Examples of real art in literary works. Preparation for the OGE (GIA)

"Real Art"

Option 1

Real art - this is a depiction of reality in artistic images, a figurative understanding of reality, a part of spiritual culture, a source of knowledge of the world, the process of expressing the inner world of a person in an image. This is a textbook of life, a human striving for perfection.

The text of K. G. Paustovsky speaks about painting, about the paintings of the famous artist Pozhalostin, about their influence on a person. In this - in a positive influence on the soul of each of us - the authenticity of art is manifested. For arguments, I want to turn to the text and life experience offered to me.

Secondly, to confirm that music is also a part of true art, I will give an example from life. Once I was at the ballet, The Nutcracker, "and I liked the music the ballerinas danced to the most. The melody was so soft that at some point I thought: this is not the music of ballet, but of life itself. And the dance itself turned me on so head that for these hours I was completely immersed in the dance, in the story that the ballerinas told me, and was not distracted by anything.

Thus, I proved that art, namely true art, is not only a reflection of our inner world, but also a textbook of life, allowing us to know the reality around us. It is part of ourselves.

Option 2

What is real art? In my opinion, real art is a reflection of reality in painting, cinema, literature, architecture and many other things; it is also a source of knowledge of the surrounding reality and the process of expressing the inner world of a person.

I want to remember English writer Charles Dickens and his work "A Christmas Story". Charles had a real art - the ability to write. His book is very instructive, it makes you think about your behavior. His "Christmas stories" influence the views of other people. The collection is written in such a way that you want to re-read it again and again.

Thus, I proved that real art is the process of revealing the inner world of a person, the source of knowledge of the world. It affects the souls of people, making them cleaner, better, kinder.

Option 3

Real art , according to the article " explanatory dictionary Russian language "S.I. Ozhegov, is "a creative reflection, reproduction of reality in artistic images." But is it possible to define the meaning of this word in one phrase? Of course not! Art is charm and sorcery! This is exactly what T. Tolstoy says in the text.

A moral choice, in my opinion, is a decision made by a person how to act correctly in a given situation. It is based on the concept of GOOD and EVIL and is an indicator of the moral and ethical attitudes of a person: most people act as their conscience allows them. Moral choices, in my opinion, are life itself. Any choice directs a person's life in a certain direction, which he is able to change. The rulers of states cannot avoid the moral choice, therefore the whole world history, all of humanity rests on the morality of the elect. But personal moral choice no less important: it characterizes the person himself, showing how good or bad he is, friend or not ... Examples of personal choice are present in the text of A. Aleksin and in one story that happened to me.

I think by giving two arguments, I proved my understanding of the words "moral choice". Unfortunately, not all people do right choice. You need to be careful and prudent when choosing your action in a given situation, then the world will become a much better place.

Painting is one of the forms of art, and the form is bright and visible. The world of pictorial images, the world of artists creating incorruptible works, has long attracted writers. The theme of art, the theme of the artist's destiny was addressed in different countries in different historical epochs. Each writer brought something of his own, deeply felt, to this topic, but there was also something in common that unites such different writers as N.V. Gogol, E. Poe, O. Wilde, I. Shmelev. In my work, I will try to find an answer to the question of how the theme of creativity and the purpose of the artist is understood in world literature.

So, let's start with N.V. Gogol's story "Portrait", published in 1835. This work consists of two parts, each of which tells about the fate of two artists. The first is about the young, talented and almost impoverished artist Chartkov, who finds in one of the antique shops a portrait of a usurer, a portrait that shocked him with its art. This portrait will eventually destroy Chartkov.

In the second part of the story, N.V. Gogol tells about the fate of the nameless artist, who once created that terrible portrait, the personification of evil. Repenting that he let evil into the world through this portrait, the artist goes to the monastery and, after many years of self-denial and seclusion, paints another picture, full of harmony and light.

What is the author thinking about in this work? Every evil has a consequence. Someone has committed a bad deed, and it is still unclear how many people will then pay for it, how many destinies will be touched by a single manifestation of evil, perhaps not so terrible in appearance.

