Painting of the first half XIX century:
The trend of realistic painting of the 18th century remains leading in the first half of the new century, special attention is paid during this period to the features of Russian life, which have a folk and national character. A significant achievement of Russian painting in the first third of the 19th century was the development of the portrait genre. The portraits of this time illuminate the humanism of the Pushkin era, with its boundless respect for human dignity. The patriotic upsurge caused by the struggle against the French intervention of 1812, the expectation of the triumph of social justice gave the worldview of the progressive person of this era a sublime character, at the same time, the civic principle was combined here with a lyrical, intimate one, which gave the spiritual appearance of the best people of that time a special completeness.
Among the largest Russian portrait painters of the first half of the 19th century belongs Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (years of life 1776-1857), one of the founders of romanticism in Russian painting. In his portraits, Tropinin revealed the value of the human person in all the concreteness of its external appearance and spiritual world. Tropinin's portraits are easily recognizable by the complacent facial expression characteristic of his characters; he endowed his characters with his own calmness and benevolence. In addition to portraits, Tropinin also developed everyday themes in his work, which makes him also one of the founders of Russian genre painting. The "Portrait of Arseny Tropinin" can be called a masterpiece of Tropinin's early work. Children's images were especially attractive to the artist. Most of the portraits of children by Tropinin have a genre tie, he depicts children with animals, birds, toys, musical instruments ("Boy with a Pity", "Boy with a Goldfinch" and others). "Portrait of Arseny Tropinin" captivates with sincerity and purity of emotions, it is written easily and in a generalized manner. The refined coloring is based on a combination of golden-brownish tones, through the paint layer and glaze the pinkish tone of the ground and underpainting shines through.|
V.A.Tropinin. Lacemaker. 1823 g. |
The image of a pretty girl, momentarily detached from her occupation and looking at the viewer, suggests that work is not at all a burden for her, that this is just a game. The still life is carefully and lovingly painted - laces, bobbins, a box for needlework. The feeling of peace and comfort created by Tropinin in this picture convinces of the value of every moment of everyday human existence.
The early forms of Russian genre painting include other portraits of serf needlewomen by Tropinin - gold embroiderers, embroiderers, spinners. Their faces are similar, the features of the artist's feminine ideal are clearly visible in them - a gentle oval, dark almond-shaped eyes, a friendly smile, a flirtatious look. These works by Tropinin are distinguished by clear contours and corpus overlay of paints, the picturesque texture acquires density. Small, dense strokes make the paintings look like enamel miniatures.|
V.A.Tropinin. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin. 1827 g. |
Pushkin is depicted sitting in a relaxed pose, his right hand is placed on a table with an open book. The background and clothing are united by a common golden-brown tone, against which the poet's face stands out - the most intense color spot and compositional center of the picture. Genuine inspiration shines in the poet's wide-open blue eyes. All contemporaries noted in this portrait an impeccable resemblance to Pushkin, where the artist, conscientiously following nature, was able to capture the poet's high spirituality.
The 1830s-1840s account for the largest number of portraits painted by Tropinin. These are portraits of the first persons in the city hierarchy and private persons - nobles, merchants, as well as actors, writers and artists spiritually close to Tropinin.During these years, under the influence of Karl Bryullov, who returned to Russia from Italy, Tropinin's works of large size, like a ceremonial portrait, appear. In the portrait of Bryullov himself, Tropinin emphasizes the artistic originality of the artist with a lush background with antique ruins entwined with vines and a smoking Vesuvius.
Tropinin's later works attract with their genre observation, anticipating the interest in everyday life, characteristic of Russian painting in the 1860s.
It is worth noting that Tropinin was a serf for most of his life and received his freedom only at the age of 47 (and his family, wife and son, after another 5 years), but despite this, throughout his life the artist maintained a benevolent attitude towards people, depicting them in portraits in a good mood and with a pleasant expression.
Vasily Andreevich Tropinin in his entire long creative life created more than three thousand portraits, having had a huge impact on the formation of the Moscow school of painting, the development of realistic trends in Russian art.
One of the most significant Russian painters of the first half of the 19th century can be called Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (years of life 1799-1852). Bryullov in his work gravitates towards large, historical canvases, their general design is often romantic, although they retain the features of classicism and a realistic basis.Karl Bryullov was born into the family of an academician, woodcarver and painter-decorator. In 1809, Bryullov was admitted to the Academy of Arts, graduating with honors, was sent on a retirement trip to Italy, where he wrote a series of paintings on the theme of the life-affirming beauty of a healthy person, who feels the joy of being with his whole being ("Italian Morning", " Italian noon "," Bathsheba ").
This theme of joyful beauty and harmony sounds distinctly in the painting "Italian Noon". Bryullov masterfully conveys the effect of sunbeams piercing the foliage and a grape bunch filled with juice, traces the play of light and shadows softened by reflexes on the dark skin of an Italian woman, while maintaining the clarity of the plastic volumes of her bare shoulders and full arms.
Karl Bryullov can also be called the master of the ceremonial portrait. The romantic elevation of the image, its decorativeness, the plastic clarity of the volumetric form and the amazing materiality of the texture of objects distinguish the best ceremonial portraits of Bryullov, such as "The Horsewoman" and two portraits of Countess Yulia Samoilova.However, it can be noted that the ceremonial portraits of Bryullov lack the significance that is inherent in a representative image of the 18th century. Many of Bryullov's ceremonial portraits are purely external in nature, anticipating the salon portrait of the second half of the 19th century.
In contrast to custom-made ceremonial portraits, the special accuracy of the psychological characteristics of the models distinguishes the portraits of people of art by Bryullov (poet Kukolnik, sculptor Vitali, fabulist Krylov, writer and critic Strugovshchikov).
In the portrait, Vitali Bryullov portrays the sculptor as an enthusiastic creator, the shine of his moist eyes betrays the tension of the creative state, and simple clothes with a casually thrown back collar of a white shirt remind of the sculptor's working environment. Bryullov highlights Vitali's face and hand with a bright light, plunging the rest of the environment into soft semi-darkness.
K.P.Bryullov. The last day of Pompeii. 1830-1833
The pinnacle of Karl Bryullov's creative achievements, brilliant talent and virtuoso skill can be called the large historical painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", which characterizes romanticism in Russian painting, mixed with idealism and an increased interest in plein air.
In the painting, Bryullov depicted the moment of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. NS. and the destruction of the city of Pompeii near Naples. The death of people under the influence of blind, elemental forces is tragically inevitable, the glow of a volcano and the light of lightning illuminate the horrified crowd of people seeking salvation. Bryullov combines in the images of the characters in this picture the heroic idealization traditional for classicism and the tendency inherent in the new romantic direction to depict natures in exceptional situations.
In building the composition of the painting, Bryullov uses the basic rules of classicism: the frontality and closed nature of the composition, its division in depth into three plans, the distribution of the characters into groups, arranged in the form of academic triangles. Such a construction of the composition in the style of classicism contradicts the general romantic nature of the idea of the picture, introducing a certain conventionality and coldness into the picture.
Unlike his contemporaries, who illuminated the paintings with neutral diffused daylight, Bryullov boldly and successfully undertakes the transfer of the most complex double illumination: hot red light from a volcanic flame in the depths and cold, greenish-bluish light in the foreground from a flash of lightning.
The painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" by Karl Bryullov made a sensation both in Russia and abroad, marking the first great international success of the Russian school of painting.
Sculpture of the first half XIX century:
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ON. Russia. Portrait of I.P. Martos |
The most prominent representative of Russian classicism in sculpture of this period can be called Ivan Petrovich Martos (years of life 1754-1835).
Memorial sculpture occupies an important place in the work of Martos. Martos can be called one of the creators of a peculiar type of Russian gravestone of the era of classicism. Among the first surviving works of Martos, the tombstone of S.S.Volkonskaya stands out, which is a marble slab with a bas-relief image of a crying woman next to an urn. The slender, stately figure is entirely draped in long robes, her face is shaded by a veil thrown over her head and is almost invisible. A great measure of restraint in conveying human grief is inherent in the work of Martos; calm and clear solution to the overall composition of the tombstone.
The same features are characteristic of the tombstone of E. S. Kurakina. Instead of a complex multi-figured composition, the sculptor placed only one reclining figure of a woman on the tombstone pedestal; Leaning her elbows on an oval medallion with a portrait of the deceased, the woman in grief covers her face with her hands. On the pedestal of the tombstone, Martos carved a bas-relief depicting the two sons of the deceased against a smooth neutral background characteristic of classicism.
The strength and drama of deep human feelings are conveyed in this work by Martos with artistic tact and plastic expressiveness.
In the marble tombstones of Martos, the theme of grief is revealed with deep poetry, there is a great sincerity of feelings, a sublime ethical understanding of human grief, they lack the horror of death that overwhelms a person.
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I.P. Maptos. Monument to Minin and Pozharsky in Moscow. 1804-1818 |
The monument to Minin and Pozharsky is a sculptural group on a granite pedestal of a strict rectangular shape. Stretching out his hand towards the Kremlin and, as if calling for the salvation of the fatherland, Kuzma Minin hands the sword to Prince Pozharsky, Pozharsky, taking the sword and holding the shield with his left hand, rises from his bed, on which he rested after his wounds.
The dominant figure in the group is the figure of Kuzma Minin; his powerful figure clearly dominates and attracts the main attention with a wide free wave of his hand. High reliefs are cut into the pedestal on both sides, the front high relief depicts patriotic citizens donating their property for the good of the Motherland, the back depicts Prince Pozharsky driving the Poles from Moscow.
With laconic means, Martos was able to fully express in the monument the idea of civic duty and feat in the name of the motherland, which fully corresponded to the deeds and feelings of the Russian people after the victory in the war with the French in 1812.
Commemorative inscription on the pedestal
Martos' works of the late period anticipate the romantic tendencies of sculpture of the second half of the 19th century. Martos creates monuments that play an important role in the creation of the imaginative structure of cities: to Duke E. Richelieu in Odessa, Alexander I in Taganrog, GA Potemkin-Tavrichesky in Kherson, MV Lomonosov in Arkhangelsk.Among the late monumental works of Martos, the Richelieu monument in Odessa stands out, which has become a symbol of this city. Martos depicted Richelieu dressed in an ancient Roman toga, his movements are restrained and expressive, which emphasizes the noble simplicity of the image. The monument is compositionally connected with the surrounding architectural ensemble: with buildings located in a semicircle of the square, with the famous Odessa staircase and seaside boulevard.
Ivan Petrovich Martos played a decisive role in shaping the work of many Russian sculptors of the 19th century. For more than fifty years he taught at the Academy of Arts, from 1814 he was its rector.
In the works of many sculptors of the first half of the 19th century, one can see an increasing interest in the transmission of reality and a fascination with genre and everyday topics, which will determine the features of art in the second half of the century. The expansion of the subject matter of sculptural works and interest in the genre are most characteristic of the work of P.K. Klodt.
Peter Karlovich Klodt (years of life 1805-1867) - Russian sculptor from the baronial family Klodt von Jurgensburg of Baltic-German origin.
In his youth, Baron Klodt, at the insistence of his father, chief of staff of the Separate Siberian Corps, entered the artillery school, but he devoted all his free time to his main hobby: at the slightest opportunity, Klodt took up a pencil or a penknife and drew or cut horses in small sizes.
At the age of 23, Klodt left military service and devoted his later life exclusively to sculpture. In 1830, Klodt entered the Academy of Arts as a volunteer, the rector of the Academy I.P. Martos, as well as the famous masters of sculpture S.I.Galberg and B.I. Orlovsky became his teachers. At the same time, Klodt's statuettes depicting horses began to enjoy great success.
The first famous monumental work of Klodt can be called a sculptural group of horses in the design of the Narva Gate in St. Petersburg. On this large government order, Klodt worked together with such experienced sculptors as S. S. Pimenov and V. I. Demut-Malinovsky.
According to Klodt's model, a copper six horses were installed on the attic of the arch of the gate, carrying the chariot of the goddess of glory. In contrast to the classical depictions of this plot, the horses performed by Klodt rush forward and rears up, imparting the impression of impetuous movement to the entire sculptural composition.
From 1833 to 1841, Klodt worked on models of four groups of "Horse Tamers" installed on the Anichkov Bridge in St. Petersburg.The romantically sounding theme of these groups, performed in the best traditions of Russian classicism, can be defined as the struggle of the will and reason of man with the forces of nature. Defeated to the ground at the first attempt to curb the animal, the person eventually becomes the winner. Clearly rendered elastic volumes are characteristic of all four groups, their silhouettes are clear and expressive. Thanks to these qualities, Klodt's sculptural groups are compositionally integral to the surrounding architectural urban ensemble.
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P.K.Klodt. Horse tamer. 1833-1841
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In the first group, a naked athlete restrains a rearing horse, an animal and a person are tense. The buildup of the fight is shown using two main diagonals: the smooth silhouette of the horse's neck and back forms the first diagonal, which intersects with the diagonal formed by the athlete's figure. The movements are highlighted with rhythmic repetitions. |
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In the second group, the head of the animal is turned up high, the mouth is bared, the nostrils are swollen, the horse beats with its front hooves in the air, the human figure is deployed in a spiral in an attempt to restrain the horse. The main diagonals of the composition approach each other, the silhouettes of a horse and a man seem to intertwine with each other. |
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In the third group, the man is thrown to the ground, and the horse tries to break free, triumphantly arching his neck, his freedom is hindered only by the bridle in the man's left hand. The main diagonals of the composition are clearly readable and their intersection is highlighted. The silhouettes of a horse and a man form an open composition, in contrast to the first two groups. |
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In the fourth group, a person tames an angry animal: leaning on one knee, he stops the wild run of the horse, squeezing the bridle with both hands. The silhouette of a horse forms a gentle diagonal, the silhouette of a man is covered with a drapery falling from the back of the horse. The overall silhouette of the monument again becomes closed and balanced. |
Here Klodt refuses all conventional and idealizing techniques of sculpture of classicism and conveys his vivid impressions and the appearance of a person whom he knew and loved well. The sculptor depicts the poet sitting in a simple, natural pose, focusing on Krylov's face, which reveals his personal characteristics. Unusually, Klodt solves the pedestal of the monument, the entire middle part of which is occupied by a continuous high relief encircling the perimeter with images of various animals, characters from Krylov's fables. Despite some criticism for excessive realism in depicting animals on a pedestal, the monument was highly appreciated and took its rightful place in the history of Russian sculpture.
Throughout his life, Klodt paid much attention to small plastic - small figurines depicting horses ("A horse at a watering hole", "A horse covered with a blanket rearing up", "A horse galloping", "Foal", etc.). The sculptor in these statuettes masterfully conveys the individual character of each animal; these are real portraits, performed with emotion, with sensitive attention and genuine respect for nature.Painting of the first half of the 19th century
The beginning of the 19th century is traditionally called the golden age of Russian culture. This is the time when the genius of A. Pushkin, A. Griboyedov and N. Gogol shone, and the Russian painting school in the person of K. Bryullov received European recognition. The masters of this historical period, despite the dramatic circumstances of life, aspired in art to serene harmony and a bright dream, avoided depicting earthly passions. This was largely due to the general mood of disillusionment reigning in Western Europe and Russia in the active struggle after the collapse of the ideas of the Great French Revolution. People begin to "withdraw into themselves", indulge in solitary dreams. The era of romanticism comes, which in Russia coincided with the beginning of the reign of the new emperor Alexander I and the war with Napoleon.
The portrait art of the early 19th century reflects the hidden world of emotional experiences, melancholy, and disappointment. The main representative of the romantic trend in Russian portrait art was Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782-1836). A graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Kiprensky lived a stormy life in which there was everything: crazy romantic impulses, passionate love, the rise of fame and death in poverty in a foreign land. From the first, Petersburg period of his life, a precious legacy remained - brilliantly painted works in the portrait genre ("Portrait of A. K. Schvalbe", "Portrait of E. V. Davydov", "Portrait of Countess E. P. Rostopchina", "Portrait D. N. Khvostova "and others). The heroes of Kiprensky's portraits are emphatically restrained, do not show their emotions, but on the face of each of them there is a stamp characteristic of romanticism of "preparedness" for the trials of fate, the significance of the human personality, regardless of class, gender and age.
In the early years of the 19th century, the Empire style came to Russia from Napoleonic France - a new return of classicism. Rational clarity, harmonious balance, dignified severity, overcoming earthly passions for the sake of the ideals of patriotic valor - all these features of the classicist style were in demand during the Patriotic War with Napoleon. The brightest exponent of classicism in Russian painting was Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (1783–1873), a remarkable sculptor, painter and draftsman. In his captivating still lifes, fruits and flowers appear as a "pearl of creation", as an antique ideal of harmonious perfection, purified of everything "earthly" and accidental.
The fire of Moscow, the partisan movement, the victorious end of the war with Napoleon - all this for the first time forced the nobility to look at the people in a new way, to realize their position and recognize their human dignity. In the work of Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780–1847), the world of the serf peasantry appears for the first time. This artist went against the established academic routine - he began to write not according to academic schemes, but "a la nature", which was a great courage in those days. Posed for Venetsianov by his serfs - residents of the village of Safonkovo, Tver province. The peasant world in Venetsianov's paintings is seen as if from the window of a romantic noble estate: there is no place in it for criticism of social injustice and backbreaking work. Venetsianov's world is full of harmonious perfection, quiet, clear peace, the unity of people and nature. For the first time, the modest, quiet charm of the quiet northern Russian nature, which is the special charm of his paintings, penetrates into the poetic-conventional peasant genre of Venetsianov. At his own expense, on his estate, Venetsianov established a school for artists, whom he recruited mainly from the serf class. Some of his students continued his line in art with dignity. So, noteworthy are the poetic interiors of Kapiton Alekseevich Zelentsov (1790-1845), the landscapes of Grigory Vasilyevich Soroka (1823-1864) and Evgraf Fedorovich Krendovsky (1810 - after 1853). According to A. Benois, "Venetsianov alone brought up a whole school, a whole theory, sowed the first seeds of Russian folk painting."
The best graduates of the Academy of Arts received the right to an internship in Italy - a country of "living" antiquity and beautiful masterpieces of the Renaissance. Many of the artists, having left for Italy, stayed in this country for many years, not striving to return to Russia, where the spirit of state regulation of art reigned, the painters depended on the orders of the imperial court.
In Italy, the talented artist Mikhail Ivanovich Lebedev (1811-1837), who died early, painted his best romantic landscapes. The captivating Italian nature and the generous southern sun inspired the most gifted landscape painter of this generation, Sylvester Feodosievich Shchedrin (1791–1830). Shchedrin went on a retirement trip to Italy in 1818 and lived there due to illness until his death in 1837. He repeated the same motives many times - the majestic panoramas of Rome, the serene views of the cliffs and the sea on the southern coast of Italy in the vicinity of Naples and Sorrento. Shchedrin was the first to paint landscapes in the open air, freeing them from the traditional academic convention of colors. We will not meet romantic storms and rainy weather in his landscapes, bright sun and serene peace reign in his landscapes, people live a single life with the surrounding nature, and nature gives people bliss, rest, “helps” in everyday work.
Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852) was the most famous painter among all Russian masters of the early 19th century. His grandiose painting The Last Day of Pompeii, created in Italy, was a resounding success in Europe and Russia. At home, Bryullov was greeted as a national hero. A virtuoso draftsman, in love with the external beauty of the world, Bryullov managed to "pour new blood" into the dying academism, filling it with vivid romantic experiences. Both in the plot pictures and in the portraits, Bryullov represents life in the forms of the theater. His large ceremonial portraits, where a person is depicted as if caught in the moment of "role-playing" action ("Horsewoman", "Portrait of N. V. Kukolnik", etc.), enjoyed great success with his customers. The artist did not set himself the task of conveying the unique individuality of the personality; he is primarily concerned with the external captivating beauty of women, the splendor of expensive clothes, and the luxury of interior decoration. In the last years of his work, Bryullov departs from the ideal of "serene" external brilliance, his portraits become more intimate and psychologically profound ("Portrait of A. N. Strugovshchikov", "Self-portrait" 1848.)
