French Art of the 18th Century. Realistic direction in painting.
In the 60s and 70s, representatives of bourgeois criticism led by Denis spoke out against the refined art of rocaille, the art of salons and boudoirs, “subordinate to the imagination and whims of a handful of rich, bored, idle people, whose taste is as corrupt as their morals.” Diderot. Blaming the art of the aristocracy for its conventionality and lack of naturalness, they demanded the creation of art that truthfully reflected life, free from mannerisms, and not afraid of the ordinary. In contrast to the art of rocaille, whose main task was to bring pleasure to people spoiled by idleness, Diderot and his supporters demanded the creation of effective art, whose task was not only to reproduce reality, but also to educate a new person. In their opinion, in addition to truthfulness, art must have deep content that has social significance, must have a beneficial effect on society, and help a person solve the most important problems in life.
These views were most fully developed by Diderot in his “Salons” - reviews of art exhibitions in the Louvre published since 1759.
Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin. A striking contrast to the dominant aristocratic line of development of art is the work of the greatest master of realism of the 18th century, Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin (1699-1779). The son of a Parisian artisan carpenter, he was trained by academic painters, but very soon broke with their method of work - according to the models of other masters and according to his imagination. He contrasted this method with working from nature and closely studying it - a principle to which he remained faithful throughout his life. In 1728, Chardin attracted attention with two still lifes that he exhibited in the Dauphine Square in the open air, where once a year young artists could show their paintings. The success that befell him allowed him to present his work to the Academy. Here his still lifes received unanimous recognition, and Chardin was elected academician.
Still life was Chardin's favorite genre. This genre came into fashion in the 18th century under the influence of the Dutch, whose passion echoed the craving for simplicity and naturalness emerging in literature. But in their still lifes, French masters usually did not start from realistic principles Dutch art, but from its decorative elements. Chardin contrasted this decorative still life with his simple, unassuming paintings, devoid of any external effects. He painted clay jugs, bottles, glasses, simple kitchen utensils surrounded by fruits and vegetables, and sometimes fish or killed game. But in these simple objects he discovered an amazing wealth of colorful shades, which allowed him to express the material qualities of things with extraordinary power. These advantages of Chardin’s painting were immediately appreciated by Diderot, who considered him “the first colorist” of the Salon and, perhaps, one of the first colorists in painting.” “...How the air moves around these objects,” exclaims Diderot, “that’s who understands the harmony of colors and reflexes.” Indeed, Chardin is one of the greatest colorists in Western art.
Genre painting occupies the most important place in Chardin’s work. It is dedicated to depicting simple scenes of everyday life of the French third estate - the petty bourgeoisie and working people. Chardin himself came from this environment and did not break ties with it until the end of his days. For the first time in the art of the 18th century, the life of the third estate is the focus of the artist, who conveys it with deep feeling. The subjects of Chardin's genre paintings are ordinary and simple, they are devoid of drama or narrative. In most cases, this is an image of peaceful domestic life: a mother with children reading a prayer before a modest meal (“Prayer Before Dinner”, 1744, Hermitage); a washerwoman washing clothes and a child perched near a tub blowing soap bubbles (“The Laundress”, ca. 1737, Hermitage), a boy diligently folding a house of cards (“House of Cards”, Louvre) - these are typical subjects of the master’s paintings. Everything about them is natural and simple, and at the same time full of great poetry. Chardin's genre works are completely devoid of literary and didactic tendencies, as well as sentimentality and anecdotalism inherent in the similar works of most of his contemporaries. But just as Chardin in his still lifes discovered the beauty of simple kitchen utensils, he was able to discover a whole world of human feelings under the modest appearance of everyday domestic scenes, which in his paintings acquire genuine moral significance. Sincerity and deep truthfulness are combined in these works by Chardin with his inherent artistry, taste and exquisite painterly and coloristic skill. Like still lifes, they are painted softly and generally, and their lack of brightness is built on the finest nuances of muted tones.
In French art of the 18th century, Chardin was also one of the creators of the realistic portrait. Among the most beautiful portraits of the artist are his self-portraits and a portrait of his wife, made in pastel (Louvre, 1770s).
Chardin's realistic art immediately received the support of advanced art criticism. Diderot especially highly valued Chardin, and in his “Salons” he more than once praised his paintings for their truthfulness to life and high pictorial merits. However, Chardin's art did not satisfy the new critics in all respects. Now, when art was required to become, in Diderot’s words, “a school of morals, a silent speaker instructing us in virtues and sublime actions,” those artists began to enjoy particular success in whose work didactic features appeared.
Jean Baptiste Greuze. The head of the sentimental-moralizing movement in French art in the second half of the 18th century was Jean Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805). Greuze's works, devoted mainly to depicting the life of the petty bourgeoisie, are marked by strong idealizing tendencies and imbued with sentimental sensitivity. They are close in nature to the sentimental drama that arose during this period - the literary genre in which Diderot wrote.
Greuze was the first among French artists to become a preacher of bourgeois morality, which largely explains the success of his works such as “A Father of a Family Explaining the Bible to His Children,” which appeared at the Salon of 1755 (Paris, private collection), or “The Country Bride” (Salon 1761, currently in the Louvre). In these paintings, Greuze's contemporaries were attracted by both sensitive subjects and sentimental praise of family virtues.
He highly appreciated the work of Greuze and Diderot. “Truly my artist is Greuze,” wrote Diderot, examining Greuze’s painting “The Paralytic” (Hermitage) in his “Salon” of 1763. Diderot admires this painting because it is “moral painting,” which, along with dramatic poetry, should “touch us, teach us, correct us and encourage us to virtue.”
However, in terms of artistic merit, Greuze's works are inferior to Chardin's works. The compositions of his paintings are often artificial and theatrical, the type is monotonously idealized and lacks true expressiveness, the gestures of the figures are rote and repeated in similar situations, the poses are spectacular and deliberate. The coloring of Greuze’s paintings is often conventional. But his numerous drawings have great merits. These are compositional sketches or studies of figures, usually made in Italian pencil or sanguine, free in style, vividly and directly conveying the model.
Along with scenes of petty-bourgeois life, Grez painted portraits (portrait of a young man, 1750s, Hermitage), as well as idealized images of pretty girls, in which his inherent sentimentality of expression often turns into an unpleasant cloying quality. However, it was these so-called “Grez heads” that were particularly popular in their time.
However, Greuze's art had only temporary success. The closer the moment of entry of the bourgeoisie into the period of class battles approached, the less could it be satisfied with the sentimental paintings of Greuze with their themes limited to issues of family life, especially since Greuze’s sentimentalism is usually imbued with eroticism.
On the eve of the revolution of 1789, classicism replaced didactic everyday art.
Jean Opore Fragonard. In French art of the second half of the 18th century, the traditions of the Rococo style continue to live, into which, however, realistic quests are now penetrating. The largest representative of this trend was Jean Honore Fragonard (1732-1806), a brilliant master of drawing and fine colorist. The gallant scenes and images of parks performed by Fragonard were especially famous.
While still a pensioner in Rome, Fragonard, together with the landscape painter Hubert Robert, was fond of drawing sketches of Roman villas. Together with Robert Fragonard, he lives in the villa d'Este on the Tiber, provided to him by the philanthropist Saint Non, surrounded by a picturesque park located in an area of amazing beauty. Here Fragonard and Robert wrote a number of sketches and participated in the publication dedicated to Naples and Sicily undertaken by Saint Non, performing drawings for engravings.
In depicting love scenes, Fragonard develops sensual and erotic elements even more boldly than Boucher. These notes sound especially strong in such works as “The Stolen Shirt” (Louvre), “Swing” (London, Wallace Collection), “A Stolen Kiss” (Hermitage) and others. Rich imagination, ease of writing, bold strokes, and brilliant craftsmanship are characteristic of Fragonard’s work. Fragonard is also successful in works depicting everyday scenes, sometimes folk life, such as “The Farmer’s Children” (Hermitage) and others. They are imbued with a warm feeling and are distinguished by the vitality of their images, great skill in conveying light, subtlety of color and a free, broad manner of writing. They have a feeling of studying the works Dutch painters 17th century. The influence of the latter is reflected in the brilliantly conveyed characteristics of things and interest in the depiction of animals. Like all artists of his time, Fragonard was distinguished by his great versatility; he painted portraits, religious paintings, decorative panels, illustrated books, and made miniatures.
From the end of the 18th century. France played a major role in the socio-political life of Western Europe. XIX century was marked by a broad democratic movement that embraced almost all sectors of French society. The revolution of 1830 was followed by the revolution of 1848. In 1871, the people who proclaimed the Paris Commune made the first attempt in the history of France and all of Western Europe to seize political power in the state.
The critical situation in the country could not but affect people's perception of the world. In this era, the progressive French intelligentsia strives to find new paths in art and new forms of artistic expression. That is why realistic tendencies appeared in French painting much earlier than in other Western European countries.
The revolution of 1830 brought democratic freedoms to life in France, which graphic artists did not fail to take advantage of. Sharp political cartoons aimed at the ruling circles, as well as the vices reigning in society, filled the pages of the magazines “Charivari” and “Caricatures”. Illustrations for periodicals were made using lithography technique. Such artists as A. Monnier, N. Charlet, J. I. Granville, as well as the remarkable French graphic artist O. Daumier worked in the genre of caricature.
The realistic movement played an important role in the art of France in the period between the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. landscape painting- so-called Barbizon school. This term comes from the name of the small picturesque village of Barbizon near Paris, where in the 1830-1840s. Many French artists came to study nature. Not satisfied with the traditions of academic art, devoid of living concreteness and national identity, they strove to Barbizon, where, carefully studying all the changes occurring in nature, they painted pictures depicting modest corners of French nature.
Although the works of the masters of the Barbizon school are distinguished by truthfulness and objectivity, the author’s mood, his emotions and experiences are always felt in them. Nature in the Barbizon landscapes does not seem majestic and distant, it is close and understandable to people.
Often artists painted the same place (forest, river, pond) in different times days and under different weather conditions. They processed sketches made in the open air in the workshop, creating a picture that was integral in its compositional structure. Very often, the freshness of colors characteristic of sketches disappeared in the finished painting, which is why the canvases of many Barbizons were distinguished by a dark color.
The largest representative of the Barbizon school was Theodore Rousseau, who, already famous landscape painter, moved away from academic painting and came to Barbizon. Protesting against barbaric deforestation, Rousseau endows nature with human qualities. He himself spoke of hearing the voices of trees and understanding them. An excellent connoisseur of the forest, the artist very accurately conveys the structure, species, and scale of each tree (“Forest of Fontainebleau,” 1848-1850; “Oaks in Agremont,” 1852). At the same time, Rousseau's works show that the artist, whose style was formed under the influence of academic art and the painting of old masters, was unable, no matter how hard he tried, to solve the problem of transmitting the light-air environment. Therefore, the light and color in his landscapes are most often of a conventional nature.
Rousseau's art had a great influence on young French artists. Representatives of the Academy, who were involved in the selection of paintings for the Salons, tried to prevent Rousseau’s work from being exhibited.
Famous masters of the Barbizon school were Jules Dupre, whose landscapes contain features of romantic art ("Big Oak", 1844-1855; "Landscape with Cows", 1850), and Narcisse Diaz, who populated the forest of Fontainebleau with nude figures of nymphs and ancient goddesses ("Venus with Cupid", 1851).
The representative of the younger generation of Barbizons was Charles Daubigny, who began his creative career with illustrations, but in the 1840s. dedicated himself to the landscape. His lyrical landscapes, dedicated to unassuming corners of nature, are filled sunlight and air. Very often Daubigny painted from life not only sketches, but also finished paintings. He built a workshop boat on which he sailed along the river, stopping in the most attractive places.
The life of the Barbizonians is close to the largest French artist XIX V. K. Koro.
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot
Camille Corot - French painter and graphic artist, master of portrait and landscape, is one of the founders of the French school of landscape in the 19th century.
Born in Paris in 1796. He was a student of A. Michallon and J. V. Bertin, academic artists. Initially, he adhered to the generally accepted point of view that high art is only a landscape with a historical plot, taken mainly from ancient history or mythology. However, after visiting Italy (1825), his views change dramatically, and he begins to search for a different approach to reality, which is already reflected in his early works (“View of the Forum”, 1826; “View of the Colosseum”, 1826). It should be noted that Corot's sketches, where he changes his attitude to the nature of lighting and color gradations, conveying them more realistically, are a kind of impetus in the development of realistic landscape.
However, despite the new principle of writing, Corot sent paintings to the Salon that met all the canons of academic painting. At this time, in Corot's work, a gap was emerging between the sketch and the painting, which would characterize his art throughout his life. Thus, the works sent to the Salon (including “Hagar in the Wilderness”, 1845; “Homer and the Shepherdesses”, 1845) indicate that the artist not only turns to ancient subjects, but also preserves the composition of the classical landscape, which, however, However, it does not prevent the viewer from recognizing the features of the French landscape in the depicted area. In general, such a contradiction was quite in the spirit of that era.
Very often, the innovations that Corot gradually comes to, he cannot hide from the jury, so his paintings are often rejected. Innovation is felt especially strongly in the master’s summer sketches, where he strives to convey various states of nature in a given period of time, filling the landscape with light and air. Initially, these were mainly urban views and compositions with architectural monuments of Italy, where he again went in 1834. For example, in the landscape “Morning in Venice” (c. 1834), sunlight, the blue of the sky, and the transparency of the air were perfectly conveyed. At the same time, the combination of light and shadow does not break up architectural forms, but, on the contrary, seems to model them. Figures of people with long shadows extending from them in the background give the landscape a feeling of almost real spatiality.
Later, the painter will be more restrained, he will be interested in a more modest nature, but he will pay more attention to its various states. To achieve the desired effect, Corot's color scheme will become thinner, lighter and begin to build on variations of the same color. In this regard, such works as “The Bell Tower in Argenteuil” are typical, where the delicate greenery of the surrounding nature and the humidity of the air very subtly, but at the same time with great authenticity, convey the charm of spring, “A Wagon of Hay”, in which we can feel the joyful thrill of life.
It is noteworthy that Corot evaluates nature as the place where the common man lives and acts. Another feature of his landscape is that it is always a reflection of the emotional state of the master. Therefore, landscape compositions are lyrical (the above-mentioned “Bell Tower in Artangeu”) or, on the contrary, dramatic (study “Gust of Wind”, ca. 1865-1870).
