Russian artistic culture achieved great success in the first half of the 19th century. It was at this time that Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Griboyedov, Zhukovsky, Krylov were creating. This rapid flowering of artistic culture was associated with the rise of national self-awareness in the advanced circles of Russian society during the Patriotic War of 1812. The struggle for the liberation of the homeland from foreign intervention, which caused a wave of high patriotic feelings, could not but affect the phenomena of Russian art.
The advanced Russian ideology of that time took shape under the direct influence of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the noble revolutionary movement, which took shape in the Decembrist program.
Patriotic War raised the people's self-awareness, sense of patriotism and national pride unusually high. Folk character wars and patriotic deeds of ordinary Russian people for a long time attracted the attention of the progressive public of Russia and caused a kind of revaluation of aesthetic values: folk images and national subjects occupied an extremely important place in Russian art significant place, incommensurable with that cameo role, which they played in the works of most masters of the 18th century. The appeal to the people injected new strength into Russian artistic culture. Advanced creative directions relied on the range of ideas put forward by noble revolutionary thought.
Criticism of the time pointed to the “powerful direction of modern genius towards the people” in all areas of art. “Nationalism” became the central problem of advanced Russian culture in the twenties and thirties of the last century. Even reactionary publicists tried to use the concept of nationality, including it in the official formula of government policy (“Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality”). In contrast to the official interpretation of nationality in advanced artistic circles, a completely different understanding of it developed, formulated by one of the progressive art theorists in the early thirties: “By nationality I mean that patriotic animation of the fine arts, which, feeding on native impressions and memories, reflects in its works the native blessed heaven, native holy land, native precious traditions, native customs and morals, native life, native glory, native greatness.”
The first half of the 19th century was a bright page in Russian culture. All directions - literature, architecture, painting of this era are marked by a whole constellation of names that brought Russian art world fame. In the 18th century, the style of classicism dominated Russian painting. Classicism played a significant role in early XIX century. However, by the 1830s, this direction was gradually losing its social significance, and was increasingly turning into a system of formal canons and traditions. Such traditional painting becomes a cold, official art, supported and controlled by the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. Subsequently concept of "academicism" began to be used to denote inert art, divorced from life.
He brought novelty of views to Russian art romanticism- a European movement that developed at the turn of the 18th - 19th centuries. One of the main postulates of romanticism, opposite to classicism, is affirmation of a person’s personality, his thoughts and worldview as the main value in art. Securing a person’s right to personal independence gave rise to a special interest in his inner world, and at the same time presupposed the artist’s freedom of creativity. In Russia, romanticism acquired its own peculiarity: at the beginning of the century it had heroic coloring, and during the years of the Nikolaev reaction - tragic. At the same time, romanticism in Russia has always been a form of artistic thinking, close in spirit to revolutionary and freedom-loving sentiments.
Having as its peculiarity the knowledge of a specific person, romanticism became the basis for the subsequent emergence and the formation of a realistic direction, established in art in the second half of the 19th century. Characteristic feature realism was an appeal to the theme of modern folk life, the establishment of a new theme in art - the life of peasants. Here, first of all, it is necessary to note the name of the artist A.G. Venetsianova. The most fully realistic discoveries of the first half of the 19th century were reflected in the 1840s in the works of P.A. Fedotova.
Overall cultural life during this period was ambiguous and diverse: some prevailing trends in art were replaced by others. Therefore, researchers, when examining the art of the first half of the 19th century in more detail, usually divide it into two periods - the first and second quarters of the century. However, it is worth noting that this division is conditional. In addition, talking about classicism, romanticism and realism in pure form during this period it is not necessary: their differentiation, both chronologically and by characteristics, is not absolute.
Painting in the first half of the 19th century acquired much greater importance in the life of society than it did in the 18th century. The development of national self-awareness, caused by the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, raised people's interest in national culture and history, in domestic talents. As a result, during the first quarter of the century, public organizations arose for the first time, the main task of which was the development of the arts. Among these organizations were such as Free Society lovers of literature, science and the arts, Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Special magazines appeared, and the first attempts were made to collect and display Russian art. Thus, the small private “Russian Museum” of P. Svinin became famous in educated circles, and the Russian Gallery was created at the Imperial Hermitage in 1825. Since the beginning of the century, the practice of the Academy of Arts has included periodic exhibitions, which attracted many visitors. At the same time, a great achievement was admission to these exhibitions by certain days common people, which nevertheless caused objections from some magazine critics.
Outstanding achievements in Russian art of the early 19th century are characterized by portraiture. Throughout the century, the Russian portrait will be the genre of painting that most directly connected artists with society, with outstanding contemporaries. After all, as you know, large number Artists received orders from individuals specifically for portraits.
OREST KIPRENSKY (1782-1836)
Orest Kiprensky, one of the greatest painters of the first half of the 19th century - Self-portrait (1). The art of this artist, like any great master, is heterogeneous. In his creative aspirations, Kiprensky is subject to influenced by both romanticism and classicism. The works of an artist even from the same period are often dissimilar. Kiprensky's best paintings highlight a romantic understanding of the human personality. In his works the artist endows a person with spiritual qualities- intelligence, nobility, character, ability to think and feel. That is why in his portraits Kiprensky mainly portrayed or prominent contemporaries– among his works are portraits of Pushkin, Batyushkov, Zhukovsky, heroes of the Patriotic War of 1812, or your close friends. The gallery of portraits created by him is the pride of Russian fine art. Immediately after graduating from the Academy of Arts Kiprensky devoted entirely to portraiture. One of the best works of the then young artist was portrait of Davydov (2). Kiprensky created the image of a Russian officer characteristic of the era - a participant in the struggle for the independence of his homeland. Kiprensky's high artistic skill was revealed in the emotional elation of the portrait and its richness of colors. In other portrait works and in a whole series of pencil drawings, the artist captured images of war participants, officers, and militias with whom he was personally well acquainted. In all of Kiprensky’s portraiture, along with the features of romantic elation, one can clearly see the desire for a realistic disclosure of human psychology. Of exceptional interest is portrait of A. S. Pushkin (3), truthfully capturing the image of the great poet for future generations. The importance of Kiprensky, a subtle draftsman and colorist, in Russian art of the first half of the 19th century is enormous.
Contemporaries compared his works with the genres of lyrical poetry, poetic dedication to friends, which was well common in Pushkin’s time. Kiprensky's portraits are always endowed with deep thoughtfulness; they seem to peer into the world. Kiprensky in many ways discovered new possibilities for himself in painting. Each of his portraits is distinguished by a new pictorial structure, well-chosen light and shadow, varied contrast - “Neapolitan girl with fruits” (4), “Gypsy with a branch of myrtle” (5), “Girl in a poppy wreath with a carnation in her hand (Mariuccia)” (6), “Young gardener” (7), “Portrait of E.P. . Rostopchina" (8). Truthfully conveying the individual features of his models, K. managed to embody great social content in his best portraits, to show the human dignity and depth of spiritual culture of the people depicted: behind their external calm, living human feelings are always felt.
The Nikolaev reaction that followed the defeat of the Decembrists forced the artist to leave again in 1828 for Italy, where he died.
VASILY TROPININ (1776-1857) –(9)
A significant phenomenon in the history of Russian painting was the work of V. Tropinin, a remarkable realist artist, a significant part of my life former serf.
Vasily Andreevich Tropinin was even somewhat older than Kiprensky, but unfavorable circumstances delayed the development of his talent for a long time.
In those years when Kiprensky created the portrait of Davydov, marking the pinnacle of Russian romantic painting, Tropinin was still an unknown serf artist on the Ukrainian estate of Count Morkov and combined the duties of a pastry chef and senior footman with painting. Due to the whim of the landowner, he was unable to complete his education at the Academy of Arts. Tropinin's youth was spent self-taught, despite obstacles, mastering technical skills and achieving professional excellence. In his studies, he chose the path that self-taught artists of his time usually followed: he worked hard and a lot from life and copied paintings in private art collections, to which he had access thanks to the connections of his landowner. He studied painting techniques not in an academic workshop, but from his own experience and from the works of old masters, and life in Ukraine, as the artist himself later said, replaced his trip to Italy.
This system of self-education, with all its shortcomings, could still have some positive aspects for an artist with great and original talent. Freedom from routine academic teaching partly helped Tropinin maintain intact the purity and originality of his artistic perceptions. Lively communication with nature and knowledge of folk life, supported by constant work from life, contributed to the development of realistic tendencies inherent in Tropinin’s talent. But in his younger years, forcibly separated from the artistic environment, he was not yet at the level of the advanced tasks of the art of his time. Tropinin's work, even at the end of the 1810s, was closer in style not to the works of his peers, but to the art of the 18th century.
