated with the cult of the totem, that is, the beast - the patron saint of the tribe. Drawings have been preserved reproducing a re-enactment of a hunt, images of people in animal masks, animals pierced by arrows and bleeding.
Even tattoos and the custom of wearing all kinds of jewelry were not caused by the desire to “play freely with appearances” - they were either dictated by the need to intimidate enemies, or protected the skin from insect bites, or again played the role of sacred amulets or testified to the exploits of a hunter, for example, a necklace made of bear teeth could indicate that the wearer took part in a bear hunt. In addition, in the images on pieces of deer antler, on small tiles, one can see the beginnings of pictography ( Pictography is the primary form of writing in the form of images of individual objects.), that is, a means of communication. Plekhanov in “Letters without an Address” cites the story of one traveler that “once he found on the coastal sand of one of the Brazilian rivers, drawn by the natives, an image of a fish that belonged to one of the local breeds. He ordered the Indians accompanying him to cast a net, and they pulled out several pieces of fish of the same species that are depicted on the sand. It is clear that by making this image, the native wanted to bring to the attention of his comrades that such and such a fish was found in this place"( G. V. Plekhanov. Art and Literature, 1948, p. 148.). It is obvious that Paleolithic people used letters and drawings in the same way.
There are many eyewitness accounts of hunting dances of Australian, African and other tribes and of rituals of “killing” painted images of animals, and these dances and rituals combine elements of a magical ritual with exercise in the corresponding actions, that is, with a kind of rehearsal, practical preparation for the hunt . A number of facts indicate that Paleolithic images served similar purposes. In the Montespan cave in France, in the region of the northern Pyrenees, numerous clay sculptures of animals were found - lions, bears, horses - covered with traces of spear blows, apparently inflicted during some kind of magical ceremony ( See the description, according to Beguin, in the book by A. S. Gushchin “The Origin of Art”, L.-M., 1937, p. 88.).
The indisputability and numerousness of such facts forced later bourgeois researchers to reconsider the “game theory” and put forward a “magic theory” as an addition to it. At the same time, the theory of play was not discarded: most bourgeois scientists continued to argue that, although works of art were used as objects of magical action, the impulse for their creation lay in the innate tendency to play, to imitate, to decorate.
It is necessary to point out another version of this theory, which asserts the biological innateness of the sense of beauty, supposedly characteristic not only of humans, but also of animals. If Schiller's idealism interpreted “free play” as a divine property of the human spirit - namely the human spirit - then scientists inclined to vulgar positivism saw the same property in the animal world and accordingly connected the origins of art with the biological instincts of self-decoration. The basis for this statement was some observations and statements of Darwin about the phenomena of sexual selection in animals. Darwin, noting that in some breeds of birds, males attract females with the brightness of their plumage, that, for example, hummingbirds decorate their nests with multi-colored and shiny objects, etc., suggested that aesthetic emotions are not alien to animals.
The facts established by Darwin and other naturalists are not in themselves subject to doubt. But there is no doubt that it is just as illegitimate to deduce from this the origin of the art of human society as to explain, for example, the reasons for travel and geographical discoveries made by people, by the instinct that prompts birds to their seasonal migrations. Conscious human activity is the opposite of the instinctive, unconscious activity of animals. Well-known color, sound and other stimuli actually have a certain influence on the biological sphere of animals and, being consolidated in the process of evolution, acquire the meaning of unconditioned reflexes (and only in some, relatively rare cases, the nature of these stimuli coincides with human concepts of the beautiful, the harmonious).
It cannot be denied that colors, lines, as well as sounds and smells, affect the human body - some in an irritating, repulsive way, others, on the contrary, strengthening and promoting its correct and active functioning. This is one way or another taken into account by a person in his artistic activity, but in no way lies at its basis. The motives that forced Paleolithic man to draw and carve figures of animals on the walls of caves, of course, have nothing to do with instinctive impulses: this is a conscious and purposeful creative act of a creature that has long ago broken the chains of blind instinct and has embarked on the path of mastering the forces of nature - and, consequently, and understanding these forces.