Above all the artists of the first half of the 19th century, the figure of the genius master Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858) rises. According to A. Benois, "in him lived a childish, angelic, inquisitive soul, the real soul of a prophet, longing for truth and not afraid of martyrdom." In Italy, where Ivanov was sent on a retirement trip after graduating from the Academy of Arts, he worked for about twenty years on the grand canvas "The Appearance of Christ to the People" and only shortly before his death returned to his homeland. The Russian public did not appreciate the picture, and its author soon died suddenly of cholera in St. Petersburg, not having time to receive money for the main picture of his life, acquired by the emperor.
Ivanov's preparatory landscape sketches for "The Appearance of Christ to the People" have become real masterpieces. Working in the open air in the vicinity of Rome, the artist, in search of the truth of color, made amazing coloristic discoveries, anticipating the achievements of the French impressionists. Ivanov was a true artist-sage of religious feeling, who in the watercolor cycle “Biblical Sketches” managed to say a new word in the history of religious painting, to present the most grandiose and incomprehensible with “truly Easter solemnity” (A. Benois).
Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (1776 (?) - 1857) became the first professional Moscow portraitist, the founder of the Moscow school of painting. For a serf artist, he had a happy fate: his owner, Count Morkov, paid for his studies at the Academy of Arts, encouraged his creativity, and in 1823 gave him freedom. Immediately after that, Tropinin, already popular among Muscovites, received the title of "appointed academician." The artist left us a whole gallery of faces of post-fire Moscow, in which a special atmosphere of freedom, hospitality of residents, and the ability to indulge in the joys of life reigned. Tropinin's portraits are striking in their vitality and at the same time with an affectionate, kind look at a person.
Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852) was a Guards officer in the Finnish regiment, but at the age of 29 in 1844 he left military service and devoted himself entirely to art. Fate let him go for about eight years for creativity - Fedotov died at the age of 37 in a psychiatric hospital, having managed to paint not so many pictures, but each of them is a precious pearl that entered the treasury of Russian art. The artist worked in the field of the genre genre, giving it new heights and sharpness. He fills scenes from the life of the merchants and the nobility with soft humor, teasing modern customs ("The Courtship of a Major", "Choosy Bride", etc.). Fedotov depicts the world of people and their objective environment with amazing pictorial perfection, love penetration, with tenderness and truthfulness. The last picture of a seriously ill artist, "Anchor, still anchor!" Admiration for the world and radiant serenity disappear in it - a new, sober and deeply critical image of reality - realism - enters the historical scene.
SILVESTER SHCHEDRIN. New Rome. Castle of St. Angela.1824. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In Shchedrin's landscape, the image of the Eternal City is simultaneously majestic and intimate. The heavy stone bulk of the Castle of St. Angel is balanced by buildings and boats on the left bank of the Tiber. The majestic, smooth flow of the river "brings" the viewer's gaze to the ancient arched bridge and the silhouette of St. Peter's Cathedral - a symbol of the greatness of Rome. In the foreground, the everyday life of the townspeople flows peacefully and unhurriedly: they pull the boat ashore, prepare to sail, rush about their business ... All the details of the landscape are alive, seen in nature, devoid of academic convention. The painting itself is very beautiful: everything is shrouded in air, permeated with morning soft, diffused light.
SILVESTER SHCHEDRIN. Grotto Matromanio on the island of Capri.
The shaded cave of the grotto offers a captivating view of the waters and rocks of the sea bay, which seem to bask under the dazzling bright rays of the sun. The arch of the grotto forms a kind of backstage that effectively separates the distant space of the sea bay from the world of everyday life that is close to the viewer.
SILVESTER SHCHEDRIN. Small harbor in Sorrento overlooking the islands of Ischia and Procido.1826. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Of all the many views of Sorrento by Shchedrin, this landscape is the most Hellenic in spirit. The sun's rays "palpably" descend from the heavens, reflecting in the calm silvery surface of the bay, softly illuminating the coastal huts and boats, emphasizing the leisurely and measured movements in the small figurines of fishermen busy with their daily worries. The colors of the landscape are luminous, the shadows are transparent, everything is filled with air.
SILVESTER SHCHEDRIN. Veranda entwined with grapes.
One of the artist's best landscapes, painted in the vicinity of Naples, is imbued with the Hellenic spirit of clear peace and light harmony. Shchedrin portrays nature as an image of paradise on earth. It blows with the fresh and moist breath of the sea, the aroma of heated grape leaves. People hiding on the veranda from the scorching sun indulge in blissful relaxation. Golden sunbeams penetrate through the woven branches of grapes, glare on the stone supports of the veranda, are reflected in bright reflections on the burnt grass ... Shchedrin masterfully conveys the most complex lighting effect, achieving a unity of light, color, air elements unseen before in a landscape.
MAXIM VOROBYOV. Autumn night in St. Petersburg (Pier with Egyptian sphinxes on the Neva at night).1835. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In one of his best Petersburg views, Vorobyov conveys all the fullness of romantic enthusiasm for the wonderful city and its architecture. The shining of the full moon turns a real corner of St. Petersburg into a wonderful vision. The famous stone sphinxes and hollows with dark silhouettes frame the granite embankment, the moonlit path on the Neva takes the viewer's eyes into the distance and invites them to admire the impeccable proportions of the palaces on the opposite bank. Contemporaries in Vorobyov's landscapes admired the "transparency of colors", their saturation with light and warmth, "freshness and gradualness in the shadows."
MAXIM VOROBYOV. Oak shattered by lightning.1842. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
This landscape was created as an allegory for the unexpected death of the artist's wife, Cleopatra Loginovna Vorobyova, nee Shustova. A dazzling flash of lightning split the trunk of the mighty tree. In the thickening blue twilight, the earth merges with the sky, furious sea waves rise at the foot of the oak, into which a lone figure rushes, almost imperceptible in the maelstrom of the elements. The artist embodies here a favorite motive for romanticism: the tragic helplessness of a person before the blow of a majestic but merciless element.
MIKHAIL LEBEDEV. In the Chigi park.1837. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
After graduating from the Academy of Arts, Lebedev went on a pensioner's trip to Italy to continue his studies, from where he wrote: "It seems to me that it is a sin in Italy (and everywhere) to work without nature." In one of his best works, the artist boldly deviates from the canons of the classic landscape, traditional for this time. The composition is built diagonally and saturated with movement. The atmosphere of a sultry day, the violent force of southern vegetation are conveyed with excitement and vividness; the stony soil of the wide road, painted in free strokes, seemed to have absorbed the heat of the sun.
Along with Sylv. Shchedrin, Lebedev, who died early, became the pioneer in Russian painting of a living, direct sense of nature.
GRIGORY CHERNETSOV. Parade on the occasion of the opening of the monument to Alexander I in St. Petersburg on August 30, 1834.1834. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Chernetsov was a court painter of Emperor Nicholas I, who considered himself a great connoisseur of art. Chernetsov's works accurately reflect the tastes of the emperor - having a penchant for military affairs, Nicholas I demanded from artists "protocol" fixation of nature in the image of parades, uniforms, weapons, etc. The panorama of Palace Square is as if drawn along a ruler, the huge northern sky with rain clouds is spectacular "Overshadows" the parade of troops in front of the Alexander Column, built by the French architect Montferrand.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of A.K.Schvalbe.1804. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The portrait depicts the artist's father Adam Karlovich Schwalbe, serf landowner A.S. Dyakonov. Kiprensky loved to tell how this portrait, shown at exhibitions in Naples and Rome, was mistaken for the work of Rembrandt or Rubens. The artist managed to convey the character of the portrayed - energetic and firm. A face with deep wrinkles and a strong-willed chin is beautifully sculpted, the hand, confidently holding a cane, is highlighted with light. This early work belongs to the undisputed masterpieces of the brush of Kiprensky, testifies to his deep assimilation of the painting techniques of the old masters.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of Count F.V. Rostopchin.
Moscow mayor Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin (1765–1826) had a rare sense of humor and was engaged in literary activity. All the flowers of the then Moscow were going to the famous salon of the Rostopchins. During Napoleon's invasion, rumor attributed to Rostopchin the order to burn Moscow.
In this work, excellent in drawing and color, we will not see any special characteristics of the model's character: the portrait is simple and even modest. Compared to the masters of the previous era, Kiprensky pays less attention to accessories and details of clothing. A black frock coat and folded hands are perceived almost as a single stain. This is how Rostopchin himself spoke of this work: "I sit idle and without boredom with folded hands."
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of Countess E. P. Rostopchina.1809. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The portrait was executed by Kiprensky as a pair with the portrait of the wife of Countess FV Rostopchin. Ekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina (1775-1859) was the maid of honor of Catherine II. She secretly converted to Catholicism and in recent years she lived very isolated. Kiprensky creates a soft, benevolent, sincere image of the portrait. Her whole appearance breathes with silence and self-depth. The color scheme is rich in subtle and delicate transitions of silver and olive tones, which matches the mood of the portrait.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of the Life-Hussar Colonel E.V. Davydov.1809. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The portrait depicts the cousin of the famous poet and war hero of 1812 Denis Davydov - Evgraf Vladimirovich Davydov (1775-1823). By the time the portrait was painted, he was a colonel in the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment, participated in the battle with Napoleon at Austerlitz. The figure is surrounded by a mysterious romantic twilight, in which you can see the foliage of an olive tree against the backdrop of a black-blue sky. Kiprensky finds a wonderful consonance of color: the red color of his uniform, gold laces, white leggings ... Davydov's face has more external charm than deep psychologism. The brave, fearless hero demonstrates his courageous posture and the cheerful daring of youth.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of A. A. Chelishchev.1808 - early 1809. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Alexander Alexandrovich Chelishchev (1797-1881) was brought up in the Corps of Pages since 1808, and later took part in the war of 1812 - that is, he belonged to the generation that determined the fate of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. In the guise of an 11-year-old boy, Kiprensky notices a special, childish expression on his face. The dark beaded eyes are thoughtfully and attentively looking at the viewer, they read the seriousness, "preparedness" for difficult life trials. The color scheme of the portrait is based on Kiprensky's favorite contrasting combination of black, white, red and bright gold.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of D. N. Khvostova.1814. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
One of the most captivating female images of Kiprensky is filled with the mood of quiet, pensive contemplation. Daria Nikolaevna Khvostova (1783–?) Was the niece of M. Lermontov's grandmother.
Unlike the portrait painters of the previous era, the artist does not stop the viewer's attention on the accessories of her clothes: they are given delicately, in common large spots. Eyes live in the portrait - amazing dark eyes that seem to be covered with a fog of disappointment, sad memories and timid hopes.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of E. S. Avdulina.1822 (1823?). State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Ekaterina Sergeevna Avdulina (1788-1832) - wife of Major General A. N. Avdulin, a great connoisseur of the arts and an active member of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, the owner of the mansion on the Palace Embankment and the home theater at the Kamennoostrovskaya dacha. She is dressed in a fashionable head-fitting cap, holding a fan in her hands - an indispensable attribute of a lady of this time outside the home environment. Her folded hands are a quote from La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci, which Kiprensky undoubtedly saw in the Louvre. One of his contemporaries argued that in this portrait “the roundness of the body and the light are made masterfully. And how symbolic is the Levka, who is losing its petals, standing in a glass of water! .. ”Before us is a romantic, contemplative nature, immersed in its hidden thoughts. A branch of delicate white flowers in a fragile glass on the window seems to be likened to the image of the depicted woman.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Self-portrait.1828. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
This self-portrait was painted before the artist left for Italy. Before us is a famous master, who has won rave reviews from his contemporaries, and at the same time a tired and disappointed person. According to the recollections of contemporaries, "Kiprensky was handsome, with beautiful expressive eyes and naturally wavy curls." Slightly squinting his eyes, he probingly looks at the viewer, as if asking about something. The portrait is sustained in a warm, rich color. The colors on the face echo the colors of the dressing gown. The background, as in other works of the master, seems to be a thickened gloom, from which the figure of the person depicted is softly illuminated.
OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin.1827. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg by order of A. Delvig immediately after the poet's return from Mikhailovskaya exile. Contemporaries who knew Pushkin closely argued that there was no more similar portrait of the poet. The image of Pushkin is devoid of routine, the characteristic "Arap" features of his appearance are softened. His gaze slides past the viewer - the poet seems to have been caught by the artist at the moment of creative enlightenment. The lightened background around the head resembles a kind of halo - a sign of being chosen. With an English plaid cloak thrown over his shoulder, Pushkin is likened to the great English romantic poet Byron. He expressed his attitude to the portrait in a poetic message to Kiprensky "A favorite of the light-winged fashion ..." - "I see myself as in a mirror, / But this mirror flatters me."
VASILY TROPININ. Portrait of A. V. Tropinin, the artist's son.OK. 1818. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The portrait depicts Arseny Tropinin (1809-1885) - the artist's only son. This portrait stands out among other works of the master with a special inner warmth and cordiality. Tropinin solves the most difficult task - he finds pictorial means that express the special world of a child's soul. The portrait is devoid of static posing: the boy is depicted in a slight twist, his golden hair is dispersed, a smile plays on his face, the collar of his shirt is casually open. With long, moving strokes, the artist sculpts the form, and this dynamism of the stroke is consonant with the child's temperament, the romantic expectation of discoveries.
VASILY TROPININ. Portrait of P. A. Bulakhov.
The charm of this character is in liveliness and peace of mind, in harmony of simple and clear relationships with the world. His ruddy, shiny face is sculpted with movable strokes, a silvery fur vest, a sleeve of a blue shirt is widely and freely painted, a scarf is “tied” with a few strokes of a brush ... This style of painting perfectly corresponds to the complacent and cheerful, very Moscow image of Bulakhov, which, according to A. Benoit, reminds in the portrait of "a cat licking sour cream."
VASILY TROPININ. Portrait of K. G. Ravich.1823. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The portrait of Konstantin Georgievich Ravich, an official of the Moscow land surveying office, is very Moscow in spirit, far from official severity and self-deepened withdrawal. Ravich is as if taken by surprise by the artist: he is in a dressing gown, his hair is in disarray, his tie is loose. Reflections of a bright red robe "flash" a blush on his sleek and good-natured face. Ravich expresses a widespread type of Moscow nobility - he was a lover of fun, playing cards. Subsequently, he was accused of the death of one of the players, who suffered a blow after a major loss, spent seven years in prison and was exiled to Siberia "on suspicion."
VASILY TROPININ. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin.1827. All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg
The portrait was painted in the first months of 1827, shortly after the poet's return from Mikhailovskaya exile. Pushkin's friend, S. Sobolevsky, recalled that "Pushkin himself ordered the portrait to Tropinin in secret and presented it to me in the form of a surprise with various farces (it cost him 350 rubles)." According to another version, the portrait was commissioned by Sobolevsky himself, who wanted to see the poet not "smoothed" and "anointed", but "disheveled, with the cherished mystical ring on the thumb of one hand." As a result, in the portrait, the intimacy of the image coexists with the romantic "elation", perfectly conveyed by the life of the spirit of the great poet.
VASILY TROPININ. Portrait of K.P.Bryullov.
Tropinin met Karl Bryullov in 1836 in Moscow, where the author of The Last Day of Pompeii stopped by on his way from Italy to St. Petersburg. The maestro is depicted with a pencil and a sketchbook against the background of the erupting Vesuvius. "Yes, he himself is a real Vesuvius!" - they talked about Bryullov, admiring the spontaneous power of his talent. The portrait expresses the social pathos of Bryullov's perception as a brilliant master, in appearance resembling the "golden-haired" Apollo. Bryullov highly appreciated Tropinin, admitted in one of his letters to the artist: "I kiss your soul, which in its purity is most capable of understanding completely the delight and joy that fill my heart ..."
VASILY TROPININ. Lacemaker.1823. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Before us is not a portrait of a specific girl, but a collective poetic image of a craftswoman, whom Tropinin could meet in the houses of noble Muscovites. The artist does not depict the hard work that was in her difficult and painstaking work, he admires and admires the charm and beauty of youth. P. Svinin wrote about this picture that she “reveals the pure, innocent soul of a beauty and that look of curiosity that she threw at someone who entered at that moment: her hands, bare by the elbow, stopped with her gaze, a sigh flew out of her virgin breast covered with a muslin handkerchief ”.
The artist was often reproached for the constant smile of his characters. “But I don’t invent, I don’t compose these smiles, I paint them from nature,” answered Tropinin.
VASILY TROPININ. Self-portrait against the background of a window overlooking the Kremlin.1846. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In his self-portrait, Tropinin portrays himself as a working artist who has managed to "go out into the world" with the help of craft, hard work and talent. He is dressed in a work robe, leans on a cane, in his left hand a palette and brushes. The wide panorama of the Kremlin behind him is the embodiment of the artist's thoughts about his hometown. “The calmness that Tropinin's good-natured face breathed was not easy for him. Constantly fighting against obstacles and oppression, he acquired this calmness in the shadow of faith and art, ”wrote N. Ramazanov, who knew the artist. This self-portrait, which was kept after Tropinin's death in his house, was bought by Muscovites from the artist's son by subscription and presented as a gift to the Rumyantsev Museum as a sign of special respect and recognition of the master's services to the ancient capital.
KARL BRYULLOV. Italian midday (Italian woman picking grapes).1827. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
This painting was created as a pair for "Italian Morning" (1823, Kunsthalle, Kiel) and was sent to Russia as a reporting during the artist's stay in Italy. Bryullov used the opportunity in Italy to study the female model (in the St. Petersburg Academy, women did not pose for artists). He was interested in rendering the female figure in different lighting effects - in the early morning or in the bright light of the Italian noon. The genre scene is filled with the spirit of sweet sensuality. The mature beauty of the Italian woman echoes the ripeness of the grapes, filled with sweet juice, sparkling in the sun.
KARL BRYULLOV. An interrupted date ("The water is already running through ...").Watercolor. 1827-1830. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In Italy, Bryullov was one of the founders of the "Italian" genre, which enjoyed great success among collectors and travelers. The artist's paintings about the everyday life of Italians combine classical beauty and romantic worldview of reality. In one of the best watercolors of the "Italian" genre, a charming genre scene filled with good-natured humor unfolds against the backdrop of the sweetly beautiful Italian nature. Bryullov masterly mastered the classical technique of watercolor, masterfully conveying on a sheet of paper the luminous air of a hot Italian day, the heroes' shirts sparkling with white, the stone wall of a house heated from the sun.
KARL BRYULLOV. Bathsheba.
The plot is based on the legend of a young beauty bathing, whom King David saw while walking along the roof of his palace.
Bryullov enthusiastically praises the feminine beauty, with which "the universe alone could have been crowned." The tenderness of the beautiful "antique" body of Bathsheba, illuminated by the slanting rays of the setting sun, is set off by the lush folds of the draperies, which the artist has turned into a pedestal for the beauty. A transparent stream of water flowing into the pool sparkles with sun glare. The entire canvas is permeated with sensual beauty and joy of being.
KARL BRYULLOV. Rider.1832. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
This ceremonial portrait of the Italians Giovannina (horsewoman) and Amatsilia Paccini was commissioned by Countess Yulia Samoilova to Bryullov, a friend of the artist, who took these orphans to raise. The artist combines the traditional equestrian portrait with plot action. In anticipation of the beginning of a thunderstorm, the beautiful horsewoman hurries to return from a walk. Charming Amatsilia ran out to meet her sister on the loggia. Giovannina's face, despite the rapid leap, remains calmly beautiful. Before us is a favorite technique of the era of romanticism: the collision of a powerful natural element and the resilience of the human spirit. The artist admires the blooming beauty of youth, admires the sweetness of a child, the gracefulness of a thoroughbred horse, the sparkling of silk and the shine of hair curls ... The portrait turns into an elegant enchanting spectacle, into a hymn to the beauty of life.