Recall the portrait of a usurer: "In the artist's picture, for sure, there is a lot of talent, but there is no holiness in the faces; there is even, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if an unclean feeling led the artist's hand." The artist made it possible for evil to exist through this portrait. The image of the Antichrist, shown by Gogol in the usurer, entered the world through someone else's weakness. Although it all started with a plot that the artist wanted to draw: he had to depict the spirit of darkness in the picture. And suddenly a strange usurer, about whom a bad reputation was already going around the city, himself comes with a request for a portrait. "What is better?" the artist tries to find an excuse for himself, "he himself asks to be the devil in my picture." The usurer really approached: "The more the similarity intensified, the more the artist felt some kind of painful, disturbing feeling, incomprehensible to himself." The artist is struck by the eyes of the usurer, their monstrous, demonic beginning. “First of all, he took up finishing the eyes. There was so much power in these eyes that it seemed impossible to even think of betraying them exactly as they were in nature. unravel their secret." But the soul of the artist resists the pernicious influence of evil, day by day it becomes more and more difficult for him to paint a portrait: “Finally, he could no longer endure, he felt that these eyes pierced his soul and produced incomprehensible anxiety.”

The artist, seized with fear, does not finish the portrait, and the usurer soon dies. Gogol shows what kind of evil a living nature can carry with it, how much evil can be contained in someone's life. Another question arises: if the main objective art - to make the image alive, to capture life itself in the work, then why sometimes the excessive liveliness of nature does not lead to anything good? The artist himself, who painted the usurer, answers this: “I painted him with disgust, I did not feel at that time any love for my work. I forcibly wanted to conquer myself and soullessly, drowning out everything, to be true to nature. It was not a creation of art, and therefore the feelings that embrace everyone when looking at it are already rebellious feelings, anxious feelings - not the feelings of an artist, for an artist breathes peace even in anxiety.

The artist continues to work, when he suddenly realizes that a sudden feeling of envy has awakened in him for his student, whose work enjoys great attention among amateurs and connoisseurs. “Finally, to the top of his annoyance, the artist finds out that his student was offered to paint a picture for the newly rebuilt rich church. This blew him up. he says. - It's too early, brother, he decided to put the old people in the mud! Still, thank God, I have the strength. Here we will see who will soon put someone in the mud. "Not shunning various intrigues and intrigues, he seeks to have a competition announced for the picture. But the student still wins. "In the picture of the artist, for sure, there is a lot of talent," said one spiritual person, - but there is no holiness in the faces; there is even, on the contrary, something demonic in the eyes, as if an impure feeling led the artist's hand "The artist repents of his act and goes to the monastery to cleanse himself and write his own best work. “No,” he says, “it was God who punished me; my picture rightly suffered shame. It was intended to destroy my brother. A demonic feeling of envy led my hand, a demonic feeling should have been reflected in it.” Evil is looking for loopholes, wormholes in human souls in order to destroy them, but still cannot win, because the beautiful and pure still lives. “And how many times,” Gogol says in the words of the artist, “solemn peace is higher than any worldly excitement; how many times creation is higher than destruction; how many times an angel with pure innocence alone bright soul above all the untold powers and proud passions of Satan!"

Chartkov's history was different. Having bought a strange portrait in a shop, he finds in it a bundle with a thousand chervonets inside. "And as he looked again at the gold, twenty-two years and a hot youth spoke in him. Now everything that he had looked at with envious eyes, which he had admired from afar, swallowing his saliva, was in his power. Wow, how in him zealous beat when he just thought about it! Chartkova ruined his passion for money. Rather, not passion - it did not exist as such, but ordinary greed. And the young artist was too weak to resist the temptations.