Marx wrote: “The spider performs operations reminiscent of those of the weaver, and the bee, with the construction of its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that, before building a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that was already in the worker’s mind at the beginning of this process, i.e. ideal. The worker differs from the bee not only in that he changes the form of what is given by nature: in what is given by nature, he at the same time realizes his conscious goal, which, like a law, determines the method and character of his actions and to which he must subordinate his will"( ).
To be able to realize a conscious goal, a person must know the natural object with which he is dealing, must comprehend its natural properties. The ability to know also does not appear immediately: it belongs to those “dormant forces” that develop in a person in the process of his influence on nature. As a manifestation of this ability, art also arises - it arises just when labor itself has already moved away from the “first animal-like instinctive forms of labor”, “freed from its primitive, instinctive form” ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, 1951, p. 185.). Art and, in particular, fine art, at its origins, was one of the aspects of labor that developed to a certain level of consciousness.
A man draws an animal: thereby he synthesizes his observations of it; he more and more confidently reproduces his figure, habits, movements, and his various states. He formulates his knowledge in this drawing and consolidates it. At the same time, he learns to generalize: one image of a deer conveys features observed in a number of deer. This in itself gives a huge impetus to the development of thinking. It is difficult to overestimate the progressive role of artistic creativity in changing human consciousness and his relationship to nature. The latter is now not so dark for him, not so encrypted - little by little, still by touch, he studies it.
Thus, primitive fine art is at the same time the embryos of science, or more precisely, primitive knowledge. It is clear that at that infant, primitive stage of social development, these forms of knowledge could not yet be dismembered, as they were dismembered in later times; At first they performed together. It was not yet art in the full scope of this concept and it was not knowledge in the proper sense of the word, but something in which the primary elements of both were inseparably combined.
In this regard, it becomes understandable why Paleolithic art pays so much attention to the beast and relatively little to man. It is aimed primarily at understanding external nature. At the very time when animals have already learned to depict remarkably realistically and vividly, human figures are almost always depicted in a very primitive, simply inept manner - with the exception of some rare exceptions, such as the reliefs from Lossel.
1 6. Woman with a horn. Hunter. Reliefs from Loselle (France, Dordogne department). Limestone. Height approx. 0.5 m. Upper Paleolithic, Aurignacian time.
In Paleolithic art there is not yet that primary interest in the world of human relationships that distinguishes art, which delimited its sphere from the sphere of science. From the monuments of primitive art (at least fine art) it is difficult to learn anything about the life of a tribal community other than its hunting and related magical rituals; The most important place is occupied by the object of the hunt - the beast. It was its study that was of main practical interest, since it was the main source of existence, and the utilitarian-cognitive approach to painting and sculpture was reflected in the fact that they depicted mainly animals, and such species, the extraction of which was especially important and at the same time difficult and dangerous, and therefore required particularly careful study. Birds and plants were rarely depicted.
Of course, people of the Paleolithic era could not yet correctly understand both the patterns of the natural world around them and the patterns of their own actions. There was still no clear awareness of the difference between the real and the apparent: what was seen in a dream probably seemed to be the same reality as what was seen in reality. From all this chaos of fairy-tale ideas, primitive magic arose, which was a direct consequence of the extreme underdevelopment, extreme naivety and inconsistency of the consciousness of primitive man, who mixed the material with the spiritual, who out of ignorance ascribed material existence to immaterial facts of consciousness.
By drawing the figure of an animal, a person, in a certain sense, really “mastered” the animal, since he knew it, and knowledge is the source of mastery over nature. The vital necessity of figurative knowledge was the reason for the emergence of art. But our ancestor understood this “mastery” in a literal sense and performed magical rituals around the drawing he made to ensure the success of the hunt. He fantastically rethought the true, rational motives of his actions. True, it is very likely that visual creativity did not always have a ritual purpose; here, obviously, other motives were also involved, which were already mentioned above: the need for the exchange of information, etc. But, in any case, it can hardly be denied that the majority of paintings and sculptures also served magical purposes.