Corot's figurative compositions are full of poetic feeling. If in early works a person seems somewhat detached from the world around him (“Reaper with a Sickle”, 1838), then in later works images of people
inextricably linked with the environment in which they find themselves (“The Reaper’s Family,” c. 1857). In addition to landscapes, Corot also created portraits. The female images are especially good, enchanting with their naturalness and liveliness. The artist painted only people who were spiritually close to himself, so his portraits are marked by the author’s feeling of sincere sympathy for the model.
Corot was not only a talented painter and graphic artist, but also a good teacher for young artists, a reliable
comrade. This fact is noteworthy: when O. Daumier did not have the funds to pay the rent of his house, Corot bought this house and then gave it to a friend.
Corot died in 1875, leaving behind a huge creative legacy - about 3,000 paintings and graphic works.
Honore Daumier
Honore Daumier, French graphic artist, painter and sculptor, was born in 1808 in Marseille in the family of a glazier who wrote poetry. In 1814, when Daumier was six years old, his family moved to Paris.
My labor activity the future artist began as a clerk, then worked as a salesman in a bookstore. However, he was not at all interested in this work; he preferred to wander the streets and make sketches in all his free time. Soon the young artist began visiting the Louvre, where he studied ancient sculpture and the works of old masters, of whom he to a greater extent I'm fascinated by Rubens and Rembrandt. Daumier understands that by studying the art of painting on his own, he will not be able to advance far, and then (from 1822) he begins to take drawing lessons from Lenoir (administrator Royal Museum). However, all teaching came down to simply copying casts, and this did not at all satisfy the young man’s needs. Then Daumier quits the workshop and goes to Ramola to study lithography, while at the same time working as a delivery boy.
Daumier's first works in the field of illustration date back to the 1820s. They have hardly survived, but what has come down to us allows us to speak of Daumier as an artist who was in opposition to the official power represented by the Bourbons.
It is known that from the first days of the reign of Louis Philippe, the young artist drew sharp caricatures of both himself and those around him, thereby creating a reputation for himself as a political fighter. As a result, Daumier is noticed by the publisher of the weekly Caricatures, Charles Philippon, and invites him to cooperate, to which he agrees. The first work, published in Caricatures of February 9, 1832, “The Petitioners of Places,” ridicules the servants of Louis Philippe. After her, one after another, satires began to appear on the king himself.
Of Daumier's earliest lithographs, Gargantua (December 15, 1831) deserves special attention, where the artist depicted the fat Louis Philippe devouring gold taken from a hungry and impoverished people. This sheet, exhibited in the window of the Aubert company, attracted a whole crowd of spectators, for which the government took revenge on the master by sentencing him to six months in prison and a fine of 500 francs.
Despite the fact that Daumier’s early works are still quite compositionally overloaded and influence not so much the expressiveness of the image as the narrative, a style is already outlined in them. Daumier himself is well aware of this and begins to work in the genre of caricature portraits, while he uses a very unique method: first he sculpts portrait busts (in which the characteristic features are brought to the point of grotesque), which will then be his model when working on the lithograph. As a result, he produced figures that were extremely voluminous. It was in this way that the lithograph “The Legislative Womb” (1834) was created, which shows the following picture: directly in front of the viewer, on the benches located in an amphitheater, were the ministers and members of parliament of the July Monarchy. Each face conveys a portrait likeness with deadly accuracy, while the most expressive is the group where Thiers is presented listening to Guizot’s note. By flaunting the physical and moral inferiority of the ruling elite, the master comes to create type portraits. Light plays a special role in them; it emphasizes the author’s desire for maximum expressiveness. Therefore, all the figures are shown in harsh lighting (it is known that, while working on this composition, the master placed the model busts under the bright light of a lamp).
It is not surprising that with such hard work, Daumier found a great monumental style in lithography (this is very strongly felt in the work “Down the Curtain, the Farce is Played”, 1834). The power of influence is equally high in works that reveal the role of workers in the fight against the oppressors: “He is no longer dangerous to us,” “Don’t interfere,” “Transnonen Street April 15, 1834.” As for the last sheet, it represents a direct response to the workers' uprising. Almost all the people actually living in one of the houses on Transnonen Street (including children and old people) were killed because one of the workers dared to shoot at a policeman. The artist captured the most tragic moment. The lithograph depicts an eerie picture: on the floor, next to an empty bed, lies the corpse of a worker, crushing a dead child under him; There is a murdered woman in a darkened corner. To the right, the head of a dead old man is clearly visible. The image presented by Daumier evokes a double feeling in the viewer: a feeling of horror at what he has done and indignant protest. The artist’s work is not an indifferent commentary on events, but an angry denunciation.
The drama is enhanced by the sharp contrast of light and shadow. At the same time, although the details recede into the background, they at the same time clarify the situation in which such an atrocity took place, emphasizing that the pogrom was carried out at a time when people were peacefully sleeping. It is characteristic that already in this work the features of Daumier’s later paintings are visible, in which a single event is also generalized, thereby giving the composition monumental expressiveness in combination with the “accidentality” of the captured life moment.
Such works largely influenced the adoption of the “September Laws” (which came into force at the end of 1834), directed against the press. This led to the fact that it became impossible to fully work in the field of political satire. Therefore, Daumier, like many other masters of political caricature, switches to topics related to everyday life, where he finds and brings to the surface burning issues. social issues. At this time, entire collections of cartoons were published in France, depicting the life and morals of society of that era. Daumier, together with the artist Travies, creates a series of lithographs called “French Types” (1835-1836). Like Balzac in literature, Daumier in painting exposes his contemporary society, in which money rules.
Minister Guizot proclaims the slogan “Get rich!” Daumier responds to him by creating the image of Robert Macaire - a swindler and rogue, now dying, now resurrected again (the "Caricaturan" series, 1836-1838). In other sheets, he addresses the theme of bourgeois charity (“Modern Philanthropy”, 1844-1846), the corruption of the French court (“Leaders of Justice”, 1845-1849), the pompous complacency of ordinary people (sheet “It’s still very flattering to see your portrait at an exhibition” , part of the “Salon of 1857” series). Other series of lithographs were also executed in an accusatory manner: “Single’s Day” (1839), “Marital Morals” (1839-1842), “The Best Days of Life” (1843-1846), “Pastorals” (1845-1846).
Over time, Daumier's drawing transforms somewhat, the stroke becomes more expressive. According to contemporaries, the master never used new, sharpened pencils, preferring to draw with fragments. He believed that this achieved variety and liveliness of lines. Perhaps this is why his works acquire a graphic character over time, displacing their previously inherent plasticity. It must be said that the new style was more suitable for graphic cycles, where a story was introduced, and the action itself unfolded either in the interior or in the landscape.
However, Daumier is still more inclined to political satire, and as soon as the opportunity arises, he again takes up his favorite pastime, creating sheets filled with anger and hatred of the ruling elite. In 1848, a new revolutionary surge occurred, but it was suppressed and the republic was under threat from Bonapartism. Responding to these events, Daumier creates Ratapual, a cunning Bonapartist agent and traitor. This image captivated the master so much that he transferred it from lithography to sculpture, where he was able to achieve great expressiveness with a bold interpretation.
It is not surprising that Daumier hates Napoleon III with the same force as Louis Philippe. The artist tries in every possible way to ensure that his accusatory works make ordinary people feel the evil that comes from the privileged class and, naturally, the ruler. However, after the coup that took place on December 2, 1852, political cartoons were again prohibited. And only towards the end of the 1860s, when the government became more liberal, Daumier turned to this genre for the third time. So, on one sheet of paper the viewer could see how the Constitution shortens the dress of Liberty, and on the other - Thiers, depicted as a prompter, telling every politician what to say and what to do. The artist draws many anti-militarist satires (“The World Swallows a Sword”, etc.).
From 1870 to 1872, Daumier created a series of lithographs exposing the criminal actions of those responsible for the disasters of France. For example, in a sheet entitled “This Killed That,” he makes it clear to the viewer that the election of Napoleon III marked the beginning of many troubles. Notable is the lithograph “The Empire is the World,” which shows a field with crosses and tombstones. The inscription on the first gravestone reads: “Those who died on the Boulevard Montmartre, December 2, 1851,” on the last one, “Those who died at Sedan, 1870.” This sheet eloquently demonstrates that the empire of Napoleon III brought nothing but death to the French. All images in lithographs are symbolic, but the symbols here are not only ideologically rich, but also very convincing.
Noteworthy is another famous lithograph by Daumier, made in 1871, where the mutilated trunk of a once powerful tree appears black against the background of a menacing and cloudy sky. Only one branch survived, but even that branch does not give up and continues to resist the storm. Under the sheet there is a characteristic signature: “Poor France, the trunk is broken, but the roots are still strong.” With this symbolic image, the master not only demonstrated the results of the tragedy he experienced, but with the help of black and white contrasts and dynamic lines, he brought out bright image, embodying the power of the country. This work suggests that the master has not lost faith in the strength of France and the abilities of its people, who can make their homeland as great and powerful as before.
It should be noted that Daumier created not only lithographs. Since the 1830s he also works in painting and watercolor, but his early paintings (“Engraver”, 1830-1834; self-portrait, 1830-1831) are characterized by the absence of a developed manner; sometimes they can be difficult to distinguish from the works of other artists. Later, there is a sharpening of the style and the development of certain themes. So, for example, in the 1840s. The master wrote a series of compositions under the single title “Lawyers”. The same grotesque images appear in these paintings as in Daumier’s graphic works.
His oil paintings and watercolors, as well as lithographs, are imbued with sarcasm. Daumier paints figures of lawyers speaking to the public with theatrical gestures (The Advocate, 1840s) or smugly discussing their dirty machinations beyond the reach of someone else's gaze (Three Lawyers). When working on canvas, the painter often resorts to close-up, depicting the most necessary items and only outlining interior details. With special care, he draws faces, sometimes stupid and indifferent, sometimes cunning and hypocritical, sometimes contemptuous and self-satisfied. By depicting black lawyer robes on a golden background, the author achieves a unique effect by contrasting light and dark.
Over time, satire leaves Daumier's paintings. In compositions of the late 1840s. the central place is occupied by spiritual and heroic images of people from the people, endowed with strength, internal energy and heroism. A striking example of such works are the paintings “Family on the Barricade” (1848-1849) and “Uprising” (c. 1848).
The first canvas depicts revolutionary events and the people participating in them. The heroes are moved so close to the frame that only part of the figures is visible. The artist tries to direct the viewer’s attention to the faces sculpted by light. The old woman and man are marked with sternness and concentration, the young woman is sad and melancholy, and the young man, on the contrary, is filled with desperate determination. It is noteworthy that the characters' heads are shown in different rotations, which gives the impression that the figures are moving, which further emphasizes the tension of the composition.
The second composition (“Uprising”) is an image of a rushing crowd, seized by a revolutionary impulse.
The dynamics of events are conveyed not only by the gesture of a raised hand and figures directed forward, but also by a strip of light.
Around the same time, Daumier painted paintings dedicated to refugees and emigrants, but these images are not found very often in his work. He found all the subjects for his paintings in everyday life: washerwoman going down to the water; a barge hauler pulling a boat; worker climbing to the roof. It is noteworthy that all works reflect individual fragments of reality and influence the viewer not through narration, but visual means, creating an expressive, in some cases tragic, image.
The painting “The Burden” was made in this spirit, and has several options. The plot of the work is simple: a woman walks slowly along the embankment; with one hand she drags a huge basket of laundry; next to her, clinging to her skirt, a child trudges in small steps. A sharp wind blows in the heroes' faces, making it much more difficult to walk, and the burden seems heavier. In Daumier, an ordinary everyday motif takes on almost heroic features. The woman looks detached from all worries. In addition, the master omits all landscape details, only briefly outlining the outlines of the city on the other side of the river. The muted and cold shades in which the landscape is painted enhances the feeling of drama and hopelessness. It is noteworthy that the interpretation of the image of a woman contradicts not only the classical canons, but also the ideals of human beauty among the romantics; it is presented with great expression and realism. Light and shadow play an important role in creating images: thanks to the lighting in an even stripe, a woman’s figure seems surprisingly expressive and flexible; the dark silhouette of the child stands out on the light parapet. The shadow from both figures merges into a single spot. A similar scene, observed many times by Daumier in reality, is presented not in a genre, but in a monumental sense, which is facilitated by the collective image he created.
Despite its generality, every work by Daumier retains an extraordinary vitality. The master is able to capture any gesture characteristic of the face he depicts, convey a pose, etc. The canvas “Print Lover” helps to verify this.
Although throughout the 1850-1860s. Daumier works very fruitfully in painting, but the problem of plein air, which occupied many painters of that time, does not interest him at all. Even when he depicts his heroes outdoors, he still does not use diffused light. In his paintings, light performs a different function: it carries an emotional load that helps the author place compositional accents. Daumier’s favorite effect is backlighting, in which the foreground is darkened against a light background (“Before Bathing,” ca. 1852; “Curious People at the Window,” ca. 1860). However, in some paintings the painter turns to another technique, when the twilight of the background seems to dissipate towards the foreground and white, blue and yellow colors begin to sound with greater intensity. A similar effect can be seen in such paintings as “Leaving School” (c. 1853-1855), “Third Class Carriage” (c. 1862).
Daumier did no less in painting than in graphics. He introduced new images, interpreting them with great expressiveness. None of his predecessors wrote so boldly and freely. It was for this quality that Daumier’s progressive-minded contemporaries highly valued his paintings. However, during the artist’s lifetime, his painting was little known, and the posthumous exhibition in 1901 became a real discovery for many.
Daumier died in 1879, in the town of Valmondois near Paris, in a house given to him by Corot.
The revolution of 1848 led to an extraordinary upsurge in the social life of France, in its culture and art. At this time, two major representatives of realistic painting were working in the country - J.-F. Millet and G. Courbet.
Jean Francois Millet
Jean François Millet, a French painter and graphic artist, was born in 1814 in the town of Gruchy near Cherbourg into a large peasant family that owned a small plot of land in Normandy. From childhood, young Millet was surrounded by an atmosphere of hard work and piety. The boy was very smart, and his talent was noticed by the local priest. Therefore, in addition to schoolwork, the boy, under the guidance of a church minister, began to study Latin, and after some time, along with the Bible, his favorite reading became the works of Virgil, for which the painter had a passion throughout his life.
Until the age of 18, Millet lived in the village and, as the eldest son, performed a variety of peasant work, including those related to cultivating the land. Since Mill's talent for fine art awakened very early, he painted everything that surrounded him: fields, gardens, animals. However, the young artist was most interested in the sea. It is to the water element that Millet devotes his first sketches.