His works become clichés, firmly learned, he buys his fame, not earns. And there is no way back - it's too late to go back when you've already been framed and turned into a machine. Let's remember Chartkov's first customers. A certain lady comes to him with a request to draw her daughter: “Lise is wearing a dress now; I confess I would not want her to be in the dress to which we are so accustomed; I would like her to be dressed simply and sit in the shade of greenery, in view of some fields, so that herds in the distance or a grove, so that it would not be noticeable that she was going somewhere to a ball or a fashionable evening. Our balls so kill the soul, so mortify the remnants of feelings. How ridiculous these ladies look, who have already become, as Gogol says, "wax" from balls and parties, who no longer know how to entertain themselves! “Simplicity, simplicity to be more!” - the lady capriciously demands, tired of everything in the world. Chartkov is trying to paint her daughter as she is: with a bluish tinge to her face, with yellowness, a pimple on her forehead. “Oh, why is that? You don't need it either. Here, in some places, it seems to be somewhat yellow, and here it’s completely like dark specks. Lise is only a little off today, but there is no yellowness in her, and her face strikes with especially freshness of paint, ”says the lady, stung by the truthful drawing. Chartkov follows the lead of his customers, becomes a slave to their whim. Wealth and satiety corrupt his soul.

Sin kills talent, diminishes it, passions destroy it. It is worth extinguishing a flame that has barely flared up, and you will not return it, no matter how hard you try, and insight comes too late. “The bandage suddenly fell off his eyes,” Gogol writes about Chartkov, who realized that he had lost his talent forever. “God! And destroy so ruthlessly best years his youth; to exterminate, to extinguish the spark of fire, which may have been glimmering in the chest, may now have developed into grandeur and beauty, may also extrude tears of tenderness and gratitude! And ruin it, ruin it without any pity! The sweat of effort broke out on my face; he was all turned into one desire and caught fire with one thought: he wanted to portray a fallen angel. But, alas! His figures, his postures, his groups, his thoughts lay down forcibly and incoherently.

Trying to return the talent, Chartkov sets to work, he hopes that at least a grain of the gift remains in him. He locks himself in his office and does not come out for several days, but in vain: his talent is gone, and his hand only draws familiar, hardened lines. Chartkov begins to buy brilliant works of art for crazy money and destroys them, driven by envy. Finally, he goes mad and dies in complete poverty.

Chartkov, of course, was seduced by the opportunities that opened up for him after the discovery of a thousand chervonets in the frame. Deprived of this wealth before, he quickly moved from small desires to secure at least normal working conditions for himself to luxurious clothes, lipsticks, perfumes and complete satiety and degradation. Yes, it was an absolutely natural desire inherent in each of us. But someone stopped and was able to resist the temptations, and someone goes on about their passions and desires. “Look, brother,” his professor tells Chartkov, “you have a talent; it will be a sin if you destroy him. See that you do not become a fashionable painter. Even now your colors are starting to scream too brightly. Look, you’ll just get to an English native land. It’s tempting, you can set off to write fashionable pictures, portraits for money. Why, this is where talent is ruined, not developed. Be patient. Yours won't leave you." But Chartkov was too weak. He destroyed his soul with sins, killed his talent and wasted his life in vain.

The artist, shown to us in the second part of the "Portrait", came into contact in his art with the very essence of the devil, but he was able to cleanse himself after a long repentance and stay in a monastery. He begged forgiveness from his student, whom he envied, and improved his talent. The picture of the artist, which he, as if in redemption, painted after many years of self-denial, prayer and fasting, was beautiful. She became the crown of his work and, finally, the direct opposite of the diabolical essence that was reflected in the portrait of the usurer. “Everyone was struck by the extraordinary holiness of the figures. The feeling of divine humility and meekness in the face of the Most Pure Mother, bending over the Infant, a deep mind in the eyes of the divine Infant, as if already seeing something in the distance, the solemn silence of the kings struck by the divine miracle, bowed down at his feet, and, finally, the holy, inexpressible silence, embracing the whole picture - all this appeared in such a harmonious force and power of beauty that the impression was magical.