The long-awaited freedom from serfdom came only in 1823, when Tropinin was already forty-seven years old; The flowering of his talent dates back to this time. It was during this period that his own, independent artistic system arose, which uniquely reworked the legacy of classicism and painting techniques of the 18th century, and the one created by Tropinin finally took shape. genre of intimate everyday portrait. Experts call Tropinin’s portraits the “antipode” of Kiprensky’s portraits, since his paintings show a free, uninhibited, “homely” person.
“A portrait of a person is painted for the memory of people close to him, people who love him,” Tropinin himself said; This somewhat naive statement contains, in essence, a whole program that characterizes Tropinin’s tasks and his attitude to reality. In Tropinin's portraits it is conveyed intimate, “homely” appearance of the people of his era; Tropinin’s characters do not “pose” in front of the artist and the viewer, but are captured as they were in private life, around the family hearth.
Tropinin turned to genre motifs, dedicating depiction of a simple working person a number of works. In his works, he pays great attention to the study of nature - all his portraits truthfully reproduce the life around the artist, there is nothing deliberate or contrived in them - “Girl with a Doll” (10), “Old Coachman Leaning on a Whip” (11), “Lacemaker” (12).
His softly painted portraits are distinguished by high pictorial merits and ease of perception, human images are perceived as characteristic truthfulness and calmness without much inner excitement .
Some of these works, despite their quite obvious realistic character, have features of sentimentalism - “Girl with a pot of roses” (13), “Woman in the window. (Treasurer)” (14).
At the end of 1826, S. A. Sobolevsky, a close friend of Pushkin, approached Tropinin with a proposal to paint a portrait of the poet. The attributes of “homeliness” - a robe, an unbuttoned shirt collar, disheveled hair - are perceived not as evidence of the intimate ease of the poser, but rather as a sign of that “poetic disorder” with which romantic art so often associated the idea of inspiration “Portrait of Pushkin” (15). In its figurative structure, the portrait of Pushkin echoes the works of contemporary romantic painting by Tropinin, but at the same time Tropinin managed to create a romantic image without sacrificing the realistic accuracy and truthfulness of the image. Pushkin is depicted sitting, in a natural and relaxed pose. The face, shaded by the whiteness of the shirt lapel, is the most intense colorful spot in the picture and is also its compositional center. The artist did not seek to “embellish” Pushkin’s face and soften the irregularity of his features; but, conscientiously following nature, he managed to recreate and capture it high spirituality. Contemporaries unanimously recognized the impeccable resemblance to Pushkin in Tropinin’s portrait. Compared to famous portrait Pushkin's portrait by Kiprensky Tropinsky seems more modest and, perhaps, intimate, but is not inferior to it either in expressiveness or in pictorial power.
In the first quarter of the XIX centuries, important processes are taking place in the region LANDSCAPE PAINTING. If the landscapes of artists of previous times were largely conventional and deliberately constructed, and, as a rule, they were painted in the studio, without nature or had very little to do with it, now landscape painters bring much more into their work life truth, keen observation and emotional beginning. The most significant place here belongs, of course, to Sylvester Shchedrin.
SYLVESTER SHCHEDRIN (1791- 1830)
Master of Russian landscape romanticism and lyrical interpretation of nature. The work of Sylvester Feodosievich Shchedrin marked the boundary between old and new in the history of Russian landscape. The artist brought to perfection what his predecessors had strived for and laid the foundation for a new realistic development of Russian landscape painting. His works clearly show a persistent work from life. He was the first Russian painter to turn to plein air work. All his landscapes accurately convey the character of nature. Shchedrin also introduces humans into his landscapes, however, no longer in the form of faceless figures for scale, as was the case before, but living people who are truly connected with nature. In his best works, he successfully overcame the conventional, “museum” flavor and truthfully conveyed the natural state of nature- nuances of sunlight, light blue haze in the distance, gentle tints of blue sky. He had a subtle lyrical sense of nature.
After graduating from the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, in 1818 arrived in Italy and lived for more than 10 years. He deserved something incredible for those times. popularity among Italians Those who wanted to buy his paintings sometimes had to write many copies of their most successful works, which quickly sold out. His famous works are “New Rome “Castle of the Holy Angel” (17), Mergellina Promenade in Naples (18), Grand Harbor on the island of Capri (19) and others. Having overcome the tradition of the “heroic landscape” and the understanding of nature developed at the Academy of Arts as a reason for historical memories, turning to living, contemporary reality and real nature, Shchedrin at the same time overcame the conventional academic scheme artistic solution to the landscape theme.
Having lived a short but creative life, Shchedrin was never able to return to Russia. Magnificent Italian landscapes reflected all the unique beauty of the nature of this region, which many Russian artists imagined as a paradise - a promised land - “Grotto in Florence” (20), “Italian landscape. Capri" (21), " moonlit night in Naples" (22), "View of Lake Nemi in the vicinity of Rome."
In this small canvas, which belongs to the best creations of Russian landscape painting, the main features of Shchedrin’s new artistic system appear with full clarity. “View of Lake Nemi” is alien to those deliberate effects that constitute the very essence of the academic landscape. In the Shchedrin landscape there are no classical groves, no waterfalls, no majestic ruins; idealization is replaced by a living and truthful recreation of the image of nature. The basis of the new method is not the “composition” of a landscape, but direct and precise observation of nature.
A narrow path, lined with old trees, winds along the shore and leads the viewer's gaze into the depths of the picture. In the foreground there are several figures: two peasant women are talking on the shore, a monk is walking, and a boy driver is leading a donkey behind him. Further on you can see the calm, light waters of the lake; in the depths, covering the horizon, a high mountain covered with forest turns blue. Soft diffused light floods the picture, sun glare falls through the tree branches onto the sandy path, the water glistens silver in the sun, and a transparent airy veil envelops near and distant objects.
Realistic mastery of space is one of Shchedrin’s main achievements in this film. There are no backstage scenes, no object markers marking the depth. Linear perspective gave way to aerial perspective. True, the three traditional plans are still preserved in the picture, but the road going deeper connects them together and makes the space continuous. The artist is no longer satisfied with the truthful reproduction of individual details; he achieves the integrity of the overall impression and the organic unity of all the elements that make up the landscape. Transmission of light and air, unity of lighting, connecting objects and spatial plans, is the main means through which the picture acquires this integrity.
The painting system developed by Shchedrin based on the study of nature in the open air (the so-called plein air painting) opens a new page in the history of landscape. It is not surprising that the innovation of the Russian master was not immediately appreciated and caused protests from the conservative art criticism. It seemed to the ideologists of academic art that Shchedrin “adhered to a slavish imitation of nature, not allowing deviations even in favor of the elegant.” Indeed, the artist consciously abandoned conventional and fictitious effects, which were considered “elegant” in circles close to the Academy of Arts. But, of course, he was very far from passively copying nature. His painting not only captures the real appearance of the shores of Lake Nemi, but also reveals with deep and genuine penetration the poetry of Italian nature, its sunny tranquility and bright, peaceful harmony.
The artist became interested in another motif - a terrace covered with grapes overlooking the sea - “Veranda entwined with grapes” (24).
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV (1780-1847) – (25)
Venetsianov is called founder of Russian genre (everyday) painting. This is not entirely true - he had predecessors back in the 18th century. But it begins with Venetsianov rise of realistic trends in Russian art, accompanied by an appeal to the world of national and folk images and increased interest in modern life.
Venetsianov's creativity is imbued with patriotic and authentic democratic attitude. The era of social upsurge associated with the Patriotic War opened the artist’s eyes to the deep moral qualities of a simple Russian man from the people, to his heroism and human dignity. IN Russian serf peasantry Venetsianov, a humanist artist, was able to discern the features not of a slave, but, on the contrary, of a higher human type.
Wonderful Russian genre painter and portrait painter Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov for the first time in Russian painting combined images of peasants and national nature. Venetsianov - the creator of an entire gallery peasant portraits - “The Sleeping Shepherd” (26).
The painting “The Sleeping Shepherd” occupies a prominent place in this cycle. She is one of Venetsianov's most poetic creations. The artist depicted peasant children with particular warmth and lyrical elation. The purity and harmonious clarity of his artistic thinking perfectly suited the tasks of recreating a child's world. None of the Russian masters of his time achieved such insight, such acute truthfulness and, at the same time, such strength of poetic feeling in the depiction of children's images and childhood experiences. This, however, does not exhaust the content of “The Sleeping Shepherd.” All the main features appear clearly and clearly here. artistic language Venetsianov, the whole structure of his imaginative thinking, all the progressive aspects of his art, but at the same time the historically explainable limitations of his realism. There is no action in The Sleeping Shepherdess. A peasant boy is depicted falling asleep in a field; he sits on the bank of a narrow river, leaning against the trunk of a large old birch tree, and behind him in the background of the picture opens a typical Russian landscape with a rickety hut, rare fir trees and endless fields that stretch to the horizon. But deep emotional content is embedded in this simple plot. Venetsianov’s painting is imbued with a feeling of peace and tranquility, a lyrical love for nature and man.