Millet was distinguished by his keen powers of observation, and his gaze, noticing the beauty of nature, did not escape the disasters suffered by a person who entered into confrontation with it. Throughout his life, the master carried a tragic memory of a terrible storm that crashed and sank dozens of ships, which he observed in early childhood.
Later, the young painter went to Cherbourg, where he studied painting first with Mouchel, and then with Langlois de Chevreville (a student and follower of Gros). At the request of the latter, he received a scholarship from the municipality and went to continue his studies in Paris. Leaving his homeland, Millet listened to the instructions of his grandmother, who told him: “Francois, never write anything obscene, even if it were on the orders of the king himself.”
Arriving in Paris, the artist entered the studio of Delaroche. He studied there from 1837 to 1838. Simultaneously with his studies in the workshop, Millet visited the Louvre, where he studied famous paintings, of which he was most impressed by the works of Michelangelo. Millet did not immediately find his path in art. His first works created for sale were executed in the manner of A. Watteau and F. Boucher, called maniere fleurie, which means “flowery manner”. And although this method of writing is distinguished by external beauty and grace, in reality it creates a false impression. Success came to the artist in the early 1840s thanks to portrait works (“Self-Portrait”, 1841; “Mademoiselle Ono”, 1841; “Armand Ono”, 1843; “Deleuze”, 1845).
In the mid-1840s, Millet worked on creating a series of portraits of sailors, in which his style was completely freed from mannerism and imitation, which was characteristic of the artist’s early works (“Naval Officer”, 1845, etc.). The master painted several canvases on mythological and religious subjects (“St. Jerome,” 1849; “Hagar,” 1849).
In 1848, Millet became close to the artists N. Diaz and F. Genron and exhibited for the first time at the Salon. First
The painting he presented, “The Winner,” depicts rural life. From that time on, the master once and for all abandoned mythological subjects and decided to write only what was closest to him.
To implement his plan, he and his family move to Barbizon. Here the artist is completely immersed
into the world of rural life and creates works that correspond to his worldview. These are “The Sower” (1849), “Seated Peasant Woman” (1849), etc. In them, Millet, with great conviction, truthfully depicts representatives of the peasant class, focusing mainly on the figure, as a result of which sometimes one gets the impression that the landscape in his paintings performs the role of the background.
In Millet's works of the early 1850s. solitary figures of peasants engaged in ordinary activities also predominate. When creating canvases, the artist sought to elevate the most prosaic work. He was convinced that “true humanity” and “great poetry” could only be conveyed by depicting working people. The characteristic features of these works are simplicity of gestures, ease of poses, volumetric plasticity of figures and slowness of movements.
Looking at Millet’s famous painting “The Seamstress” (1853), the viewer sees only the most necessary attributes of a dressmaker: scissors, a needle bed and irons. There is nothing superfluous on the canvas, there is exactly as much space as necessary - with this the master makes the image significant and even monumental. Despite the apparent static nature of the composition, the image of the woman is full of internal movement: it seems that her hand, holding a needle, makes more and more stitches, and her chest rises rhythmically. The worker looks carefully at her product, but her thoughts are somewhere far away. Despite the ordinariness and some intimacy of the motif, the picture is inherent in solemnity and grandeur.
The painting “The Reapers' Rest,” exhibited by the master at the Salon of 1853, is executed in the same spirit. Despite some generalization of the rhythmic figures, the composition, filled with light, evokes a feeling of integrity. The images of peasants fit harmoniously into the overall picture of nature.
It is characteristic that in many of Millet’s works nature helps to express the mood of the hero. Thus, in the painting “Sitting Peasant Woman,” the inhospitable forest perfectly conveys the sadness of a girl deeply immersed in her restless thoughts.
Over time, Millet, who painted paintings in which monumental images were displayed against the backdrop of a landscape, began to create slightly different works. The landscape space in them expands, the landscape, which still plays the role of background, begins to play a more significant, semantic role. Thus, in the composition “Harvest Women” (1857), the landscape in the background includes figures of peasants collecting crops.
Millet gives a deeper meaning to the picture of nature in the small canvas “Angelus” (“Venus Ringing”, 1858-1859). The figures of a man and a woman praying in the middle of a field to the quiet sounds of a church bell do not seem alienated from the calm evening landscape.
When the master was asked why most of his paintings are characterized by a sad mood, he answered:
“Life has never turned out to be a happy side for me: I don’t know where she is, I’ve never seen her. The most joyful thing I know is the peace and quiet that one so delightfully enjoys in forests or fields, whether they are cultivable or not; You will agree that this always predisposes to sad, albeit sweet, daydreaming.” These words fully explain the dreamy sadness of his peasants, which harmonizes so well with the peace and silence of the fields and forests.
A completely opposite mood is observed in Millet’s program composition “Man with a Hoe,” exhibited at the Salon of 1863. The author himself was aware that this work stands apart from everything that had already been written. It is not without reason that in one of his letters in 1962, Millet noted: ““The Man with a Hoe” will bring me criticism from many people who do not like to be occupied with matters outside their circle, when they are disturbed...”. And indeed, his words turned out to be prophetic. Criticism pronounced its verdict, describing the artist as a person “more dangerous than Courbet.” And although in this picture the viewer sees only a peasant leaning on a hoe, one glance is enough to feel: he has just walked with a heavy step, hitting the ground with his tool. A man tired of work is depicted with great expressiveness: both in his face and in his figure one can clearly read the fatigue and hopelessness of his life - everything that hundreds of thousands of French peasants actually experienced.
However, among works of this type (especially in the late 1860s - early 1870s) there are works imbued with optimism. These are paintings in which the master focuses his attention on a landscape flooded with sunlight. These are the paintings “Shepherdess Bathing Geese” (1863), “Bathing Horses” (1866), “Young Shepherdess” (1872). In the latter, Millet very subtly conveys a ray of sunlight passing through the foliage of the trees and playfully caressing the girl’s dress and face.
In the last period of creativity, the artist tries to catch and capture brief moments of life on canvas. This desire to capture the moment was caused by the desire to directly reflect reality. So, for example, in the pastel “Autumn, the departure of the cranes” (1865-1866), the gesture of the shepherdess watching the flight of a flock of cranes is about to change; and if you look at the composition “Geese” exhibited at the Salon of 1867, it seems that in just a moment the flickering light will change. This principle would later find its expression in the works of impressionist artists.
However, it should be noted that in Millet’s latest works, especially in his figurative compositions, the search for monumentality is again noticeable. This can be seen especially clearly in the painting “Return from the Field. Evening" (1873), in which a group of peasants and animals stands out against the background of the evening sky as a merging generalized silhouette.
So, from 1848 until the end of his life, Millet limited himself to depicting the village and its inhabitants. And although he did not at all strive to give his works an acute social meaning, but only wanted to preserve patriarchal traditions at all costs, his work was perceived as a source of revolutionary ideas.
Millet ended his life in Barbizon in 1875.
Gustave Courbet
Gustave Courbet, French painter, graphic artist and sculptor, was born in 1819 in the south of France, in Ornans, into a wealthy peasant family. He took his first painting lessons in his hometown, then studied for some time at Besançon College and at Flajoulot's drawing school.
In 1839, having with great difficulty convinced his father of the correctness of his chosen path, Courbet went to Paris. There he simultaneously visited the Suisse workshop, famous at that time, where he worked hard with living nature, and the Louvre, copying the old masters and admiring their works. Particularly impressed by young artist produced the work of the Spaniards - D. Velazquez, J. Ribera and F. Zurbaran. Visiting his native places from time to time, Courbet paints landscapes with great pleasure, sculpting volumes with a thick layer of paint. In addition, he works in the portrait genre (most often he himself is the model) and paints canvases on religious and literary subjects (“Lot with his daughter”, 1841).
When creating self-portraits, Courbet somewhat romanticized his appearance (“The Wounded Man,” 1844; “Happy Lovers,” 1844-1845; “Man with a Pipe,” 1846). It was the self-portrait that he first exhibited at the Salon (“Self-Portrait with a Black Dog”, 1844). The canvas “After Dinner at Ornans” (1849) is imbued with poetry and sentimental dreaminess. With this painting, the artist seems to be defending his right to depict what he knows well, what he observed in a familiar environment: in the kitchen, where, after finishing dinner, the artist himself, his father, the musician Promaye and Marlay are sitting. All characters are depicted exactly as they really looked. At the same time, Courbet managed to convey the common mood created by the music that the characters in the film listen to. In addition, by placing the figures on a large canvas, on a large scale, the artist created generalized images, achieving monumentality and significance, despite the seemingly ordinary everyday subject. This circumstance seemed to the contemporary painter to be an unheard-of audacity to the public.
However, Courbet does not stop there. In the works exhibited at the next Salon (1850-1851), his audacity goes even further. Thus, in the painting “Stone Crusher” (1849-1850), the social meaning was consciously laid down by the painter. He set a goal to depict with merciless truthfulness the backbreaking labor and hopeless poverty of the French peasantry. It is not for nothing that in the explanation to the painting Courbet wrote: “This is how they begin and this is how they end.” To enhance the impression, the master generalizes the presented images. Despite some conventionality in the rendering of light, the landscape is perceived very truthfully, as are the human figures. In addition to “Stone Crusher,” the painter exhibited at the Salon the paintings “Funeral in Ornans” (1849) and “Peasants Returning from the Fair” (1854). All these paintings were so different from the works of other participants in the exhibition that they amazed Courbet's contemporaries.
Thus, “Funeral at Ornans” is a large-format canvas, unusual in concept and significant in artistic skill. Everything in it seems unusual and unusual: the theme (the funeral of one of the inhabitants of a small town), and the characters (petty bourgeois and wealthy peasants, realistically written). Courbet's creative principle, proclaimed in this picture, to truthfully show life in all its ugliness, did not go unnoticed. No wonder they are alone modern critics They called it “the glorification of the ugly,” while others, on the contrary, tried to justify the author, because “it is not the artist’s fault if material interests, the life of a small town, provincial pettiness leave traces of their claws on faces, make the eyes dull, the forehead wrinkled and the expression of the mouth meaningless. Bourgeois are like that. Mr. Courbet writes bourgeois."
And indeed, although the characters depicted on the canvas are not marked by any special beauty and spirituality, nevertheless they are presented truthfully and sincerely. The master was not afraid of monotony, his figures are static. However, from the expressions of their faces, deliberately turned towards the viewer, one can easily guess how they feel about the ongoing event, whether it worries them. It should be noted that Courbet did not immediately come to such a composition. It was originally intended not to draw each individual face - this can be seen from the sketch. But later the plan changed, and the images acquired clearly portrait features. So, for example, among the masses you can recognize the faces of the father, mother and sister of the artist himself, the poet Max Buchon, the old Jacobins Plate and Cardo, the musician Promailer and many other residents of Ornans.
The picture seems to combine two moods: gloomy solemnity, appropriate to the moment, and everyday life. The black color of mourning clothes is majestic, the facial expressions are stern and the poses of those mourning their last journey are motionless. The gloomy mood of the funeral rite is emphasized by the harsh rocky ledges. However, even in this extremely sublime mood the prose of life is woven, which is emphasized by the indifference of the face of the servant boy and the clerks, but the face of the man supporting the cross seems especially ordinary, even indifferent. The solemnity of the moment is also disrupted by the dog with its tail between its legs, depicted in the foreground.
All these clarifying details are very important and significant for an artist trying to contrast his work with the official art of the Salon. This desire can be traced in Courbet's further works. For example, in the painting “Bathers” (1853), which caused a storm of indignation due to the fact that the fat representatives of the French bourgeoisie shown in it turned out to be unlike the transparent nymphs from the paintings of salon masters, and their nudity is presented by the artist in an extremely tangible and voluminous way. All this was not only not welcomed, but, on the contrary, caused a storm of indignation, which, however, did not stop the artist.
Over time, Courbet realizes that he needs to look for a new artistic method. He could no longer be satisfied with what no longer corresponded to his plans. Soon Courbet came to tonal painting and modeling volumes with light. He himself puts it this way: “I do in my paintings what the sun does in nature.” In most cases, the artist paints on a dark background: first he puts down dark colors, gradually moves on to light ones and brings them to the brightest highlight. The paint is applied confidently and vigorously using a spatula.
Courbet does not get stuck on any one topic, he is constantly in search. In 1855, the painter exhibited “The Artist’s Workshop,” which represents a kind of declaration. He himself calls it “a real allegory that defines the seven-year period of his artistic life.” And although this painting is not Courbet’s best work, its color scheme, in silver-gray tones, speaks of the painter’s coloristic skill.
In 1855, the artist organized a personal exhibition, which became a real challenge not only to academic art, but also to the entire bourgeois society. The preface written by the author to the catalog of this unique exhibition is indicative. Thus, revealing the concept of “realism,” he directly states his goals: “To be able to convey the morals, ideas, appearance of my era according to my assessment - in a word, to create living art - that was my goal.” Courbet saw all sides of reality, its diversity and tried to embody it in his work with maximum truthfulness. Whether working on a portrait, landscape or still life, the master everywhere conveys the materiality and density of the real world with the same temperament.
In the 1860s, the painter’s works blurred the lines between portraiture and genre composition (later this trend would be characteristic of the work of E. Manet and other impressionist artists). In this regard, the most indicative paintings are “Little English Women at an Open Window on the Seashore” (1865) and “Girl with Seagulls” (1865). A distinctive feature of these works is that the painter is interested not so much in the complex experiences of the characters, but in the beauty inherent in the material world.
It is characteristic that after 1855 the artist increasingly turned to the landscape, observing with great attention the air and water elements, greenery, snow, animals and flowers. Many landscapes of this time are devoted to hunting scenes.
The space and objects presented in these compositions feel more and more real.
Working in this manner, Courbet pays a lot of attention to lighting. Thus, in “Roes by the Stream” we can observe the following picture: although the trees are perceived as less voluminous, and the animals almost merge with the landscape background, the space and air are felt quite real. This feature was immediately noted by critics, who wrote that Courbet had entered a new stage of creativity - “the path to a bright tone and light.” Of particular note are the seascapes (“The Sea off the Coast of Normandy”, 1867; “The Wave”, 1870, etc.). When comparing different landscapes, it is impossible
not to notice how the range of colors changes depending on the lighting. All this suggests that in the late period of Courbet’s work he sought not only to capture the volume and materiality of the world, but also to convey the surrounding atmosphere.
Concluding the conversation about Courbet, we cannot help but say that, having turned to landscape works, he did not stop working on canvases with social themes. Here we should especially note “Return from the Conference” (1863), a painting that was a kind of satire on the clergy. Unfortunately, the painting has not survived to this day.