People began to engage in art much earlier than they had a concept of art, and much earlier than they could understand its real meaning, its real benefits.
While mastering the ability to depict the visible world, people also did not realize the true social significance of this skill. Something similar to the later development of sciences happened, which were also gradually liberated from the captivity of naive fantastic ideas: medieval alchemists sought to find the “philosopher’s stone” and spent years of hard work on this. They never found the philosopher's stone, but they gained valuable experience in studying the properties of metals, acids, salts, etc., which prepared the way for the subsequent development of chemistry.
Saying that primitive art was one of the original forms of knowledge, the study of the surrounding world, we should not assume that, therefore, there was nothing aesthetic in it in the proper sense of the word. The aesthetic is not something completely opposite to the useful.
Already the labor processes associated with the manufacture of tools and, as we know, which began many millennia earlier than the occupations of drawing and modeling, to a certain extent prepared a person’s ability of aesthetic judgment, taught him the principle of expediency and correspondence of form to content. The oldest tools are almost shapeless: they are pieces of stone, hewn on one side, and later on both sides: they served for different purposes: for digging, and for cutting, etc. As tools become more specialized according to function (pointed points appear , scrapers, cutters, needles), they acquire a more defined and consistent, and thereby more elegant form: in this process the importance of symmetry and proportions is realized, and that sense of proper proportion is developed, which is so important in art. And when people, who sought to increase the efficiency of their work and learned to appreciate and feel the vital significance of a purposeful form, approached the transfer of complex forms of the living world, they were able to create works that were already aesthetically very significant and effective.
Economical, bold strokes and large spots of red, yellow and black paint conveyed the monolithic, powerful carcass of the bison. The image was full of life: you could feel the trembling of tensing muscles, the elasticity of short strong legs, you could feel the readiness of the beast to rush forward, bowing its massive head, sticking out its horns and looking from under its brows with bloodshot eyes. The painter probably vividly recreated in his imagination his heavy run through the thicket, his furious roar and the warlike cries of the crowd of hunters pursuing him.
In numerous images of deer and fallow deer, primitive artists very well conveyed the slender figures of these animals, the nervous grace of their silhouette and that sensitive alertness that is reflected in the turn of the head, in the perked ears, in the bends of the body when they listen to see if they are in danger. Depicting with amazing accuracy both the formidable, powerful bison and the graceful doe, people could not help but assimilate these very concepts - strength and grace, roughness and grace - although, perhaps, they still did not know how to formulate them. And a slightly later image of a mother elephant, covering her baby elephant with her trunk from an attack by a tiger - doesn’t it indicate that the artist was beginning to be interested in something more than the appearance of the animal, that he was looking closely at the very life of animals and its various manifestations seemed interesting to him and instructive. He noticed touching and expressive moments in the animal world, manifestations of maternal instinct. In a word, a person’s emotional experiences were undoubtedly refined and enriched with the help of his artistic activity already at these stages of its development.
4. Picturesque images on the ceiling of the Altamira cave (Spain, province of Santander). General form. Upper Paleolithic, Magdalenian time.
We cannot deny Paleolithic visual art its incipient compositional ability. True, the images on the walls of the caves are for the most part arranged randomly, without proper correlation with each other and without an attempt to convey the background or surroundings (for example, the painting on the ceiling of the Altamira cave. But where the drawings were placed in some kind of natural frame (for example, on deer antlers, on bone tools, on the so-called “leaders’ staffs,” etc.), they fit into this frame quite skillfully. On the staffs, which have an oblong shape, but are quite wide, they are most often carved in a row, one after another. horses or deer. On narrower ones - fish or even snakes. Often sculptural images of animals are placed on the handle of a knife or some tool, and in these cases they are given poses that are characteristic of the given animal and at the same time adapted in shape to the purpose of the handle. Here, therefore, the elements of the future “applied art” are born with its inevitable subordination of fine principles to the practical purpose of the object (ill. 2 a).