The main theme of the picture is the harmonious fusion of man with nature, and Venetsianov undoubtedly echoes sentimentalism here XVIII century. In “The Shepherdess” there are no traces of deliberate posing; on the contrary, the entire appearance of the sleeping boy is marked by features of lively and relaxed naturalness. Venetsianov with particular care emphasizes the national Russian type in him and gives his face an expression of genuine touching spiritual purity. Critics sometimes reproached Venetsianov for the somewhat mannered pose of a shepherdess, but this reproach is unfair - it is the pose of the sleeping boy, with its peculiar numbness, which well conveys the state of sleep, that testifies to the artist’s keen observation and the closeness of his images to living nature. The landscape plays a particularly significant role in the picture. It no longer becomes a “background” for the image of a person, but an independent and essential means in conveying feelings and in constructing an image. It was in landscape that Venetsianov acted as the founder of a new direction, which was later widely developed by Russian art of the 19th century. Venetsianov turned to the simple, “unadorned” nature of his native country and recreated it not only with careful accuracy, but also with a deep lyrical feeling.
The image of nature, just like the image of man, in Venetsianov’s art becomes the bearer of an idyllic worldview.
“Fortune telling by cards” (27), “Reapers” (28), “Peasant woman with a scythe and rake (Pelageya” (29), “Bathers” (30), “On the arable land. Spring” (31) . In his works of art, the painter expresses his ideological and aesthetic position. Venetsianov showed the spiritual attractiveness of the peasants, asserted his personality, thereby defending his human rights. In his works depicting peasants, the artist sought to reveal spiritual and physical beauty of a simple Russian person. The painter deeply sympathized with the peasant lot, put a lot of effort into alleviating the situation of serf artists, but at the same time he was far from social criticism . Venetsianov’s work was greatly influenced by the classical heritage: he was not afraid to use the means of old painting in his works. At the same time, being a realist in his aspirations, along with the sublime harmony of the classicists, he was close to the respect for the individual characteristic of romanticism. The broad appeal of the “father of the Russian genre” to the peasant theme was a genuine artistic revelation for that time and was warmly received by the leading part of Russian society.
Venetsianov's innovation was manifested not only in the fact that he turned to a range of images that were new in Russian painting, but also in the fact that to implement them he developed new realistic visual means. Venetsianov openly broke with the old conventional art of the Academy and called to learn from life, from nature, to study it and imitate it.
Great importance of Venetsianov as a teacher. On his estate Safonkovo he created art school, in which a whole galaxy of painters, the so-called Venetians, were educated. These artists, following the precepts of their teacher, worked primarily in the field of genre, depicting domestic life, street scenes, the work of peasants and artisans, and rural landscapes.
The exorbitant expenses associated with the need to maintain the school and provide for its students placed a heavy burden on the estate. In the end, he was forced to mortgage the estate to the Board of Guardians. Trying to somehow improve his financial situation, Venetsianov took on commissioned work. For the most part, these were portraits and icons for churches. On December 4, 1847, having completed sketches of icons for one of the Tver churches, he wanted to personally take them to Tver. On the way down the steep mountain, the horses began to skid, Venetsianov was thrown out of the sleigh, and he became entangled in the reins. The troika dragged the already lifeless body to the village of Poddubye.
KARL BRYULLOV (1799-1852) - (32)
Karl Petrovich Bryullov - outstanding Russian historical painter, portrait painter, landscape painter, author of monumental paintings; winner of honorary awards: large gold medals for the paintings “The Appearance of Three Angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre” (1821) and “The Last Day of Pompeii” (1834), Order of Anna, III degree; Member of the Milan and Parma Academies, the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, professor of the St. Petersburg and Florence Academies of Arts, honorary free associate of the Paris Academy of Arts.
In the family of academician of ornamental sculpture P.I. Brullo, all seven children had artistic talents. Five sons: Fedor, Alexander, Karl, Pavel and Ivan became artists. But the glory that fell to Karl overshadowed the successes of the other brothers. Meanwhile, he grew up as a weak and frail child, practically did not get out of bed for seven years and was so exhausted by scrofula that he “became an object of disgust for his parents.”
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov was one of the brightest, and at the same time controversial artist in Russian painting of the 19th century. Bryullov had a brilliant talent and independent way of thinking. Despite the trends of the times (the influence of romanticism), the artist was unable to completely get rid of the classicist canons. Perhaps that is why his work was highly valued by the far from advanced St. Petersburg Academy of Arts: in his youth he was its student, and later became an emeritus professor. However, with the exception of Fedotov, the artist did not have students of significant talent. His followers for the most part became superficial salon painters, having adopted only some of Bryullov’s external techniques. Nevertheless, during his lifetime, Bryullov, or “the great Karl,” as the elite nicknamed him, was revered not only in Russia, but also by many prominent people in Europe. In the second half of the 19th century, during the heyday of realism, artists and critics saw in Bryullov only a representative of an “academic” trend that was unacceptable to them. Many years passed before the artist took his rightful place in the history of Russian art.
Bryullov was a man of enormous talent, which he demonstrated in a wide variety of genres of art. Development Russian historical painting, portrait, drawing, decorative painting owes a lot to his work. In each of these genres, virtuoso skill wonderful artist left a deep mark.
Having received his initial education from his father, a professor at the Academy of Arts, and subsequently at the Academy itself, Bryullov and teenage years discovered outstanding artistic abilities.
While a pensioner in Rome and having studied the classical heritage, he produced works that immediately revealed not only the maturity of his talent, but also the fruitfulness of his search for realistic expressiveness of the artistic image. Such paintings by Bryullov as "Italian morning" (33), “Noon” and some others, dedicated to the life of the Italian people, evoked a reproach from defenders of classicism in St. Petersburg for the young artist’s excessive commitment to real life. This did not bother Bryullov at all, and he continued to work on his largest canvas with great enthusiasm. "The Last Day of Pompeii" (34), which brought him fame as the best painter of the era. Having done a huge amount of preliminary work, he created a truly dramatic epic, the romantic elation of the images of which made a colossal impression on his contemporaries. This painting was a triumph of Russian fine art, convincing evidence of its maturity.
The understanding of the historical theme expressed in “The Last Day of Pompeii” directly echoes the range of historical ideas developed by advanced Russian literature and social thought of the 1820-1830s.
In contrast to previous historical painting with its cult of heroes and emphasized attention to the individual, opposed to the impersonal crowd, Bryullov conceived “The Last Day of Pompeii” as a mass scene in which the only and true hero would be the people. All the main characters in the film are almost equal exponents of its theme; The meaning of the picture is embodied not in the depiction of a single heroic act, but in a careful and accurate transmission of the psychology of the masses. Work on “The Last Day of Pompeii” dragged on for almost six years.
The theme of the painting is taken from ancient Roman history.
Pompeii (or rather Pompeii) - an ancient Roman city located at the foot of Vesuvius - on August 24, 79 AD, as a result of a powerful volcanic eruption, it was filled with lava and covered with stones and ash. Two thousand residents (of which there were about 30,000 in total) died on the streets of the city during a stampede.
For more than one and a half thousand years, the city remained buried underground and forgotten. Only at the end of the 16th century, during excavation work, a place was accidentally discovered where a lost Roman settlement had once been located. Since 1748, archaeological excavations began, especially revived in the first decades of the XIX century.
In the center of the picture is the prostrate figure of a young woman who fell to her death from a chariot. It can be assumed that in this figure Bryullov wanted to symbolize the entire dying ancient world; a hint of such an interpretation is also found in the reviews of contemporaries. It is no coincidence that next to the central figure of the murdered woman the artist depicted a beautiful baby, as a symbol of the inexhaustible power of life. In the picture there is both a pagan priest and a Christian priest, as if personifying the departing ancient world and the Christian civilization emerging on its ruins.
Being a painter of great talent, Bryullov destroyed the narrow framework of academic canons with his works. His works were invariably distinguished by their breadth of concept.
In his work the artist mainly paid attention to the person, revealing the power of his mind and affirming the nobility of his aspirations. In every work of Bryullov, in any of his canvases and in any of his drawings, love and respect for man are invariably embodied - “The Genius of Art” (35), “Narcissus Looking into the Water” (36), “Sleeping Juno” (37).
The artist’s achievements in the field of portraiture are not accidental. Bryullov printed a whole series of images of his contemporaries. Along with official commissioned portraits, he left us a number of deep realistic images of artists, people in his circle - writers, artists, actors - “Horsewoman” (38), “Fortune Telling Svetlana” (39), “Portrait of Princess Volkonskaya” (40), “Turkish Woman” (41), “Dream of a Nun” (42), “Profile of Glinka’s Head” (43).