Since the 1860s In the circles of the bourgeois public there has been a rise in interest in the artist’s work. However, when the government decides to reward Courbet, he refuses the award, since he does not want to be officially recognized and belong to any school. During the days of the Paris Commune, Courbet took an active part in revolutionary events, for which he was subsequently imprisoned and expelled from the country. While behind bars, the artist creates many drawings depicting scenes of the bloody massacre of the Communards.
Being exiled outside France, Courbet continued to write. For example, in Switzerland he created several realistic landscapes, of which “Cabin in the Mountains” (c. 1874) evokes particular admiration. Despite the fact that the landscape is small in size and specific in its motif, it has a monumental character.
Until the end of his life, Courbet remained faithful to the principle of realism, in the spirit of which he worked throughout his life. The painter died far from his homeland, in La Tour-de-Pels (Switzerland) in 1877.
In the depths of romantic art of the early 19th century, realism began to form, associated with progressive social sentiments. This term was first introduced into use in the mid-19th century. French literary critic J. Chanfleury to designate art that opposes romanticism and symbolism” But realism is a deeper category than individual artistic styles in art. Realism in the broad sense of the word aims to fully reflect real life. It is a kind of aesthetic core of artistic culture, which was felt already in the Renaissance - “Renaissance realism”, and in the Age of Enlightenment - “Enlightenment realism”. But since the 30s
XIX century realistic art, which strived for an accurate representation of the surrounding environment, unwittingly denounced bourgeois reality. In time, this current is called critical realism, coincided with the rise of the labor movement in various European countries.
Initially, realism was identified with naturalism, and the transition to it, say, in Germany and Austria, was Biedermeier - a style direction that was characterized by poeticization of the world of things, the comfort of the home interior, and close attention to family everyday scenes. Biedermeier quite quickly degenerated into a philistine, sugary naturalism, where minor everyday details came first, but depicted “exactly as in life.”
In France, realism was associated with pragmatism, the predominance of materialistic views, and the dominant role of science. Among the largest representatives of realism in literature are O. Balzac, G. Flaubert, and in painting - O. Daumier and G. Courbet.
Support deBalzac(1799-1850) already in one of his first works “Shagreen Skin”, combining romantic imagery and symbolism with sober analysis, realistically depicted the atmosphere of Paris after the revolution of 1830. According to the laws of his art, Balzac, in a series of novels and stories that made up the epic “Human Comedy,” showed a social cross-section of society in which representatives of all classes, conditions, professions, psychological types live and interact, who have become household names, such as, for example, Gobseck and Rastignac . The epic, consisting of 90 novels and stories and connected by a common concept and characters, included three sections: etudes of morals, philosophical studies and analytical studies. Sketches of manners depicted scenes of provincial, Parisian, rural life, private, political and military. Thus, Balzac brilliantly showed the laws of development of reality in a spiral from facts to philosophical generalization. According to the author himself, he sought to depict a society that “contains within itself the basis of its movement.” Balzac's epic is a realistic picture of French society, grandiose in scope, reflecting its contradictions, the other side of bourgeois relations and morals. At the same time, Balzac more than once asserted that he did not paint portraits of specific individuals, but generalized images: his literary characters were not slavishly copied models, but represented a kind of example of a family, combining the most characteristic features of a particular image. Generalization is one of the main commandments of Balzac's aesthetics.
Aesthetics Gustaea Flaubert(1821-1880) found its expression in the concept he created about the special role and elitism of literature, which he likened to science. The appearance of the novel “Madame Bovary” marked a new era in literature. Using a simple plot about adultery, Flaubert is our way of showing the deep origins of the surrounding vulgarity, the moral insignificance of the provincial bourgeois, the suffocating atmosphere of the Second Empire that emerged after the July coup of Louis Bonaparte in 1848. The novel, this masterpiece of French literature, is not without reason called the encyclopedia of the French province of the 19th century. The writer, selecting characteristic details, restores from insignificant signs of time the historical picture of the entire society. The tiny town of Yonville, in which the novel takes place, represents the whole of France in miniature: it has its own nobility, its own clergy, its own bourgeoisie, its own workers and peasants, its own beggars and firefighters who have taken the place of the military. These people, living side by side, are essentially separated, indifferent to each other and sometimes hostile. The social hierarchy here is unbreakable, strong
pushes around the weak: the owners take out their anger on the servants - on innocent animals. Selfishness and callousness, like an infection, spread throughout the entire district, moods of hopelessness and melancholy penetrate into all pores of life. Flaubert the artist was concerned with the color and sound structure of the novel, which served as a kind of accompaniment to the sad story of Emma Bovary. “To me,” wrote Flaubert, “only one thing was important - to convey the gray color, the color of mold in which woodlice vegetate.” With his provincial drama, Flaubert struck a blow at bourgeois taste and false romanticism. No wonder “Madame Bovary” was compared to “Don Quixote” by Cervantes, which put an end to the craze for the chivalric novel. Flaubert proved the enormous possibilities of realistic art and had a decisive influence on the development of realism in world literature.
The revolution of 1830 opened a new stage in the history of artistic culture in France, in particular, it contributed to the development of caricature as a powerful means of criticism. In literature, poetry, in fine arts, graphics responded most vividly to revolutionary events. The recognized master of satirical graphics was Honore Daumier(1808-1879). Being a brilliant draftsman, a master of the line, he created expressive images with one stroke, spot, or silhouette and made political caricature a true art.
Masterfully mastering the technique of light and shadow modeling, Daumier used graphic techniques in his paintings and always emphasized the contour. With a calm, flowing black-brown line, he outlined the contours of figures, profiles, and headdresses, which was a feature of his pictorial method.
Daumier's paintings are designated by cycles, the first of which was revolutionary. It can be quite reasonably said that the revolution of 1830 created Daumier the graphic artist, the revolution of 1848 created Daumier the painter. Daumier was a staunch republican, and the artist’s sympathies were on the side of the proletariat and the democratic intelligentsia. The most significant work of the revolutionary cycle is “Insurrection”, where, by depicting only a few figures, placing them diagonally, Daumier achieved the impression and movement of a large crowd of people, and the inspiration of the masses, and the extent of the action beyond the boundaries of the canvas. The emphasis was placed only on the figure of a young man in a light shirt. He is subordinate to the general movement and at the same time directs it, turning to those walking behind and with a raised hand indicating the path to the goal. Next to him is an intellectual, whose pale face is frozen with amazement, but he, carried away by the general impulse, merges with the crowd.
The “Don Quixote” cycle can be called a cross-cutting cycle in Daumier’s work. His interpretation of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza has no analogues in French art. In contrast to the banal illustrators of Cervantes, Daumier was interested only in the psychological side of the image, and the leitmotif of all his 27 variations is the gaunt, incredibly tall and erect Don Quixote, riding through a gloomy hilly landscape on his monstrously bony, like a Gothic chimera Rossinante; and behind him on a donkey is the cowardly Sancho Panza, always lagging behind. Sancho’s image seems to say: enough ideals, enough struggle, it’s time to finally stop. But Don Quixote invariably moves forward, faithful to his dream, he is not stopped by obstacles, he is not attracted by the blessings of life, he is all in motion, in search.
If in Don Quixote Daumier reflected the tragic contradiction between the two sides human soul, then in the series “Judges and Lawyers” a terrifying contrast arose between the appearance, the external appearance of a person, and his essence. In these truly brilliant series, Daumier rose to social and
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The art of realism in France in the mid-19th century. The significance of the French revolutions of 1830 and 1848 O. Daumier, F. Millet, G. Courbet, C. Corot. The problem of plein air and the Barbizon school. The lesson was prepared by an Fine Arts teacher at the MBU DO DSHHI a. Takhtamukai Jaste Saida Yurievna
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Pierre Etienne Théodore Rousseau (1812 – 1867) The son of a Parisian tailor, after seeing wild nature for the first time, he wanted to become an artist. He went to his first plein air at the age of 17 in the forest of Fontainebleau near the village of Barbizon, and could not stop. Everything in nature amazed him: the endless sky with sunsets, storms, clouds, thunderstorms, winds or without all this; the grandeur of the mountains - with stones, forests, glaciers; a wide horizon of plains with gently sloping pastures and patches of fields; all the seasons (he was the first Frenchman to write winter as it is); trees, the life of each of which is larger and more solemn than human; sea, streams, even puddles and swamps. Through the efforts of Rousseau, the landscape moved from a conventional image to a natural one, and from an auxiliary genre to a first-rate one (which previously was only historical painting).
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Sunset To write an anthology of French landscapes, the “artist of his country” traveled and walked around it all - fortunately he was a tireless pedestrian and a Spartan in everyday life and menu. And a perfectionist. The Paris Salon accepted a landscape by 19-year-old Rousseau for an exhibition, but at 23 rejected his “daring composition and piercing color.” For a dozen years without exhibitions, Rousseau softened the tone of his landscapes, the storms gave way to simplicity, silence and philosophical reflection. So his paintings became a collection of soulful lyrics. He came to his beloved Barbizon every year, and at the age of 36 he moved permanently, disillusioned both with love and with the crushing onslaught of the revolution. In the 30s–60s. 19th century Rousseau and his painting of nature directly in nature in Barbizon were joined by other artists: Millet, Cabat, Daubigny and Dupre, who began to be called Barbizonians - and the world began to learn about the “Barbizon school.”
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One of the artist’s earliest known works is a small painting kept in the Leningrad Hermitage - “Market in Normandy”. Here is a small town street bustling with market trade. The trampled rocky ground of the market square in a tiny town, built half of dense old stone and half of cracked darkened wood and assorted roofing shingles, occupies and, it seems, touches the artist no less than the local residents. Shadow and light touch buildings and people equally, and in each patch soft color transitions indicate what Rousseau so loves to “touch” with his eyes and brush: the texture of real things and the living movement of the atmosphere. The artist is interested in all the details of city life - in the open window on the second floor of the house he notices a woman, he peers into the darkness in the depths of the open door, into the crowd of buyers and traders depicted in the background. Subsequently, Rousseau moves away from this type of “inhabited” landscape; he is attracted not by the views of houses and streets, but only by nature, in which the presence of man is episodic and insignificant. Market in Normandy. 1845-1848. State Hermitage Museum Theodore Rousseau. Hut in the forest of Fontainebleau. 1855.
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At the World Exhibition of 1855, 43-year-old Rousseau was awarded a gold medal for his painting “Exit from the Forest of Fontainebleau. Setting Sun,” which meant recognition and creative victory. Later he painted a companion painting to it, “Forest of Fontainebleau. Morning". And finally, the Salon, and after it the World Exhibition of 1867, invited him to the jury. What did you draw? Nooks and crannies wildlife, rural corners, oaks, chestnuts, rocks, streams, groups of trees with small figures of people or animals for scale, trembling and flickering of the air at different times of the day. What was useful to the impressionists? Plein air, the comma-shaped stroke, the ability to see the air, the overall tone of the picture thanks to the monochrome layer of chiaroscuro under the colored top layers. Exit from the forest of Fontainebleau. Setting Sun Theodore Rousseau. Forest of Fontainebleau. Morning. 1851
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Barbizon School In contrast to the idealization and conventionality of the “historical landscape” of academicians and the romantic cult of imagination, the Barbizon school affirmed the aesthetic value of the real nature of France - forests and fields, rivers and mountain valleys, towns and villages in their everyday aspects. The Barbizons built on their heritage Dutch painting 17th century and English landscape painters of the early 19th century. - J. Constable and R. Bonington, but, above all, they developed the realistic tendencies of French landscape painting of the 18th and 1st quarter of the 19th centuries. (especially J. Michel and the leading masters of the romantic school - T. Gericault, E. Delacroix). Working from life on a sketch, and sometimes on a painting, the artist’s intimate communication with nature was combined among the Barbizons with a craving for the epic breadth of the image (sometimes not alien to a kind of romanticization and heroism), and chamber paintings alternated with large landscape canvases.
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Barbizon School The Barbizon school developed a method of tonal painting, restrained and often almost monochrome, rich in subtle values, light and color nuances; calm brown, brown, green tones are enlivened by individual ringing accents. The composition of the landscapes of the Barbizon school is natural, but carefully constructed and balanced. The Barbizons were the founders of plein air painting in France and gave the landscape an intimate and confidential character. The names of the Barbizonians were associated with the creation of a “mood landscape”, the forerunner of which was Camille Corot, the singer of pre-dawn darkness, sunsets, and twilight. Charles Daubigny. Banks of the Oise River. Late 50s XIX century State Hermitage Museum
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Camille Corot (1796–1875) Camille Corot studied with academic painters A. Michallon and V. Bertin, and was in Italy in 1825–28, 1834 and 1843. Corot is one of the creators of the French realistic landscape of the 19th century. A passionate admirer of nature, he unknowingly paved the way for the Impressionists. It was Corot who spoke about the “picturesque impression.” Striving to convey the first, fresh impression, he rejected the romantic interpretation of the landscape with its inherent idealized forms and colors, when, in his desire for the sublime, the divine, the romantic artist depicted a landscape that reflected the state of his soul. In this case, the exact rendering of the real landscape did not matter. Protesting, perhaps unconsciously, against this approach to painting, Corot raised the banner of plein airism.
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Camille Corot The difference between landscape in the Romantics and in Corot is the difference between fact and fiction. In general, before Corot, artists had never painted oil landscapes in nature. Romantics, like the old masters, sometimes made preliminary sketches on the spot, sketching with great skill (with pencil, charcoal, sanguine, etc.) the shapes of trees, stones, banks, and then painted their landscapes in the studio, using sketches only as auxiliary material. Theodore Gericault. “The Flood” 1814 Camille Corot. “The Cathedral of Nantes,” 1860. It is interesting to note that working on a landscape in a studio, away from nature, was generally accepted, and even Corot did not dare to finish the work to the last stroke in the open air and, out of habit, completed the paintings in the studio. Working from life brings him closer to the Barbizon school.
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Camille Corot. Landscapes of the 1820s–40s. Corot's sketches and paintings of the 1820s–40s are vitally spontaneous and poetic, capturing French and Italian nature and ancient monuments (“View of the Colosseum,” 1826), with their light coloring, the saturation of individual color spots, and a dense, material layer of paint; Corot recreates the transparency of air, the brightness of sunlight; in the strict structure and clarity of composition, clarity and sculptural forms, the classicist tradition is noticeable, especially strong in the historical landscapes of Corot (“Homer and the Shepherds”, 1845). “View of the Colosseum”, 1826 “Homer and the Shepherds”, 1845
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Camille Corot. Landscapes of the 1850s–70s. In the 1850s in Corot's art, poetic contemplation, spirituality, and elegiac-dreamy notes are intensified, especially in landscapes painted from memory - “Memory of Mortefontaine,” (1864), as its title indicates, an enchanting romantic landscape, enlivened by female and child figures, inspired by pleasant memories about one of wonderful days spent in such a picturesque place. This is an almost monochrome landscape with a quiet surface of water, the outlines of an unclear shore melting in the fog and a captivatingly tremulous light-air environment, plunging the entire landscape into a light golden haze. His painting becomes more refined, reverent, light, the palette acquires a wealth of values. Memories of Mortefontaine, 1864. Louvre.