The abbot himself, touched, says to the artist: "No, it is impossible for a person with the help of human art alone to produce such a picture: a holy, higher power led your brush, and the blessing of heaven rested on your labor." Purified, freed from the forces of evil, the artist has changed not only internally, but also externally. His son is waiting to see a decrepit old man in front of him, but he sees an old man who seems to glow from within with a wonderful light: “I have already heard a little about the harsh holiness of his life and imagined in advance to meet the callous appearance of a hermit, alien to everything in the world except for his prayer, exhausted, dried up from eternal fasting and vigil. - says the son. - But how amazed I was when a beautiful one appeared before me. An almost divine old man! His face shone with the lightness of heavenly joy. A beard as white as snow and thin, almost airy hair of the same silver color scattered picturesquely along the chest and along the folds of his black cassock and fell to the very rope that girded his wretched monastic clothes.

Gogol talks about how art can bring good or evil into the world, about what great power a work can have, how many destinies evil can break and how much good good can do. Evil, once let into the world by a nameless artist, continues its path: having killed Chartkov, the portrait mysteriously disappears. Where and when will it reappear? Can it new owner resist temptation?

So, sooner or later you have to choose where to go, you have to choose between talent and your passions and desires. Those who choose their ambition will be punished because they have wasted themselves and lost a precious diamond, given by God. But how rewarded will be those who preserved and developed it!

“Pure, immaculate, like a bride, stood before him the work of the artist. Modestly, divinely, innocently and simply, like a genius, it ascended above everything. the connoisseurs contemplated the new, unprecedented brush in astonishment.It was clear how everything extracted from the outside world the artist first enclosed in his soul and from there, from the spiritual spring, directed him to one consonant, solemn song.

It was almost impossible to express that extraordinary silence, which involuntarily embraced everyone who fixed their eyes on the picture - not a rustle, not a sound; and the picture, meanwhile, every minute seemed higher and higher; brighter and more wonderfully separated from everything and everything turned into, finally, in one moment, the fruit of a thought that had flown from heaven to the artist, a moment for which all human life is only preparation!

From the point of view of the writer, the artist is responsible for his work, responsible for what his work brings to the world. As Pushkin said, "genius and villainy are two incompatible things."

Gogol tells us that real talent must be preserved and cultivated. How easy it is to lose him, to exchange him for mediocre stupidity! It seems to us that there are easy and hard paths, but this is not so: there is no path where there would be no retribution at the end. “Whoever has a talent in himself should be purer than anyone else. A lot is forgiven to another. But he will not be forgiven. surrounded him, and points his finger at him, and talks about his slovenliness, while the same people will not notice the many spots on other passers-by, dressed in everyday clothes. For spots are not noticed on everyday clothes.

Written several years later, in another country, in another reality, Edgar Allan Poe's short story "In Death is Life" is related to Gogol's story "Portrait" by an attempt to answer the question, what is the meaning and purpose of art. The plot of the novel is simple: the hero, who fell ill with a fever in the Apennines as a result of a wound, stops in a castle abandoned by the owners, deciding to live in it until he recovers completely. In the room where he is located, there are many paintings and portraits, the description of which he finds in a notebook lying on the pillow.

Examining the canvases, the hero of the short story finds a picture there that struck him to the extreme: “Before me, as I said, there was a portrait of a young girl - the head and shoulders, painted, as the artists call it, “vignette”, like Sully’s favorite heads. Shoulders, chest, even the shining halo of hair seemed to dissolve in a vague and at the same time deep shadow of the background. The girl, no doubt, was very beautiful, but something else was striking in her: "As I understood, the magic consisted in an unusually lively expression, with which I was at first amazed, and in the end both embarrassed, and depressed, and frightened." It seems to the narrator that the girl is completely alive, he even takes her at first for the head of a living girl. Interested, he begins to read the history of the portrait.

The artist who painted it was the husband of the young woman depicted in the painting. "He, ardent, tireless and stern, was already married to his Art; she is a maiden of rare beauty, as charming as she is full of fun, all - radiance and smile, frisky, like a young doe; she had love for everything in the world and tenderness, and only her rival, Painting, was hated by her, only the palette and brushes and other unfortunate tools for the sake of which her beloved left her terrified her. Painting did not seem to the artist's wife something beautiful and wonderful. For her, painting was only a rival, she not only did not understand anything in it, but did not try to understand it either. Art seemed to the young beauty something terrible and incomprehensible, her husband's self-denial frightened her, and did not delight her.