KARL BRYULLOV. The last day of Pompeii.1833. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The plot of the picture arose from Bryullov after visiting the excavations of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city near Naples, which died in the 1st century from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When working on the picture, the artist used the descriptions of the historian Pliny the Younger, a witness to the death of the city. The main theme of the picture is “the people, seized with fear” before the power of the all-conquering fate. The movement of people is directed from the depth of the picture to the viewer diagonally.
Separate groups of people, united by a single emotional impulse, are highlighted by the cold light of lightning. On the left, in the crowd, the artist depicted himself with a box of paints on his head. N. Gogol wrote that the beautiful figures of Bryullov drown out the horror of their situation with beauty. The artist combined the ardor of the romantic worldview with the traditional techniques of classicism. The picture was a resounding success in Europe, and in Russia Bryullov was greeted as a triumphant: “You brought peace trophies / With you to the fatherly shade. - / And there was the last day of Pompeii / For the Russian brush the first day "(E. Baratynsky).
KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of I.A.Krylov.1839. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The portrait of Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1768 / 1769–1844) was painted by the artist in one session, and was not completed. Krylov's hand was completed by F. Goretsky's student from a plaster cast of the already deceased fabulist. Krylov in the portrait is about 70 years old, his appearance is marked by strict nobility and lively, active energy. The picturesque maestria of the portrait fascinates, the romantically sonorous combination of black, fiery red and golden yellow, beloved by Bryullov.
KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of N. V. Kukolnik.1836. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In St. Petersburg, Bryullov was a constant participant in the evenings where the literary bohemians of that time gathered. Their indispensable participant was Nestor Vasilyevich Kukolnik (1809-1868), a famous playwright, journalist, editor of the Khudozhestvennaya Gazeta magazine. According to contemporaries, the Puppeteer had an awkward appearance - very tall, narrow shoulders, a long face with irregular features, huge ears, small eyes. In the portrait, Bryullov aestheticizes his appearance, giving him the mystery of a romantic wanderer. The ears are hidden under a cap of long hair, a sly smile plays on the pale face. The romantic atmosphere is complemented by the deepening dusk of a passing day, a dilapidated wall reminiscent of the inexorable run of time, and the vastness of the sea in the distance.
KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of A. N. Strugovshchikov.1840. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Alexander Nikolaevich Strugovshchikov (1808-1878) was a friend of Bryullov, a translator from German, and publisher of the Khudozhestvennaya Gazeta. The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg, in Bryullov's workshop on Palace Square. Strugovshchikov poses in an armchair upholstered in red leather (in the same armchair we see Bryullov in the famous "Self-portrait" of 1848). In the guise of a slightly tired Strugovshchikov, the artist emphasized a certain nervousness and detachment. Nihilism and melancholy were the favorite mask of the generation of that time, when, according to Strugovshchikov, "the pogrom of December 14 took away ... the desire of the advanced people of society to interfere in the internal politics of our life, and the very paths to this were barred."
KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of Countess Yu. P. Samoilova, retiring from the ball with her adopted daughter Amatsilia Pacini.No later than 1842. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg, where the eccentric and independent countess came to receive a huge inheritance. In the picture she is depicted together with her adopted daughter, who, with her fragility, sets off and complements the luxurious, mature beauty of Samoilova. The movement of the countess's figure is balanced by a powerful reversal of a heavy velvet curtain, which seems to continue in her dazzlingly luxurious dress. In this best ceremonial portrait of the master, an extraordinary enthusiastic fire is felt - a consequence of the artist's special attitude to the model.
KARL BRYULLOV. Self-portrait.1848. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
According to the recollections of a student of Bryullov, this self-portrait was painted by the master during a serious illness in just two hours. The work amazes with the brilliant virtuosity of the performance: the hair is "combed" with several brush strokes, an exhausted, pale, emaciated face with transparent shadows, a limp hand, is painted in small strokes with inspiration ... At the same time, the image is not devoid of narcissism and elegant artistry. The heavy physical condition of the master only emphasizes the creative fire, which, despite a serious illness, did not extinguish in Bryullov until the end of his life.
KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of the archaeologist M. Lanci.1851. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
This portrait of Bryullov's old friend, the Italian archaeologist Michelangelo Lanci (1779-1867), strikes with a vivid transmission of a person's individuality, foreshadowing a realistic method in the art of portraiture. The archaeologist seemed to be caught in the moment of a lively conversation: he took off his pince-nez and fixed an attentive and intelligent look at the interlocutor. A bright, sonorous color, built on a combination of a bright scarlet robe and silver fur, emphasizes the model's vitality.
This "energetic" sonority of the portrait is all the more remarkable, since the physical strength of Bryullov himself was already running out. The portrait was the last significant work of a seriously ill artist.
ALEXANDER BRYULLOV. Portrait of N. N. Pushkina.1831-1832. Watercolor on paper. All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg
Watercolor portraits of Alexander Bryullov, Karl Bryullov's brother, were extremely popular among his contemporaries. Among the best and most precious for posterity is the portrait of Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina, the wife of the great poet. The artist not only captures her individual traits, he elevates the depicted beauty above the “prose of life”, affirming the female ideal of “pure beauty” that we meet in Pushkin's poems: “My desires were fulfilled. The Creator / He sent You to me, you, my Madonna, / Of the purest charm, the purest sample. "
ALEXANDER BRYULLOV. Portrait of E.P. Bakunina.Not later than 1832. Watercolor on cardboard. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Ekaterina Pavlovna Bakunina (1795-1869) was the sister of Alexander Bakunin, a Lyceum friend of Pushkin. The poet could meet with the young Bakunina at the lyceum balls, where the invited relatives of the lyceum students and acquaintances gathered. “How sweet she was! How the black dress adhered to the dear Bakunina! But I haven't seen her for eighteen hours - ah! What a situation and what a torment ... But I was happy for 5 minutes "(from Pushkin's diary in 1815). In the chamber, miniature portrait, we see Bakunina already in adulthood, but the musicality of the lines, the delicate transparent colors of the watercolors are consonant with the enthusiastic feeling of the young poet.
PETER SOKOLOV. Portrait of Alexander Pushkin.1836. Watercolor on paper. All-Russian Museum of A.S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg
Sokolov was an excellent master of the intimate watercolor portrait of the Pushkin era. The artist's brushes include three lifetime portraits of Pushkin, portraits of his contemporaries, friends and enemies. This portrait represents the poet at the end of his life - a little tired, experiencing many disappointments and anxieties. Sokolov's son, watercolorist academician A. Sokolov, spoke about the method of work of Sokolov:
“With remarkable boldness, the truthful tone of the face, dress, lace of the accessory or background lay down immediately, almost in full force and was detailed in mixed, mostly grayish tones, with remarkable charm and taste, so that the stroke of the brush, its strokes, the paint dropping to nothing, remained on mind, without interfering with the complete completeness of all parts. From this, in his works, there was never any noticeable torment and labor; everything came out fresh, light and at the same time bold and effective in colors. "
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Self-portrait.1811. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In the self-portrait Venetsianov is 31 years old, but he looks like a tired, wise man. At this time, he was already a well-known master portrait painter, who achieved success with his own work and perseverance. Self-portrait strikes with its seriousness, truthfulness and simplicity. The artist, holding a palette and a brush in his hands, is attentively looking at the work. The vibrant, warm light gently shapes the shape. This portrait Venetsianov presented to the court of the Academy of Arts and received the title of "appointed academician" for it.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Sleeping shepherd boy.Between 1823 and 1826. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The landscape of the Russian village, surprising in its heartfelt charm, is filled with quiet, radiant peace: the smooth surface of the river, and green gardens, and distant arable land, and wooded hills ... The colors of the landscape are bright, full-sounding, as if permeated with light. "The Sleeping Shepherd" is one of the best paintings by Venetsianov in terms of lyric and soulful mood, in conveying the intimate connection between man and nature. Venetsianov appears here as the discoverer of the subtle charm of the modest Russian nature.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. On arable land. Spring.First half of the 1820s. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The picture shows an allegory of Spring. A peasant woman in an elegant sundress, likened to the goddess of flowering and spring Flora, majestically steps on arable land. On the left, in the background, another peasant woman with horses seems to continue the circular movement of the main character, which closes on the right on the horizon with another female figure resembling a translucent phantom. Next to the mature beauty of Flora, we see the allegory of the beginning of life - the baby Cupid surrounded by wreaths of cornflowers. On the right side of the picture, next to a dry stump, thin young trees stretch towards the sun.
The picture depicts the eternal cycle of life: the change of seasons, birth and withering ... Researchers noted that this painting by Venetsianov, with its idyllic mood and allegorical enlightenment in combination with Russian motives, met the tastes of Emperor Alexander I.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. At the harvest. Summer.Mid-1820? X. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
This picture was conceived by Venetsianov as a pair for the work “On arable land. Spring ”and was part of a kind of cycle about the seasons. The world of peasant life here is devoid of the prosaic burdens of rural labor. This is an idyll seen by the artist from the windows of a "romantic" noble estate. But at the heart of this idyll is the artist's clever and honest thought about the beauty and the sublime significance of everyday peasant concerns, about the special charm of Russian nature. “Who in the whole Russian painting managed to convey such a truly summer mood as the one that is embedded in his painting“ Summer ”, where behind a somewhat angularly planted woman, with a slightly straightened profile, lies a purely Russian, no longer straightened nature: distant, yellow a cornfield ripening in the hot, sun-saturated air! " - exclaimed A. Benois.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. The girl in the headscarf.
The young beautiful peasant woman was painted by Venetsianov with extraordinary warmth and sincerity. She fixed the viewer with a lively gaze of large eyes, a slight smile plays on her plump lips. A blue striped headscarf and dark, shiny, slicked-back hair set off the tenderness of her girlish face. The space of the picture is filled with soft light, the color is built on a noble combination of soft green, blue and light beige tones.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Reapers.End of 1820? X. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
In this picture we see the peasant boy Zakharka, the hero of several paintings by Venetsianov, and his mother Anna Stepanova. Flushed from hard work and midday heat, the little boy leaned against his mother's shoulder, bewitchedly looking at the bright butterflies crouching on her hand. The form is molded in a thick, full-bodied color. Smooth, rounded lines fill the composition with balance and peace. Venetsianov transforms an unpretentious everyday plot from the life of peasants into a poetic story about the bewitching beauty of the world and the joy of unity with nature.
ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Peasant woman with cornflowers.1830? State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
The young peasant woman is devoid of romantic elation, her image is simple and filled with quiet, soulful poetry. Immersed in her thoughts, she sadly and detachedly touches the bright blue cornflowers. The coloring of the picture is built on subtle consonances of cold smoky white, silvery, light ocher tones, reflecting the girl's pensive and minor mood.
GREGORY FORTY. View of the Spasskoye estate in the Tambov province.1840? E. Regional Art Gallery, Tver
The serf of PI Milyukov, Grigory Soroka studied with Venetsianov at his Safonkovo estate with interruptions. The artist A. Mokritsky wrote that Venetsianov instructed his students: “All these objects, which the material difference must be felt and conveyed by the painter ... For this ... you need extraordinary vigilance of the eye, concentration of attention, analysis, complete trust in nature and the constant pursuit of its changes at various degrees and positions of light; clarity of understanding and love for work is needed. "
Soroka talentedly embodied the teachings of the mentor. He perfectly solves complex pictorial problems, filling the landscape with classical peace and light intimacy. Following Venetsianov, he discovers beauty in the quiet motives of his native nature.
1840? E. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
The calm water surface of Lake Moldin reigns in the picture, defining its idyllic light mood. There is a sense of slowness and silence in everything: on the shore a boy is fishing, his companion quietly glides in a boat along the shore. The buildings of the estate on the opposite bank are buried in the majestic thickets of "eternally beautiful" nature. The transfer of the special poetic beauty of Russian nature and the mood of an amazing, enlightened peace filled with grace make this landscape akin to the best works of A. Venetsianov.
GREGORY FORTY. Fishermen. View in the estate Spasskoye, Tambov province.Fragment
CAPITON ZELENTSOV. In the rooms.End of 1820? X. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
In the late 1920s, the interior genre became popular among artists, reflecting the interest of customers from the noble society to the “poetry of home life”. Zelentsov's painting is close in spirit to the best works of his mentor A. Venetsianov. A suite of three spacious, tastefully decorated rooms, flooded with light, unfolds in front of the viewer. There are paintings and medallions by F. Tolstoy on the walls, a statue of Venus in the corner by the window, and elegant mahogany furniture along the walls. The rooms are "enlivened" by two young men training a dog. When looking at this interior, a feeling of clear peace and light harmony is captured, which corresponded to the ideas of the ideal of private life.
FEDOR SLAVYANSKY. A.G. Venetsianov's office.1839-1840. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg
Slavyansky continued the line of his teacher A. Venetsianov both in portrait painting and in the interior genre. His best interior, depicting the rooms in the mentor's house, will permeate with a light, harmonious mood. A superbly written suite of rooms recalls brilliant advances in the study of perspective. In the back of the room, in soft diffused light, a young man lay down on a sofa - perhaps the artist himself or one of the master's students. Everything in this space reminds of serving art and artistic interests: copies from antique statues, a mannequin of a peasant girl in a kokoshnik by the window, as if revived by bright sunlight, paintings on the walls, the lining of the stove in the "antique" style.
Painting of the second half of the 19th century * * * In the second half of the 19th century, Russian fine art was dominated by social and political ideas. No other European country has had such a long existence in painting of critical realism - historical
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The first decades of the 19th century in Russia took place in an atmosphere of national upsurge associated with the Patriotic War of 1812. The ideals of that time found expression in the poetry of the young Pushkin. The war of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising largely determined the character of Russian culture in the first third of the century.
The contradictions of the time became especially acute in the 1940s. It was then that the revolutionary activities of A.I. Herzen, VG Belinsky made brilliant critical articles, Westernizers and Slavophiles waged passionate disputes.
Romantic motives appear in literature and art, which is natural for Russia, which has been involved in the common European cultural process for more than a century. The path from classicism to critical realism through romanticism determined the conditional division of the history of Russian art in the first half of the 19th century. as if into two stages, the watershed of which were the 30s.
Much has changed since the 18th century. in the visual, plastic arts. The social role of the artist, the significance of his personality, his right to freedom of creativity, in which social and moral problems were now more and more acutely raised, increased.
The growth of interest in the artistic life of Russia was expressed in the building of certain art societies and the publication of special magazines: The Free Society of Lovers of Literature, Sciences and Arts (1801), the Journal of Fine Arts, first in Moscow (1807), and then in St. Petersburg (1823 and 1825), "Society for the Encouragement of Artists" (1820), "Russian Museum ..." P. Svinin (1810s) and "Russian Gallery" in the Hermitage (1825), provincial art schools, such as the school of A.V. Stupin in Arzamas or A.G. Venetsianov in St. Petersburg and the village of Safonkovo.
The humanistic ideals of Russian society were reflected in the highly civilian examples of architecture of this time and monumental decorative sculpture, in synthesis with which decorative painting and applied art appear, which often end up in the hands of the architects themselves. The dominant style of this time is mature, or high, classicism in scientific literature, especially at the beginning of the 20th century, often referred to as the Russian Empire style.
Architecture
The architecture of the first third of the century is, first of all, the solution of large urban planning problems. In St. Petersburg, the planning of the main squares of the capital: Dvortsovaya and Senatskaya, is being completed. The best ensembles of the city are being created. Moscow is being built especially intensively after the fire of 1812. Antiquity in its Greek (and even archaic) version becomes the ideal; the civic heroism of antiquity inspires Russian architects. The Doric (or Tuscan) order is used, which attracts with its severity and laconicism. Some elements of the order are enlarged, especially for colonnades and arches, the power of smooth walls is emphasized. The architectural image is striking in its grandeur and monumentality. A huge role in the overall appearance of the building is played by sculpture, which has a certain semantic meaning. Color decides a lot, usually the architecture of high classicism is two-colored: columns and stucco statues are white, the background is yellow or gray. Among the buildings, the main place is occupied by public buildings: theaters, departments, educational institutions, palaces and temples are erected much less often (with the exception of regimental cathedrals at the barracks).
"View of the Stroganov dacha" (1797, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg)
The large office of S.V. Stroganova, watercolor from the album of the Stroganov family, 1830s
The largest architect of that time, Andrei Nikiforovich Voronikhin (1759–1814), began his independent path back in the 90s with perestroika following F.I. Demertsov the interiors of the Stroganov Palace by F.-B. Rastrelli in St. Petersburg (1793, Mineral study, art gallery, corner hall). Classical simplicity is also characteristic of the Stroganov dacha on the Black River (1795-1796, not preserved. landscape oil "Stroganov's dacha on the Black River" , 1797, State Russian Museum, Voronikhin received the title of academician). In 1800, Voronikhin worked in Peterhof, completing the project of galleries at the ladle of the Samson fountain and taking part in the general reconstruction of the fountains of the Great Grotto, for which he was officially recognized by the Academy of Arts as an architect. Later, Voronikhin often worked in the suburbs of St. Petersburg: he designed a number of fountains for the Pulkovo road, decorated the "Lantern" office and the Egyptian vestibule in the Pavlovsk Palace,
Kazan Cathedral 
Mining Institute
Viscontiev Bridge and Rose Pavilion in Pavlovsk Park. Voronikhin's main brainchild - Kazan Cathedral (1801-1811). The semicircular colonnade of the temple, which he erected not from the main - western, but from the lateral - northern facade, formed a square in the center of the Nevskaya perspective, turning the cathedral and the buildings around it into the most important urban development junction. Passages, the second ending with the colonnade, connect the building with the surrounding streets. The proportionality of the side passages and the building of the cathedral, the drawing of the portico and fluted Corinthian columns testify to an excellent knowledge of ancient traditions and their skillful modification in the language of modern architecture. In the remaining unfinished project of 1811, a second colonnade was assumed at the southern facade and a large semicircular square at the western one. Only a wonderful cast-iron grating in front of the western façade turned out to be made from this idea. In 1813 M.I. Kutuzov, and the building became a kind of monument to the victories of Russian weapons. Banners and other relics taken from Napoleon's troops were kept here. Later, monuments to M.I. Kutuzov and M.B. Barclay de Tolly, executed by the sculptor B. I. Orlovsky.
Voronikhin gave the Mining Cadet Corps (1806-1811, now the Mining Institute) an even stricter, antiquated character, in which everything is subordinated to a powerful Doric portico of 12 columns facing the Neva. Equally harsh is the image of the sculpture that decorates it, perfectly combined with the smoothness of the side walls and Doric columns. I.E. Grabar correctly noted that if the classicism of Catherine's era proceeded from the ideal of Roman architecture (Quarenghi), then the "Alexandrovsky" one, as it were, resembles the stately style of Paestum.
Voronikhin, the architect of classicism, devoted a lot of effort to the creation of the urban ensemble, the synthesis of architecture and sculpture, the organic combination of sculptural elements with architectural divisions both in large buildings and in small ones. The mountain cadet corps seemed to offer a view of Vasilsvsky Island from the sea. On the other side of the island, on its spit, Thomas de Thomon was building the Stock Exchange ensemble (1805–1810) during these years.