ALEXANDER IVANOV (1806-1858)
A new and even more significant page in the history of Russian painting was the work of Alexander Ivanov. Having received an art education in St. Petersburg, Ivanov, as a pensioner of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, was sent to Italy to improve and study classical art.
Raised by his father, a professor of historical painting at the Academy of Arts, in the traditions of Russian classicism, Ivanov acutely felt the decline of this style in new historical conditions and the collapse of the recently dominant aesthetic ideals and ideas. He set the goal of his entire life to return art to its social significance. The creative achievements of the great classical artists, in his opinion, should have been linked with new advanced ideas of Russian society. “To combine Raphael’s technique,” he wrote, “with the ideas of a new civilization - this is the task of art at the present time.”
“The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene” (44), - belongs to the early period of Ivanov’s work and has all the features inherent in classicism: a balanced composition, distribution of figures and objects according to plans, smooth pattern and local color, emotional expressiveness in the interpretation of traditional mythological and evangelical themes.
Leading value for Ivanov are images of the art of the Italian Renaissance. The painting ends the early period of the artist’s work “Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress, engaged in music and singing” (44a), created by Ivanov already in Rome, which is distinguished by its unusually subtle compositional and coloristic harmony and poetic sublimity in the interpretation of images ancient myth. This is antiquity perceived through the Renaissance. The artist seems to reveal the hidden divine meaning of nature.
The great Russian artist Alexander Andreevich Ivanov enriched Russian and European painting of the 19th century with the depth of philosophical thought. In his work, Ivanov raised many problems of contemporary life: the artist was the first in Russian painting to raise the question of social inequality of people. His worldview was formed under the influence of N.V. Gogol, with whom the artist was friends during these years. Gogol largely influenced Ivanov’s ideas about the educational tasks of art. Ivanov realized educational and prophetic role of the artist, he believed that art should serve the transformation and moral improvement of humanity. The artist sought to comprehend
In Russian culture of the first half of the 19th century, romanticism has its own specifics. Belief in the Enlightenment ideals of reason, progress, basic individual rights - all this was still relevant in Russian public life first half of the century.
The image of a person received deep poetic embodiment in the work of the largest Russian portrait painter of the 1st third of the 19th century.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. (1782-1836).
The greatest master of romantic portraiture.
When you look at Kiprensky’s portraits, it seems that you see free people. None of his contemporaries managed to express this feeling of a new man in such a way.
Among the most significant works of Kiprensky are portraits of military men who took part in the anti-Napoleonic campaigns at the beginning of the century.
1809. Timing
Portrait of A.A. Chelishcheva. 1808 - early 1809 Tretyakov Gallery refers to the early period of O.A.’s creativity. Kiprensky.
The era of romanticism creates a completely special attitude towards the concept of childhood. If portraitists of the 18th century usually depicted a child as a small adult, then the romantics saw in him a special, unique world of personality that still remained pure and unaffected by the vices of adults.
Portrait of Countess Ekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina. 1809. Tretyakov Gallery.
Some of the female images he created are particularly charming.
It has no equal in all world painting of the 19th century, in terms of the power of expression of spiritual beauty, as if anticipating the image of Pushkin’s Tatyana.
While living in St. Petersburg, Kiprensky became close to the most prominent people of his century.
Romantic tendencies in Kiprensky’s work are embodied in the portrait of the famous Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky.
Portrait of E.S. Avdulina. 1822-1823.
- one of the best works of late Kiprensky.
appears before the viewer as a man of great spiritual subtlety and nobility, possessing a deeply hidden inner world.
In the portrait of Pushkin, the artist accurately conveys the features of the poet’s appearance, but consistently refuses everything ordinary. Understanding the uniqueness of the task - to capture the appearance of the great poet - O.A. Kiprensky harmoniously combined the spirit of romantic freedom and the pathos of high classics.
Creative combustion.
« I see myself as if in a mirror, but this mirror flatters me».
O. A. Kiprensky. "Self-portrait". 1828
Tropinin, Vasily Andreevich(1776-1857) - Russian artist, academician, master of portraiture. By origin - a serf peasant. Tropinin failed to graduate from the Academy. Count Morkov interrupted his studies in 1804, summoning Kukavka to his Ukrainian estate. To the young artist he had to be a home painter and at the same time perform the duties of a yard man. From 1821 he lived permanently in Moscow, where he gained recognition and fame.
The images of people from the people created by Tropinin are widely known.
“Tropinin had few rivals in his artistic talent. In 1818, when he was still a serf and lived with his master on the Kukavka estate in Ukraine, he wrote “Portrait of a Son” - amazing in its picturesque charm and free manner of painting. This portrait of a blond, tanned boy glows, lives and breathes. After that, Tropinin worked for another forty years, immortalized a great many people, developed more or less stable methods of portraiture, improved in technique, but the portrait of his son remained unsurpassed, with the exception, perhaps, of the portrait of Pushkin, painted in the same year as Kiprensky and not inferior to him "(Dmitrieva N.A. Brief history of art. Issue III: Countries Western Europe XIX century; Russia of the 19th century. - M.: Art, 1992. P. 198-200.).
The best in the circle of Tropinin portrait painting of the 1820s
The slightly raised upper lip gives the poet’s face a touch of restrained animation.
The lilac-brown robe is draped in wide, loose folds; The collar of the shirt is wide open, the blue tie is tied deliberately casually.
The color has the freshness of direct observation. The reflexes from the white-collar shirt, highlighting the chin and bare neck of the person being portrayed, are convincingly conveyed.
Being already a famous artist, Tropinin created a type of home, intimate portrait with elements genre painting. As a rule, this is a half-length image of a person doing his usual activity.
The pretty, crafty girl is full of grace, understood by contemporaries as a special “pleasantness,” as something that “captures the heart,” but “impossible to understand with the mind.”
In the year the painting was painted, Vasily Andreevich Tropinin, the serf artist of Count Morkov, received his freedom. He was 47 years old. In the same year, he exhibited his “Lacemaker” at the Academy of Arts, which immediately gained popularity, which has not left it to this day.
Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich. 1780 – 1847. the first Russian painter who consciously chose the everyday genre as the basis of his work.
It is he who is credited with establishing the everyday genre in Russian art as an independent type of painting.
He developed a form of multi-figure genre painting, in which the landscape or interior often plays a large role. Venetsianov was also the first to draw attention to individual folk types. His painting is national and democratic.
In 1811, he was recognized by the Academy of Arts as “designated” for his self-portrait.
Venetsianov’s first fundamental work was the painting “The Barn,” which opened new paths in Russian painting.
The artist created an idealized poetic image peasant life. Working outdoors allowed Venetsianov to use the effects of daylight and complicate the palette.
Bryullov Karl Pavlovich(1799-1852). Painter, draftsman. Master of historical painting, portrait painter, genre painter.
He overcomes the deadness of the canons of classicism with a romantic desire to fill the image with living feelings.
realistic principles formed the basis
The joy of being, a cheerful and full-blooded feeling of life, merging with the environment sparkles. The sun's rays penetrate the foliage of the vineyard, glide over the girl's hands, face, and clothes; an atmosphere of living connection between man and nature is created. The girl’s face with absolutely regular features and huge sparkling eyes is ideally beautiful, it seems almost porcelain (a frequent effect in Bryullov). The Italian type of appearance was then considered perfect, and the artist plays with it with pleasure.
The Society's committee, having received "Noon", cautiously reproached the artist for choosing a model that did not meet the classical ideals of St. Petersburg connoisseurs.
Epicurean line
Tragic line in creativity
Last day of Pompeii. 1830-1833. State Russian Museum Oil on canvas. 465.5 x 651
For the first time in Russian painting, classicism was combined with a romantic perception of the world. It should be noted that for K.P. Bryullov was important to the truth of historical reality. He studied written sources about the tragedy in Pompeii (Pliny the Younger, Tacitus), as well as scientific research dedicated to archaeological excavations.
His heroes in last moment lives demonstrate human dignity and greatness of spirit in the face of the blind elements of evil.
Unlike what we see in classic paintings, the compositional center here is given not to the main historical character (who simply does not exist), but to the deceased mother, next to whom is depicted a still living child, gripped by horror. The concept of the canvas is revealed in the contrast between life and death.
Thus, for the first time, the people entered Russian historical painting, although they were shown in a rather idealized way.
Portrait Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna with her daughter Maria. 1830. Russian Museum Ultimately, Bryullov came to the image of the Grand Duchess in motion. From now on, in large portraits he will use this technique, which helps to enhance the expressiveness of the image.