2 6. A herd of deer. Carving of an eagle bone from the grotto of the City Hall in Tayges (France, Dordogne department). Upper Paleolithic.
Head of a Delphic charioteer. Beginning 5th century BC e. Delphi, Museum.
M.V. Alpatov
General history of art. Art of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages
volume 1
PREFACE
When compiling a general history of art, the author had to cover extensive historical and artistic material, starting from ancient times and ending with modern times. He made every effort not to omit anything essential. For all that, he did not want to turn his book into a list of facts, monuments, names and, for the sake of completeness of this list, to reduce the characteristics of the art of individual periods. He was faced with the task of creating an art history that could also serve as an introduction to the study of art.
The author’s pedagogical experience convinced him that the study of art history is fruitful only when acquaintance with monuments and masters, memorization of names and dates is accompanied by success in understanding art, development artistic taste. This confidence of the author determined the structure of his book. She appeals not only to the reader’s mental abilities and memory, but also to his aesthetic sense, to his critical instinct. It should be read not only in order to assimilate the points expressed in it general provisions and memorize the information it conveys, but first of all in order to understand the main paths of historical development artistic culture humanity and learn to understand and appreciate old and modern art. This forced the author to deviate somewhat from the generally accepted type of art history with its abundance of all kinds of information, which often only overloads the memory, but does not develop the eyes and critical abilities.
This book can be used by beginners to study art. It is possible that in some cases it will be the first book on art in the hands of the reader. In the interests of such a reader, the author has strived for the greatest clarity of presentation. He avoided little-known terms and did not use many art historical concepts, the content of which has not yet been fully understood by specialists. At the same time, the book mentions the names of artists and writers, historical events, place names and scientific terms that may be unfamiliar to the reader. The author did not give them explanations, hoping that the reader himself would find them in any encyclopedic dictionary, and that the habit of using the reference book will be the first step on his way independent work over a scientific book.
This four-volume work is conceived as an overview of the main sections of the general history of art (and the last two volumes will be devoted to Russian art). In his work, the author did not consider it possible to limit himself to a retelling of generally accepted opinions and well-known facts. In many sections of the book, he offers the reader new historical and artistic views and assessments. Sometimes he had to present in a few words the conclusions of research already carried out, sometimes he considered it possible to introduce the reader to assumptions that required further scientific justification. In some cases, this turned his presentation either into a summary of work already done or into a plan for upcoming research.
It is natural that historical narrative about the development of art occupies the main place in the book. However, this book does not provide any complete summary of all the material. Specialists will notice that many well-known facts are omitted from it; many monuments and names of artists are not mentioned. The author sought to include only the most important phenomena within the narrow framework of the book in order to be able to characterize them with sufficient completeness. For this reason, he did not overload his presentation with dates and lists of names (the dates of the reproduced monuments are placed only in the list of illustrations). He limited himself to the dates of birth and death of only the most important masters and mentioned the names of only those artists whose personality was clearly revealed in their creations. He proceeded from the position that the first task of a student of art history is to learn to connect individual facts with each other and with the general course of history and thus imagine the overall picture of the development of art.
The author of the book paid great attention illustrations. He was driven by the desire to reproduce the most significant historical development and the most artistically valuable monuments. He sought to avoid many undeservedly glorified monuments, such as the Apollo of the Belvedere or the Cologne Cathedral, and, on the contrary, cited some masterpieces known only to a narrow circle of specialists. The author’s task was to connect his presentation with illustrations, and therefore he reproduced mainly such monuments that it was possible to talk about in the text. In those cases when he could not enter into their detailed consideration, he arranged the illustrations in such a way that it prompted the reader to compare them with each other. Epigraphs to individual chapters serve as illustrations for the text. They are presented without much explanation in the hope that a thoughtful reader will be able to grasp their internal connection with the corresponding chapters of the book.