Thomas de Thomon(c. 1760-1813), Swiss by origin, came to Russia at the end of the 18th century, having already worked in Italy, Austria, possibly taking a course at the Paris Academy. He did not receive a complete architectural education, however, he was entrusted with the construction building
View of the exchange from the Bolshaya Neva
Exchanges , and he coped with the task brilliantly (1805-1810). Tomon changed the whole appearance of the arrow of Vasilievsky Island, having decorated the banks of two channels of the Neva in a semicircle, placing along the edges rostral beacon columns , thus forming a square near the building of the Stock Exchange. The Exchange itself looks like a Greek temple - peripter on a high plinth, intended for trade warehouses. The decor is almost absent. Simplicity and clarity of forms and proportions give the building a majestic, monumental character, making it the main thing not only in the ensemble of the arrow, but also influencing the perception of both embankments, both Universitetskaya and Dvortsovaya. The decorative allegorical sculpture of the Stock Exchange building and rostral columns emphasizes the purpose of the structures. The central hall of the Stock Exchange with a laconic Doric entablature is covered with a coffered semicircular vault.
The Stock Exchange Ensemble was not the only building by Tom de Thomon in St. Petersburg. He also built in the royal suburban residences, using here the Greek type of construction. The artist's romantic moods were fully expressed in the mausoleum "To the Benefactor Spouse", erected by Empress Maria
Mausoleum to the spouse-benefactor in Pavlovsk
Fedorovna in memory of Paul in Pavlovsk park (1805–1808, memorial sculpture was performed by Martos). The mausoleum resembles an archaic type of a prostyle temple. Inside, the hall is also covered with a coffered vault. Smooth walls are faced with artificial marble.
The new century is marked by the creation of the most important ensembles of St. Petersburg. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy and a student of the Parisian architect J.-F. Chalgren Andreyan Dmitrievich Zakharov(1761–1811), since 1805, "chief admiralty architect", begins construction Admiralty (1806-1823). Having rebuilt the old Korobov building, he turned it into the main ensemble of St. Petersburg, invariably appearing in the imagination when talking about the city today. Zakharov's compositional solution is extremely simple: the configuration of two volumes, with one volume as if embedded in the other, of which the outer, U-shaped, is separated by a channel from the two inner wings, L-shaped in plan. The inner volume is ship and drawing workshops, warehouses, the outer one is departments, administrative institutions, a museum, a library, etc. The facade of the Admiralty stretches for 406 m. is the castle of the composition and through which
Alexander Garden and the Admiralty
lies the main entrance inside. Zakharov retained the ingenious Korobov idea of the spire, showing tact and respect for tradition and managing to transform it into a new classicist image of the building as a whole. The uniformity of the almost half-kilometer-long façade is disturbed by the evenly spaced porticoes. The decorative plastic of the building, which has both architectonic and semantic meaning, is in striking unity with architecture: the Admiralty is the naval department of Russia, a powerful naval power. The entire system of sculptural decoration was developed by Zakharov himself and brilliantly embodied by the best sculptors of the beginning of the century. Above the parapet of the upper platform of the tower pavilion, crowned with a dome, are depicted allegories of Winds, Shipbuilding, etc. In the corners of the attic there are four seated warriors in armor, performed by F. Shchedrin, leaning on shields; below, a huge, up to 22 m long, relief frieze " Establishment of a fleet in Russia "I. Terebenev, then in a flat relief the image of Neptune conveying a trident to Peter as a symbol of domination over the sea, and in high relief - winged Glory with banners - symbols of the victories of the Russian fleet, even lower are sculptural groups of" nymphs holding globes " , as Zakharov himself called them, performed also by F. Shchedrin. This is a combination of round sculpture with high and low relief, statuary sculpture with relief and ornamental compositions; this ratio of sculpture to a smooth wall mass was also used in other works of Russian classicism of the first third of the 19th century.
Zakharov died without seeing the Admiralty in its finished form. In the second half of the XIX century. the territory of the shipyard was built up with apartment buildings, much of the sculptural decoration was destroyed, which distorted the original plan of the great architect.
The Zakharov Admiralty combines the best traditions of Russian architecture (it is no coincidence that its walls and the central tower remind many of the simple walls of ancient Russian monasteries with their gate bell towers) and the most modern urban planning tasks: the building is closely related to the architecture of the city center. Three avenues originate from here: Voznesensky, Gorokhovaya St. .. Nevsky Prospect (this ray system was conceived during the reign of Peter). The Admiralty needle echoes the high spiers of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and the Mikhailovsky Castle.
Leading St. Petersburg architect of the first third of the XIX century. ("Russian Empire") was Karl Ivanovich Rossi(1777-1849). Rossi received his initial architectural education in Brenna's workshop, then
Mikhailovsky Palace (main building of the Russian Museum)
made a trip to Italy, where he studied the monuments of antiquity. His independent work begins in Moscow and continues in Tver. One of the first works in St. Petersburg - construction on Elagin Island (1818). We can say about Rossi that he "thought in ensembles." For him, a palace or a theater was transformed into a town-planning junction of squares and new streets. So, creating Mikhailovsky Palace (1819-1825, now the Russian Museum), he organizes the square in front of the palace and paves the street to Nevsky Prospekt, proportioning his plan with other nearby buildings - the Mikhailovsky Castle and the space of the Field of Mars. The main entrance of the building, located in the depths of the front yard behind a cast-iron lattice, looks solemn, monumental, which is facilitated by the Corinthian portico, to which a wide staircase and two ramps lead.
General Staff Building on Palace Square
Rossi did a lot in the decoration of the palace himself, and with impeccable taste - the drawing of the fence, the interiors of the lobby and the White Hall, in the color of which white and gold, characteristic of the Empire style, prevailed, as well as the painting in grisaille.
In the design Palace Square (1819–1829) Rossi faced the most difficult task - to unite into a single whole the Baroque Rastrelli Palace and the monotonous classicist facade of the General Staff building and ministries. The architect broke the sadness of the latter with the Triumphal Arch, which opens the way to Bolshaya Morskaya Street, to Nevsky Prospekt, and gave the square to the correct shape - one of the largest squares in European capitals. The Triumphal Arch, crowned with the Chariot of Glory, imparts a highly solemn character to the entire ensemble.
One of the most remarkable ensembles of Rossi was begun by him in the late 10s and completed only in the 30s and included a building Alexandria Theater , built according to the latest technology of that time and with rare artistic perfection, the adjacent Alexandria Square, Teatralnaya
Facade of the Alexandrinsky Theater
the street behind the facade of the theater, which has received the name of its architect today, and the pentahedral Chernyshev Square at the end of the Fontanka embankment. In addition, the ensemble included the Sokolov building of the Public Library, modified by Rossi, and the pavilions of the Anichkov Palace, built by Rossi back in 1817–1818.
The last creation of Rossi in St. Petersburg - Senate building and the Synod (1829-1834) on the famous Senate Square. Although it still amazes with the daring scope of the architect's creative thought, who connected two buildings separated by Galernaya Street with a triumphal arch, one cannot fail to note the emergence of new features characteristic of the late work of the architect and the last period of the Empire in general: a certain fragmentation of architectural forms,
Senate and Synod, St. Petersburg
overloaded with sculptural elements, rigidity, coldness and pomp.
On the whole, the work of Russia is a true example of urban planning. Like Rastrelli once, he himself composed the decor system, designing furniture, creating wallpaper designs, and also headed a huge team of wood and metal craftsmen, painters and sculptors. The integrity of his plans, the united will helped to create immortal ensembles. Rossi constantly collaborated with the sculptors S.S. Pimenov Sr. and V.I. Demut-Malinovsky, the authors of the famous chariots on the Arc de Triomphe of the General Staff and sculptures at the Alexandria Theater.
The "strictest" of all the architects of late classicism was Vasily Petrovich Stasov (1769–
Moscow Triumphal Gates
Narva_gates
1848) - did he build barracks (Pavlovsky barracks on the Field of Mars in St. Petersburg, 1817-1821), did he rebuild the Imperial stables ("Stables department" on the Moika embankment near Konyushennaya Square, 1817-1823), did he build regimental cathedrals (Cathedral of the Izmailovsky regiment , 1828–1835) or triumphal arches (Narva and Moscow gates), or decorated the interiors (for example, the Winter Palace after the fire of 1837 or the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo after the fire of 1820). Everywhere Stasov emphasizes the mass, its plastic weight: his cathedrals, their domes are heavy and static, the columns, usually of the Doric order, are just as impressive and ponderous, the general appearance is devoid of grace. If Stasov resorts to decor, then these are most often heavy ornamental friezes.
Voronikhin, Zakharov, Toma de Thomon, Rossi and Stasov are Petersburg architects. At that time, no less remarkable architects were working in Moscow. During the war of 1812, more than 70% of the entire city housing stock was destroyed - thousands of houses and more than a hundred churches. Immediately after the expulsion of the French, intensive restoration and construction of new buildings began. It reflected all the innovations of the era, but the national tradition remained alive and fruitful. This was the originality of the Moscow construction school.
The Bolshoi Theatre
First of all, Red Square was cleared, and on it O.I. Beauvais(1784-1834) were rebuilt, and in fact, erected anew the Trading Rows, the dome above the central part of which was located opposite the dome of the Kazakov Senate in the Kremlin. A little later, a monument to Minin and Pozharsky was erected on this axis by Martos.
Bove was also involved in the reconstruction of the entire territory adjacent to the Kremlin, including a large garden at its walls with a gate from the side of Mokhovaya Street, a grotto at the foot of the Kremlin wall and ramps at the Trinity Tower. Bove creates ensemble of Teatralnaya square (1816–1825), building the Bolshoi Theater and linking the new architecture with the ancient Chinese-city wall. Unlike the St. Petersburg squares, it is closed. Osip Ivanovich also owns the buildings of the First Gradskaya Hospital (1828-1833) and Triumphal gates at the entrance to Moscow from St. Petersburg (1827-1834, now on Kutuzov Avenue), the Joy of All Who Sorrow Church on Bolshaya Ordynka
Triumphal Gates, O.I. Beauvais
Zamoskvorechye, which Bove added to those erected at the end of the 18th century. Bazhenov's bell tower and refectory. This is a rotunda temple, the dome of which is supported by a colonnade inside the cathedral. The master continued the work of his teacher Kazakov with dignity.
Almost always worked fruitfully together Domenico (Dementy Ivanovich) Gilardi(1788-1845) and Afanasy Grigorievich Grigoriev(1782-1868). Gilardi rebuilt the Kazakov Moscow University (1817–1819), which was burnt down during the war. As a result of the reconstructions, the dome and portico become more monumental, from Ionic to Doric. Gilardi and Grigoriev worked a lot and successfully in manor architecture ( Usachevs' estate on the Yauza, 1829–1831, with its fine sculptural decoration; the Golitsyn estate "Kuzminki", 20s, with its famous horse yard).
Estate of the Usachevs-Naydenovs
The special charm of the Russian Empire style was brought to us by Moscow residential buildings of the first third of the 19th century: solemn allegorical figures on the facades peacefully coexist in them - with the motif of balconies and front gardens in the spirit of provincial estates. The front facade of the building is usually displayed on the red line, while the house itself is hidden in the depths of the courtyard or garden. Compositional picturesqueness and dynamics reign in everything, in contrast to the Petersburg equilibrium and orderliness (the house of the Lunins at the Nikitsky Gate, built by D. Gilardi, 1818–1823); house of the Khrushchevs, 1815–1817, now the A.S. Pushkin, built by A. Grigoriev; his house Stanitskaya, 1817–1822, now the L.N. Tolstoy, both on Prechistenka.
Gilardi and Grigoriev largely contributed to the spread of the Moscow Empire style, mainly wooden, throughout Russia, from Vologda to Taganrog.
By the 40s of the XIX century. classicism has lost its harmony, has grown heavier, more complicated, we see this in the example
Saint Isaac's Cathedral
St. Isaac's Cathedral in Petersburg, under construction Auguste Montferrand forty years (1818-1858), one of the last outstanding monuments of religious architecture in Europe in the XIX century, bringing together the best forces of architects, sculptors, painters, masons and foundry workers.
The development of sculpture in the first half of the century is inseparable from the development of architecture. Masters such as I.P. Martos(1752-1835), in the 80s-90s of the 18th century. famous for his tombstones, marked by greatness and silence, the wise acceptance of death, "like the ancients" ("My sorrow is bright ..."). By the XIX century. much changes in his handwriting. Marble is replaced by bronze, lyrical beginning - heroic, sensitive - strict (tombstone of EI Gagarina, 1803, GMGS). Greek antiquity is becoming a direct role model.
Monument to Minin (standing) and Pozharsky (sitting)
In 1804-1818. Martos is working on monument to Minin and Pozharsky , funds for which were collected by public subscription. The creation of the monument and its installation took place during the years of the highest social upsurge and reflected the mood of those years. The ideas of the highest civic duty and feat in the name of the Motherland were embodied by Martos in simple and clear images, in a laconic artistic form. Minin's hand is stretched out to the Kremlin - the greatest national shrine. His clothes are a Russian shirt, not an antique toga. Prince Pozharsky wears ancient Russian armor, a pointed helmet and a shield with the image of the Savior. The monument unfolds in different ways from different points of view: if you look from the right, it seems that, leaning on the shield, Pozharsky stands up to meet Minin; from a frontal position, from the Kremlin, it seems that Minin convinced Pozharsky to take on the lofty mission of defending the Fatherland, and the prince is already taking up the sword. The sword becomes a link
Moses oozes water from a stone
the whole composition.
Together with F. Shchedrin, Martos also works on sculptures for the Kazan Cathedral. He is filled with relief "The outflow of water by Moses" on the attic of the eastern wing of the colonnade. A clear division of figures against a smooth background of the wall, a strictly classicistic rhythm and harmony are characteristic of this work (the frieze of the attic of the western wing "The Copper Serpent", as mentioned above, was performed by Prokofiev).
In the first decades of the century, the best creation was created F. Shchedrin- sculptures of the Admiralty, as mentioned above.
The next generation of sculptors is represented by names Stepan Stepanovich Pimenov(1784-1833) and Vasily Ivanovich Demut-Malinovsky(1779-1846). They, like no one else in the 19th century, achieved in their works an organic synthesis of sculpture with architecture - in sculptural groups from
"Abduction of Proserpine"
Apollo's chariot
Pudost stone for the Voronikhinsky Mining Institute (1809-1811, Demut-Malinovsky - "Abduction of Proserpine by Pluto" , Pimenov - "The Battle of Hercules with Antaeus"), the character of heavy figures which is consonant with the Doric portico, or in the chariot of Glory and the chariot of Apollo, made of sheet copper, for the Russian creatures - the Palace of Triumphal Arch and the Alexandria Theater.
Arc de Triomphe Chariot of Glory (or, as it is also called, the composition "Victory") is designed to perceive the silhouettes clearly drawn against the background of the sky. If you look at them directly, it seems that the mighty six horses, where the extreme are taken by the bridle of the foot soldiers, is presented in a calm and strict rhythm, reigns over the entire square. From the side, the composition becomes more dynamic and compact.
Monument to Kutuzov
One of the latest examples of the synthesis of sculpture and architecture is the statues of Barclay de Tolly and Kutuzov (1829–1836, erected in 1837) by the Kazan Cathedral. B.I. Orlovsky(1793–1837), who did not live a few days before the opening of these monuments. Although both statues were executed two decades after the construction of the cathedral, they brilliantly fit into the passageways of the colonnade, which gave them a beautiful architectural setting. The idea of Orlovsky's monuments was succinctly and vividly expressed by Pushkin: “Here is the initiator of Barclay, and here the performer is Kutuzov,” that is, the figures personify the beginning and end of the Patriotic War of 1812. Hence, the firmness, internal tension in the figure of Barclay are symbols of heroic resistance and a gesture calling forward Kutuzov's hands, Napoleonic banners and eagles under his feet.
Sculpture
Russian classicism found expression in easel sculpture, in small sculpture, in medal art, for example, in the famous reliefs-medallions Fyodor Tolstoy(1783–1873) dedicated to the war of 1812. A connoisseur of antiquity, especially Homeric Greece, the finest plastic, the most elegant
F.P. Tolstoy. The people's militia of 1812. 1816. Medallion. Wax
draftsman. Tolstoy managed to combine the heroic, the sublime with an intimate, deeply personal and lyrical, sometimes even tinged with a romantic mood, which is so characteristic of Russian classicism. Tolstoy's reliefs were executed in wax, and then, as Rastrelli the Elder did in Peter the Great, were cast in metal by the "old manir" by the master himself, and numerous plaster versions, either translated into porcelain, or executed in mastic ("The People's Militia", "Battle Borodinskaya "," The Battle of Leipzig "," Peace to Europe ", etc.).
It is impossible not to mention the illustrations by F. Tolstoy to the poem "Darling" by I.F.
Tolstoy F. P. Illustration for "Darling". 1820-1833
Bogdanovich, executed with ink and pen and engraved with a chisel - a fine example of Russian sketch graphics on the plot of Ovidian's "Metamorphoses" about the love of Cupid and Psyche, where the artist expressed his understanding of the harmony of the ancient world.
Russian sculpture of the 30-40s of the XIX century. becomes more and more democratic. It is no coincidence that such works as "The guy playing grandmas" by NS Pimenov (Pimenova the Younger, 1836), “The guy playing the pile” by A.V. Loganovsky, warmly welcomed by Pushkin, who wrote famous poems about their exhibition.
Interesting work of the sculptor I.P. Vitali(1794-1855), who performed, among other works, sculpture
Figures of angels at the lamps at the corners of St. Isaac's Cathedral
for the Triumphal Gates in memory of the Patriotic War of 1812 at the Tverskaya Zastava in Moscow (architect OI Bove, now on Kutuzov Avenue); a bust of Pushkin, made shortly after the poet's death (marble, 1837, VMP); colossal figures of angels at the lamps at the corners of St. Isaac's Cathedral - Possibly the best and most expressive elements of the entire sculptural design of this gigantic architectural structure. As for the portraits of Vitali (the exception is the bust of Pushkin) and especially the portraits of the sculptor S.I. Galberg, then they bear the features of direct stylization in the manner of antique herms, which do not get along well, as the researchers justly remarked, with an almost naturalistic elaboration of faces.
The stream of genre can be clearly traced in the works of the early dead students of S.I. Galberg - P.A. Stavasser ("Fisherman", 1839, marble, RM) and Anton Ivanov ("Young Lomonosov on the seashore",
Stavasser. Fisherman
1845, marble, RM).
In sculpture of the middle of the century, the main - two directions: one, coming from the classics, but came to dry academicism; the other reveals a desire for a more direct and multifaceted reflection of reality, it spreads in the second half of the century, but it is also undoubted that both directions are gradually losing the features of the monumental style.
The sculptor who, during the years of the decline of monumental forms, managed to achieve significant success in this area, as well as in the "small forms", was Petr Karlovich Klodt(1805–1867), author of horses for the Narva Triumphal Gate in St. Petersburg (architect V. Stasov), “Horse Tamers” for Anichkov Bridge (1833–1850), a monument to Nicholas I on St. Isaac's Square (1850–1859), I.A. ... Krylov in the Summer Garden (1848-1855), as well as a large
One of Klodt's horses
the amount of animal sculpture.
Decorative and applied art, which so powerfully expressed itself in the general unified stream of decorative design of interiors of the "Russian Empire" style of the first third of the 19th century - the art of furniture, porcelain, fabric - also loses its integrity and purity of style by the middle of the century.
Painting
The leading direction of architecture and sculpture in the first third of the 19th century was classicism. In painting, it was developed primarily by academic artists in the historical genre (AE Egorov - "The Torture of the Savior", 1814, State Russian Museum; V.K.Shebuev - "The Feat of the Merchant Igolkin", 1839, State Russian Museum; F.A. The Death of Camilla, Sister of Horace ", 1824, State Russian Museum;" The Copper Serpent ", 1826-1841, State Russian Museum). But the true success of painting lay, however, in a different direction - romanticism. The best aspirations of the human soul, the ups and downs of the spirit were expressed by the romantic painting of that time, and above all the portrait. In the portrait genre, the leading place should be given to Orest Kiprensky (1782–1836).