Rider. Portrait of Giovanina and Amazilia Pacini, pupils of Countess Yu.P. Samoilova. 1832. Tretyakov Gallery
By the early 1830s, K.P. Bryullov took one of the leading places in Russian and all Western European art. His fame as an outstanding master of portraiture was cemented by “The Horsewoman,” painted in Italy.
Bryullov's ceremonial portrait-painting is marked by innovative features. Unlike the heroes of ceremonial portraits of the 18th century, where the main task was to emphasize the social position of the person being portrayed and his public virtues, Bryullov’s characters primarily demonstrate spontaneity, youth, and beauty.
Portrait of His Serene Highness Princess Elizaveta Pavlovna Saltykova, born Countess Strogonova, wife of His Serene Highness Prince I.D. Saltykova. 1841. Timing
Portrait of Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova, born Countess Palen, leaving the ball with her adopted daughter Amazilia Paccini. 1842. Timing
the last significant work of K.P. Bryullov and one of his best works in the genre of ceremonial portrait-painting, characterized by an upbeat, romantic mood.
The artist presented his heroine in a queen’s fancy dress, against the backdrop of a lush theatrical curtain separating her from the ball participants.
emphasizes her dominant position in the crowd of people, the exclusivity of her nature.
Ivanov Alexander Andreevich(1806-1858) - painter, draftsman. Master of historical painting, landscape painter, portrait painter. Creativity A.A. Ivanova stands at the center of the spiritual quest of Russian culture of the 19th century.
The highest achievement in Russian historical painting is associated with the work of A. Ivanov. The son of Professor A.I. Ivanov, he studied at the Academy of Arts, brilliantly mastering composition and drawing (besides his father, his teachers were Egorov and Shebuev.
In 1824 Ivanov painted his first major oil painting, “Priam Asking Achilles for the Body of Hector” (Tretyakov Gallery), for which he received a small gold medal. Already in this early work, Ivanov reveals a desire for psychological expressiveness and archaeological accuracy. When the painting appeared at the exhibition, critics noted the artist’s attentive attitude to Homer’s text and the strong expression of the characters in the painting.
At the exhibition of 1827 Ivanov’s second painting appeared - “Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of the Baker and Butler” (Russian Museum), which was awarded a large gold medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Here the expression of faces and the incomparable plasticity of the figures far surpassed “Priam”, testifying to the exceptional talent of the artist and his rapid development. Illuminated figures against a dark background give the impression of statues. The flowing folds of Joseph's antique robe are treated with astonishing perfection. Joseph tells the baker something terrible to consider, pointing him to a relief depicting an execution carved on the wall of the prison. The cupbearer impatiently awaits with bright hope what the soothsayer will say about him. The baker and cupbearer look alike, like brothers, which is why the expressions of opposite feelings appear on their faces: despair and hope. The Egyptian relief composed by Ivanov shows that even then he was familiar with Egyptian archeology and had a subtle sense of style. In all his early works, Ivanov strove for strong emotional movements, expressed in an extremely clear form.
However, this picture almost led to the collapse of Ivanov’s career, which had begun so brilliantly. The image (in the form of a bas-relief) of an execution on the wall of the dungeon was interpreted as a daring allusion to the reprisal of Nicholas I against the Decembrists. Hood barely managed to escape Siberia. And despite the fact that Ivanov was awarded a large gold medal, the question of his business trip abroad dragged on. The Society for the Encouragement of Artists, having the intention of sending Ivanov to Italy for improvement, decided to once again test his abilities by setting a new topic: “Bellerophon goes on a campaign against the Chimera” (1829, Russian Museum).
He was nevertheless awarded a foreign business trip. At this time, Ivanov was already the author of several paintings, completed huge-sized drawings from ancient statues - “Laocoon”, “Venus of Medicea”, “Borghesian Fighter” (all in the State Tretyakov Gallery), and many drawings from academic models. His early albums also include a whole series sketches in pencil and sepia on historical and ancient themes, among which there are a few sketches from nature; Portraits are even rarer. A small self-portrait (1828, Tretyakov Gallery), painted in oils, dates back to the time before his departure abroad.
As a tribute to classicism, Ivanov began in Rome a painting in the spirit of Poussin “Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress engaged in music and singing” (1831-1834, Tretyakov Gallery), using monuments of ancient sculpture. The painting remained unfinished. Despite this, it is one of the most perfect works of Russian classicism. The beautifully grouped figures appear to be animated statues.
The tree foliage contrasts wonderfully with the color of the naked bodies: the delicate color of the body of Hyacinth, the dark color of Cypress and the figure of Apollo, as if carved from ivory. The picture is a musically harmonious, harmonic composition. A comparison of the sketches shows that Ivanov consciously sought the musical beauty of smooth lines and plastic perfection of form. The wonderfully inspired face of Apollo. Taking the head of Apollo Belvedere as the basis for the image, Ivanov breathed new life into it - the life of feeling. This method of processing ancient images became the main one for Ivanov throughout the first half of his work.
Re-reading the gospels, Ivanov finally found a plot that no one had taken on before: the first appearance of the Messiah (Christ) before the people awaiting the fulfillment of their cherished aspirations, predicted by John the Baptist. Ivanov perceived this plot as containing the entire meaning of the gospel. In his opinion, this plot could embody the high moral ideals of all humanity as their contemporaries understood them. Work on sketches for the painting began in the fall of 1833.
From the very beginning of his work, the artist conceived the plot more as historical than religious, eliminating all features of its mystical interpretation. He drew up a plan lasting a decade, in accordance with the extreme complexity of the plan. This plan frightened Ivanov’s distrustful St. Petersburg “benefactors” due to its duration and high cost. Despite threats from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists to deprive him of all his means of livelihood, Ivanov did not give up. He deeply studied the monuments of ancient art and monumental painting Italian Renaissance. Unable to travel to Palestine to meet folk types and landscapes of places associated with the gospel legend, Ivanov looked for the corresponding nature in Italy.
In 1835 Ivanov finished and sent to St. Petersburg for the academic exhibition “The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection” (Russian Russian Museum); The success of the film exceeded the artist's expectations: he was given the title of academician and his stay in Italy was extended for another three years.
In the statuary nature of the figures in this picture (especially Christ, reminiscent of a statue by Thorvaldsen), in the conventional draperies and landscape, which serves as an almost neutral background for the figures, Ivanov paid the last tribute to academicism. This fully corresponded to the original intention of the painting, in which the artist intended to show his ability to depict the naked human body and draperies. However, along with this, he was fascinated by the task of depicting a crying beautiful female face and the movement of the figure. He did not dare to make more radical changes in the picture, although the compositions of Giotto he saw in Italy on the same subject gave rise to the idea of completely abandoning the “official piece of nudity.”
The complex expression on Magdalene’s face (smile through tears) and the successfully found position of Christ’s legs (based on a deep knowledge of anatomy and giving his figure the illusion of movement) are the most realistic features of the picture in its general academic structure.
Having finished this work, the artist again devoted himself entirely to developing the main idea. Work on “The Appearance of Christ to the People” (1837-1857, Tretyakov Gallery) occupied most of Ivanov’s life. Numerous surviving materials (sketches, sketches, drawings) and extensive correspondence from the artist make it possible to reconstruct the main stages of this enormous work. The first sketches date back to 1833, therefore, they were made before the first trip to Italy.
In 1837 the composition of the painting was already so developed that the artist was able to transfer it to a large canvas, and the next year he shaded it and painted it in terdesien.
K1845 “The appearance of Christ to the people” was, in essence, over, with the exception of some particulars (the face of a slave, figures emerging from the water, the middle group).
Further work went in two directions - the utmost specification of the characters of the characters and the second - the study of the landscape on individual topics determined by the composition of the picture (foreground trees, earth, stones, water, background trees and mountains). It is possible that all this work was preceded by a search for the general tone of the painting, for which Ivanov wrote in Venice, in close proximity to the great Venetian colorists, a small sketch (“Sketch in Venetian tones”, 1839, Tretyakov Gallery), which largely predetermined the color of the painting “ The appearance of Christ to the people.”
At the end of 1838 there was some break in work. At this time, Ivanov met N.V. Gogol, who then arrived in Rome. They became friends. Their friendship was marked by Ivanov’s unexpected appeal to themes of people’s life. Under the influence of the writer, Ivanov created a number of genre watercolors depicting scenes from the life of ordinary people. They are poetic, vital and imbued with spiritual warmth. Complex multi-figure compositions are united by the action of light. The moon pours its calm light on a group of children and girls singing Ave Maria in chorus (“Ave Maria”, 1839, Russian Russian Museum), the warm lights of the candles are reflected by reflexes on their faces and clothes. Under the burning rays of the southern sun, a sweet scene (“Groom choosing earrings for the bride”, 1838, Tretyakov Gallery) is played out. The figures of the girls in the watercolor “October holiday in Rome” are full of relaxed movements. At Ponte Mole” (1842, Russian Museum). In the watercolor “October holiday in Rome. Scene in the Loggia” (1842, Tretyakov Gallery) depicts a playful dance. The rapid movements of the people surrounding the lanky Englishman are expressed by a complex and beautiful silhouette. Without Gogol's influence, the appearance of these genre scenes is inexplicable.