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In the works of this time (“Gust of Wind”, 1865–70), Corot strives to capture the instantaneous, changeable states of nature, the light-air environment, and to preserve the freshness of the first impression; Thus, Corot anticipates the impressionistic landscape. In the painting “Gust of Wind” with its gloomy sky, rushing dark clouds, tree branches knocked to one side and an ominous orange-yellow sunset, everything is permeated with a feeling of unease. The female figure, breaking through towards the wind, personifies the theme of man’s confrontation with the natural elements, dating back to the traditions of romanticism. The finest transitions of shades of brownish, dark gray and dark green, their smooth tints form a single emotional color chord that conveys a thunderstorm. The variability of lighting enhances the mood of anxiety in the landscape motif embodied by the artist. "Gust of Wind", 1865–70
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Democratic realism Between 1850 and 1860 In France, the triumphant march of romanticism was stopped and a new direction, led by Gustave Courbet, gained strength, which made a real revolution in painting - democratic realism. Its supporters set out to display reality as it is, with all its “beauty” and “ugliness.” For the first time, artists focused on representatives of the poorest strata of the population: workers and peasants, washerwomen, artisans, urban and rural poor. Even color was used in a new way. The free and bold brushstrokes used by Courbet and his followers anticipated the technique of the Impressionists, which they used when working en plein air. The work of realist artists caused a real stir in academic circles. The disappearance of Greek gods and biblical characters from their paintings was considered almost sacrilege. The masters of realistic painting of the democratic trend - Daumier, Millet and Courbet, who in many ways remained misunderstood, were accused of superficiality and lack of ideals.
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Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was born in Ornans. Son of a rich farmer. From 1837 he attended the drawing school of S. A. Flajulot in Besançon. Systematic art education didn't receive it. Living in Paris from 1839, he painted from life in private studios. He was influenced by Spanish and Dutch painting of the 17th century. He made trips to Holland (1847) and Belgium (1851). The revolutionary events of 1848, which Courbet witnessed, largely predetermined the democratic orientation of his work.
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Wounded Man with a Leather Belt. 1849 Self-portrait “Man with a Pipe” (1873-1874) Gustave Courbet Having passed through a short stage of closeness to romanticism (a series of self-portraits); Self-Portrait with a Black Dog 1842 "Self-Portrait (Man with a Pipe)". 1848-1849 "Despair. Self-portrait." 1848-1849.
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(“Lovers in the Village” or “Happy Lovers”, 1844), Courbet polemically contrasts it (as well as academic classicism) with a new type of art, “positive” (Courbet’s expression), recreating life in its flow, affirming the material significance of the world and denying artistic the value of something that cannot be realized in a tangible and tangible way. Happy lovers
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Gustave Courbet In his best works, “The Stone Crusher” (1849), in a letter to Vey, Courbet describes the canvas and talks about the circumstances that gave rise to her idea: “I was riding in our cart to the castle of Saint-Denis, near Sein-Varé, not far from Mezières , and stopped to look at two people - they were the complete personification of poverty. I immediately thought that this was the subject of a new painting, invited them both to my studio the next morning, and have been working on the painting ever since... on one side of the canvas there is a depiction of a seventy-year-old man; he is bent over his work, his hammer is raised up, his skin is tanned, his head is shaded by a straw hat, his pants made of coarse fabric are all in patches, his heels stick out from his once blue torn socks and clogs that have burst at the bottom. On the other side is a young guy with a dusty head and a dark face. Bare sides and shoulders are visible through a greasy, tattered shirt, leather suspenders hold up what were once pants, and dirty leather shoes have holes on all sides. The old man is kneeling; the guy is dragging a basket of rubble. Alas! This is how many people begin and end their lives.”
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“Funeral at Ornans” (1849) by Courbet shows reality in all its dullness and wretchedness. The compositions of this period are distinguished by spatial limitation, static balance of forms, compact grouping or elongated frieze-like arrangement of figures (as in “Funeral at Ornans”), and a soft, muted color scheme.
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Courbet's performance in his young years is amazing. He is caught up in a grandiose plan. On a huge canvas (3.14 x 6.65 m), as a sign of respect to the memory of his grandfather Udo, a republican of the era of the French Revolution, who had a strong influence on the formation political views Courbet, he writes " Historical picture one burial in Ornans” (1849 – 1850) - that’s what he himself calls “Funeral in Ornans”. On the canvas, Courbet placed about fifty life-size figures. two church watchmen Four people in wide-brimmed hats have just brought the coffin of Courbet's mother and three sisters
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Gustave Courbet The principle of social significance of art, put forward in contemporary art criticism by Courbet, is embodied in his works “Meeting” (“Hello, Monsieur Courbet!”; 1854), which conveys the moment of the meeting of a proudly marching artist with philanthropist A. Bruhat.
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“Atelier” (1855) is an allegorical composition in which Courbet imagined himself surrounded by his characters and his friends.
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Gustave Courbet In 1856, Courbet painted the painting “Girls on the Banks of the Seine,” thereby taking an important step towards rapprochement with the plein air painters. Courbet performed it in a mixed manner: he painted the landscape directly in nature, and then added the figures in the studio. Choosing the main means of pictorial language not local color, but tone, its gradations, Courbet gradually moved away from the restrained, sometimes harsh palette of the 1840s - early 1850s, brightening and enriching it under the influence of working in the open air, achieving light saturation of colors and at the same time revealing texture smear
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During the short reign of the Paris Commune of 1871, Courbet was chosen Minister of Fine Arts. He did a lot to save museums from looting, but he has one rather strange act on his conscience. On the Place Vendome in Paris there was a column - a copy of the famous Trajan's Column - erected to commemorate the military victories of France. The Communards strongly associated this column with the bloody imperial regime. Therefore, one of the first decisions of the Commune was to demolish the column. Courbet was entirely in favor: “We will do a good deed.” Perhaps then the girlfriends of the recruits will not wet so many handkerchiefs with tears. But when the column was toppled, Courbet became sad: “As it falls, it will crush me, you’ll see.” And he was right. After the fall of the Commune, he was reminded of the column, they began to call him a “bandit,” and in the end the court accused him of destroying monuments. Gustave Courbet Courbet had to serve several months in prison. The artist's property was sold off, but even after leaving prison he was obliged to pay 10,000 francs every year. He was forced to hide in Switzerland until his death from paying a gigantic fine. Seven years later, Courbet died in poverty.
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Honoré Victorien Daumier (1808–1879) The largest painter, sculptor and lithographer of the 19th century. was Honore Victorien Daumier. Born in Marseille. Son of a master glazier. From 1814 he lived in Paris, where in the 1820s. took lessons in painting and drawing, mastered the craft of a lithographer, and performed small lithographic work. Daumier's work was formed on the basis of observation of the street life of Paris and careful study of classical art.
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Caricatures by Daumier Daumier apparently took part in the Revolution of 1830, and with the establishment of the July Monarchy he became a political cartoonist and won public recognition with his merciless, acutely grotesque satire of Louis Philippe and the ruling bourgeois elite. Possessing political insight and the temperament of a fighter, Daumier consciously and purposefully linked his art with the democratic movement. Daumier's cartoons were distributed as loose sheets or published in illustrated publications in which Daumier contributed. Caricature of King Louis Philippe
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Sculptures by Daumier Boldly and accurately sculpted sculptural sketches-busts of bourgeois political figures (painted clay, circa 1830-32, 36 busts survive in a private collection) served as the basis for a series of lithographic portraits-caricatures (Celebrities of the Golden Mean, 1832-33).
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Caricature of the King In 1832, Daumier was imprisoned for six months for a caricature of the King (lithograph “Gargantua”, 1831), where communication with arrested republicans strengthened his revolutionary beliefs.
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Daumier achieved a high degree of artistic generalization, powerful sculptural forms, emotional expressiveness of contour and chiaroscuro in the lithographs of 1834; they expose the mediocrity and self-interest of those in power, their hypocrisy and cruelty (collective portrait of the Chamber of Deputies - “Legislative Womb”; “We All honest people, let’s hug”, “This one can be released”). “Legislative womb” “We are all honest people, let’s hug” “This one can be released”
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The ban on political caricature and the closure of Caricatures (1835) forced Daumier to limit himself to everyday satire. In the series of lithographs "Parisian types" (1839–40),
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“Marital Morals” (1839–1842), “The Best Days of Life” (1843–1846), “Men of Justice” (1845–48), “Good Bourgeois” (1846–49) Daumier caustically ridiculed and condemned the falsity and selfishness of bourgeois life , the spiritual and physical squalor of the bourgeois, revealed the nature of the bourgeois social environment that shapes the personality of the average man. From the series “Marital Morals” (1839–1842) From the series “The Best Days of Life” (1843–1846) From the series “People of Justice” (1845–48) From the series “Good Bourgeois” (1846–49)
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Daumier created a typical image concentrating the vices of the bourgeoisie as a class in the 100-sheet series “Caricaturana” (1836–38), which tells about the adventures of the adventurer Robert Macker.
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In the series “Ancient History” (1841–43), “Tragic-Classical Faces” (1841), Daumier evilly parodied bourgeois academic art with its hypocritical cult of classical heroes. Daumier's mature lithographs are characterized by dynamics and a rich velvety touch, freedom in conveying psychological shades, movement, light and air. Daumier also created drawings for woodcuts (mainly book illustrations). The Beautiful Narcissus Alexander and Diogenes The Abduction of Helen From the series “Tragic-classical physiognomies” (1841)
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A new short-lived rise in French political caricature is associated with the Revolution of 1848–49. Welcoming the revolution, Daumier exposed its enemies; The personification of Bonapartism was the image-type of the political rogue Ratapual, created first in a grotesque dynamic figurine (1850), and then used in a number of lithographs. Daumier O. "Ratapoile". Ratapual and the Republic.
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Painting by Daumier In 1848, Daumier completed a pictorial sketch for the competition “The Republic of 1848”. From that time on, Daumier devoted himself more and more to painting in oils and watercolors. Innovative in theme and artistic language, Daumier’s painting embodied the pathos of the revolutionary struggle (“Uprising”, 1848; “Family on the Barricades”) and the uncontrollable movement of human crowds (“Emigrants”, 1848–49), the artist’s respect and sympathy for working people (“The Laundress” ", 1859–60; "3rd Class Carriage", 1862–63) and a malicious mockery of the unprincipledness of bourgeois justice (“Defender”). "Republic of 1848" "Insurrection", 1848 "Family on the Barricades" "Emigrants", 1848-49 "Washwoman", 1859-60 "3rd Class Carriage", 1862-63 "Defender" 1865
19th century - the century of humanism
The 19th century made a truly invaluable contribution to the treasury of the entire world culture. This was the century of the greatest humanistic and aesthetic achievements in Europe, America and especially in Russia. Such a bright and widespread flowering of literature and art at this time is largely determined by those deep and often violent social and political changes that the 19th century was so rich in.
Romanticism and the French Revolution of the late 18th century
The literary 19th century does not coincide with the calendar 19th century, since historical, literary and historical processes are determined not by dates as such, but by certain events that had a significant impact on the progressive course of development of society. Such events that determined the chronological framework of historical development and, accordingly, the literary process are somewhat conditional in in this case XIX century, there were the Great French Revolution of 1789-1794. and the Paris Commune of 1871. In France, in comparison with previous bourgeois revolutions (in Holland in the 16th century and in England in the 17th century), this revolution caused the most profound social and political transformations. Along with the revolution in France, the ideological life of Europe at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries was greatly influenced by the completion of the industrial revolution in England and the War of Independence in the USA. Since the revolution, socio-political events in France have had a significant impact on the fate of European states.
As for literature, not a single significant phenomenon European romanticism and the late Enlightenment in Germany cannot be properly understood without taking into account the impact of the revolution of the late 18th century. in France. But not only the work of writers who were contemporaries of the revolution was organically connected with it. The literary movements of the 19th century, flowing mainly under the sign of late romanticism and critical realism, continued to interpret the events of the French Revolution. “The entire 19th century,” wrote V.I. Lenin, “the century that gave civilization and culture to all of humanity, passed under the sign of the French Revolution. In all corners of the world, all he did was carry out, implement in parts, complete what the great French revolutionaries of the bourgeoisie had created.”*
No less important than the revolution itself with its advanced socio-political slogans were its immediate consequences. After the overthrow of the Jacobin dictatorship on July 27 (9 Thermidor on the revolutionary calendar) 1794 (Thermidorian coup), the progressive development of the revolution ended, and the large counter-revolutionary (Thermidorian) bourgeoisie came to power, clearing the way for the militaristic-bourgeois dictatorship of Napoleon. The Thermidorians, ignoring the aspirations of the grassroots - the main driving force of the revolution, consolidated only those revolutionary transformations that corresponded to the class interests of the bourgeoisie. The new bourgeois relations, which acquired clear contours after the Thermidorian coup, did little to meet the promises of the enlighteners who prepared the revolution, which turned out to be just a utopian illusion.
The French Revolution and the Enlightenment that prepared it had direct political opponents who spoke on behalf of those classes that the revolution had pushed out of the arena of historical development. But its supporters, who believed in the promises of the Enlightenment, were also disappointed in the consequences of this revolution. A characteristic and defining feature of the spiritual ideological atmosphere that developed after the revolution was an anti-enlightenment, anti-bourgeois reaction, which, however, had different socio-political aspirations. The literary movements of European countries of that time - romanticism above all - reflected precisely these moods of the era. The result of understanding the results of the French Revolution in literature was the establishment of the theme of lost illusions in the works of many major writers of that time. This theme, which arose at the end of the 18th century. in the works of a number of romantic writers, was later picked up and developed by many critical realists, who viewed it in the light of subsequent events in the socio-political struggle of the 19th century.