And so the artist decides to paint a portrait of his wife. She, as if anticipating her death, is afraid of the portrait. “It was terrible for her to hear that the artist spoke of his desire to paint a portrait even from her, his young wife. But she humbly submitted and for many weeks meekly sat in a high tower, in a dark room, where only daylight oozed from the ceiling, in the rays of which turned white stretched canvas". The young woman's fears were not in vain. The art in this short story by Poe takes life. It seems to us merciless and cruel, demanding sacrifice and self-denial from those who serve him and who are associated with him. The tower is described gloomily, as if it will no longer be exit; they rise before your eyes, like living, blank walls, heavy air and eternal twilight, when you read these lines: "He did not want to see that in the ghostly light that barely penetrated the lonely tower, a blooming blush fades and the eyes that had recently sparkled with fun dim his young wife, who was melting in front of everyone, imperceptibly to him only one. "But the young woman, radiant, life-loving, endured, without complaining about anything, endured, because she loved the artist and did not want to distract him from the picture, seeing that he "draws in his work a burning, all-burning joy". And therefore she gave the portrait drop by drop her life, her youth and love. The portrait, no doubt, became the best of what the artist wrote. But what a price th? In my opinion, his inattention to his wife was cruel and heartless. Without her, the artist would have obtained the most ordinary work, because he loved art much more than his wife. I think he did not love his wife at all, since he killed her, sacrificed her to art. "And he did not want to see that the colors that he applied to the canvas, he took away from the one that sat in front of him and became paler and more transparent from hour to hour." She gave her life to the artist for the sake of his best creation: "When all that remained was to put the last stroke on the lips and in last time barely touch the eyes with a brush, the spirit started up again beautiful lady like the flame of a fading lamp. And then a stroke was applied, and the tip of the brush barely touched the eyes on the canvas; and for a moment the artist froze in admiration for what he had created; but in the next moment, still not taking his eyes off the portrait, he trembled and turned pale all over, cried out in horror: "Why, this is life itself!" All the light, all the purity and goodness, beauty and radiance, all the life contained in a young woman, were transferred to the portrait.

"But is this death?" - said the artist. Yes, he's right, it's not death. The girl is alive: she lives in a portrait created by the artist. From the point of view of the writer, true art always requires sacrifice, a true work can only be created by love on the verge of self-denial. Poe's position is cruel: questioning the truth of life and its beauty may require the artist to renounce both life and beauty.

Oscar Wilde takes a different approach to art in The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890.

In his novel, Wilde tells us about the fate of the rich, handsome young man Dorian Gray. Basil Hallward, an artist friend of Dorian, decides to paint his portrait. During one of the sessions, he introduces Gray to his friend Lord Henry, who decides, having made friends with Dorian, to influence him. There are actually two artists in the novel. One of them, Basil, admiring the beauty of young Gray, paints a portrait of a young man, singing this perfect beauty. The second - Lord Henry - creates a different portrait, a portrait of a man who needs to be freed from the burden of morality, from remorse. The portraits created by the two artists will fight, compete in the novel. The stronger the ideas of Sir Henry will take possession of Dorian's soul, the more ugly will be the portrait painted by Basil. "I feel," says Gray to Lord Henry, "there is something wrong with your reasoning - only that, I don't know." “Dorian was vaguely aware,” writes Wilde, “that under the influence of what he had just heard, some completely new thoughts and feelings were awakening in him, but at the same time it seemed to him that they were born in him independently of anyone. The words spoken by Basil’s friend touched a secret chord in Dorian, which no one had touched before, and he had a feeling as if it had been pulled tight and somehow strangely, in jerks, vibrated.

Lord Henry tells Dorian that his youth and beauty are the only thing worth keeping in life and worth cherishing: “When your youth is over, you will suddenly find that the time of triumphs and victories has passed for you, and you will have to be content with victories so miserable, that they will seem to you bitterer than past defeats.