In all of Ivanov’s watercolors, the principle of psychological connection between human figures prevails over the principle of classical architectural composition. The artist clearly strove in them for the life-like truthfulness of the movements of the figures and their relationships.
In the first two genre watercolors, Ivanov was practically faced with lighting issues. This task was especially difficult in the watercolor “Ave Maria”, in which the cold and even moonlight combined with the warm and reverent light of candles and the soft light of a lantern in front of the image of the Madonna.
The problem of transmitting sunlight, which especially occupied the artist in the late 40s, was first posed by him in the aforementioned watercolor “The Groom Choosing Earrings for the Bride.” A comparison of two versions of this drawing (THG and GRM) shows that Ivanov sought to use lighting as a unifying principle.
K1845 “The appearance of Christ to the people” was, in essence, over, with the exception of some particulars (the face of a slave, figures emerging from the water, the middle group). On the right and left in the picture are people baptized in the waters of the Jordan, behind John is a group of future apostles, in the center and on the right are crowds of people excited by John’s words. In the foreground, the artist painted a slave who is preparing to dress his master. The action takes place in the Jordan Valley, the distant hills are covered with trees. A huge old tree shades the leaves of the central group.
To solve the problem: to depict humanity awaiting its liberation, Ivanov considered himself to have the right to use everything that had previously been achieved by world art. He drew examples of plastic art from ancient Greek sculpture, studying ancient originals in Rome and Florence, studied the painting of the Renaissance: Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Ghirlandaio and most of all Raphael.
Obviously, from the very first steps of working on the composition of the painting, Ivanov felt the need to organize human figures into groups, connected by commonality or, conversely, juxtaposed in deliberate contrasts. These groups were defined as follows: an old man and a young man emerging from the water, a group of disciples led by the Baptist and closed on the left by the figure of a skeptic, the foreground group of a rich man and a slave, and, finally, a group of trembling father and son flanking the entire composition on the right. In addition, many figures are placed in the shadows, in the middle of the picture in the crowd of people occupying the upper right side of the canvas. These figures are also organized into groups.
The figure of John the Baptist is of decisive importance. It is located almost in the center and organizes the entire composition with its powerful force. In his depiction of the Baptist, Ivanov used monuments of Italian painting and, above all, Raphael, which by no means deprived the image of its own expressiveness. John in the picture is full of fiery temperament; he burns people's hearts with his verb. With a stunningly powerful gesture, he points to the approaching Messiah. He was the first to see and recognize the Messiah. His gesture determines the movement of the entire compositional structure of the picture.
The artist set his goal to achieve in each of the characters the extremely typical expression of each person. character. He succeeded especially in the images of the Baptist, the apostles John, Andrew, Nathanael and the slave, the sketches of which are among the best. No wonder Kramskoy considered the Ivanovo Baptist “an ideal portrait.”
It is characteristic that a real portrait underlies every character, every type included in the picture. At the next stage, art attracts the heads of ancient sculptures, as if shaping them with the classical features of living nature.
“The Appearance of Christ to the People” combines the lofty idea of the liberation of humanity with a monumental form.
By 1845 include sketches of the mural “The Resurrection of Christ,” intended for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was built by K.A. Ton. During this period, Ivanov came up with the idea of creating a whole series of paintings on biblical subjects. These paintings were supposed to cover the walls of a special public building(not churches, as the artist himself always emphasized). Their themes and sequence were more consistent with the book “The Life of Jesus” by D. Strauss, but were based on deep and self-study primary sources by the artist himself. Ivanov intended to present here the evolution of human beliefs in their close interconnection and historical conditioning. In the cycle of sketches that embodied this plan, the problems of the historical destinies of the people, the relationship between the people and the individual, so typical of romantic historicism, received the most profound solution in comparison with all Russian historical painting of the 2/3 century. The abundance and endless variety of Ivanov’s works are amazing. watercolor sketches on biblical subjects (almost all are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery).
It is difficult to select the best among the sketches. Therefore, you should focus only on the more characteristic ones. Such, for example, is the sketch “Three Strangers Announce to Abraham the Birth of Isaac,” the composition of which amazes with its monumentality, the unity of man and nature, and the expressiveness of the figures. No less interesting is “Collecting Manna in the Desert” - a mass scene in which running people are captured by a joyful whirlwind, or “Procession of the Prophets”, full of powerful, stunning rhythm. Despite the fact that Ivanov’s plan remained only in sketches, these sketches belong to the greatest assets of art.
Its landscapes are wonderful. “Appian Way” (1845, Tretyakov Gallery). “The Bay of Naples near Castellammare” (1846, Tretyakov Gallery). Ivanov decisively took the path of plein air. In his painting, nature is not through myth, as in the works of the classics, but through reality.
Ivanov’s work, going far beyond the romantic ideals of the era, is the most powerful expression of the realistic orientation of Russian art in the mid-19th century.
In the first years of his retirement in Italy, in the early 1830s, Ivanov painted the beautiful painting “Apollo, Cypress and Hyacinth engaged in music and singing.”
Brilliant sketches of paintings for the “Temple of Humanity” he conceived. In “Biblical Sketches” Ivanov sought to organically combine the gospel truth with historical truth, the legendary and mythical with reality, the sublime with the ordinary, the tragic with the everyday.
Art of the mid (40s – 50s) 19th century – the “Gogol” period of Russian culture
Fedotov, Pavel Andreevich(1815-1852) - famous Russian artist and draftsman, founder critical realism in domestic painting.In Fedotov’s work, for the first time in Russian art, the program of critical realism was implemented. The “accusatory orientation” was also reflected in “An Aristocrat’s Breakfast”.
Fedotov performed the painting “The Widow” in several versions, consistently moving towards his goal - to show human misfortune as it really is.
The painting “Anchor, more anchor!” consistent in color - muddy red, and an ominous emotional mood. The canvas is truly tragic: in it the melancholy of unsightly everyday life and the meaninglessness of existence comes to the fore.
Painting of the first half of the 19th century The first half of the 19th century is a bright page in Russian culture. All directions - painting, literature, architecture, sculpture, theater of this era are marked by a whole constellation of names that brought Russian art world fame.
Painting in the first half of the 19th century was of great importance in the life of society. The development of national self-awareness, caused by the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, increased the people's interest in national culture and history, in domestic talents. As a result, during the first quarter of the century, public organizations arose for the first time, the main task of which was the development of the arts: the Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Science and the Arts, the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Special magazines appeared, and the first attempts were made to collect and display Russian art. The small private “Russian Museum” of P. Svinin gained fame, and the Russian Gallery was created at the Imperial Hermitage in 1825. Since the beginning of the century, the practice of the Academy of Arts has included periodic exhibitions, which attracted many visitors. At the same time, admission to these exhibitions on certain days of the common people was a great achievement.
At the very beginning of the 19th century, classicism played a significant role in painting. However, by the 1830s, this direction was gradually losing its social significance, and was increasingly turning into a system of formal canons and traditions. Romanticism, a European movement that emerged at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, brought novelty to Russian art. One of the main postulates of romanticism, opposite to classicism, is the affirmation of a person’s personality, his thoughts and worldview as the main value in art. Securing a person’s right to personal independence gave rise to a special interest in his inner world, and at the same time presupposed the artist’s freedom of creativity. In Russia, romanticism acquired its own peculiarity: at the beginning of the century it had a heroic connotation, and during the years of the Nicholas reaction it had a tragic connotation. Having as its peculiarity the knowledge of a specific person, romanticism became the basis for the subsequent emergence and formation of the realistic movement, which established itself in art in the second half of the 19th century. A characteristic feature of realism was its appeal to the theme of modern folk life, the establishment of new themes in the art of peasant life. Here, first of all, it is necessary to note the name of the artist A.G. Venetsianova. The most fully realistic discoveries of the first half of the 19th century were reflected in the 1960s in the works of P.A. Fedotova.