One of the manifestations of dissatisfaction with the results of the French Revolution of 1789-1794, the search for an extra-bourgeois social and ethical ideal, was the emergence at the beginning of the 19th century. theories of utopian socialism. Utopian socialism of the early 19th century was the most important ideological factor influencing the literary process of that time. Romanticism, which is a kind of anti-bourgeois utopia, directly or indirectly expressed certain aspects of the teachings of utopian socialism. The works of Hugo and J. Sand in France, Godwin and Shelley in England, Heine in Germany, Herzen and Chernyshevsky in Russia - these are the most important moments of literary Process XIX c., which are closely related to the ideas of utopian socialism.
Periodization of the historical and literary process of the 19th century
At the origins of a new stage of the historical and literary process in Europe, opened by the revolutionary events of the late 18th century. in France, there was literature from the period of the French Revolution of 1789-1794. French literature of these years is organically connected with the national tradition of previous classicist and educational literature. At the same time, French literature 1789-1794. contained prerequisites that opened the way to the subsequent development of romanticism and critical realism in France.
The leading direction and artistic method in the literary movements of the first third of the 19th century in Europe was romanticism. However, from the beginning of the 30s, critical realism began to increasingly dominate the literary process. Thus, the main historical, literary and theoretical problems of the foreign language course literature of the 19th century V. are romanticism and critical realism.
European literature of the first three decades of the 19th century, having received a powerful stimulus for its development in the events of the French Revolution of 1789-1794, later turned out to be closely connected with the subsequent class and political struggle, with the Napoleonic and anti-Napoleonic wars.
Napoleon's personality - outstanding commander and a statesman - and in particular those progressive social changes in Europe that were caused by his campaigns received great resonance in literature (Pushkin, Lermontov, Byron, Heine, Beranger, Hugo, Manzoni, etc.). The theme of the liberation movement against the Napoleonic occupation also turned out to be very significant in European literature. This especially applies to German literature. A tangible imprint on the whole social life England at the beginning of the century was plagued by violent protests by machine destroyers - the Luddites, to which, in particular, Byron responded.
Intensification of political and class contradictions marked the period from 1815 to 1830 in European history, which in France was called the Restoration period, which opened after the Battle of Waterloo (1815) with the final overthrow of Napoleon and ended with the July Revolution of 1830. The collapse of the Napoleonic empire led to a sharp change in the political climate on the European continent and contributed to the restoration of pre-revolutionary orders. However, Europe, which had advanced far along the path of bourgeois development, could no longer be returned to the political and social level that existed before L789. By the end of the 1910s. the continent becomes the scene of violent political conflicts and national liberation movements in France, Spain, Greece, and Italy. All these events influenced the nature of the literary process as a whole and were reflected in the works of Byron, Shelley, Stendhal, and Chamisso.
The year 1830, which was marked in France by the overthrow of Charles X from the throne and thereby the fall of the regime of the restored Bourbons, brought to power the big financial bourgeoisie, which placed their protege King Louis Philippe on the throne. In England in 1832, the most important political action for the country took place - parliamentary reform, which in its social significance was close to the July Revolution in France. The July Revolution, parliamentary reform, which consolidated the final victory of the bourgeoisie, and their immediate consequences became a milestone in the historical development of Western Europe. But with the strengthening of the power of the bourgeoisie, the working class becomes an independent political force.
These social changes were accompanied by significant shifts in the literary process. In France at the beginning of the century, Vigny, Lamartine, Hugo, and J. Sand created bright pages of romantic literature. In the 20-30s, works by Merimee, Stendhal, and Balzac appeared, in which the principles of a realistic reflection of life were formed. Critical realism in the works of Dickens, Thackeray and a number of other authors began to determine the face of the literary process in England from the beginning of the 30s. In Germany, Heine laid the foundations of critical realism in his work. Due to the conditions of national specificity, critical realism in the literary process of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Italy, and Spain was formed later, but already in the 30s its origins were outlined in Polish and Hungarian literature. Realism in US literature gained dominance only towards the end of the 19th century, although its formation began in the middle of the century.
The further aggravation of the contradictions of bourgeois-capitalist development led to a new revolutionary explosion that began in France and swept almost all of Europe. After the defeat of the European revolutions of the mid-19th century. move historical events in the countries of Central Europe led to the consolidation and strengthening of the forces of the proletariat, to its independent struggle against the bourgeoisie. In 1871, this struggle led to the proclamation in France of the Paris Commune - the first government of the working class, whose policy was based on the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Paris Commune basically ended the cycle of bourgeois-democratic revolutions and opened a new period in the history of Europe - the period of imperialist wars and proletarian revolutions.
Revolutions of 1848-1849 are the main milestone that divides the 19th century into two main parts, as well as an important milestone in the development of national literatures of European countries. But for the literary process, due to its specificity, the events of the July Revolution of 1830 in France and its consequences, as well as the socio-political situation that developed in England after the Reform Bill of 1832, should be considered a turning point. Along with the direct responses to these events in creativity For a number of revolutionary poets, the defeat of the revolution had a significant impact on the further development of critical realism (Dickens, Thackeray, Flaubert, Heine), and on a number of other phenomena, in particular on the formation of naturalism in the literature of European countries.
Given that in the first third of the 19th century in many European countries the main literary movement was romanticism, and after 1830 - critical realism, it would be a mistake to believe that before 1830 only the romantic movement existed in European literature. In some national literatures at the beginning of the 19th century. due to a number of conditions, the traditions of Enlightenment literature were still alive (Germany, Poland). In other cases, we should talk about some early phenomena of the literature of critical realism, adjacent to the characteristic and typical tendencies of romanticism (early romantics and Beranger in France). The picture of the struggle between literary trends in France in the 1920s was complex and varied from the point of view of creative methods. Later, after the July Revolution, the literary process in this country took shape mainly as a synchronous development of critical realism in its greatest achievements in the works of Mérimée, Stendhal, Balzac, Flaubert and in the no less significant achievements of romantic literature in the works of J. Sand and Hugo. A contemporary of the Leucists, Byron and Shelley was the poet Crabb, a stern writer of everyday life in the English countryside, whose work bore certain features of educational realism. At the same time, the origins of the novel of critical realism were determined (M. Edgeworth and J. Austin).
The exodus of romanticism in the 1930s in Germany was simultaneously accompanied by, to varying degrees, pronounced realistic tendencies in Buchner’s work. The revolutionary-democratic literature of the 40s in Germany, marked by very definite realistic features, at the same time carried within itself a clearly expressed revolutionary-romantic beginning in the lyrics of Weerth, Herweg and Freiligrath. At the same time, the creative method of some major writers is developing in the direction from romanticism to realism (Heine, Byron, Shelley). Consequently, with the predominant development of romanticism in the first third of the century and critical realism after 1830, one should keep in mind the process of more or less constant contacts of various artistic methods and trends, their mutual enrichment, and first of all, here we are talking about romanticism and critical realism .
Thus, the periodization of the historical and literary process of the 19th century. in European countries it seems to be as follows: the first stage from 1789 to 1830, the second stage - from 1830 to 1871; the second stage, in turn, is divided into two periods: 1830-1848. and 1848-1871 This general scheme for the development of the literary process of the 19th century. in European countries is by no means universal. It exists with various, sometimes significant chronological deviations, determined by the national specifics of the socio-political development of a particular country, but at the same time it reflects the actual course of the literary process and indicates its general patterns.
Philosophical and aesthetic foundations of romanticism
The initial philosophical basis of romanticism is an idealistic worldview, which developed primarily in the direction from subjective to objective idealism. The idealistic impulse towards the infinite, as one of the characteristics of the ideological and aesthetic position of the romantics, is a reaction to the skepticism, rationalism, and cold rationality of the Enlightenment. The Romantics affirmed the belief in the dominance of the spiritual principle in life, the subordination of matter to spirit.
In the concept of world literature, developed by the Jena romantics, in particular A. Schlegel, the romantics expressed a desire for the universality of phenomena, for universalism. This romantic universalism was also reflected in the social utopianism of the romantics, in their utopian dreams of the triumph of the ideals of harmony throughout human society.
“In its closest and most essential meaning, romanticism is nothing more than the inner world of a person’s soul, the innermost life of his heart,” wrote Belinsky. And here he grasped one of the fundamental defining features of romanticism, which distinguishes it from the worldview and artistic method of the Enlightenment. In fact, the hero in the artistic works of the romantics receives a fundamentally different interpretation than that of the enlighteners and classicists. From an object of application of external forces, he becomes a subject that shapes surrounding circumstances. The problem of personality becomes central for the romantics; all other aspects of their ideological and aesthetic positions are grouped around it. In the starting points of romantic aesthetics, knowledge of the world is, first of all, self-knowledge. Later, in the aesthetics of the romantics, a very significant thesis was affirmed about the so-called local color, i.e., about the description of the external environment (Hugo, Nodier, and partly Byron). But even among these romantics, personality is given the main place. Nature, love - the development of these problems was for the romantics a way of understanding and revealing the essence of the phenomenon of the human personality. It was endowed with unlimited creative potential, and the course of development of objective existence in the minds of the romantics was determined by the spiritual activity of the individual. Such subjectivist anthropocentrism of the romantics entailed a serious change in emphasis in the civil social ideal that is characteristic of the worldview of the classicists and enlighteners.
In solving the problem of “personality and society,” the romantics shifted the emphasis to the first component of this correlation, believing that the disclosure and affirmation of the human personality, its comprehensive improvement will ultimately lead to the establishment of high social and civil ideals.
Absolutizing the creative potential of the individual, the romantics, turning to reality, themselves realized the illusory nature of such ideas. As a result of the awareness of this contradiction, the famous theory of romantic irony arose in the aesthetics of the Jena romantics.
Individualism as a fundamental position of the philosophical and ethical concepts of romanticism received various expressions. Those romantics who deny the environment around them. reality, sought to escape from it into the world of illusions, the world of art and fantasy, into the world of their own reflections, the individualist hero, at best, remained an eccentric, a dreamer, tragically alone in the world around him (Hoffmann’s heroes). In other cases, the individualism of the romantic hero takes on an egoistic connotation (Byron, B. Kon-stan, F. Schlegel, L. Tieck). But there are also many such heroes among the romantics, whose individualism has an active rebellious tendency (the heroes of Byron, and partly Vigny). In a number of works of romantics, the intrinsic value of the human personality is expressed not so much in its individualism, but in the fact that its subjective aspirations are directed to the service of public affairs in the name of the people's good. Such are Byron's Cain, Shelley's Laon and Citna, and Mickiewicz's Conrad Wallenrod.
The absoluteization of the spiritual world of the individual by the romantics was associated with certain negative aspects. However, to a much greater extent, this exaltation of the individual personality, the fundamental attitude to lead the path of knowledge of all things through its inner “I”, led the romantics to their most significant ideological and aesthetic conquests. In this area, the romantics made that significant step forward in the artistic knowledge of reality, which promoted romanticism to replace the art of the Enlightenment. The poems of Wordsworth and W. Muller, Heine and Byron, Vigny and Lamartine, the psychological stories of Chateaubriand and de Staël revealed to their contemporaries the riches of the spiritual world of the individual. The appeal to a chosen individual who rises above the “crowd” by no means exhausts the interpretation of the individualistic principle among the romantics. In this area, their deep democratism (Wordsworth, Heine, W. Müller, Eichendorff, Schubert) was no less affected. The song cycles of Schubert, who raised the everyday Austrian song to the level of high vocal art (“The Beautiful Miller's Wife” and “Winter Reise” to the words of W. Müller), reflect the modest Life of a modest person. The motif of wandering, traditional for German romantics, echoes the theme of the tragic loneliness of a semi-impoverished homeless traveler (“The Organ Grinder,” “The Wanderer”) and reflects the restless impulses of the romantic’s soul (“Where to?”).
The image of the “superfluous man”, which passed through all the literature of the 19th century, has its origins in the works of the romantics.
The fundamental innovation of the romantics in the artistic knowledge of reality also lay in the fact that, decisively polemicizing with the fundamental thesis of enlightenment aesthetics - art is an imitation of nature - they put forward the most important thesis about the transformative role of art. It was first formulated by A. Schlegel in 1798 in a review of Goethe’s poem “Herman and Dorothea.”
Both of these positions of enlightenment and romantic aesthetics appear in certain dialectical relationships. Pursuing the goal of imitation of nature in art, the Enlightenment, with their characteristic rationalistic schematism, outlined and at the same time limited the circle of art to a realistic (within the limits of Enlightenment aesthetics) reflection of reality. By setting art the task of transforming reality, the romantics significantly expanded the possibilities and tasks of art, in particular the possibilities of its influence on reality. But at the same time, they quite widely opened the way for the excessive introduction of elements of the fantastic and subjective into works of art.
The Romantics expanded the arsenal of artistic means of art. They are credited with the fruitful development of many new genres, mainly of a subjective and philosophical orientation: the psychological story (especially much was done here by the early French romantics), the lyric poem (the Leucists, Byron, Shelley, Vigny), the lyric poem. Romanticism is associated with a bright flowering of lyrical genres, contrasting with the rationalistic, non-poetic 18th century. Many romantic poets, decisively breaking with the traditions of classicist versification, carried out a fundamental reform of verse, which expanded and democratized the prosodic means of verse, bringing its capabilities closer to displaying inner world spiritual life of an individual, sometimes to the sphere of her real everyday interests. The establishment of new romantic norms in lyric poetry, in its very metrical structure in England, is associated with the work of the Leucists and Byron, and partly Shelley and Keats. In French literature, the brave reformers of verse were Vigny and Lamartine, Hugo; in German poetry - Brentano, and after him Heine, Müller.
The immediate and relatively long-term consequences of the French Revolution, under which romanticism was formed and developed, introduced violent dynamism and acute conflicts into the course of European history. Thus, in the work of the romantics, in their worldview, a historical perception of the social process took shape. Their historicism reflected the desire for something new inherent in the romantic worldview. But at the same time, the French Revolution prompted the literature of the first decades of the last century to comprehend the reasons and patterns that led to such a violent socio-political explosion. This explains such an active invasion of the work of romantics of historical genres. It was in such an ideological atmosphere that the historical novel by W. Scott and J. Sand arose and developed, which had a huge impact on all European literature.
One of the main ideas of their philosophical worldview - the idea of the infinite - is connected with the establishment in the minds of the romantics of the concept of historicism, with their perception of the world in movement and development.