While carrying out the work, the author encountered many difficulties. Naturally, he did not feel equally confident in all areas of the general history of art. If many of the errors and inaccuracies of his work were eliminated in the manuscript, then he owes this to the comradely assistance of V. F. Asmus, V. D. Blavatsky, B. V. Weymarn, S. V. Kiselev, V. F. Levinson-Lessing , V.V. Pavlova, A.A. Sidorova. B.I. Tyulyaev and especially I.I. Romanov, who took the trouble to read the entire manuscript.
Moscow, 1941–1942
INTRODUCTION
The arts were represented in ancient times in the form of beautiful sisters making up a single family. When this poetic image ceased to satisfy theorists, there was a need for a more strict classification of individual types of art, like the one that Linnaeus laid as the basis for the study of nature. The main attention was paid not so much to internal kinship various types arts, so much for their differences. Their differentiation was seen as the basis for correct classification. However, significant disagreements have not been resolved in resolving this issue. This was primarily due to the fact that the classifications were built on different foundations.
The most common classification was based on the means of expression: the arts were divided into spatial and temporal. The first of them turn to visual perception, use volume, space, line, color, the latter turn to hearing and use sound and words. This division of the arts was cemented by a long tradition of their development. Architecture, sculpture and painting often entered into direct collaboration, as painters and sculptors had to decorate buildings with murals and sculpture. In addition, all three of these arts were organized in modern times in the so-called academies fine arts. On the contrary, music retained its original connection with poetry and words. The verse has a clearly expressed musicality; in a romance, the singer expresses himself in both sounds and words. This generally accepted classification could not be shaken even by the existence of arts in which the visual principle is combined with the temporal, such as drama and dance, or arts in which painting, architecture, poetry and music merge together, such as opera.
This book maintains this conventional division. It is dedicated to architecture, sculpture and painting. However, it is still necessary to note the fluidity of the boundaries between the arts and, in connection with this, the conventionality of this division.
Along with division according to means of expression, division according to the nature of the material translated into artistic image. In this case, the ratio of types of arts will be different. Then we will have to divide the arts into fine and non-fine arts. Fine arts include painting, sculpture and literature, and non-fine arts include architecture and music. When talking about the image of a person or landscape in art, one has to compare painting and sculpture with contemporary poetry and prose. On the other hand, an understanding of beauty and peace is manifested in the rhythms of both music and architecture of the same period or adjacent periods, when one type is ahead of the other in its development. In this regard, we need to recall the well-known definition of architecture as frozen music.
Depending on which aspects of art to take into account, theorists have classified the types of art in different ways.
Opposing so-called descriptive poetry, which threatened to deprive all poetry of its special nature, Lessing rebelled against the rapprochement of painting and literature; It was he who put forward time and space as criteria for the division of arts. Many centuries before Lessing, this issue was addressed by the ancient Chinese artist Wang Wei, and he held opposing views. “Painting,” says Van Wei, “is a poem in colors, poetry is a picture in words.”
Echoes of these discrepancies are found in modern times. However, they will not seem so insurmountable if we take into account the reasons for the change in views on this subject. At first XIX century the search for great, holistic art gave rise to the desire to go beyond artistic means certain types of arts. Music became the point of attraction for all arts. Many authors, starting with the romantics, have spoken about the musicality of poetry. Musical beginning in painting were proclaimed by Delacroix and Fromentin. In response to this, at the end of the 19th century, a movement arose to respect the boundaries of art, the desire was expressed that every artist would first of all strive to express himself through the means characteristic of his art. But this desire was soon imbued with pedantry, which interfered with real artistic creativity.
The supports of the defenders of the separation of art forms and the defenders of their fusion allow us to draw one conclusion.