Portraiture is characterized by outstanding achievements in Russian art of the first half of the 19th century. Russian portrait is the genre of painting that most directly connected artists with society, with outstanding contemporaries. The flourishing of portraiture is associated with the search for new principles of artistic creativity and the spread of romanticism in Russia. Romanticism is inherent in the portraits of artists O.A. Kiprensky, V.A. Tropinin, K.P. Bryullov. The most famous portrait painters this time - Kiprensky O.A. and Tropinin V.A. Kiprensky O.A. “Self-portrait” Tropinin V.A. "Self-Portrait", 1846
Kiprensky O.A. (). A special page in Russian painting - female portraits artist. Each of his portraits captivates with insight into the spiritual depths of the image, unique originality of appearance, and excellent performing skills. The most famous portraits of E.S. Avdulina (1822), E.A. Teleshova (1828), D.N. Tail (1814). One of the pinnacles of Orest Adamovich’s work is the portrait of E.P. Rostopchina (1809). Portrait of E.S.Avdulina Portrait of E.A.Teleshova Portrait of D.N.Khvostova Portrait of E.P.Rostopchina
The famous portrait of the poet A.S. Pushkin (one of the best lifetime works) by Kiprensky. The poet himself wrote about this picture: “I see myself as in a mirror. But this mirror flatters me.” Portrait of Life Hussar Colonel E.V. Davydov (1809). The image of Davydov, created by Kiprensky, appears before the viewer as a symbol of the era of the wars with Napoleon, on the eve of the Patriotic War of 1812.
Tropinin Vasily Andreevich (). The son of a serf, himself a serf until 1823. His ability to draw appeared in childhood; he studied at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, showed brilliant academic success, and received silver and gold medals. But the master sent him to a Ukrainian estate, where the artist lived for about 20 years, painted, built and painted a church. Tropinin V.A. painted a huge number of portraits, not only of famous and famous people, but also representatives of the people. Special attention are drawn by lifetime portraits of the great poet A.S. Pushkin and the hero of the Patriotic War of 1812 I.P. Bagration. “Portrait of Bagration P.I.” “Portrait of A.S. Pushkin”, 1827
In portraits of his contemporaries, people from the people, the artist shows the inner beauty of a person. So, in the film “The Lacemaker” Tropinin V.A. managed to find a rare harmony of physical and moral beauty, social certainty of the type of girl from the people and the poetry of the image. “The Lacemaker” is typical of Russian painting of the pre-Peredvizhniki period: the traditions of the 18th century are intertwined here with the signs of the new era. “Girl with a Pot of Roses”, 1820 “Guitar Player”, 1823 “Lacemaker”, 1823 “Gold Seamstress”, 1826
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov () was one of the brightest and at the same time controversial artists in Russian painting of the 19th century. Bryullov had brilliant talent and an independent way of thinking. He was brought up in the family of an artist, from childhood he was passionate about painting, and at the age of 10 he entered the Academy of Arts. In 1822, Karl Bryullov went to Rome to study the art of the Renaissance masters. “Self-portrait”, 1834 “Self-portrait”, 1848 “Portrait of Countess Yu. P. Samoilova with her adopted daughter Amazilia Pacini” “Portrait of Alexei Tolstoy”, 1832
During the Italian period of creativity, Bryullov devoted significant attention to portraiture, wrote famous portrait painting"Rider". In the painting “Italian Morning,” he turned not to historical and mythological subjects, but to the everyday scene of the grape harvest. In 1836, Karl Pavlovich Bryullov became a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, taught at the Academy, and during this period also painted about 80 portraits. “Fortune Svetlana”, 1836 “Horsewoman”, 1832 “Italian afternoon”, 1832 “Portrait of the Shishmarev sisters, 1839
The historical genre was considered the highest in the Academy. The best works of this genre were the works of K.P. Bryullov, including “The Last Day of Pompeii.” This painting is a striking example of academic art, but elements of romanticism are already visible.
The history of the creation of the painting “The Last Day of Pompeii”. In 1827, at one of the receptions, the artist met Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova, who became his artistic ideal, closest friend and love. Together with her, Karl goes to Italy to inspect the ruins of the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, which were destroyed by a volcanic eruption in 79 AD. e. Impressed by the description of an eyewitness to the tragedy of the Roman writer Pliny the Younger, Bryullov realized that he had found a theme for his next work. For three years, the artist collected material in archaeological museums and excavations so that each object painted on the canvas corresponded to the era. All work on the painting lasted six years. In the process of working on the painting, many sketches, drafts, sketches were made, and the composition itself was rebuilt several times. When the work was presented to the general public in mid-1833, it caused an explosion of admiration and admiration for the artist. Previously, no painting from the Russian school of painting had achieved such European fame. In 1834, at exhibitions in Milan and Paris, the success of the painting was amazing. In Italy, Bryullov was elected an honorary member of several art academies, and in Paris he was awarded Gold medal. The success of the film was predetermined not only by the successfully found plot, which corresponds to the romantic consciousness of the era, but also by the way Bryullov divides the crowd of dying people into local groups, each of which illustrates one or another affect - love, self-sacrifice, despair, greed. The force shown in the picture, destroying everything around, invading the harmony of human existence, evoked among contemporaries thoughts about a crisis of illusions, about unfulfilled hopes. This painting brought the artist worldwide fame. The customer of the painting, Anatoly Demidov, presented it to Tsar Nicholas I.
Ivanov Alexander Andreevich (gg.) A special place in the historical genre is occupied by A.A. Ivanov’s monumental canvas “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” on which he worked for 20 years. Executed in compliance with the basic norms of classical painting, it combines the ideals of romanticism and realism. The main idea of the picture is confidence in the need for moral renewal of people.
The history of the creation of the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People.” In 1833 (from 1830 to 1858 the artist lived in Italy), Alexander Andreevich conceived the idea of a new monumental painting. This world-famous painting became the apogee of his work; it revealed the artist’s powerful talent to the fullest. Working on the painting occupied all the artist’s thoughts and time; More than three hundred preparatory sketches from nature and album sketches were completed, many of which became independent works. While working on the painting, Ivanov re-read literature on history, philosophy, and religious teachings, and rethought the concept and plot several times. In Italy, the artist found himself in a difficult financial situation. Ivanov lived on benefits that he managed to obtain from various institutions or patrons. He saved on every little thing. Alexander Andreevich spent almost all the money that he managed to get on maintaining a huge workshop, purchasing art materials and payment of sitters. After several breaks in working on the painting, the artist finally finished it by 1857. But the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People,” shown by the artist after returning to Russia in 1857, first in the Winter Palace, then at the Academy of Arts, was received rather restrainedly.
About the portrait art of the artist Ivanov A.A. This is evidenced by the portrait of N.V. Gogol, painted in 1841, with whom the painter had a close friendship. A painting from the “Italian” period of the painter’s work, “The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection,” on which he worked from 1834 to 1836. This canvas was sent to St. Petersburg, where it received positive reviews. The painting was placed in art gallery Hermitage. The Academy Council appreciated the artist’s work, which strictly complied with the classical canons, and awarded him the title of academician.
Self-portrait, 1848 Fedotov Pavel Andreevich (). The founder of critical realism in Russian painting. In his genre paintings he expressed major social problems. During his childhood he studied at the First Moscow Cadet Corps. Thanks to his phenomenal memory, Pavel studied well, science came easily to him. Even then, in the first years of his studies, Fedotov showed a desire for painting. Over time, drawing grew into a passion. Fedotov's first works were related to military themes. He enters the Academy of Arts. He did not completely take on faith everything that was taught at the Academy, which determined the formation of his own view of painting, different from the frozen canons of academicism. After retiring, the artist created talented works of social direction, showing the author’s critical position in relation to reality.
“Fresh gentleman”, 1846 “The picky bride”, 1847 The first work of the artist P.A. Fedotov, painted in oil - “Fresh gentleman” - dates back to 1846. Both academic professors and democratic spectators liked this genre picture. A year later, Fedotov painted another painting, “The Picky Bride.” With the direct participation of Bryullov, these two paintings were accepted for the academic exhibition of 1847.
“Matchmaking of a Major,” 1851 For the painting “Matchmaking of a Major,” painted later, the Academy Council awarded Pavel Andreevich the title of Academician. Portraits occupied an important place in Fedotov’s work, of which “Portrait of N. Zhdanovich,” painted in 1849, stands out. “Portrait of N. Zhdanovich at the piano”, 1849
Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich (), the founder of the domestic everyday genre (genre painting). His paintings poeticized the life of ordinary Russian people and were dedicated to the daily work and life of peasants. “Self-Portrait”, 1811 Born in Moscow, in the family of a merchant. He studied at a private boarding house, served in the Postal Department, and was fond of painting since childhood. He was a student of the famous artist V.L. Borovikovsky. In 1811 A.G. Venetsianov was elected academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts.