The historicism of the romantics and the noted elements of dialectics in their minds, in their combination, focused attention on individual nations, on the peculiarities of national history, national way of life, clothing, and, above all, on the national past of their homeland. In this past, as writers, they were interested in the treasures of folk art. In their works, legends, traditions, fairy tales, songs of deep national antiquity came to life, relying on which they poured a fresh stream not only into fiction itself, but in a number of cases, especially in Germany, gave new life to the literary language of their people. In England, the pre-Romantic movement played a particularly important role (Macpherson's Poems of Ossian, Percy's Monuments of Ancient English Poetry). It influenced Herder, the theorist of the Stürmer movement, the largest representative of the late German Enlightenment, who preceded the activities of the German romantics with many of his quests. With his passionate propaganda of folk songs, Herder, through his personal example as a collector, gave impetus to the future flourishing of domestic German folklore studies in the era of romanticism - the activities of the Brothers Grimm. collectors of German folk tales, and Heidelberg romantics A. von Arnim, C. Brentano, compilers of the collection of German folk songs “The Boy’s Magic Horn” (1806-1808), which played a big role for the further development of German romantic poetry and song-romance lyrics in the richest musical culture of German romanticism.
The evolution of romanticism was associated with the further intrusion of reality into the circle of the artistic vision of the romantics. The romantic hero does not limit himself only to immersion in the world of his own spiritual emotions. Through their prism, he perceives the world around him more and more widely. Social reality with its sharp dissonances was already clearly breaking into the subjective world of the hero Wackenroder Berglinger, defining the deep hopeless drama of his fate. And in this regard, the composer Berglinger is a character who, among many heroes of early European romanticism, is largely endowed with typical features. All the more typical is the central and favorite hero of the late romantic Hoffmann - the musician and composer Johannes Kreisler, the author's alter ego, forced to sell his talent in order to ensure his existence. And the situation in which Kreisler lives and suffers, like his literary predecessor Berglinger, is the real feudal-fragmented Germany of the beginning of the last century.
The enormous role of romanticism in the development of the artistic consciousness of mankind is not limited only to its specific historical framework, although within their framework it significantly enriched and updated the principles and means of artistic understanding of reality. Romanticism as an artistic heritage is alive and relevant for our time. In the subsequent development of the romantic tradition, one characteristic pattern is very noticeable - one or another broad attempt at its revival is associated, as a rule, with the breakdown of social relations and with the environment of the harbinger of revolutionary upheavals. Periods of stabilization, periods of relative social peace did not contribute to the emergence of romantic movements. The unfading of romantic traditions up to the present day is explained primarily by the nature of nonconformism inherent in the very philosophical basis of the romantic worldview, the affirmation of the idea of progress in the romantic striving for the ideal, the denial of the static state of being, and the fundamental affirmation of the search for the new.
Basic patterns of the literary process after 1830
By the beginning of the 1930s, the balance of forces in the literary development of European countries had changed noticeably. By the end of the 18th century. France is losing its role as the former legislator of aesthetic norms and tastes in art and literature. Germany takes first place, with which England successfully competes at other points. One way or another, all European literature of that time is full of responses to the aesthetic theories and literary activities of the early German romantics. By the end of the 20s, when romanticism became the turned page of German literature, when with the death of Hoffmann his literary fame temporarily faded away, when Heine found himself at a literary crossroads, moreover, forced to leave his homeland, German literature faded into the background for a long time and firmly. , and inside her the process of an acute and active anti-romantic reaction begins. In France at this time, on the contrary, the romantic movement, although quite significant in its origins, but scattered and not formalized organizationally, was consolidating forces in the 20s, becoming a “school”, developing its own aesthetic program, putting forward new names of the largest poets and writers - Lamartine, Vigny, Hugo. At the same time, in close connection with the powerful romantic movement and parallel to it, in the fight against a common literary enemy - Epigonian classicism, a new literary direction is emerging and growing - the direction of critical realism, represented by the early work of Stendhal, Balzac, Mérimée. This new young literary France, which J. Sand and then Flaubert are about to join, is quickly regaining its former authority for its national literature.
True, with all the greatness of its literature revived since the 30s, France no longer dictates literary norms and fashions to Europe, as before. And at the same time, in terms of the diversity of creative individuals, literary and aesthetic schools, and sometimes also in the depth of artistic insights and theoretical positions, French literature of that time plays the role of a leader in the Central European region. And, perhaps, the main factors that determined such a powerful flowering of French literature from the beginning of the 30s were the deep organic connection of its emerging realistic aesthetics with the artistic practice of romanticism, as well as the fact that the significant and bright late stage of French romanticism (J. Sand and mature Hugo mainly) falls on the heyday of critical realism. This last circumstance could not but lead to mutual fruitful, both direct and indirect contacts between writers of both directions.
In other European countries, due to the national identity of each individual literature, the process of replacing romanticism with critical realism took place in various chronological framework, and yet the turn of the early 30s defined itself to a greater or lesser extent in almost every national literature.
The literature of England of that time, among other major national literatures of Europe, in its general development goes from romanticism to critical realism. After the Lake School, Byron and Shelley, the social life of England by the beginning of the 30s put forward Dickens and almost simultaneously with him Thackeray, writers who, in terms of the scale of their work and the degree of talent, stood next to their greatest contemporaries in European literature on the other side of the English Channel .
The work of the romantics everywhere is sometimes subjected to very harsh and, from the point of view of the specific historical significance of romanticism, unfair criticism. At the same time, again in the specific historical context of the process of the general progressive development of art, this denial of romanticism was inevitable and fruitful. That is precisely why it could happen that, for example, such an outstanding artist, a deeply erudite and educated person like Thackeray, “did not understand” either Walter Scott, or the poets of the Lake School, or Byron. The situation in Germany is even more paradoxical in this sense, where among the most significant overthrowers of romanticism were such major authorities as Hegel, Büchner, as well as Heine, early work which wrote one of the brightest pages in the history of romanticism. This “undressed romantic,” as T. Gautier very aptly called him, in his brilliant literary-critical pamphlet “The Romantic School” (1833-1836) also “did not understand the significance of the work of his Jena predecessors. In France, this aesthetic confrontation received a somewhat muted expression, and it emerged much later than in England and Germany - romanticism retained its aesthetic significance here for at least the next two decades after 1830.
In general, this noticeable and significant change in the spiritual life of Europe, reflected not only in literature and art, was associated with the development of a new stage of the bourgeois-capitalist structure. The needs of a rapidly developing industry required accurate knowledge of the material world and, accordingly, the development of natural sciences. The intense philosophical and aesthetic quests of the romantics and their theoretical abstractions could in no way contribute to the fulfillment of these tasks. The spirit of the new ideological atmosphere is now beginning to be determined by the philosophy of positivism, the philosophy of “positive knowledge,” as they said then. The concepts of positivism by no means exhausted the philosophical basis of critical realism. Moreover, the range of their influence on the aesthetic system of representatives of this literary movement was different, because both in philosophical terms and in terms of general worldview, most critical realists, sometimes, despite their own theoretical declarations, remained under the fruitful influence of romantic concepts. So, for example, in the chain Dickens - Thackeray - Stendhal - Balzac - Flaubert, we can easily discern the varying degrees of influence of positivism on these writers. At the same time, it should be emphasized that positivism was the common source of the philosophical basis of both critical realism and the naturalism that took over the aesthetic baton from it. Moreover, naturalists, in essence, having completely lost touch with romanticism, completely rely on the philosophical system of positivism. This junction between the positivism of critical realists and the positivism of naturalists is especially clearly defined when comparing the aesthetic system of Flaubert, on the one hand, Chanfleury and Duranty (who stood closer to naturalism than to realism) on the other, and even later Maupassant and Zola, although it is quite obvious that both of the latter in their work both overcame and refuted many normative and dogmatic aspects of the aesthetics of naturalism.
Ultimately, all these noticeable shifts in the literary process - the replacement of romanticism with critical realism, or at least the promotion of critical realism to the role of a direction representing the main line of literature - were determined by the entry of bourgeois-capitalist Europe into a new phase of its development.
The most important new moment” that now characterizes the alignment of class forces was the emergence of the working class into an independent arena of socio-political struggle, the liberation of the proletariat from the organizational and ideological tutelage of the left wing of the bourgeoisie.
The July Revolution, which overthrew Charles X, the last king of the elder branch of the Bourbons, from the throne, put an end to the regime. The Restoration broke the dominance of the Holy Alliance in Europe and had a significant impact on the political climate of Europe (revolution in Belgium, uprising in Poland).
The formation of critical realism in England chronologically almost exactly coincides with that acute turning point in the socio-political life of the country, which was determined by the parliamentary reform of 1832 and the beginning of the Chartist movement. In the early 30s, Thackeray entered literature; in 1833, he began work on “Essays by Bose,” his first work; Dickens was the largest representative of critical realism in England.
Similar processes, but with their own national characteristics, occurred at that time in France. It was in the 20s that Balzac, Mérimée, and somewhat earlier Stendhal entered literature. At the turn of the 20-30s, Balzac and Stendhal created their first significant works - the novels “Chuans” and “Red and Black” and in the coming years they became leading representatives of European critical realism.
At the same time, French romanticism underwent significant changes in its fruitful progressive development. In Hugo's early lyrics and his first attempts at prose, the formation of a romantic perception of reality in confrontation with classicist traditions was noted. It was at this time that Hugo firmly established himself in the principles of romanticism, choosing for a whole decade the main path of his work to be a romantic drama with a sharp social resonance, simultaneously creating one of the masterpieces of all romantic prose - the novel “The Cathedral” Notre Dame of Paris" New paths are taking shape creative development Lamartine and Vigny are wonderful poets who, already in the 20s, made perhaps the greatest contribution to romantic lyrics (as for Vigny, also to the development of romantic theory). Finally, it was from the beginning of the 30s that the romantic tradition of chamber-psychological prose, brilliantly developed by the early French romantics, was transformed and enriched by the social-romantic novel of J. Sand. New motives, new ideological and aesthetic trends begin to sound in the work of Beranger, whose songs, sharply satirical and at the same time imbued with life-affirming democracy, brought him world fame already during the years of the Restoration.
The nature of the regime of the July Monarchy, its socio-political contradictions become the main object of artistic understanding of reality in French literature of the 30s and 40s. For realists, this understanding takes on a deeply analytical character, as evidenced by Stendhal’s novel “Lucien Leuven” and many masterpieces of Balzac’s “Human Comedy”. French critical realism (primarily in the work of Balzac), in the process of artistic and aesthetic analysis of the social essence of the regime of the July Monarchy, relying on the achievements of the romantics, comes to a new understanding of historicism and new principles of typification. This was theoretically justified by Balzac. Through the prism of romantic historicism, reality was presented either as an aesthetic utopia (as in the early German romantics), or as a conscientiously executed reconstruction of the color of a place and time, the realities of life, furnishings, clothing, customs (as in the drama, poetry and early prose of Hugo, the poetry of the early Vigny, partly in his novel Saint-Mars). New qualities of historicism are already emerging in historical novel V. Scott, where the coloring of place and time - an external detail with all its enormous significance for the creative style of the writer - no longer plays a self-sufficient role. The novelist sees his main task in the artistic representation and understanding of acute turning points in national history. And perhaps no other European literature of the first half of the last century, like French, was so closely connected with the name of W. Scott. The 20s - early 30s in the literary life of France are full of echoes of his work. This was the time when, along with the new stage of romanticism, critical realism took its first victorious steps. “Our father, Walter Scott,” Balzac called the great novelist. Indeed, it is not difficult to notice that the author of “The Chouans” took lessons from the “Scottish sorcerer.” But this was not the apprenticeship of an epigone or even a follower. The new admirer of the Scottish novelist, treating his teacher with deep reverence, took in much of his experience, but, while establishing a new direction in literature, he interpreted the principles of historicism differently. In his grandiose work, “The Human Comedy,” Balzac sets the task of showing the history of the morals of modern France, that is, he actualizes the concept of historicism. To understand the essence of the bourgeois structure of the modern monarchy of bankers in France, Balzac quite naturally connects its emergence with the origins of the power of the bourgeoisie, which it received as a result of the revolution of the late 18th century. In his numerous stories and novels, which form a single whole, Balzac consistently traces the dirty, criminal, and sometimes bloody stories of the enrichment of the bourgeoisie who rule modern France.
Stendhal is also historically relevant in his novels. The most pressing modernity in “Red and Black”, “Lucien Leuven” in a different manner than in Balzac, but perhaps even more organically linked with the previous stages of the development of post-revolutionary France.
This principle of historicism is preserved in a new sound by Flaubert, a large-scale figure in the European literary process. Flaubert's work is marked by a deep dramatism of social and aesthetic consciousness, generated by negative consequences defeat of the revolution of 1848-1849.
The third major European country - Germany - and by the 1930s, while continuing to remain fragmented, lagged significantly behind in its economic development not only from England, but also from France. Nevertheless, it is also characterized by the patterns noted above. And in Germany in the early 1930s, noticeable social changes were taking place for the country. The most significant manifestation of the opposition movement of the 30s in Germany was the activity of the secret “Society for Human Rights”, one of the leaders of which was Georg Büchner, and the uprising of Hessian peasants associated with the activities of this society.
In the 40s, Germany's role in the class struggle of the progressive forces of Europe noticeably increased. Evidence of this was the powerful uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844. The center of the revolutionary movement was moving to Germany, which only now, in conditions of exacerbated class contradictions, approached its bourgeois revolution.
New successes in German literature, partly related to the further development of realistic trends, were a response to the events of the 40s (the so-called pre-March literature) and to the March Revolution of 1848 and were expressed in the works of Weerth, Herwegh and Freiligrath. A notable phenomenon in the development of German realism was the drama of the outstanding playwright F. Hebbel “Mary Magdalene” (1844), but his further work, if it can be correlated with realism, is only with its peripheral abstract-allegorical modifications. And although in German literature before the heyday of the work of the Mann brothers, individual phenomena of realism arose, however, neither the works of W. Raabe, A. Stifter or the highly gifted short story writer T. Storm (a peculiar type of lyrical-psychological realism, very close to romanticism) give reason to talk about the direction of critical realism, somewhat close in scale and artistic and aesthetic quality to the realism of England and France of the same decades.
Marx and Engels played a significant role in the development of progressive literature in the 1940s. Brilliant literary critical articles by Engels, who tried his hand at literature, his deeply analytical judgments about the modern world literary process, joint works of Marx and Engels, which examine certain problems of literature, and finally, personal contacts of the founders of scientific communism with writers, for example with Heine, taken together, represent an important page “in German and all world literature.
No matter how significant the national characteristics of the literary process in Germany may be, they still do not contradict the fact that with the beginning of the 30s, a tangible turning point occurred in literature, as well as in public life. This turning point, the main sign of which was the beginning of the formation and development of critical realism, dominating in the literature of England, France, and somewhat later in the literature of Russia, determines the face of the literary process.
Completely different patterns of socio-political life are characteristic of the United States, where, along with the industrialized northern states that have a relatively liberal social system, there are slave-owning southern states.