Kiprensky was born in the Petersburg province and was the son of the landowner A.S. Dyakonov and the serf. From 1788 to 1803 he studied, starting from the Educational School, at the Academy of Arts, where he studied in the class of historical painting with Professor G.I. Ugryumov and the French painter G.-F. Doyen, in 1805 received the Great Gold Medal for the painting "Dmitry Donskoy after defeating Mamai" (State Russian Museum) and the right to a pensioner's trip abroad, which was carried out only in 1816. Kiprensky lived in Moscow, where he helped Martos in the work on the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, then in Tver, and in 1812 he returned to St. Petersburg. The years after graduation from the Academy and before leaving abroad, fanned with romantic feelings, are the highest flowering of Kiprensky's creativity. During this period, he moved among the free-thinking Russian noble intelligentsia. Knew K. Batyushkov and P. Vyazemsky, V.A. Zhukovsky, and in later years - Pushkin. His intellectual interests were also wide, it was not for nothing that Goethe, whom Kiprensky portrayed already in his mature years, noted him not only as a talented artist, but also as an interesting thinking person. Complex, thoughtful, changeable in mood - this is how the portrayed by E.P. Kiprensky appear before us. Rostopchin (1809, Tretyakov Gallery), D.N. Khvostova (1814, Tretyakov Gallery), boy Chelishchev (c. 1809, Tretyakov Gallery). In a free pose, looking pensively to the side, casually leaning his elbows on a stone slab, stands Colonel E.B. Davydov (1809, RM). This portrait is perceived as a collective image of the hero of the war of 1812, although it is quite specific. The romantic mood is enhanced by the image of a stormy landscape, against which the figure is presented. The color scheme is built on the sonorous colors taken in full force - red and gold and white and silver - in the clothes of a hussar - and on the contrast of these colors with the dark tones of the landscape. Opening various facets of the human character and the spiritual world of a person, Kiprensky each time used different possibilities of painting. Each portrait of these years is marked by a picturesque maestria. Painting is free, built, as in the portrait of Khvostova, on the subtlest transitions of one tone to another, at different color aperture, then on the harmony of contrasting clean large light spots, as in the image of the boy Chelishchev. The artist uses bold color effects to influence the modeling of the form; pasty painting promotes the expression of energy, enhances the emotionality of the image. According to D.V. Sarabyanova, Russian romanticism has never been such a powerful artistic movement as in France or Germany. There is neither extreme excitement nor tragic hopelessness in him. In the romanticism of Kiprensky there is still much from the harmony of classicism, from the subtle analysis of the "twists" of the human soul, so characteristic of sentimentalism. "The present century and the past century", colliding in the work of the early Kiprensky, who formed as a creative person in the best years of military victories and bright hopes of Russian society, made up the originality and inexpressible charm of his early romantic portraits.
In the late Italian period, due to many circumstances of his personal fate, the artist rarely managed to create anything equal to his early works. But even here one can name such masterpieces as one of the best lifetime portraits of Pushkin (1827, Tretyakov Gallery), painted by the artist during the last period of his stay at home, or a portrait of Avdulina (c. 1822, RM), full of elegiac sadness.
An invaluable part of Kiprensky's work is graphic portraits, made mainly with soft Italian pencil, tinted with pastels, watercolors, and colored pencils. It depicts General E.I. Chaplitsa (Tretyakov Gallery), A.R. Tomilova (State Russian Museum), P.A. Olenin (State Tretyakov Gallery). The emergence of quick pencil portraits-sketches in itself is significant, characteristic of the new era: they easily capture any fleeting change in the face, any movement of the soul. But a certain evolution is also taking place in Kiprensky's graphics: in the later works there is no spontaneity and warmth, but they are more virtuoso and more refined in execution (portrait of S.S.Shcherbatova, it.car., Tretyakov Gallery).
A Pole can be called a consistent romantic A.O. Orlovsky(1777-1832), who lived in Russia for 30 years and brought to Russian culture themes typical for Western romantics (bivouacs, horsemen, shipwrecks. “Take your quick pencil, draw, Orlovsky, sword and slash,” wrote Pushkin). He quickly assimilated on Russian soil, which is especially noticeable in graphic portraits. In them, through all the external attributes of European romanticism with its rebelliousness and tension, something deeply personal, hidden, intimate can be seen (Self-portrait, 1809, State Tretyakov Gallery). Orlovsky, on the other hand, has a certain role in "tracing" the paths to realism thanks to his genre sketches, drawings and lithographs depicting St. Petersburg street scenes and types, which brought to life the famous quatrain of P.A. Vyazemsky:
Former Russia, I am daring
You will pass it on to posterity
You grabbed her alive
Under the folk pencil.
Finally, romanticism finds its expression in the landscape. Sylvester Shchedrin (1791-1830) began his career as a student of his uncle Semyon Shchedrin with classic compositions: a clear division into three planes (the third plan is always architecture), on the sides of the curtain. But in Italy, where he left the St. Petersburg Academy, these features were not consolidated, did not turn into a scheme. It was in Italy, where Shchedrin lived for more than 10 years and died in the prime of his talent, that he revealed himself as a romantic artist, became one of the best painters in Europe, along with Constable and Corot. He was the first to open plein air painting for Russia. True, like the Barbizon people, Shchedrin painted only sketches in the open air, and completed the picture ("decorated", by his definition) in the studio. However, the motive itself changes accents. So, Rome in his canvases is not the majestic ruins of ancient times, but a living modern city of common people - fishermen, merchants, sailors. But this everyday life under the brush of Shchedrin acquired a sublime sound. Sorrento harbors, Naples embankments, Tiber at the castle of St. Angela, people fishing, just talking on the terrace or relaxing in the shade of trees - everything is conveyed in a complex interaction of a light-air environment, in a delightful fusion of silver-gray tones, usually combined by a blow of red - in clothes and a headdress, in the rusty foliage of trees where one red branch got lost. In the last works of Shchedrin, an interest in the effects of light and shade was more and more evident, foreshadowing a wave of new romanticism by Maxim Vorobyov and his students (for example, "A View of Naples on a Moonlit Night"). As the portrait painter Kiprensky and the battle painter Orlovsky, the landscape painter Shchedrin often writes genre scenes.
Strange as it may sound, the genre found a certain refraction in the portrait, and above all in the portrait of Vasily Andreyevich Tropinin (1776 - 1857), an artist who had only freed himself from serfdom by the age of 45. Tropinin lived a long life, and he was destined to learn true recognition, even fame, receive the title of academician and become the most famous artist of the Moscow portrait school of the 1920s and 1930s. Starting with sentimentalism, though more didactically sensitive than Borovikovsky's sentimentalism, Tropinin takes on his own style of depiction. In his models there is no romantic impulse of Kiprensky, but they are captivated by simplicity, artlessness, sincerity of expression, truthfulness of characters, reliability of everyday details. The best of Tropinin's portraits, such as the portrait of his son (c. 1818, Tretyakov Gallery), the portrait of Bulakhov (1823, Tretyakov Gallery), are noted for their high artistic perfection. This is especially evident in the portrait of Arseny's son, an unusually sincere image, the liveliness and spontaneity of which is emphasized by skillful lighting: the right side of the figure, the hair is pierced, flooded with sunlight, skillfully conveyed by the master. The range of colors from golden ocher to pink-brown is unusually rich, the widespread use of glazes still reminds of the pictorial traditions of the 18th century.
Tropinin in his work follows the path of giving naturalness, clarity, balance to simple compositions of a bust portrait image. As a rule, the image is given against a neutral background with a minimum of accessories. This is how Tropinin A.S. portrayed. Pushkin (1827) - sitting at the table in a free position, dressed in a home dress, which emphasizes the natural appearance.
Tropinin is the creator of a special type of portrait-painting, that is, a portrait in which the features of the genre have been introduced. "Lacemaker", "Spinner", "Guitarist", "Zolotoshveika" are typified images with a certain plot plot, which, however, have not lost their specific features.
With his work, the artist contributed to the strengthening of realism in Russian painting and had a great influence on the Moscow school, according to D.V. Sarabyanova, a kind of "Moscow Biedermeier".
Tropinin only introduced the genre element into the portrait. The real ancestor of the genre of genre was Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847). A surveyor by education, Venetsianov left the service for the sake of painting, moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg and became a student of Borovikovsky. He made his first steps in the "arts" in the portrait genre, creating surprisingly poetic, lyrical, sometimes fanned with romantic mood images with pastels, pencils, oils (portrait of B.S. Putyatina, State Tretyakov Gallery). But soon the artist abandoned portraiture for the sake of caricature, and for one top-down caricature "The Nobleman" the very first issue of the "Journal of Caricatures for 1808 in Faces" he had conceived was closed. Etching by Venetsianov was, in fact, an illustration to Derzhavin's ode and depicted the petitioners crowding in the reception, while in the mirror a nobleman was seen in the arms of a beauty, it is assumed that this is a caricature of Count Bezborodko).
At the turn of the 10-20s, Venetsianov left Petersburg for the Tver province, where he bought a small estate. Here he found his main theme, devoting himself to the depiction of peasant life. In the painting "The Barn" (1821–1822, Russian Museum), he showed a labor scene in the interior. In an effort to accurately reproduce not only the postures of the workers, but also the lighting, he even ordered to cut one wall of the barn. Life as it is - this is what Venetsianov wanted to portray, painting peasants peeling beets; a landowner giving an assignment to a courtyard girl; sleeping shepherdess; a girl with a beetroot in her hand; peasant children admiring the butterfly; scenes of harvest, haymaking, etc. Of course, Venetsianov did not reveal the most acute collisions of the life of the Russian peasant, did not raise the "painful questions" of our time. This is a patriarchal, idyllic way of life. But the artist did not introduce poetry into him from the outside, did not invent it, but drew it from the life of the people he depicted with such love. In Venetsianov's paintings there are no dramatic ties, dynamic plot, they, on the contrary, are static, "nothing happens" in them. But man is always in unity with nature, in eternal labor, and this makes Venetsianov's images truly monumental. Is he realistic? In the understanding of this word by the artists of the second half of the 19th century - hardly. In his concept there is a lot of classicistic ideas (it is worth remembering his "Spring. On arable land", State Tretyakov Gallery), and especially from the sentimental ("Harvesting. Summer", State Tretyakov Gallery), and in his understanding of space - and from romantic. And, nevertheless, the work of Venetsianov is a certain stage on the path of the formation of Russian critical realism of the 19th century, and this is also the enduring significance of his painting. This also determines its place in Russian art in general.
Venetsianov was an excellent teacher. The Venetsianov school, the Venetians are a whole galaxy of artists of the 1920s – 1940s who worked with him both in St. Petersburg and on his Safonkovo estate. This is A.V. Tyranov, E.F. Krendovsky, K.A. Zelentsov, A.A. Alekseev, S.K. Zaryanko, L.K. Plakhov, N.S. Krylov and many others. Among the students of Venetsianov there are many people from peasants. Under the brush of the Venetians, not only scenes of peasant life were born, but also urban ones: Petersburg streets, folk types, landscapes. A.V. Tyranov painted scenes in the interior, and portraits, and landscapes, and still lifes. The Venetians were especially fond of "family portraits in the interior" - they combined the concreteness of images with the detail of the narrative, conveying the atmosphere of the environment (for example, Tyranov's painting "Workshop of the artists of the Chernetsov brothers", 1828, which combines portrait, genre, and still life).
The most talented student of Venetsianov is undoubtedly Grigory Soroka (1813–1864), an artist of tragic fate. (Soroka was freed from serfdom only by the reform of 1861, but as a result of a lawsuit with the former landowner he was sentenced to corporal punishment, could not bear the thought of this and committed suicide.) Under the brush of Soroka and the landscape of his native lake Moldino, and all the objects in the study of the estate in Ostrovki, and the figures of the fishermen frozen over the surface of the lake are transformed, filled with the highest poetry, blissful silence, but also nagging sadness. This is the world of real objects, but also the ideal world imagined by the artist.
Russian historical painting of the 1930s – 1940s developed under the sign of romanticism. One researcher (MM Allenov) Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852) called the "genius of compromise" between the ideals of classicism and the innovations of romanticism. Glory came to Bryullov even at the Academy: even then ordinary sketches were transformed by Bryullov into complete paintings, as was the case, for example, with his "Narcissus" (1819, RM). After graduating from the course with a gold medal, the artist left for Italy. In pre-Italian works, Bryullov turns to biblical subjects ("The Appearance of Three Angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamvri", 1821, State Russian Museum) and antique ("Oedipus and Antigone", 1821, Tyumen Regional Museum of Local Lore), is engaged in lithography, sculpture, writes theatrical scenery, draws costumes for performances. The paintings "Italian Morning" (1823, whereabouts unknown) and "Italian Noon" (1827, RM), especially the first, show how closely the painter approached the problems of the plein air. Bryullov himself defined his task as follows: "I illuminated the model in the sun, assuming lighting from behind, so that the face and chest are in shadow and are reflected from the fountain, illuminated by the sun, which makes all the shadows much more pleasant in comparison with simple lighting from the window."
Thus, Bryullov was interested in the tasks of plein air painting, but the artist's path, however, lay in a different direction. Since 1828, after a trip to Pompeii, Bryullov has been working on his equal work, The Last Day of Pompeii (1830–1833). The real event of ancient history is the death of the city during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. NS. - made it possible for the artist to show the greatness and dignity of a person in the face of death. Fiery lava is approaching the city, buildings and statues are crumbling, but the children do not leave their parents; the mother protects the child, the young man rescues his beloved; the artist (in which Bryullov portrayed himself) carries away the colors, but, leaving the city, he looks with wide open eyes, trying to capture a terrible sight. Even in death, a person remains beautiful, as a woman thrown from a chariot by maddened horses is beautiful - in the center of the composition. In Bryullov's painting, one of the essential features of his painting was clearly manifested: the connection between the classicistic stylistics of his works with the features of romanticism, with which Bryullov's classicism is united by the belief in the nobility and beauty of human nature. Hence the amazing "livability" of the plastic form that retains its clarity, the drawing of the highest professionalism, prevailing over other expressive means, with the romantic effects of pictorial lighting. And the very theme of inevitable death, inexorable fate is so characteristic of romanticism.
As a certain standard, an established artistic scheme, classicism in many ways limited the romantic artist. The conventionality of the academic language, the language of the "School", as the Academies were called in Europe, was fully manifested in "Pompey": theatrical poses, gestures, facial expressions, lighting effects. But it must be admitted that Bryullov strove for historical truth, trying as accurately as possible to reproduce specific monuments discovered by archaeologists and amaze the whole world, to visually fill the scenes described by Pliny the Younger in a letter to Tacitus. Exhibited first in Milan, then in Paris, the painting was brought to Russia in 1834 and was a resounding success. Gogol spoke enthusiastically about her. The significance of Bryullov's work for Russian painting is determined by the well-known words of the poet: "And the" Last day of Pompeii "became the first day for the Russian brush."
In 1835 Bryullov returned to Russia, where he was greeted as a triumphant. But he was no longer engaged in the actual historical genre, for the "Siege of Pskov by the Polish king Stefan Bathory in 1581" was not completed. His interests lay in a different direction - portraiture, to which he turned, leaving historical painting, like his great contemporary Kiprensky, and in which he showed all his creative temperament and brilliance of skill. It is possible to trace a certain evolution of Bryullov in this genre: from the ceremonial portrait of the 1930s, the example of which can even be not so much a portrait as a generalized image, for example, the brilliant decorative canvas "Horsewoman" (1832, State Tretyakov Gallery), which depicts a pupil of Countess Yu. NS. Samoilova Giovanina Paccini has a generic name for a reason; or a portrait of Yu.P. Samoilova with another pupil, Amatsilia (circa 1839, State Russian Museum), until the portraits of the 1940s were more intimate, tending towards subtle, multifaceted psychological characteristics (portrait of AN Strugovshchikov, 1840, State Russian Museum; Self-portrait, 1848, State Tretyakov Gallery). In the face of the writer Strugovshchikov, one can read the tension of inner life. Fatigue and bitterness of disappointment emanate from the artist's self-portrait. A sadly thin face with penetrating eyes, an aristocratic thin hand hung limply. In these images there is a lot of romantic language, while in one of the last works - a deep and heartfelt portrait of the archaeologist Michelangelo Lanci (1851) - we see that Bryullov is no stranger to the realistic concept in the interpretation of the image.
After the death of Bryullov, his students often used only the formal, purely academic principles of writing carefully developed by him, and the name of Bryullov had to endure a lot of blasphemy from critics of the democratic, realistic school of the second half of the 19th century, especially V.V. Stasov.
The central figure in the painting of the middle of the century was undoubtedly Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858). Ivanov graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy with two medals. He received a Small Gold Medal for the painting Priam Asking Achilles for the Body of Hector (1824, Tretyakov Gallery), in connection with which critics noted the artist's careful reading of Homer, and the Big Gold Medal for the work “Joseph Interpreting Dreams to His Imprisoned in Dungeon to the butler and the baker ”(1827, RM), full of expression, expressed, however, simply and clearly. In 1830 Ivanov went through Dresden and Vienna to Italy, in 1831 he went to Rome and only a month and a half before his death (he died of cholera) he returned to his homeland.
A. Ivanov's path has never been easy; winged glory has not flown after him, as for “the great Karl”. During his lifetime, his talent was appreciated by Gogol, Herzen, Sechenov, but there were no painters among them. Ivanov's life in Italy was filled with work and reflections on painting. He did not seek neither wealth nor secular entertainment, spending his days in the walls of the studio and on sketches. Ivanov's worldview was influenced to a certain extent by German philosophy, first of all Schellingism with its idea of the artist's prophetic destiny in this world, then the philosophy of the historian of religion D. Strauss. Passion for the history of religion led to an almost scientific study of sacred texts, the result of which was the creation of the famous biblical sketches and an appeal to the image of the Messiah. Researchers of Ivanov's work (DV Sarabyanov) rightly call his principle "the principle of ethical romanticism," that is, romanticism, in which the main emphasis is shifted from the aesthetic to the moral. The artist's passionate faith in the moral transformation of people, in the improvement of a person seeking freedom and truth, led Ivanov to the main theme of his work - to the painting, to which he devoted 20 years (1837 - 1857), "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (State Tretyakov Gallery, author's version - Timing).
Ivanov went to this work for a long time. He studied painting by Giotto, Venetians, especially Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, wrote a two-figure composition "The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection" (1835, RM), for which the St. Petersburg Academy gave him the title of academician and extended the period of retirement in Italy for three years.
The first sketches of "The Appearance of the Messiah" date back to 1833, in 1837 the composition was transferred to a large canvas. Further work went on, as can be judged by the numerous remaining sketches, sketches, drawings, along the line of concretizing the characters and the landscape, searching for the general tone of the picture.
By 1845, Christ's Appearance to the People was essentially over. The composition of this monumental, programmatic work is based on a classicist basis (symmetry, the placement of the expressive main figure of the foreground - John the Baptist - in the center, the bas-relief arrangement of the entire group as a whole), but the traditional scheme is in a peculiar way rethought by the artist. The painter strove to convey the dynamism of construction, the depth of space. Ivanov long sought this solution and achieved it thanks to the fact that the figure of Christ appears and approaches people receiving baptism from John in the waters of the Jordan, from the depths. But the main thing that strikes in the picture is the extraordinary truthfulness of the various characters, their psychological characteristics, which impart tremendous credibility to the entire scene. Hence the persuasiveness of the spiritual rebirth of the heroes.
Ivanov's evolution in his work on "The Phenomenon ..." can be defined as a path from a concrete-realistic scene to a monumental-epic canvas.