In 1818 Venetsianov left public service, marries and leaves with his family to the Safonkovo estate, which belonged to his new wife. It is here, far from the bustle of the city, that Alexey Gavrilovich finds main topic of your creativity. Venetsianov discovers an inexhaustible source of inspiration, a variety of subjects and images. The enormous contribution of Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov to the development of Russian painting is the creation of his own school, his own method. From private portraits of peasants, the artist comes to magnificent artistic compositions in which folk life, its aura, finds a multicolored expression for it. In 1822, for the first time, the work of the artist A.G. Venetsianov was presented to the emperor. The painter received a thousand rubles for it, and the work itself was placed in the Diamond Room of the Winter Palace. The name of the painting was “Cleansing the beets.” This canvas became a kind of “turning point” in Russian painting, the emergence of a new direction in Russian art of the everyday genre. It was Venetsianov who achieved the popularity of this style of painting among the people.
In the 1820s, Alexei Gavrilovich painted several small paintings, the so-called “peasant portraits,” depicting girls with a jug of milk, a scythe, beets, cornflowers, a boy with an ax or sleeping under a tree, an old man or an old woman. “Girl in a headscarf”, 1810 “Zakharka” “Girl with a jar of milk”, 1824 Peasant woman with cornflowers.
“On the arable land. Spring." 1820 At the harvest. Summer. It should be noted the peculiarity of the images of peasant women, characteristic of many of the artist’s paintings: their majesty, calm dignity, businesslike expression on their faces. The prototype of the peasant woman for the painting “On the arable land. Spring” served as the artist’s wife. She is a young, slender woman in a long sundress, leading two horses across a field. No less famous is the painting “At the Harvest. Summer". This work is distinguished by the harmony of artistic images: Venetsianov’s love for the working peasant people allowed him to depict true beauty in it.
Let's check your knowledge: 1. What artistic trends coexisted in painting in the first half of the 19th century: A) classicism, sentimentalism, realism B) realism, abstractionism, sentimentalism C) classicism, romanticism, realism 2. Which artist painted the portrait of A.S. Pushkin , about which the poet said: “I see myself as in a mirror. But this mirror flatters me”: A) Kiprensky B) Tropinin D) Venetsianov 3. Which of the artists of the first half of the 19th century is the founder of the domestic everyday genre in painting: A) Bryullov B) Venetsianov D) Fedotov 4. Which of the artists of the first half of the 19th century century is the founder of critical realism in Russian painting: A) Tropinin B) Fedotov C) Ivanov A.A.
Answers: 1.B) classicism, romanticism, realism 2.A) Kiprensky 3.B) Venetsianov 4.B) Fedotov 5.K.P. Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii” 6. A.G. Venetsianov “On the arable land. Spring" 7.P.A. Fedotov “Fresh Cavalier” 8.A.A. Ivanov “The Appearance of Christ to the People” 9.V.A. Tropinin “The Lacemaker” 10. O.A. Kiprensky “Portrait of A.S. Pushkin"
The crisis of serfdom slows down the development of the capitalist system. Freedom-loving ideas are emerging in secular circles, the Patriotic War of 1812 is going on, as well as Russian troops participating in the liberation of European states from Napoleon, the Decembrist uprising in 1825 against tsarism, all this has an impact on painting.
What is the difference between painting in the era of the genius A.S. Pushkin?
Probably the embodiment of the bright and humane ideals of a freedom-loving people...
Along with classicism, the romantic movement was developing, and realism was being formed.
The romantic direction of Russian painting became the beginning of the development of realism in subsequent decades. This is how rapprochement goes Russian artists, romantics with real life, which was the essence of the artist movement of this time. The wide distribution of exhibitions at the same time speaks of the rapprochement of the Russian people with the world of art; people of all classes strive to visit exhibitions. It is believed that the painting by K.P. Bryulov’s “The Last Day of Pompeii” served as such a rapprochement. St. Petersburg people of all classes tried to see her.
Russian painting is becoming multinational, paintings acquire national shades, students of different nationalities are accepted into the Academy. Natives of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, Transcaucasia and Central Asia study here.
In the first half of the 19th century, painting was represented in all genres: portrait, landscape, still life, historical painting.
Famous Russian artists in the first half of the 19th century:
Masterpieces of Russian painting
- Painting by Bryullov K.P. "The Last Day of Pompeii"
- Painting by Aivazovsky I.K. "The Ninth Wave"
- Painting by Bruni F.A. "Copper Serpent"
- Painting by Venetsianov A.G. "The threshing floor"
- Painting by Tropinin V.A. "The Lacemaker"
Russian artistic culture, the origins of which began with classicism, acquired a powerful folk sound, like high classicism, which was reflected in the painting of the 19th century, gradually moved from romanticism to realism in Russian fine art. Contemporaries of that time especially appreciated the direction of Russian artists in which the historical genre with an emphasis on national themes predominated.
But at the same time, there were no significant changes in the art of the historical direction compared to the masters of the second half of the 18th century and from the very beginning of the history of Russian portraiture. Many masters often dedicated their works to the true heroes of ancient Rus', whose exploits inspired them to write historical paintings. Russian painters of that time established their own principle of describing portraits and paintings, developing their own directions in the depiction of man and nature, testifying to a completely independent figurative concept.
Russian artists in their paintings reflected various ideals of national uplift, gradually abandoning the strict principles of classicism imposed by academic foundations. The 19th century was marked by a high flourishing of Russian painting, in which Russian painters left for posterity an indelible mark on the history of Russian fine art, imbued with the spirit of a comprehensive reflection of the life of the people.
The largest researchers of Russian painting of the 19th century in general note the outstanding role in the high flowering of the creativity of the great Russian masters and fine arts. Unique works created by domestic masters have forever enriched Russian culture.
Famous artists of the 19th century
(1782-1836) Kiprensky’s magnificently and subtly painted portraits brought him fame and true recognition among his contemporaries. His works Self-portrait, A. R. Tomilova, I. V. Kusov, A. I. Korsakov 1808 Portrait of a boy Chelishchev, Golitsin A. M. 1809 Portrait of Denis Davydov, 1819 Girl with a poppy wreath, the most successful 1827 portrait of A. S. Pushkin and others. His portraits reflect the beauty of excitement, the refined inner world of images and state of mind. Contemporaries compared his works with the genres of lyric poetry and poetic dedication to friends. (1791-1830) Master of Russian landscape romanticism and lyrical interpretation of nature. In more than forty of his paintings, Shchedrin depicted views of Sorento. Notable among them are paintings of the Neighborhood of Sorrento. Evening, New Rome "Castle of the Holy Angel", Mergellina Promenade in Naples, Grand Harbor on the island of Capri, etc.Completely surrendering to the romance of the landscape and natural environment perception, Shchedrin seems to compensate with his paintings for the fallen interest of his fellow tribesmen of that time in the landscape. Shchedrin experienced the dawn of his creativity and recognition.
(1776-1857) A remarkable Russian portrait painter, a descendant of serfs. His famous works are paintings: The Lacemaker, also Portrait of Pushkin A.S., engraver E.O. Skotnikova, Old Man - Beggar, distinguished by a light color Portrait of a Son, 1826 Spinner, Goldsmith, these works especially attracted the attention of contemporaries. 1846 Tropinin developed his own independent figurative style of portraiture, which characterizes the specific Moscow genre of writing. At that time, Tropinin became the central figure of the Moscow elite.(1780-1847) The founder of the peasant everyday genre, His famous portrait of the Reaper, painting > Reapers, Girl in a headscarf, Spring in the arable land, Peasant woman with cornflowers, Zakharka and others. We can especially emphasize the painting of the Threshing Floor, which attracted the attention of Emperor Alexander 1; he was touched by the vivid images of the peasants, truthfully conveyed by the author. He loved ordinary people, finding a certain lyricism in this, this was reflected in his paintings showing the difficult peasant life. his best works were created in the 20s. (1799-1852) Master of historical paintings, The last day of Pompeii in the turmoil, the doomed inhabitants flee from the fury of the Vesuvius volcano. The picture made a stunning impression on his contemporaries. He masterfully paints secular paintings, the Horsewoman and portraits using bright coloristic moments in the composition of the painting, Countess Yu. P. Samoilova. His paintings and portraits are composed of contrasts of light and shadow. . Influenced by traditional academic classicism, Karl Bryullov endowed his paintings with historical authenticity, romantic spirit and psychological truth. (1806-1858) An excellent master of the historical genre. For about two decades, Ivanov worked on his main painting, The Appearance of Christ to the People, emphasizing his passionate desire to depict the coming of Jesus Christ to earth. At the initial stage, these are the paintings Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress 1831-1833, the Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection in 1835. During his short life, Ivanov created many works, for each painting he painted many sketches of landscapes and portraits. Ivanov is a man of extraordinary intelligence, always striving to show the elements of popular movements in his works. (1815-1852) Master of the satirical movement, who laid the foundation for critical realism in everyday genre. The Fresh Cavalier 1847 and The Discriminating Bride 1847,