Lord Henry, talking with the young man, changes his life radically with his theories. Watton - a man essentially cynical and cruel - just amused by looking at Dorian. The latter is like a guinea pig for him. But Dorian does not resist acquaintance, but, on the contrary, supports him in every possible way, because it is easy and interesting to communicate with Lord Henry Gray. He, a lively and bright person, did not really like the somewhat conservative and rather closed nature of the artist. Especially since Basil was in love with pure harmony, open soul with the beauty and natural charm of Dorian, he admired him and even idolized him a little, and Dorian was not at all satisfied with such worship, although he was flattered.

Dorian's soul was to Henry like Blank sheet on which you can write whatever you want. The young man was a toy for the lord. Henry did not think about the consequences - because this would be contrary to the philosophy of his life, hedonism. He did not take into account only that he himself, gradually degrading, will turn into an animal under the influence of his own paradoxical theories. Lord Henry inspired Dorian that youth is the only priceless treasure on earth, that only this is important. In Dorian, who had previously simply lived, not noticing his happiness and taking happiness for granted, greed and a desire to preserve all the treasures given to him by fate woke up at all costs.

Lord Henry says: “If each of us lived a truly full life, giving vent to all our feelings, not being embarrassed to express all our thoughts and bringing all our dreams to a real embodiment, humanity would again know what the joy of being is, was the dark era of the Middle Ages would be forgotten, and we would return to the ideals of Hellenism, and, perhaps, to something even more beautiful and perfect. But today even the most courageous of us do not dare to be ourselves. to us from those ancient times when primitive people engaged in self-harm, all of us decently overshadows life.

There is some truth in this opinion, but following such thoughts, a person would turn into a plant. If our slightest desire were unquestioningly fulfilled, then we would become nothing, our soul would die without getting any food for itself, wasting itself on empty self-expression, thereby becoming more and more empty. In addition, our well-being would be built on someone else's grief and labor, because in order to reap, you must first sow. And what is the use of the soul to express itself if no one needs it? And if there is nothing to express, what is worse?

Self-expression, of course, is necessary, but first you need to grow something in your soul. But how to do it without self-denial, without sacrifice? So far there is no other way

Beautiful, secured in all respects, Dorian kills his beloved, indirectly causes the death of her brother, kills an artist who wants to save him, and through his fault another friend of his, a chemist, dies. And he kills not only physically, but also morally. Isn't appearance deceiving? Yes, Beauty is the greatest miracle, this is indisputable, but it is only an empty mask if evil enters the world through it. But the time will come when the mask will have to be removed - and what face will appear to the world then? “On entering the room, they saw on the wall a magnificent portrait of their master, in all the splendor of his wondrous youth and beauty. And on the floor, with a knife in his chest, lay a stranger in a tailcoat. His face was wrinkled, faded and repulsive. the rings on the hands of the servants managed to recognize Dorian Gray. The hero of the story has lost everything: the ability to love people, love life and even himself.

But after all, he was once not devoid of a sense of beauty, it is enough to recall how he says about his beloved: “Imagine a girl who is barely seventeen years old, with a face as gentle as a flower, with a small Greek head, decorated with braided and dark brown hair tied in rings, with eyes as purple as lakes in the forest, eyes full of passion, lips like rose petals. What a voice! Never before had I heard such a voice! tone and penetrating intonations created the illusion that the girl was addressing each spectator individually.Then it became louder, resembling a flute or an oboe sounding somewhere in the distance.And during the scene in the garden, he heard a quivering delight, like that which before dawn the singing of the nightingale fills in. Well, then, as emotions heated up, there were moments when he rose to the frenzied passion of the violin. Dorian Gray really loved Sibyl Vane, however, she loved her, the way she is, he loved somewhere in the depths of his soul, but in general he admired more the combination of beauty and genius in this girl. He doesn't talk about love as often as he repeats: "Ah, Harry, I idolize her." "Tonight she is Imogen, and tomorrow she will be Juliet," says Dorian.

“- And when is she Sibyl Vane?