“Purity of artistic means” is far from the main criterion for the artistic value of a work. It is not the observance or non-observance of the boundaries between the arts that is important: what tasks push the artist beyond the boundaries of his art, and how much they meet advanced needs, is of decisive importance. artistic development. When the violation of the boundaries of art is justified by these needs, it enriches the artists, and they create works of higher value than such artists who strictly observe these laws, but do not know the true creative impulse. The sculptor Pavel Trubetskoy with his “loose form” is still the subject of attacks by supporters of “pure plasticity”. However, in his pictorial sculpture, as well as in Rodin, there is much more vitality, poetry and...
“General History of Art” is a history of painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture and applied art of all centuries and peoples, from primitive art to the art of our days, inclusive. This material is arranged in six volumes (seven books) as follows:
Volume one. Art of the Ancient World: primitive art, the art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, the art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, the art of Ancient Rome, the Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, the ancient art of India and China.
Art as a special area of human activity, with its own independent tasks, special qualities, served by professional artists, became possible only on the basis of the division of labor. Engels says about this: “... the creation of arts and sciences - all this was possible only with the help of an enhanced division of labor, which was based on a large division of labor between the masses engaged in simple physical labor and the privileged few who manage the work, engage in trade, state affairs, and later also science and art. The simplest, completely spontaneously formed form of this division of labor was precisely slavery" (F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1951, p. 170).
But since artistic activity is a unique form of knowledge and creative work, its origins are much more ancient, since people worked and in the process of this work learned about the world around them long before the division of society into classes. Archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years have revealed numerous works of visual creativity of primitive man, the age of which is estimated at tens of thousands of years. These are rock paintings; figurines made of stone and bone; images and ornamental patterns carved on pieces of deer antlers or on stone slabs. They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These are works that appeared long before a conscious idea of artistic creativity could arise. Many of them, reproducing mainly figures of animals - deer, bison, wild horses, mammoths - are so vital, so expressive and true to nature that they are not only precious historical monuments, but also retain their artistic power to this day.
Table of contents
About the book
From the editorial board
Primitive art
Origin of art
The main stages in the development of primitive art
Art of Western Asia (I. Loseva)
Introduction
The most ancient culture of the tribes and peoples of Mesopotamia (4th - early 3rd millennium BC)
Art of Sumer (27-25 centuries BC)
Art of Akkad (24th - 23rd centuries BC)
Art of Sumer (23rd - 21st centuries BC)
Art of Babylon (19th - 12th centuries BC)
Art of the Hittites and Mitanni (18th - 8th centuries BC)
Art of Assyria (9th - 7th centuries BC)
Art of the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom (7th - 6th centuries BC)
The art of ancient Egypt (M. Mathieu)
Introduction
The composition of ancient Egyptian art (4th millennium BC)
Art of the Old Kingdom (3200 - 2400 BC)
Art of the Middle Kingdom (21st century - early 19th century BC)
Art of the first half of the New Kingdom (16th - 15th centuries BC)
The art of the time of Akhenaten and his successors (late 15th - early 14th century BC)
Art of the second half of the New Kingdom (14th - 2nd centuries BC)
Late Art (11th century - 332 BC)
Aegean art
Art of Ancient Greece (Yu. Kolpinsky)
General characteristics of the culture and art of Ancient Greece
Art of Homeric Greece
Greek Archaic Art
Greek Classical Art (Early 5th - mid 4th century BC)
Art of the Early Classics (The so-called “strict calm” 490 - 450 BC)
High Classical Art (450 - 410 BC)
Late Classical Art (From the end of the Peloponnesian Wars to the rise of the Macedonian Empire)
Hellenistic art (E. Rotenberg)
Hellenistic Art
The art of ancient Rome (N. Britova)
Art of Ancient Rome
Etruscan art
Art of the Roman Republic
Art of the Roman Empire 1st century. n. e.