Changes in the worldview of Ivanov the thinker, which took place over the years of work on the painting, led to the fact that the artist did not finish his main work. But he did the main thing, as Kramskoy said, “awakened the inner work in the minds of Russian artists”. And in this sense, the researchers are right when they say that Ivanov's painting was a “foreshadowing of hidden processes” that were taking place then in art. Ivanov's findings were so new that the viewer simply was not able to appreciate them. No wonder N.G. Chernyshevsky called Alexander Ivanov one of those geniuses "who decisively become people of the future, donate ... to the truth and, having approached it already in adulthood, are not afraid to start their activities again with the dedication of youth" ( Chernyshevsky N.G. Notes on the previous article // Contemporary. 1858. T. XXI. November. P. 178). Until now, the painting remains a real academy for generations of masters, like Raphael's "School of Athens" or Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.
Ivanov had his say in mastering the principles of the plein air. In landscapes painted in the open air, he managed to show all the power, beauty and intensity of the colors of nature. And the main thing is not to crush the image in pursuit of an instant impression, to strive for the accuracy of detail, but to preserve its synthetics, so characteristic of classical art. Each of his landscapes breathes with harmonious clarity, whether he depicts a lonely pine tree, a separate branch, the sea or the Pontic swamps. This is a majestic world, conveyed, however, in all the real richness of the light-air environment, as if you feel the smell of grass, vibrations of hot air. In the same complex interaction with the environment, he depicts the human figure in his famous sketches of naked boys.
In the last decade of his life, Ivanov has the idea of creating a cycle of biblical and evangelical murals for any public building, which should depict the subjects of Holy Scripture in an ancient Eastern flavor, but not ethnographically straightforward, but sublimely generalized. Unfinished, watercolored biblical sketches (Tretyakov Gallery) occupy a special place in Ivanov's work and at the same time organically complete it. These sketches provide us with new possibilities of this technique, its plastic and linear rhythm, watercolor stains, not to mention the extraordinary creative freedom in the interpretation of the plots themselves, showing the full depth of Ivanov the philosopher, and about his greatest gift as a monumentalist ("Zechariah before the Angel", "Joseph's Dream", "Prayer for the Cup", etc.). Ivanov's cycle is a proof that a work of genius in sketches can be a new word in art. "In the 19th century - a century of deepening analytical splitting of the former integrity of art into separate genres and individual painting problems - Ivanov is a great genius of synthesis, committed to the idea of universal art, interpreted as a kind of encyclopedia of spiritual quests, collisions and stages of growth of the historical self-knowledge of man and mankind" (Allenov M.M. Art of the first half of the XIX century // Allenov M.M., Evangulova O.S., Lifshits L.I. Russian art of the 10th - early 20th century. M., 1989.S. 335). A monumentalist by vocation, Ivanov lived, however, at a time when monumental art was rapidly declining. The realism of Ivanov's forms did not correspond much to the asserting art of a critical nature.
The socially critical direction, which became the main one in the art of the second half of the 19th century, as early as the 40s and 50s, declared itself in the graphics. An undoubted role here was played by the "natural school" in literature, associated (rather conditionally) with the name of N.V. Gogol.
The album of lithographed caricatures "Yeralash" by N.М. Nevakhovich, who, like Venetian's "Journal of Caricatures", was devoted to the satire of morals. Several plots could fit on one large-format page, often the faces were portrait, quite recognizable. Yeralash was closed on the 16th issue.
In the 40s, the publication of V.F. Timm, illustrator and lithographer. "Ours, written off from nature by the Russians" (1841-1842) - an image of the types of St. Petersburg streets from smart flanneers to janitors, cabbies, etc. Timm also illustrated "Pictures of Russian manners" (1842-1843) and made drawings for the poem by I.I. ... Myatlev about Mrs. Kurdyukova, a provincial widow who travels through Europe out of boredom.
The book of this time is becoming more accessible and cheaper: illustrations began to be printed from a wooden board in large editions, sometimes with the help of polytypes - metal castings. The first illustrations for the works of Gogol appeared - “One hundred drawings from the poem by N.M. Gogol "Dead Souls" by A.A. Agina, engraved by E.E. Vernadsky; The 50s were marked by the activities of TG Shevchenko as a draftsman ("The Parable of the Prodigal Son," exposing the cruel manners in the army). Cartoons and illustrations for books and magazines by Timm and his associates Agin and Shevchenko contributed to the development of Russian genre painting in the second half of the 19th century.
But the main source for genre painting of the second half of the century was the work of Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815–1852). He devoted only a few years of his short, tragic life to painting, but he managed to express the very spirit of Russia in the 40s. The son of a Suvorov soldier, admitted to the Moscow Cadet Corps for his father's merits, Fedotov served for 10 years in the Finnish Guards Regiment. Having retired, he is engaged in the battle class of A.I. Sauerweid. Fedotov began with everyday drawings and caricatures, with a series of sepias from the life of Fidelka, a lady's dog who died in Bose and mourned by its mistress, with a series in which he declared himself as a satirical writer of everyday life - Russian Daumier of the period of his Caricatures (in addition to the series about Fidelka - sepia tone "Fashion Shop", 1844-1846, State Tretyakov Gallery; "An artist who married without a dowry in the hope of his talent", 1844, State Tretyakov Gallery, etc.). He studied both Hogarth's engravings and the Dutch, but most of all - from Russian life itself, open to the gaze of a talented artist in all its disharmony and contradictions.
The main thing in his work is everyday painting. Even when he paints portraits, it is easy to find genre elements in them (for example, in the watercolor portrait "The Players", State Tretyakov Gallery). His evolution in genre painting - from the image of the caricature to the tragic, from overloading in details, as in The Fresh Cavalier (1846, Tretyakov Gallery), where everything is “told”: the guitar, the bottles, the mocking servant, even the papillots on the head of the hapless hero - to the utmost laconicism, as in "The Widow" (1851, Ivanovo Regional Art Museum, version - State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum), to the tragic sense of the meaninglessness of existence, as in his last painting "Anchor, still anchor!" (about 1851, Tretyakov Gallery). The same evolution in the understanding of color: from a color that sounds half-hearted, through clean, bright, intense, saturated colors, as in "Major's Matchmaking" (1848, Tretyakov Gallery, version-RM) or "Breakfast of an Aristocrat" (1849-1851, Tretyakov Gallery ), to the exquisite color scheme of "The Widow", betraying the objective world as if dissolving in the diffused light of the day, and the integrity of the single tone of his last canvas ("Anchor ..."). This was the path from simple everyday life to the implementation in clear, restrained images of the most important problems of Russian life, for what is, for example, "Major's matchmaking" if not denouncing one of the social facts of the life of his time - the marriages of impoverished nobles with merchant "moneybags"? And "The Choosy Bride", written on a plot borrowed from I.A. Krylov (who, by the way, appreciated the artist very much), if not a satire on a marriage of convenience? Or the denunciation of the emptiness of a socialite throwing dust in the eyes - in the "Breakfast of an aristocrat"?
The power of Fedotov's painting lies not only in the depth of the problems, in the amusement of the plot, but also in the tremendous skill of execution. Suffice it to recall the full of charm chamber “Portrait of N.P. Zhdanovich at the harpsichord "(1849, State Russian Museum). Fedotov loves the real world of objects, writes out every thing with delight, poeticizes it. But this delight in front of the world does not obscure the bitterness of what is happening: the hopelessness of the "widow's" position, the lies of the marriage deal, the longing of the officer's service in the "bear's corner". If Fedotov's laughter breaks through, it is the same Gogolian "laughter through tears invisible to the world." Fedotov ended his life in the "house of sorrow" at the fatal 37th year of his life.
Fedotov's art completes the development of painting in the first half of the 19th century, and at the same time, quite organically - thanks to its social acuteness - the Fedotov trend opens up the beginning of a new stage - the art of critical, or, as they say now, democratic realism.
RUSSIAN ART OF THE XIX CENTURY
First half of the 19th century - the heyday of Russian artistic culture, which received worldwide recognition. Literature of the greatest importance was created during this period (A.S. Pushkin, A.S. Griboyedov, I.A. Krylov, N.V. Gogol, M.Yu. Lermontov, V.A. Zhukovsky, E.A. Baratynsky, D.V. Venevitinov), music (M.I. Glinka), architecture (A.N. Voronikhin, A.D. Zakharov, K.I. Rossi)! painting (O. A. Kiprensky, K. P. Bryullov, A. A. Ivanov, P. A. Fedotov).
Such a flourishing of all types of art was largely due to the rise of patriotic feelings of the Russian people in the war with Napoleon, the growth of national consciousness, the development of progressive, liberating ideas of the Decembrists. The entire "golden age" of Russian culture was marked by civic passion, faith in the great destiny of man.
Architecture
It is believed that in the Alexander era, Russian architecture reached its peak. Unlike "Catherine's classicism", the main thing in the style of "Alexander's classicism" was the striving for monumentality, the utmost simplicity of forms, even asceticism, consonant with the Doric order of Ancient Greece.
During the reign of Alexander I, a significant part of the outstanding architectural structures were built in St. Petersburg, which became monuments of the architecture of Russian classicism. At the same time, the role of Alexander in the formation of the classicist appearance of Northern Palmyra was compared with the role of Pericles in the construction of the Athenian Acropolis. Such structures are the Kazan Cathedral and the Mining Institute, the Strelka ensemble of Vasilievsky Island with the Exchange building and rostral columns, as well as the Admiralty.
Kazan Cathedral, even at the request of Paul I, was supposed to resemble the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome. This led to the presence of a colonnade, vaguely reminiscent of the colonnade of its Roman prototype: its two wings, curved in plan, consist of seventy-two Corinthian columns carrying an entablature with a balustrade. Andrey Nikiforovich Voronikhi ”(1759-1814), the architect of the cathedral, guided by town-planning principles, placed the colonnade on the side of the northern facade, which is secondary according to the canons of the church, but facing Nevsky Prospekt, the most important thoroughfare of the city.
Voronikhin, in the composition of the Kazan Cathedral, developed those town-planning principles that had developed back in the 18th century. when placing religious buildings on Nevsky Prospect. All of them violated the "red line" of development, creating a gap between the houses, but at the same time they also created special spatial "pauses". This was taken up by other architects who worked after Voronikhin, and Rossi interpreted it especially effectively in the ensembles of the Mikhailovsky Palace, built for the fourth son of Paul I, Mikhail, and the Alexandria Theater.
Kazan Cathedral, which has the shape of a "Latin cross" elongated from west to east, is crowned with a dome on a slender drum in the neoclassical style. In the composition of the Kazan Cathedral, for the first time in architecture, sculpture began to play a quite definite role in creating an image, in this case a military memorial. Thus, the attic of the side porticos of the cathedral's colonnade is decorated with bas-reliefs on biblical subjects: the east - "The outflow of water by Moses from the stone" (sculptor I.P. Martos), the west - "The Copper Serpent" (sculptor I.P. Prokofiev). Both plots illuminated the theme of a hero who comes to the aid of his people in difficult times, which is important for the aesthetics of classicism. On the sides of the entrance in the niches are placed bronze sculptures of princes Vladimir and Alexander Nevsky, John the Baptist and Andrew the First-Called, which also contributed to the strengthening of the national-patriotic theme.
The importance of the cathedral as a war memorial especially increased after the Patriotic War of 1812. The very solemn architecture of the building turned out to be consonant with the pathos of victory over the enemy. From the Kazan Cathedral, after a solemn prayer service, MI Kutuzov went to the active army, and was brought here in June 1813. the heart of a great commander. Trophy banners and keys from the cities surrendered to the Russian armies were placed in the cathedral. An essential plastic component that completed the military-memorial image of the Kazan Cathedral was the monuments to M.I. Kutuzov and M. B. Barclay de Tolly (sculptor B. I. Orlovsky), installed in front of the side porticos of the colonnade and organically merged into the architectural and sculptural ensemble of the cathedral ...
Simultaneously with the Kazan Cathedral under the leadership of A.N. Voronikhin, the building of the Mining Institute was erected, also surrounded by a colonnade. As in the Kazan Cathedral, sculptures revealing the theme of the earth, the wealth of the earth's interior, were an essential plastic component of the image of the Mining Institute, its purpose.
The stock exchange was built according to the project of Jeanne François Thomas de Thomon (1760-1813) on the Spit of Vasilievsky Island and became the most important landmark in the panorama of the city, opened to the Neva. Raised on a massive granite base, the rectangular building, surrounded by a monumental Doric colonnade and covered with a gable roof, is perfectly visible from a distant distance. Making the Exchange building an "axis of balance", Thomas de Thomon streamlined its natural surroundings: the Strelka bank was raised by adding soil and pushed forward by more than a hundred meters, the coastline was given the correct symmetrical shape, decorated with granite walls and slopes to iodine. The strict symmetry of the ensemble is emphasized by two verticals - rostral columns that served as beacons. At the foot of the columns, decorated with metal images of rostras and anchors, there are allegorical figures of the Volga, Dnieper, Volkhov and Neva, and in front of the gables of the Stock Exchange - the compositions "Neptune with two rivers" (in front of the eastern) and "Navigation with Mercury and two rivers" (in front of the western ).
The fourth grandiose ensemble, erected in the era of "Alexander classicism", was the Admiralty, which became a symbol of Russia's naval might. The admiralty was located near the imperial palace and played a key role in organizing the urban development ensemble from the land side.
The reconstruction of the existing complex was entrusted to the architect
Admiralty. Andrey Dmitrievich Zakharov (1761-1811). Having preserved the tower built by I.K. Korobov, Zakharov enclosed it in a case of new walls, creating a three-tiered composition: a heavy and stable base with an arch makes up the first tier, from which a light Ionic colonnade grows, bearing an entablature with sculptures - the second tier. Above the colonnade there is a wall with a dome of the third tier, topped with a 72-meter gilded spire with the image of a sailing ship on the edge. The gables of the Admiralty are filled with bas-reliefs. The building was also decorated with a round sculpture, removed at the request of the church authorities, when a church was built in one of the buildings of the Admiralty. The main theme of the sculptural decor (sculptor I.I. Terebenev), focused on the central tower, was the glorification of the sea power of Russia: for example, one of the sculptures depicted Peter the Great receiving a trident from Neptune, a symbol of power at the sea, and a woman sitting under a laurel tree with a cornucopia and a club in her hands symbolized Russia.
With the construction of these buildings, for the first time in the architecture of St. Petersburg, an ensemble of such a wide spatial sound appeared. The gray St. Petersburg sky, the horizontals of the embankments, the white Doric colonnade of the Stock Exchange, the vertical lines of the carmine-red rostral columns, the gilded spiers of the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Admiralty - all of this combined into an unprecedented scale composition, which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.
A strong French influence was characteristic of "Alexandrovsky classicism", and the war with Napoleon did not change the emperor's artistic preferences in the least. In the future, the style of "Alexander classicism" in Russian architecture began to develop into the Empire style.
Empire style ("style of the empire") originated in France and was guided by the art forms of imperial Rome.
In Russia, this style after the victory of Russia in the Patriotic War of 1812. reflected the new claims of the imperial city, the "world capital". The historical paradox was that the national pride of the victorious Russian people was embodied in the forms of the Napoleonic Empire style of defeated France. At the same time, in Russia the regularity, symmetry, and static nature inherent in the Empire style were combined with the boldness of spatial decisions and urban planning scope.
The decorative elements of the St. Petersburg Empire style were mainly composed of elements of ancient Roman military equipment: legionary insignia with eagles, bundles of spears, shields, axes, and bunches of arrows. Elements of Egyptian ornamentation and sculpture were also used, since art forms during the times of the Egyptian pharaohs, the French dictator and the Russian emperors had essentially a common ideology and therefore interacted quite organically.
A special, "sovereign" mythology, complex imperial symbols were, perhaps, the main thing in the fine arts of St. Petersburg. Moreover, in contrast to the classical decor, the composition in the Empire style was built on a strong contrast between the clear field of the wall surface and narrow ornamental belts in strictly designated areas. The effect was also emphasized by the color characteristic of the St. Petersburg Empire style - the pale yellow color for the buildings themselves and the white day of the pediments, columns, pilasters and other details of the architectural decor (in contrast to the colors of the Napoleonic Empire style - red, blue, white and gold).
The yellow color of Empire architecture was not arbitrary. It was one of the most characteristic features of Russian military culture - part of the entire culture of imperial Russia. In St. Petersburg, military culture largely determined the planning structure of the city, its color, life rhythm. The architecture of barracks and regimental cathedrals, riding halls and guardhouses, military parades and regimental uniforms - all this left a characteristic imprint on the city's appearance.
The very foundation of St. Petersburg was associated with the Northern War. The city's layout was dictated by its military and strategic importance. The first buildings were the Peter and Paul Fortress and the Admiralty - military installations. And subsequently, major architectural dominants of the capital were associated with its military life: the Transfiguration and Trinity Cathedrals (architect V.P. Stasov) were built as regimental cathedrals of the Preobrazhensky and Izmailovsky regiments, the Peter and Paul and Kazan cathedrals became war memorials where trophy banners were kept, the Rumyantsev obelisk, The Alexander and Chesme columns were erected in memory of military victories.
Already the first successes in the struggle for Russia's access to the Baltic Sea were marked by a new state regalia - the tsar's standard, on the golden (yellow) field of which a black two-headed eagle held the cards of the four seas in its beaks and paws. Gold (yellow) color as imperial was used in the symbolism of the Holy Roman Empire. The yellow color of the Russian imperial standard became the color of the imperial guard and switched to the color of military architectural structures, barracks, and then, as an integral part of the official architectural style of the Empire, became the color of the capital in general, the “Petersburg color”.
The main spokesman for the ideas of the Russian Empire style was the architect Karl Rossi (1775-1849), who built thirteen squares and twelve streets in the center of St. Petersburg. Next to its perspectives, squares, colonnades, powerfully thrown arches, everything else looks like a timid stylization. Only the "Russian Empire" managed to do what Peter the Great intended - to create the image of an imperial city. It was the work of architects K.I. Rossi, V.P. Stasov, O. Montferrand that formed that majestic ensemble of the central squares of St. Petersburg, which bears the features of the world capital. And the first such ensemble, one of the most outstanding not only in Russian, but also in world art, was Palace Square, designed by K. Rossi.
The creation of the Palace Square ensemble was greatly facilitated by the transfer here of the most important state institutions - the General (or General) Staff and two ministries (foreign affairs and finance).
Preserving the existing curvilinear shape of the south side of the square, Rossi placed two huge buildings there, connected by an arch. Thanks to the elastic curvature of the facade, the architecture of the General Staff building acquired a pronounced dynamism, which was not inherent in the Empire style, but made it possible to compositionally bring the General Staff closer to the Baroque Winter Palace. The achievement of the same goal was facilitated by other methods: the division of the facades of the headquarters into two tiers, like the Winter one; decorativeness of the order; numerous sculptural details and an intricate frieze of the General Staff arch.
Rossi's skill as a city planner with particular brilliance manifested itself in the design of the colossal arch, interpreted as a triumphal arch in honor of the victory in the war with France. As a matter of fact, Rossi used a system of three arches, with the help of which he effectively solved a difficult task - to architecturally design a strong bend in the street. At the same time, the heroic major theme of victory was expressed with a powerful span of two parallel arches.
It was enhanced by the presence of monumental sculpture. At the foot of the arch, high relief compositions of military armor are installed on pedestals. On the second tier of the arch between the columns there are figures of soldiers, personifying different generations of Russian people who participated in the Patriotic War of 1812. The building is also decorated with relief images of flying Slavs with laurel wreaths in their hands. The magnificent completion of this whole triumphant, full of heroic pathos composition is the image of the chariot of Victory, which stands out against the background of the sky and, as it were, soars over the city. In its center is an allegorical statue of Victory in the image of a winged woman with the emblem of the state and a laurel wreath in her hands.
Rossi's work reflected the most important feature of mature Russian classicism, which consisted in the fact that any urban planning task, no matter how insignificant it seemed, was solved not separately, but in close cooperation with others.As a result, a continuous and unsurpassed chain of ensembles was created. Built by Rossi in the Mikhailovsky Garden, on the banks of the Moika River, the Pavilion serves as an excellent example of this: it is a kind of compositional bridge between the vast ensembles - the Mikhailovsky Palace and the Field of Mars.