If in European literatures, English and French first of all, the realistic direction begins to be clearly defined from the beginning of the 30s, in other cases significantly pushing aside romanticism as a literary movement, then in US literature at this time romanticism reaches its heyday, defining the general line of development of literary process. In 1824, the outstanding romantic, poet and short story writer E. Poe entered literature, whose fame went far beyond the United States and the influence of his work became noticeable in European short stories. The middle of the century, the 60s, was called the period of the “American Renaissance,” which is associated with the greatest achievements of romantic literature (N. Hawthorne, G. Melville, G. D. Thoreau, W. Whitman, G. W. Longfellow). The ideas of subjective-romantic philosophy underlay the transcendentalist movement (30-40s).
At the same time, in the 50s, social intonations noticeably increased in US literature. They, for example, are especially noticeable in the philosophical and lyrical prose of the romantic Thoreau, in his journalism. In the 40s, the origins of critical realism were formed in the works of a number of writers, which became the leading method of abolitionist literature during the Civil War (1861 -1865). In line with this literature, H. Beecher Stowe published his widely famous novel “Uncle Tom's Cabin” (1852). The work of another classic of US literature, W. Whitman, is associated with the ideas of abolitionism, in whose collection “Leaves of Grass” one can trace the development of romanticism towards a more objective reflection of reality with its social contradictions. Whitman's work is an organic combination of a romantic vision of reality with the principles of critical realism. However, only by the end of the century in the works of M. Twain, W. D. Howells, G. James, he will begin to determine the face of the US literary process.
The European revolutions of 1848-1849, which covered almost all countries of the continent, became the most important milestone in the socio-political process of the 19th century. The events of the late 40s marked the final demarcation of the class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. In addition to direct responses to the revolutions of the mid-century in the work of a number of revolutionary poets, the general ideological atmosphere after the defeat of the revolution was reflected in the further development of critical realism (Dickens, Thackeray, Flaubert, Heine), and on a number of other phenomena, in particular the formation of naturalism in European literatures .
The features of naturalistic aesthetics were especially evident in the works of the French writers Edmond and Jules Goncourt. It is noteworthy that both Chanfleury and Duranty, who considered themselves realists and true successors of Balzac, were essentially also naturalists in their aesthetics and creative practice. The talented English writer George Eliot also professed the aesthetic principles of naturalism at an early stage of her career. Excellent psychological skill and keen observation give her the opportunity to create bright, expressive characters, some of which carry features of social typification, thereby expressing, contrary to the writer’s original theoretical platform, her attitude to the depicted reality. However, it is easy to notice that in the novels of D. Eliot there is neither the breadth of historical scope nor the depth of social generalizations inherent in the works of Dickens and Thackeray. Approximately the same thing can be said in general terms about another English realist of this period - E. Trollope.
The literary process of the second half of the century, despite all the complicating circumstances of the post-revolutionary period, is enriched with new achievements. The positions of critical realism in Slavic countries are being consolidated. They start their creative activity such great realists as Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Critical realism is formed in the literature of Belgium, Holland, Hungary, and Romania.
The national liberation struggle against the Turkish enslavers that unfolded in Bulgaria brought to life new forces in literature, which in the middle of the century was experiencing an “era of renaissance”, the civil revolutionary liberation pathos of which was so clearly heard in the journalism and poetry of Hristo Botev.
The national liberation movement, against the backdrop of a new phase of social contradictions, played a decisive role in the bright period into which the literature of the northern peoples entered after 1848. This sharp change in both young Finnish literature and the literature of the Scandinavian countries was associated with unresolved conflicts in 1848 - the aggravation of relations between the Danish-German population of Schleswig-Holstein and Prussia, between the Swedish government and the Norwegian public, the influence of the revolutionary situation in Russia on public life in Finland, where national identity grew stronger. Under the influence of these factors, romantic principles are increasingly receding into the background and realistic art begins to play a leading role.
Critical realism. Essence of the method
The focus of the literature of critical realism is the analysis, through the means of artistic worldview, of the class structure, social essence, and socio-political contradictions of the contemporary social system - capitalist relations. Therefore, the main thing in the specifics of this literary movement and creative method is the artistic understanding of reality as a social factor, and, consequently, the disclosure of the social determinism of the depicted events and characters. When we are talking about the realism of ancient literature, the realism of the Renaissance, the concept of realism here can be interpreted only in the broadest sense of this term.. In relation to the literature of the 19th century. Only a work that reflects the essence of a given socio-historical phenomenon should be considered realistic, when the characters of the work bear the typical, collective features of a particular social stratum or class, and the conditions in which they act are not an accidental figment of the writer’s imagination, but a reflection of the patterns of socio-economic and political life of the era.
The characteristics of critical realism were first formulated by Engels in April 1888 in a letter to the English writer Margaret Harkness in connection with her novel “The City Girl.” Expressing a number of friendly wishes regarding this work, Engels calls on his correspondent to a truthful, realistic portrayal of life. Engels' judgments contain the fundamental principles of the theory of realism and still retain their scientific relevance.
“In my opinion,” says Engels in a letter to the writer, “realism presupposes, in addition to the truthfulness of details, truthfulness in the reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances.”* Meaning by typical characters, first of all, those in which the main social types of the era are expressed, from the countless number of characters in The Human Comedy, Engels selects the characters of representatives of the rising bourgeoisie, which increasingly intensified its pressure on the noble aristocracy, and the characters of the aristocrats. As the most important feature of the worldview Balzac, Engels notes that he idealized the aristocrats dear to his heart, contrasting them with the bourgeois “vulgar upstart.” But Engels sees the strength of Balzac’s realism, the truthfulness of his socio-historical analysis in the fact that Balzac’s satire becomes especially sharp, the irony especially bitter when the writer. describes precisely these aristocrats and aristocrats dear to him. The fact that Balzac showed them as representatives of a class leaving the historical arena, irretrievably losing its former power, was their typicality.
[* Marx K., Engels F. Selected letters. M., 1948. P. 405.]
And Engels considers the greatest merit of the realist Balzac to be that the writer saw the true people of the future not in the victorious bourgeoisie, but in the Republicans of Saint-Merri - where they really were at that time. Thus, identifying the main direction of social conflicts between the nobility, the bourgeoisie and people's revolutionary democracy, the author of The Human Comedy presented contemporary bourgeois-aristocratic France in the dynamics of historical development. The closest historical act of this process was the revolution of 1848, in which the French working class continued the work of the heroes of Saint-Merri, glorified by Balzac.
Typification in art was not a discovery of critical realism. The art of any era, on the basis of the aesthetic norms of its time in the appropriate artistic forms, was given the opportunity to reflect the characteristic or, as they began to say, typical features of modernity inherent in the characters of works of art, in the conditions in which these characters acted.
Typification among critical realists represents a higher degree of this principle of artistic knowledge and reflection of reality than among their predecessors. It is expressed in the combination and organic relationship of typical characters and typical circumstances. In the rich arsenal of means of realistic typification, psychologism, that is, the disclosure of a complex spiritual world - the world of thoughts and feelings of a character, by no means occupies the last place. But the spiritual world of the heroes of critical realists is socially determined. This principle of character construction determined a deeper degree of historicism among critical realists compared to the romantics. However, the characters of the critical realists were least likely to resemble sociological schemes. It is not so much the external detail in the description of the character - a portrait, a costume, but rather his psychological appearance (Stendhal was an unsurpassed master here) that recreates a deeply individualized image.
This is exactly how Balzac built his doctrine of artistic typification, arguing that along with the main features inherent in many people representing this or that class, this or that social stratum, the artist embodies the unique individual traits of a particular individual, both in his external appearance, in his individualized speech portrait, features of clothing, gait, manners, gestures, as well as in the inner, spiritual appearance.
Realists of the 19th century when creating artistic images, they showed the hero in development, depicted the evolution of character, which was determined by the complex interaction of the individual and society. In this they differed sharply from the enlighteners and romantics. Perhaps the first and very striking example of this was Stendhal’s novel “The Red and the Black,” where the deep dynamics of the character of Julien Sorel, the main character of this work, are revealed through the stages of his biography.
The art of critical realism set as its task an objective artistic reproduction of reality. The realist writer based his artistic discoveries on a deep scientific study of the facts and phenomena of life. Therefore, the works of critical realists are a rich source of information about the era they describe. For example, Stendhal's novel "Lucien Leuven" gives an idea of the social structure of the first years of the July Monarchy in France in many ways more accurate and vivid than special scientific works about this period.
This side of critical realism was also noted by the founders of Marxism. For Engels, Balzac’s “Human Comedy” was important not only as a highly artistic work; he valued it no less as a huge work of an educational nature.
Marx also speaks of the same cognitive significance of the literature of critical realism in his characterization of the English realistic novel of the 19th century.
Aesthetic origins of critical realism
Each literary movement and creative method is brought to life by not only socio-political prerequisites, for all their importance, but also aesthetic ones. They develop both in individual literary phenomena of the past and in entire literary movements. In essence, throughout the entire world literary process, the process of progressive development and formation of realism can be quite clearly and consistently traced. In this process, a special place belongs to the titans of the Renaissance Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare and others. Their experience undoubtedly affected the work of every significant realist artist, regardless of whether he directly turned to this experience or not. To the writers of critical realism, the experience of Renaissance artists came partly through its interpretation by the romantics, among whom the Germans, especially the early ones, were active adherents and propagandists of the Renaissance. An equally significant component of the aesthetic origins of critical realism was the realistic literature of the Enlightenment; in particular, the importance of the English novel of the 18th century should be especially emphasized here. Critical realists adopted the anti-feudal, and more broadly, the social-critical tendency of Enlightenment realism, its subtle psychological skill (Laurence Stern).
From the Enlightenment, critical realists adopted faith in the cognitive power of the human mind. What brings critical realists closer to the realists of the Enlightenment is the affirmation of the educational, civic mission of art. Dickens, for example, was characterized by a clear exaggeration of this role artistic creativity, by whose forces (and only by them) he believed it was possible to eradicate social evil. This conviction led him to severe disappointments at the end of his creative path.
Far from denying this mission of art, the French critical realists assigned it a much more real and important role. Like the Enlightenment realists, typological artistic principle Critical realists began to depict reality in the forms of reality itself. The organic impact of the artistic and aesthetic experience of the Enlightenment on the future fate of realistic literature can be very clearly seen in connection with Goethe’s novels about Wilhelm Meister (“The Years of Wilhelm Meister’s Study” and “The Years of Wilhelm Meister’s Wanderings”), which are one of the first experiments in the novel of education. All subsequent development of the novel in German literature up to the present day, to one degree or another, transforms this model of Goethe’s novel.
Even more direct and profound are the connections between critical realism and romanticism (not only chronologically, but also from the point of view of the essence of the creative method), which prepared the formation of critical realism. These organic contacts are characteristic both of the creative evolution of individual writers (Heine, Byron, Shelley, Balzac, Flaubert, partly Hugo, J. Sand), and in general typological terms.
The socio-political issues that become dominant in the work of critical realists, in their ideological and aesthetic genesis and development from educational realism (if we take the aesthetic category closest to realism of the 19th century), were by no means interrupted in romanticism, although, as a rule, they played has a peripheral role in it.
Based on the fruitful experience of the romantics in revealing the inner world of characters and the psychology of the characters, critical realist writers deepened the possibilities of character typification. Unlike sentimentalists and romantics, psychologism as one of the means of typification among critical realists does not have a self-sufficient meaning and is associated with the disclosure of general social content of a particular nature. The psychologism of the romantics was adopted and revived again in the work of the critical realists. This connection can be seen especially clearly in the literary process of France.
Let us remember that one of the most important theses of romantic aesthetics, especially clearly formulated by Hugo in his preface to the drama “Cromwell,” was the requirement for local and historical coloring, that is, a thorough description of the situation of the era in which the action takes place work of art, specific historical, and often everyday realities of the era. The novels of W. Scott and the novel “Notre Dame de Paris” by Hugo are distinguished by the mastery of such descriptions. In developing this side of my artistic system the romantics prepared and fertilized the creative practice of the critical realists. In this regard, it is enough to recall most of Balzac’s novels and stories, noted for their brilliant skill of description.
The romantic theory of contrasts, proclaimed and consistently embodied by Hugo, largely preceded the reflection of the dialectical contradictions of reality in the work of critical realists.
One of the leading themes in the work of critical realists is the theme of lost illusions. It is typical for all European literature XIX century, and its emergence was associated with the ideological consequences of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.
The creative evolution of some romantics, as if reproducing the general evolution of romanticism, is marked by an increasing appeal to the depiction of concrete reality, a weakening of the subjective principle, and a departure from normative abstractions and allegories. This is, for example, the evolution of Byron, Shelley, Heine. In varying degrees of expression, we are dealing here with the maturation of realistic tendencies in the depths of romanticism.
On the other hand, many significant representatives of critical realism also experienced a significant and fruitful influence of romanticism. Deeply connected with the artistic consciousness of romanticism was Dickens, whose entire work was colored by a romantic-utopian dream of the inevitable triumph of goodness, of universal love and brotherhood. Stendhal, who also learned the lessons of the Romantics, was especially close to them in his creative manner. This was reflected not only in his deep and masterful psychologism, but also in the very ideological and aesthetic structure of his novels, in the center of which is always main character, opposed to reality and rising above it.
The nature of the perception of the romantic tradition is also characteristic of some, especially the early, works of Merimee and Balzac.
Critical realism as a literary movement contains not only a critical principle (as this might perhaps be imagined in connection with this term itself). For most realists, a high positive ideal, a positive beginning were no less important than a socially critical orientation. Severe denouncers of their contemporary social system, they contrasted it with the dream of a just social system, although the dream was utopian; the exposed social evil was contrasted with a high moral and ethical ideal. And perhaps one of the most convincing evidence of this is the extensive gallery of bright positive heroes in the works of critical realists. It should be emphasized that most of these positive heroes belonged to the lower social classes of society. It was in representatives of the popular masses that critical realists sought and saw the true embodiment of their moral and ethical ideals.
In this regard, special mention should be made of the meaning of the term “critical realism.” It is very imperfect, since it obviously interprets the phenomena of the literary process it defines as aimed only at revealing the negative phenomena of reality. This initial thesis is deeply erroneous, not only because it enters into complete contradiction with the facts of the literary process itself, but also because every true art cannot exist and develop outside of positive ideals.
The traditions of realism of the 19th century are of primary importance. for the literature of our century. Although the paths taken by modern literature are different, the leading line of its development is associated with the perception and rethinking of the principles of realism in art of the 19th century V.