Art of the Roman Empire 2nd century. AD
Art of the Roman provinces of the 2nd - 3rd centuries. AD
Art of the Roman Empire 3rd - 4th centuries
Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast
Art of Ancient Transcaucasia
Art of Ancient Iran (I. Loseva, M. Dyakonov)
Art of Central Asia
Art of Ancient India
Art of Ancient China.
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General History of Art
Volume one
From the editorial board
B.V. Weimarn, B.R. Vipper, A.A. Guber, M.V. Dobroklonsky, Yu.D. Kolpinsky, V.F. Levenson-Lessing, K.A. Sitnik, A.N. Tikhomirov, A.D. Chegodaev
“General History of Art” was prepared by the Institute of Theory and History of Fine Arts of the USSR Academy of Arts with the participation of scientists - art historians of other scientific institutions and museums: the State Hermitage, the State Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin, etc.
“General History of Art” is a history of painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture and applied art of all centuries and peoples, from primitive art to the art of our days, inclusive. This material is arranged in six volumes (seven books) as follows:
Volume one. Art of the Ancient World: primitive art, the art of Western Asia, Ancient Egypt, Aegean art, the art of Ancient Greece, Hellenistic art, the art of Ancient Rome, the Northern Black Sea region, Transcaucasia, Iran, Ancient Central Asia, the ancient art of India and China.
Volume two. Art of the Middle Ages. Book 1: the art of Byzantium, the medieval Balkans, ancient Russian art (up to the 17th century inclusive), the art of Armenia, Georgia, Arab countries, Turkey, Merovingian and Carolingian art of Western Europe, Romanesque and Gothic art of France, England, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland , Estonia, Latvia, Italy and Spain. Book 2: art of Central Asia from the 6th to the 18th century, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan; India from the 7th to the 18th century, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Indonesia; China from the 3rd to the 18th century, Korea, Japan. The same book contains the art of the peoples of Ancient America and Ancient Africa.
Volume three. Renaissance art: art of Italy from the 13th to the 16th centuries, the Netherlands, Germany, France, England, Spain, the Czech Republic, Poland of the 15th - 16th centuries.
Volume four. Art of the 17th - 18th centuries in Europe and America: art of Italy 17th - 18th centuries, Spain, Flanders, Holland 17th century, France 17th - 18th centuries, Russia 18th century, England 17th - 18th centuries, USA 18th century, Latin America 17th - 18th centuries and other countries.
Volume five. Art of the 19th century: art of the peoples of Russia, France, England, Spain, USA, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and Croatia, Latin America , India, China and other countries.
Volume six. Art of the late 19th - 20th centuries: Russian art of 1890-1917, art of France, England, USA, Germany and other countries of Western Europe and America of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, Soviet art, contemporary art of Western Europe and America, people's democracies , China, India and other Eastern countries.
The sixth volume will contain a detailed consolidated bibliography on the entire world history of art.
In addition to illustrations on tables and drawings in the text for each chapter, maps will be given indicating the places of archaeological finds, artistic centers, and locations of architectural structures.
The General History of Art seeks to characterize and evaluate the art of all peoples of the earth who have contributed to the world history of art. Therefore, in the book, along with the art of the peoples and countries of Europe, a large place is given to the art of the peoples of Asia, Africa and America. The main attention when working on the “General History of Art” was occupied by those eras of the history of art in which there was a particularly high flowering of realistic art - the art of Ancient Greece, Chinese art of the 10th - 13th centuries, the art of the Renaissance, realistic masters of Europe of the 17th - 19th centuries, etc. .
“General History of Art” aims to provide a summary of the current state of the world science of art. It also contains a number of original studies by Soviet art historians in various fields of art history.
The origin of art - N. A. Dmitrieva.
The main stages in the development of primitive art - V.V. Shleev.
Art of Western Asia - I. M. Loseva.
The Art of Ancient Egypt - M.E-Mathieu.
Aegean art - N. N. Britova.
The Art of Ancient Greece - Yu. D. Kolpinsky.
The art of the Hellenistic era - E. I. Rotenberg.