The Mikhailovsky Palace with an extensive park and services is a typical example of an urban estate of the era of classicism: the main building and service wings surrounded the front yard on three sides, separated from the street by a fence. The main facade was also a reflection of classicist traditions: the main entrance was highlighted by a Corinthian portico, symmetrical wings completed the risalits, and the surface of the wall before them was decorated with three-quarter columns, creating the illusion of an arcade extending from the portico. The garden façade was different, consisting of two six-column Corinthian porticos, crowned with pediments, and a Corinthian colonnade (wide loggia).
Having built the palace, Rossi proceeded to redevelop the adjacent part of the city in order to create a unified urban planning composition associated with the Mikhailovsky Castle, Nevsky Prospect and the Field of Mars. New streets were laid, a square was laid out in front of the palace, having a strict rectangular shape, the continuation of which was the ceremonial courtyard with the main compositional center of the entire architectural complex - the Mikhailovsky Palace.
The ensemble of the Alexandrinsky Theater is similar in scale to the idea, the creation of which Rossi devoted almost more time and effort than any other of his works.
The Alexandrinsky Theater is one of the most harmonious works of Russia. Due to the well-chosen proportions, the building, which is rather large in size, seems light and graceful. The composition of the main facade of the theater is based on the motif of a loggia, decorated with a colonnade of a solemn, Corinthian order, which emphasizes the dominant role of the building in the entire architectural complex. The strong chiaroscuro created due to the use of the order makes the plastic of the facades very expressive and the walls of the auditorium, towering a powerful cube above the attic, almost imperceptible. The facade of the building is crowned by the magnificent Apollo quadriga.
Rossi, like other Russian architects of the early 19th century, in all his works skillfully combined architectural forms with sculptural and pictorial decoration outside and inside. He designed the place and character of reliefs, paintings, statues, draperies, furniture. The decor in the interior followed the same principle, 396
as the external design: alternation of rapports (a repeating part of the ornament - L.E.), strict symmetry in the composition, the antiquated nature of all figurative elements of the decor - laurel wreaths, acanthus leaves, lion masks, consistency of color combinations. An important element of the interior decor was wall and ceiling painting either in the grisaille technique, imitating sculptural decorations, or in the scaliolo technique, which is inlaid with colored plaster in imitation of Pompeian wall paintings: on a white background - dancing nymphs, fluttering cupids, griffins of bright red, blue , yellow and black colors.
One of the best examples of the Empire interior is the White Hall of the Mikhailovsky Palace. The calm whiteness of the walls and columns is set off by the gilding of stucco cornices and Corinthian capitals. Above the doorways there are bas-reliefs with figures of resting bacchantes, wreaths, garlands and other Empire-style attributes. The richest painting of the ceiling and upper part of the walls combines multicolored painting, gold patterns and grisaille. The golden tone of the inlaid parquet and doors is in harmony with the blue upholstery of gilded furniture. The interior was complemented by tall column-shaped floor lamps, chandeliers, candelabra, candlesticks made of bronze, stone and crystal. The bronze details that adorned the tables accentuated the deep tone of the colored stone of the countertops. For all its extraordinary richness, the interior decoration is distinguished by a sense of proportion, which is generally characteristic of the Empire style.
The combination of the efforts of architects, sculptors, painters-decorators and masters of applied art determined the unique stylistic integrity of the Empire style as an independent period in the history of Russian art of the 19th century.
At the beginning of the century, memorial plastics, which was completely new for Russian art, developed greatly. The creator of the Russian Empire tombstone, “the poet of enlightened sorrow,” as his contemporaries called him, was Ivan Petrovich Martos (c. 1754-1835). In the tombstones, Martos followed the traditions of the ancient classics and created a mournful mood with the help of a generalized plastic form, silhouette and movement of draperies, endowing his images with ideally impassive faces. At the same time, the sculpture itself retains a lively human feeling, restrained emotionality, and lyricism. Such are the “genius of death”, “grieving genius”, “mourners” in his famous tombstones MP Sobakina, ES Kurakina, AP Kozhukhova. The most typical for the Russian Empire style is the tombstone of E.I. Gagarina: a bronze female figure standing alone on a round pedestal in an antique tunic, with a Greek hairdo. Soft
the flowing folds of clothing, a pointing gesture directed towards the ground and the deep shading of the eye sockets give the image a dramatic shade. If you look at the monument from the side, you can feel the touching helplessness of a young woman in the face of death, which is conveyed extremely precisely by the outline of the figure found. Martos' favorite image was an angel of sorrow with an inverted torch in his hands as a symbol of extinct life.
Soft lyricism was also inherent in park sculptures that adorn grottoes, fountains, garden pavilions, and alleys. Perhaps the most poetic of them is the bronze fountain sculpture "A milkmaid with a broken jug" (sculptor P. P. Sokolov) in Tsarskoye Selo park. An exquisite flowing silhouette of a sadly bowed head, lowered on a hand, a feeling of softness of a girlish body, silkiness of flowing fabric, and finally, the very material - bronze - are characteristic of the Empire style. It is also typical of this style that the genre motif is devoid of even the shadow of everyday life: the girl is perceived as an antique nymph, and not an ordinary milkmaid. A.S. Pushkin dedicated lines written in Greek hexameter to the statue of Tsarskoye Selo:
Dropping the urn with water, the maiden broke it on the cliff. The Virgo sits sadly, idle holding a shard. Miracle! the water will not dry up, pouring out of the broken urn; The Virgo sits eternally sadly over the eternal stream.
The embodiment of the patriotic aspirations of the era was the famous monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square in Moscow, performed by Martos. The ideal of the national hero, which was embodied in the sculptures of V.I. Demut-Malinovsky, S.S. Pimenov, I.E. Terebenev for the Kazan Cathedral and the Admiralty, received the most convincing solution in the monument to Martos: the Nizhny Novgorod merchant Minin calls the commander Prince Pozharsky to his defense Fatherland. But since for Martos Greece was the ideal that he followed all his life, his Russian images seem to be made according to the models of the ancients, although the accessories contain “Russian” details, for example, Minin's peasant shirt and the image of the Savior Not Made by Hands on the shield of Prince Pozharsky.
By the beginning of the 30s, classicism as a trend had completely exhausted itself: the rise of national feeling, the civic pathos of serving the Fatherland within the framework of the feudal-serf state, which nourished classicism in the first quarter of a century, could not take place after the defeat of the Decembrists. This was the reason for the gradual degradation of architecture and monumental sculpture in the second third of the 19th century.
In the first years of the reign of Emperor Nicholas I, K. Rossi's activities continued. The architect V.P. S / pasov also worked a lot, who built his famous "military" cathedrals - Trinity, Preobrazhensky, the triumphal gates - Moscow, at the Moscow outpost, and Narva, as a monument to the victory of the Russian guard in the Patriotic War of 1812, Pavlovsk barracks guards regiments.
The style, which can be called "Nicholas Empire", became the last phase of development of classicism in Russian architecture, and the middle of the XIX century. - this is already the time of the crisis of classicist aesthetics. Outwardly, the crisis manifested itself in the loss of harmony of architectural forms, their excessive geometry, overcomplicated decorative details. A clear idea of the change that took place in the style of Russian architecture of the mid-19th century is given by the buildings that were included in the development of St. Isaac's Square in St. Petersburg, the main place among which was undoubtedly St. Isaac's Cathedral, erected according to the design of Auguste Montferrand (1786-1858). porticoes with heavy gables decorated with high reliefs. A gilded dome rises above the cathedral to a height of 101 m, the drum is surrounded by a colonnade crowned with a balustrade with statues.
For wall cladding, Montferrand used light gray Olonets marble, replacing the traditional plaster cladding of warm colors, which is traditional for Russian classics. The use of granite columns in the composition of the facades was also unusual. The mirror polishing of their trunks, the use of metal for the manufacture of bases and capitals - all this brought hard, cold features into the architectural image.
The facades of the building were decorated with round sculpture and high-reliefs made of metal on the theme from the Sacred History. Excessive splendor and fragmentation of forms, a kind of "carpet" filling of the plane appeared in the decoration of interiors. The famous malachite columns of the cathedral, made in the technique of "Russian mosaic", in which the stones were selected according to their color and natural pattern, giving the impression of a monolith in the finished product, can hardly be called artistically successful, since the pattern of the stone and the overflow of shades disappear due to the great distance at which the columns are from the viewer. Sculpture is widely represented in the interior of the cathedral, although the dominant role in it is played by mosaics and paintings made by outstanding painters of academic classicism-K. P. Bryullov, F. A. Bruni, P. V. Vasin. According to Bryullov's sketch, the dome was painted, Bruni created the composition "The Flood", "The Battle of Alexander Nevsky with the Swedes."
At the same time, romantic tendencies intensified. A characteristic feature of romanticism in art was the appeal to past historical eras, which contributed to the formation of a new artistic movement of "national romanticism" that swept the whole of Europe after the Napoleonic wars. It was these aspirations that dictated K. Rossi's experiments in designing wooden houses "in the Russian style" for veterans of the Patriotic War in the village of Glazovo, near Pavlovsk, or "exemplary taverns" by O. Montferrand and A. Stackenschneider, imitating peasant houses.
In the Nikolaev era, the movement of "national romanticism" was oriented towards English Gothic and Prussian Hellenism. The personal tastes of Nicholas and his family ties with the German imperial house were the reason for this. The most outstanding example of this trend was the Cottage in Peterhof, built by A.A. Menelas in the late 1920s. All external and internal decoration of it corresponded to the English "Gothic house". Furniture, Gothic carvings on the walls, colored glass in the windows created a special romantic atmosphere. Zhukovsky specially for the Cottage composed a coat of arms in the spirit of knightly times with a sword, a wreath of roses on a shield and the motto "For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland."
A typical example of Prussian Hellenism with its rigid, geometrically regular planes and small, fractional drawing of antique ornaments is the building of the New Hermitage, built according to the project of Leon von Klenze.
In the disputes between "Slavophiles" and "Westernizers" about the ways of development of Russian national culture, the "Russian-Byzantine style" of architects K. Ton and A. Gornostaev was born, which became the main one in the subsequent period.
From the very first years of the new century, various artistic trends coexisted in the tastes and hobbies of society: on the one hand, classicism reigned, which did not recognize any deviations from its canon, on the other, romantic impulses towards something freer and more independent appeared. The development of romanticism in Russian painting is associated with the fashion for ruins, Freemasonry sacraments, knightly novels and romances.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782-1836) was an outstanding romantic artist of the period of Alexandrov classicism. After graduating from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts in the class of historical painting, Kiprensky entered the history of Russian culture as a portrait painter. A feature of Russian art was the fusion of classicism, sentimentalism and romanticism. This led to a rare combination of the civic loftiness of the images created by the artist, with their individual originality, human warmth. Any portrait of Kiprensky can be viewed from these positions, but, perhaps, the most graphic is the "Portrait of Evgraf V. Davydov". In its heroic scale and romantic inspiration, it is the image of a new era. Just as service in the army during these years turned from class traditions into a patriotic affair, so this ceremonial portrait by design is far from the official splendor of the 18th century.
Evgraf Davydov is a cousin of the famous Denis Davydov, who distinguished himself in the military campaigns of 1807-1808, the future hero of the "Battle of the Nations" near Leipzig, is presented as a daring and a knight, rebellious and dreamy. He resembles the hero of "hussar songs" Denis Davydov, who is "stuffy at feasts without will, without plowing" and who, like the romantic hero Pushkin, "hung an abusive lyre between his faithful saber and saddle." This portrait fully expresses the nobility of the soul of a Russian person - a patriot who is ready to lay down his head for the Fatherland, and an inspired poet. Perhaps this is why the tradition of considering this image a portrait of the “hero-singer” Denis Davydov is so strong, because it coincides with the image of the legendary poet-partisan, who is the national ideal.
In a painting with an amazing for the XIX century. mastery achieved color harmony: the bluish-black sky and olive foliage set off the curly head and the honey-yellowish tone of the hero's face, the scarlet, sparkling gold mantic emphasizes the shining white leggings with a hanging silver cord of the harness. And not only the appearance of the hero, but also the color creates a major mood.
In the “Portrait of Eugr. Davydov ”Kiprensky appeared as a romantic, but a Russian romantic, reflecting the vivid originality of Russian art. It was due to the peculiarities of the historical period 1800-1810, the fact that Russia embarked on the path of a liberation struggle against the enemies of the Fatherland, and faith in justice, victory, social optimism, high civic consciousness and social pathos dictated the specific features of Russian romanticism.
Kiprensky created a whole gallery of portraits of the heroes of the war of 1812, demonstrating an amazing ability to modify the painting style, coloristic, light effects and the entire emotional structure of the portrait in each case.
The undoubted masterpiece of the artist was the portrait of A.S. Pushkin, considered the best of the lifetime portraits of the poet, for among the artists of that time only Kiprensky was able to come close to Pushkin in a correct understanding of the most important historical trends of the era.
They enthusiastically wrote about the portrait that this is "a living Pushkin ... seeing him alive at least once, you immediately recognize his penetrating eyes and mouth, which lacks only a constant startle." Pushkin wrote to Kiprensky: "I see myself as in a mirror ..." And the meaning of these words, presumably, is much deeper than an uninitiated person might imagine. Kiprensky was obsessed with the dream of creating such a system of painting that would give a complete illusion of life, "acting like a mirror, which shimmers with as many colors as there are in things reflected on its surface." And what the artist reflected on the surface is the imprint of difficult reflections and bitterness on a noble forehead with the outward calmness of the posture. Involvement in the poet's spiritual world allowed Kiprensky to create an enduring image, consonant with the immortal lines of the "Monument":
I have erected a monument to myself not made by hands, A folk path will not grow to it. He ascended higher at the head of the rebellious Pillar of Alexandria.
Aleksey Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847), a favorite student of Borovikovsky, was a remarkable painter, the creator of a peculiar national-romantic movement in Russian painting. Venetsianov created a unique style, combining in his works the traditions of metropolitan academicism, Russian romanticism of the early 19th century. and the idealization of peasant life. He became the founder of the Russian genre of genre. Contrary to the opposition of “simple nature” and “graceful nature” that existed in academic aesthetics, Venetsianov, turning to the depiction of peasant life, showed it as a world full of harmony, grandeur and beauty. Venetsianov's style also influenced the development of applied art. His drawings, which showed the "characteristic types" inhabiting the Russian Empire, served as the basis for the creation of a series of porcelain figurines at the Gardner factory.
At the same time, in official artistic life, romanticism was dominant, combined at that time with academic classicism.
In the 30-40s of the XIX century. the leading role in the visual arts belonged to painting, mainly historical. Its characteristic feature was the reflection of the events of ancient history in tragic climaxes. In contrast to the historical painting of the previous era (A, P. Losenko), which gravitated towards national history with moralizing plots, where a bright beginning triumphs over the forces of evil, the historical compositions of K.P.Bryullov, F.A. Bruni, A.A. . Ivanov are of an abstract symbolic character. As a rule, their paintings are written on religious subjects, the emphasis in the image is transferred from the central figure of the protagonist to the crowd at a critical moment. The restless crowds, pursued by blind inevitable fate (Bryullov "The Last Day of Pompeii") or divine retribution (Bruni "The Brazen Serpent"), fall at the feet of the prophets and at the foot of the idols. The drama of the plot, the dynamism of the composition, the intensity of passions, contrasting color and light effects - all these features inherent in the works of Bryullov, Bruni and Ivanov determined the romantic period in the development of Russian historical painting.
The leading role here belongs to Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852), who combined a romantic concept with the classicist canon of depiction in his work. The main work of Bryullov's contemporaries unanimously considered the large historical canvas "The Last Day of Pompeii". The idea of the picture was based on the romantic emotional contrast between the perfection of the depicted people and the inevitability of their death: buildings collapse, marble idols fall, and no one, be he brave, beautiful and noble, can be saved during a catastrophe. Typical of romanticism was also the desire to "see" and truthfully convey the historical event: Bryullov even made a drawing "The streets of tombs" from nature, which was reproduced almost unchanged in the picture. The classicist academic tradition manifested itself here in a certain artificiality of the composition, reminiscent of a pompous opera finale, in the replacement of living people with a collection of wax figures with very beautiful but dead faces and the same gestures, in a purely theatrical clamor, reminiscent, in the words of Benois, “the burning of Bengali lights and flashes of lightning. " At the same time, Bryullov amazes with his artistry, virtuoso technique, compositional scope and vivid picturesqueness.
Bryullov was also one of the most significant and popular Russian portrait painters of his time. He is a master, first of all, of a ceremonial oil portrait, where a person is presented at full height in a solemn atmosphere, as well as excellent pencil and watercolor portraits. Bryullov's portraits reflect the romantic ideal of a beautiful and proud person who stands above those around him. Such is, for example, "The Horsewoman", executed in shining golden-fawn, pink and greenish-brown tones, reminiscent of the rich valerian painting of the 18th century.
In its full splendor, Bryullov's tremendous talent, despite his academic training, manifested itself in two portraits of Countess Yu.P. Samoilova - with the pupil Giovanina and the little arapchon and with the pupil Amatsillia in a masquerade. In the last portrait, the simplicity of the composition and the laconicism of the color, built on the rich color contrast of blue and red, give the canvas a special decorative effect and, at the same time, monumentality. The countess's beautiful coldish face framed by black curls against the background of a bright red curtain, her dress as a masquerade queen, a young companion in an oriental outfit, a motley crowd of masks in the back of the hall - all contribute to creating a vivid romantic image.
Bryullov also created a number of portraits that reveal the real image of a person; the romantic beginning in them was manifested only in the brilliance and saturation of color. Such is the portrait of the publisher of the art newspaper A.N. Strugovshchikov in a black cloak on a scarlet background, where the contradictory features of his personality are correctly noted.
The name of Bryullov has become a symbol of a new pictorial academicism with elements of romance.
Even more academic romanticism manifested itself in the work of Fyodor Antonovich Bruni (1799-1875). His "Brazen Serpent" belongs entirely to its era: faces merge into a crowd, seized by common fear and slavish submission. The rhythm of the distribution of human figures, the distribution of light and shadow, as it were, repeats the rhythm in which the emotions of the crowd grow and fade. The religious and mystical orientation of the picture reflected the fashionable mood at court and in high society circles.
The most significant phenomenon in Russian painting of the 30-50s. XIX century. - works of Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858). Ivanov used traditional academic methods of painting composition with the help of wax models-mannequins, tried to test "classicism in kind" in everything, comparing his own sketches with antique sculptures, borrowing their poses and movements. "Apollo, Cypress and Hyacinth, engaged in music and singing", "The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection" absorbed all the features of academic classicism, softened by a romantic interpretation. The most typical example of historical painting of the second third of the 19th century. is his famous painting "The Appearance of Christ to the People", in which the artist wanted to express the essence of Christianity, the moral revolution that produced the moral and ethical norms of this teaching. In the course of his titanic twenty years of work, the artist became more and more convinced of the limitations of the traditional academic techniques of composition, drawing, painting and sought to write real life, and not invented academic productions. Sketches of faces to the picture are a whole inspired artistic study of what a person is like in slavery, in doubt, in the blindness of fanaticism, in the insight of truth. Here we see humanity at a historical crossroads, at the turn of paganism and Christianity, at the moment of spiritual insight, before choosing its own path, and all this was recreated by Ivanov with inimitable psychological skill. The depth of comprehension of the properties of the human soul puts Ivanov among the greatest masters of world painting. Ivanov's sketches are also unique in terms of color: blue shadows on the human body, gray, dull green in the sun, orange and green reflexes on faces - all that variegation and novelty of color ratios that only the Impressionists came to and which, before Ivanov, in the entire history of painting was not at all. But he did not dare to completely transfer his colorful finds to a large canvas, just like figures and types painted from life.