The Art of Ancient Rome - N. N. Britova.
Art of the Northern Black Sea Coast - N. N. Britova.
The art of Transcaucasia in ancient times - V.V. Shleev.
The art of Ancient Iran - I. M. Loseva (Achaemenid Iran) and M. M. Dyakonov (Sassanian Iran).
Art of Ancient Central Asia - M. M. Dyakonov.
The Art of Ancient India - N. A. Vinogradova and O. S. Prokofiev.
The art of Ancient China - N. A. Vinogradova.
B.V. Weimarn (art of Western Asia, Iran, Central Asia, China) and E.I. Rotenberg (Roman art) took part in editing some chapters of the first volume.
The selection of illustrations and layout of the volume were made by A. D. Chegodaev and R. B. Klimov with the participation of T. P. Kaptereva, A. G. Podolsky and E. I. Rotenberg.
The maps were made by the artist G. G. Fedorov, the drawings in the text were made by the artists Yu. A. Vasilyev and M. N. Mashkovtsev.
The index was compiled by N. I. Bespalova and A. G. Podolsky, explanations for the illustrations by E. I. Rotenberg.
Consultations and reviews were carried out by the Institute of Art History of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Institute of the History of Material Culture of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Ancient Orient Sector of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the Institute of the History of Georgian Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian SSR, the Institute of Architecture and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan SSR, the Sector of the History of Arts of the Academy Sciences of the Armenian SSR, Institute of Theory and History of Architecture of the USSR Academy of Architecture, Department of Art History of Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov, Moscow State Art Institute. V.I. Surikov and the Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after. I. E. Repin, State Hermitage Museum, State Museum of Fine Arts. A. S. Pushkin, Museum of Oriental Cultures, State Museum of Arts of Georgia.
The editorial board expresses gratitude to the scientists who provided great assistance with their advice and criticism in the preparation of the first volume: M. V. Alpatov, Sh. Ya. Amiranashvili, B. N. Arakelyan, M. I. Artamonov, A. V. Bank, V. D. Blavatsky, A. Ya. Bryusov, Wang Xun, A. I. Voshchinina, O. N. Glukhareva, Guo Bao-jun, I. M. Dyakonov, A. A. Jessen, R. V. Kinzhalov, T. N. Knipovich, M. M. Kobylina, M. N. Krechetova, V. N. Lazarev, M. I. Maksimova, V. K. Nikolsky, A. P. Okladnikov, V. V. Pavlov, A. A. Peredolskaya, B. B. Piotrovsky, V. V. Struve, Xia Nai, Tang Lan, S. P. Tolstov, K. V. Trever, S. I. Tyulyaev, N.D. Flittner, Han Shou-xuan, Chen Meng-chia.
Primitive art
Origin of art
N. Dmitriev
Art as a special area of human activity, with its own independent tasks, special qualities, served by professional artists, became possible only on the basis of the division of labor. Engels says about this: “... the creation of arts and sciences - all this was possible only with the help of an enhanced division of labor, which was based on a large division of labor between the masses engaged in simple physical labor and the privileged few who manage the work, engage in trade, state affairs, and later also science and art. The simplest, completely spontaneously formed form of this division of labor was precisely slavery" ( F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, 1951, p. 170).
But since artistic activity is a unique form of knowledge and creative work, its origins are much more ancient, since people worked and in the process of this work learned about the world around them long before the division of society into classes. Archaeological discoveries over the past hundred years have revealed numerous works of visual creativity of primitive man, the age of which is estimated at tens of thousands of years. These are rock paintings; figurines made of stone and bone; images and ornamental patterns carved on pieces of deer antlers or on stone slabs. They are found in Europe, Asia, and Africa. These are works that appeared long before a conscious idea of artistic creativity could arise. Many of them, reproducing mainly figures of animals - deer, bison, wild horses, mammoths - are so vital, so expressive and true to nature that they are not only precious historical monuments, but also retain their artistic power to this day.