It is not for nothing that contemporaries considered that the picture looked like a tapestry, and A. Benois wrote that it makes a painful impression, because it seems that there are two pictures in front of you - one painted on top of the other, the top one is perceived as a dreary and languid tracing paper with the one under it.
At first glance, belonging to the romanticism of "The Appearance of Christ to the People" does not seem as indisputable as the paintings of Bryullov and Bruni. It lacks the drama of the plot, the dynamics of the action, the raging of passions, color and cut-off effects. At the same time, the general design of the picture, its idea is undoubtedly romantic: the call of the prophet John the Baptist and the preaching of Christ were supposed to awaken the people of Judea from the "age-old silence". This also correlated with the idea of the messianic destiny of the artist and art. The concept of "The Appearance of Christ to the People" reflected a romantic understanding of the historical process as a process of moral improvement of mankind. Ivanov's talent, manifested in the depiction of the biblical plot, became the forerunner of new painting.
A. Ivanov had no followers in Russia. He was the last historical painter, after whom the Russian school of painting began to develop along the path of "illustration of reality" and "exposure of life" in the paintings of artists of the "natural school" and the Itinerants.
The natural school, which is characterized by features of critical realism and an acute social orientation, emerged in the middle of the 19th century. originally in Russian literature and manifested itself in the works of N.V. Gogol, N.A. Nekrasov, F.M.Dostoevsky, I.A.Goncharov, D.V. Grigorovich. Simultaneously with the new literature, whose representatives strove for naturalness, naturalness, depicting life without embellishment, ”by the mid-40s of the 19th century. a whole generation of artists appeared - adherents of the natural school. And the first among them should be considered Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852), whose paintings are scenes from life, where the tragic essence of the situation is hidden under the cover of the ordinary. This is a kind of moral sermons, the purpose of which is to correct others. These are "Fresh Cavalier", "Choosy Bride", "Breakfast of an Aristocrat", "Major's Matchmaking".
In the painting "The Major's Matchmaking" was a typical phenomenon of the then life - a marriage of convenience: a wealthy merchant and his whole family dream of getting "from rags to riches" through the marriage of his daughter with a bankrupt major. The art of mise-en-scène, characteristic of Fedotov, is most noticeable here: in the center, a cutesy bride breaks free from her mother's hands, roughly grabbing her by the skirt to keep her in the room, the rest of the characters are united into groups, each of which “tells” in its own way about the merchant's patriarchal life. The extraordinary refinement, expressiveness of poses, gestures, facial expressions of the characters allow for a moment to see the true customs of this family. In a minute, the daughter will straighten her dress, the mother will smile and bow graciously, the cook and the household will hide in the back rooms. The characters were chosen by Fedotov with an amazing knowledge of Russian life and represent a curious and precious collection of physiognomies characteristic of the 40s.
The painting is a true masterpiece in a pictorial sense: its color scheme is based on an expressive juxtaposition of pink, lilac with greenish-ocher and yellow. The play of dense silk fabric, the shimmer of old bronze, the shine of transparent glass are conveyed with a wonderful sense of the material. In the soft lines of the thrown back head of the bride, in her gesture, in addition to the pretentiousness, there is a lot of femininity, emphasized by the airiness of the white-pink fabrics of her dress. In all this, in addition to Fedotov the satirist, Fedotov the poet is felt.
However, the most poetic and perfect work of Fedotov is considered his last canvas "Anchor, still anchor!", Where there is almost no dramatic action, and the theme is revealed in a pose, in a gesture, in a color scheme of the picture.
In a cramped hut, dimly lit by a dying stub, stretched out on the beds an unhappy young officer, deadly bored from the forced idleness in a winter camp in some village. His only entertainment is poodle jumping over a stick. "Anchor," the officer shouts to the dog, "another anchor!" - and the restless, cheerful creature tirelessly gallops to the joy of its master.
The stupefying monotony and stifling atmosphere of life in a remote corner are masterfully conveyed by color: the hot-red oscillating light of a lonely candle in spots picks out seemingly vague and unreal objects from the gloom, contrasting with the cold gray-bluish tones of the moonlit landscape outside the window.
Fedotov was the forerunner of critical realism in Russian genre painting. It was this analytical method, which reveals the contradictions of the surrounding world, that was to become dominant in Russian art in the second half of the 19th century.
Musical culture
Literary and musical gatherings, initiated by prominent Russian writers, became a characteristic phenomenon of the cultural life of the beginning of the century. Musical collections became widely known at A.A. Delvig, where, along with the poets A.S. Pushkin, I.A.Krylov, N.I. Gnedich, D.V. Venevitinov, the composer M.I. Glinka visited.
The Musical Salon of M.Yu. Villegorsky, an enlightened amateur composer, was generally recognized as a "privileged" concert hall in the capital. The best Russian artists and visiting celebrities shone here, and foreign guest performers could count on success with the audience in public concerts only after private evenings with M.Yu. Villegorsky.
In Moscow in the 1820s, the center of musical life was the house of A.S. Griboyedov on Novinsky Boulevard, where composers A.A. Alyabyev, A.N. Verstovsky, and the first Russian music critic V.F. Odoevsky met.
But the most famous was the music salon of Z.A. Volkonskaya, a famous beauty, singer, writer, who settled in Moscow in 1824 at the Tverskaya Gate in a real palazzo with Roman statues and Pompeian frescoes. At the evenings in her house were held literary readings, concerts, theatrical performances, amateur opera performances, live pictures, masquerades, children's performances based on the plays of Racine. In the salon Volkonskaya constantly gathered members of the philosophical and literary circle "Society of Wisdom" DV Venevitinov, VF Odoevsky, IV Kireevsky, SP Shevyrev. Literary readings were attended by almost all famous poets: V.A. Zhukovsky, E.A. Baratynsky, N.M. Yazykov, A.A. Delvig, exiled Polish poet A. Mitskevich, I. I. Kozlov (who dedicated his famous translation to the princess crying Yaroslavna from "The Lay of Igo-Roar's Regiment"), writers M.N.Zagoskin, I.S.Turgenev, A.S. Griboyedov. All vocal celebrities who successfully performed in the 1920s in Russia - Pauline Viardot, Angelica Catalani - certainly attended the princess's musical evenings. It was in the salon of Zinaida Alexandrovna that the famous musical evening was organized in honor of M.N. Volkonskaya (nee Raevskaya), who was leaving for exile to her husband, at which A.S. Pushkin.
The great poet was a frequent guest in the salon of Z.A. Volkonskaya. “Come back,” she wrote after him. - It befits a great Russian poet to write either among the expanse of the steppes, or under the shadow of the Kremlin; the creator of Boris Godunov belongs to the city of kings. " In response, Pushkin sent her his poem "The Gypsies" with the famous poetic dedication:
Among scattered Moscow, With the rumors of whist and Boston, With the ballroom babble of rumor, You love the games of Apollo. Queen of muses and beauty, With a gentle hand you hold the Magic scepter of inspiration, And over a pensive brow,
With a double crowned wreath, And the genius twists and burns. The singer, captured by you, Do not reject the humble tribute, Hear my voice with a smile, As the nomad hears the catalani passing by.
Musical and literary circles of the 1920s and 1930s united the best representatives of the Russian intelligentsia and played an important role in the development of theatrical and musical public life.
Serf theaters played an important role in the development of Russian theater, the formation of performing schools in opera, drama and ballet, on the stage of which the talents of P. Zhemchugova, T. Granatova and many others first appeared.
The tradition of the serf theater gradually gave way to public city state theaters, where a whole galaxy of dramatic actors such as E.S. Semenova, A.S. Yakovlev, P.S. Mochalov came to the fore.
The theatrical repertoire was unusually wide: along with the plays of A.P. Sumarokov and D.I.Fonvizin, writers of the 18th century, there were patriotic tragedies by V.A. .Davydov and K.Kavos, authors of the new century. Delivered in 1807. the tragedy of V. A. Ozerov "Dmitry Donskoy" caused an unprecedented storm of delight. At the same time, comedy genres enjoyed success - comic opera, vaudeville, comedy.
Vaudeville, a light comedy with singing and dancing, which became perhaps the most popular genre in the 1920s, played an essential role in the development of the theater. The success was associated not only with the naive "entertainment" of the vaudeville, it touched upon the acute, topical issues of our time, reflected the familiar pictures of Russian life. For example, during the war of 1812, Kavos's vaudeville Peasants, or Meeting of the Uninvited, in which the main character was the partisan elder Vasilisa, was very popular during the war of 1812. Vaudeville's inherent features of sharp satire and topicality contributed to the formation of realism in Russian theater. It is no coincidence that vaudeville is considered the soil on which the brilliant play of A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit" grew.
It was at the beginning of the 19th century. the high traditions of the Russian choreographic school began to take shape, gaining world fame for Russian ballet. Its development was greatly facilitated by the famous choreographer, a major innovator in the field of magical poetic ballet, Charles Didlot (1767-1837). Didlot amazed the audience with a new, unprecedented ballet technique, especially jumps that imitate flight - balloons, which he was proud of as his invention and which became possible on the Russian stage thanks to the talent of Russian dancers A.I. Istomina and A.P. Glushkovsky. The best description of Istomina's art was given by A.S. Pushkin in Eugene Onegin.
For the Russian theater, it has become a tradition to perform a nationally characteristic dance: Russian, Ukrainian, Cossack dances, mazurkas, Hungarian, Spanish dances were staged in all ballets and divertissements (insert numbers in drama, opera, ballet performances of the ХУП-Х1Х centuries).
A vivid picture of theatrical life of the 1810s-1820s is painted in "Eugene Onegin":
The opera largely retained the forms that had developed in the previous era, when conversational dialogues alternated with song numbers. It was most often a household opera based on a story from folk life with the use of folk songs.
At the beginning of the XIX century. new opera genres were born, which were further developed in the work of M.I. Glinka. These include a fairy-tale opera and a historical-patriotic opera. Russian fairy-tale opera arose under the undoubted influence of the romanticism of the 1800s with its keen interest in folk life and folklore. The first example of such a "magic opera" was the opera "Mermaid" by composers S. Davydov and K. Kavos. The German opera "The Virgin of the Danube" was taken as a basis, reworked in the spirit of Russian folk tales.
None of the operas, except for "The Miller the Sorcerer", had such success, which was explained not so much by the amusing stage performance with many decorative effects, as by the music of S. I. Davydov: the fantastic scenes of the opera were distinguished by colorful, transparent orchestration, the dance episodes - by the national flavor The vocal numbers were based on folk melodies, but in the form of large arias and ensembles.
Among the patriotic operas, the most significant is “Ivan Susanin” by K. Kavos. The opera librettist, the famous playwright A.A. Shakhovskoy dwelled on the feat of the Russian people in their struggle against the Polish intervention in the 17th century, evoking a direct association with the heroic struggle against Napoleon in the 19th century. But, basing on the traditional samples of the French "opera of salvation", K. Kavos deprived it of its true tragedy, since it lacked the pivotal moment - the idea of the heroic deed of the protagonist. In the finale, a Russian squad came to the rescue, and the opera ended with moralizing verses.
Among the greatest figures of Russian national culture is Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857), a composer whose multifaceted work opened a new era in the development of Russian music, determined its further paths both in terms of developing new genres and in terms of melody (reliance on folk songs).
The work of Russian composers, including Glinka, was greatly influenced by the realistic aesthetics of Pushkin, who, studying oral folk art, folk speech, created a new classical literary language. His works “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and “Rusalka”, deeply folk in spirit and temperament, formed the basis for the librettos of famous classical operas by Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, lyric poems became romances.
The operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan and Lyudmila, which determined the future path of the Russian opera school, occupy a central place in the work of MI Glinka. It was from them that two branches of opera classics subsequently developed: folk historical musical drama and fairy-tale epic opera. A Life for the Tsar is a heroic opera, the main role in which belongs to the people and their representative, the patriotic peasant. The people decide the fate of the fatherland at crucial moments in its history, putting forward heroes capable of an immortal feat. This is how the Decembrist poet KF Ryleev portrayed the hero in one of his "Dooms", which are the basis of the opera.
Therefore, the death of Susanin is perceived as a victory that brings happiness to the people - the hero died, but his native land was saved. Hence the cheerful ending: the opera ends not with the scene of Susanin's death, but with the scene of the people's celebration - the grandiose chorus "Glory!" A Life for the Tsar is the first Russian opera of broad symphonic development, without a spoken dialogue, but with two folk choirs that begin and end the opera and express the idea of patriotism and heroism of the Russian people.
MI Glinka is the founder of Russian symphonic music, the best examples of which are "Kamarinskaya", "Aragonese Jota", "Night in Madrid" and "Waltz-fantasy". Almost all of them use folk, song or dance themes and recreate images of reality: a festivities in "Kamarinskaya" and a folk festival under the sultry sun of the south in "Aragonese Jota". "Kamarinskaya" is not only a picture of folk fun, it is a true recreation of the features of the national Russian character - courage, breadth, even swagger, humor and soulful lyricism. The music is based on two folk songs - the wedding song "Because of the forest, the dark forest" and the dance song "Kamarinskaya", which alternate, forming the so-called form of double variations, close to folk music. The historical significance of "Kamarinskaya" for the Russian symphony school is revealed in the famous words of PI Tchaikovsky: "All of it is in Kamarinskaya, just like the whole oak is in an acorn."
"The romances of Glinka, which he composed throughout his life, reflected not only the evolution of his work, but also Russian lyric poetry in general. The twenties of the XIX century. elegies of contemporary poets - VA Zhukovsky, EA Baratynsky, KN Batyushkov The peak of this period was the well-known elegy "Do not tempt" on the verses of EA Baratynsky.
The end of the 30s - the beginning of the 40s - the Pushkin era in the chamber vocal work of M.I. Glinka. The musical structure of the romances of MI Glinka to the words of AS Pushkin "I am here, Inesilla", "Night marshmallow", "The fire of desire burns in the blood" fully corresponds to the poetic images of Pushkin's text. The romance to the verses of A.S. Pushkin "I remember a wonderful moment" is beautiful, where music completely merges with poetry:
I remember a wonderful moment: You appeared before me, Like a fleeting vision, Like a genius of pure beauty.
In the languor of hopeless sadness,
In the worries of a noisy bustle
And dreamed of cute features.
The years passed. Rebellious gust of storms
Dispelled old dreams
Your heavenly features.
In the wilderness, in the gloom of imprisonment
My days dragged on quietly
Without a deity, without inspiration,
No tears, no life, no love.
Awakening has come to the soul:
And here you are again,
Like a fleeting vision
Like a genius of pure beauty.
And my heart beats in rapture
And for him they were resurrected again
And deity and inspiration,
And life, and tears, and love.
The vocal lyrics of the late period are rich and diverse, reflecting the trends of the new era, colored by the moods of Lermontov's contemplation and tragic introspection. Mournful intonations sound in the dramatic romances-mopologues "Song of Margarita", "You will soon forget me", "Don't say that your heart hurts." At the same time, among the late romances of M.I. Glinka there are also light, cheerful ones. Such are the Bacchic drinking songs to the poems of Alexander Pushkin "Zdravny Cup" and "I Drink to Mary's Health."
The work of M.I. Glinka, which reflects scenes of folk life, folk character, feelings and experiences of an individual, contributed to the further development of music along the path of realism.
Introduction
In the first half of the 19th century, the crisis of the feudal-serf system, which hindered the formation of the capitalist system, was intensifying more and more. In the advanced circles of Russian society, freedom-loving ideas are spreading and deepening. The events of the Patriotic War, the help of the Russian troops in the liberation of European states from the tyranny of Napoleon, exacerbated patriotic and freedom-loving sentiments. All the basic principles of the feudal-serf state are criticized. It becomes clear that the hopes for changing social reality with the help of state activities of an enlightened person are illusory. The uprising of the Decembrists in 1825 was the first armed uprising against tsarism. It had a tremendous impact on Russian progressive art culture. This era gave birth to the genius creativity of A.S. Pushkin, folk and all-human, full of dreams of freedom.
The fine arts of the first half of the 19th century have an inner community and unity, a unique charm of light and humane ideals. Classicism is enriched with new features, its strengths are most clearly manifested in architecture, historical painting, and partly in sculpture. The perception of the culture of the ancient world has become more historical than in the 18th century, and more democratic. Along with classicism, the romantic direction is intensively developing and a new realistic method begins to form.
After the suppression of the Decembrist uprising, the autocracy established a brutal reactionary regime. Its victims were A.S. Pushkin, M.Yu. Lermontov, T.G. Shevchenko and many others. But Nicholas I could not suppress the discontent of the people and progressive social thought. Liberation ideas spread, embracing not only the nobility, but also the diverse intelligentsia, which began to play an increasingly significant role in artistic culture. V.G.Belinsky became the founder of Russian revolutionary-democratic aesthetics, which influenced artists. He wrote that art is a form of national self-awareness, led the ideological struggle for creativity, close to life and socially valuable.
Russian artistic culture in the first third of the 19th century took shape during a period of social upsurge associated with the heroic events of the Patriotic War of 1812 and the development of anti-serfdom and freedom-loving ideas of the pre-Decembrist period. At this time, all types of fine arts and their synthesis reached a brilliant heyday.
In the second third of the 19th century, due to the intensified government reaction, art largely lost those progressive features that were characteristic of it earlier. Classicism by this time had essentially exhausted itself. The architecture of these years embarked on the path of eclecticism - the external use of styles from different eras and peoples. Sculpture has lost the significance of its content, it acquired features of superficial showiness. Prospective searches were outlined only in sculpture of small forms, here, just as in painting and graphics, realistic principles grew and strengthened, which were affirmed despite the active resistance of representatives of official art.
Classicism in the first half of the 19th century, in accordance with romantic tendencies, created images that were elevated and spiritualized, emotionally sublime. However, the appeal to a lively direct perception of nature and the destruction of the system of so-called high and low genres already contradicted academic aesthetics, based on classicist canons. It was the romantic trend of Russian art in the first third of the 19th century that paved the way for the development of realism in the following decades, for to a certain extent it brought romantic artists closer to reality, to simple real life. This was the inner essence of the complex artistic movement throughout the first half of the 19th century. It is no coincidence that at the end of this period a satirical genre of everyday life was formed in painting and graphics. In general, the art of this stage - architecture, painting, graphics, sculpture, applied and folk art - is an outstanding phenomenon full of originality in the history of Russian artistic culture. Developing the progressive traditions of the previous century, it has created many magnificent works of great aesthetic and social value, contributing to the world heritage.
An important evidence of the changes that took place in Russian art in the first half of the 19th century was the desire of wide circles of viewers to get acquainted with the exhibitions. In 1834, in "Northern Bee", for example, it was reported that the desire to see "The Last Day of Pompeii" by K. P. Bryullov swept the Petersburg population, spreading "in all states and classes." This picture, as contemporaries argued, largely served to bring "our public to the artistic world".
The nineteenth century was also distinguished by the expansion, deepening of the ties of Russian art not only with life, but also with the artistic traditions of other peoples inhabiting Russia. In the works of Russian artists, motives and images of the national outskirts of Siberia began to appear. The ethnic composition of students in Russian art institutions became more diverse. The natives of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States, Transcaucasia and Central Asia studied at the Academy of Arts, in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, organized in the 1830s.
In the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, only a few masters, primarily A.A. Ivanov, aroused interest in the artistic world of Russia. It was only during the years of Soviet power that the art of this period received wide recognition. In recent decades, Soviet art history has paid great attention to the study of the work of masters of the first half of the 19th century, especially in connection with the large anniversary exhibitions of A.G. Venetsianov, A.A.Ivanov, O.A.Kiprensky, the 225th anniversary of the USSR Academy of Arts.
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