I'm afraid never. Understand, all the great heroines of the world live in it! She is infinitely versatile. Are you laughing? I tell you, she is a genius."

Yes, he loves her, there is no doubt about that. But what is inferior to what: admiration for love or love for admiration? I think it's the second one. Dorian himself confirms this with the words: "I would like to put her on a golden pedestal to see how the whole world idolizes the woman who belongs to me."

Of course, love here is inferior not only to admiration, but also to a much more possessive feeling. But remember another revelation of Dorian: "When Sybil is with me, I am ashamed of everything that you, Harry, have taught me; I become completely different. Yes. at one touch of her hand, I forget about you and about your paradoxical, delightful , poisonous, bewitching theories." Love still could cure Dorian from the influence of Lord Henry's vicious theories, but Dorian's love itself is already poisoned by them and has turned half into empty admiration. That's what killed the feeling when Sybil lost her talent. “No,” Dorian exclaims, “today she is cold and soulless. But God, how she has changed! Yesterday she was a great actress. Today she is mediocrity itself.

You can't talk like that about someone you love, Dorian. Love is higher than art,” Hallward replies.

Dorian, speaking of Sybil with disappointment, thinks more about himself: what he has lost, how painful it was for him to look at her mediocre game. “You used to amaze my imagination,” he says to Sibylla, “and now you don’t even arouse curiosity. I fell in love with you because you played so wonderfully, because I saw great talent in you, because you brought to life the dreams of great poets, clothe in a living, real form the incorporeal images of art. Now you are not capable of this. Oh God, what madness was my love for you! Now you are nothing to me. No, I can’t even think about it! I wish I had never known you "You have destroyed the most beautiful thing in my life. How little you know about love if you can say that it killed the actress in you! Why, without your art you are nothing! I could make you great, brilliant. Famous. The whole world I would bow before you and you would bear my name."

He only thinks of himself. But how can love be called love if a person knows the answer to the question: why do you love and for what? And Dorian exclaims: "How little you know about love, if you can say that she killed the actress in you!" Dorian did not like Sybil herself, such as she is. He loved her talent, he was proud that such a brilliant girl would belong to him and only him, and his pride called it love.

Only Sybil herself truly loved. “You came, my beloved,” she says, “and freed my soul from captivity. You showed me real life. It was like my eyes were opened. I saw all the tinsel, falsity and absurdity of the sham world that surrounds me on stage. And the words that I uttered are not real, not my words, not what I would like to say. Thanks to you, I learned that life is richer and higher than art. I learned love is not artificial, but real. Art is only its pale reflection. I'm tired of living in the shadows. You are dearer to me than all the art in the world. I heard the hiss in the hall - and smiled. What do they know about a love like ours? I could portray on stage a love that I didn’t know, but now that love burns me like fire, I can’t do it anymore. It is unlikely that later she could play on stage in the same way, although one would like to believe in it. But love is higher than art, which means that Sybil could not play the way she used to, because it would only be a pale semblance of her new and her new gift could no longer be called simply "talent".

Meanwhile, Dorian, having successfully survived the loss of Sibylla, continues to be friends with Lord Henry, listening to his theories, despite the many promises he made to himself.

And here comes the first retribution for the perfect. “In the weak light that penetrated through the light cream curtains, the face in the portrait seemed to him to have subtly changed. The facial expression was somehow different - a fold of rigidity appeared in the line of the mouth. What an absurdity!”

The changes taking place with the portrait make Dorian think. "The portrait taught him to love his own beauty - so now will he really make him hate his soul?". It seems to me that Dorian's aesthetic principle speaks here rather. If fatal changes had not begun to occur with the portrait, then he would hardly have thought about the fact that he had acted absolutely inhumanly with Sybil Vane. And one of the main reasons for his impulse to repent before her and make amends was the desire that the portrait become as beautiful and perfect as it was. But still in Dorian there is a conscience, there is the ability to feel guilty and there is repentance.

"Conscience - divine origin in a person". Indeed, this is like the ability of our body to touch, feel cold or warm around. Other creatures do not have this opportunity. But in our souls it already exists, we see and feel where good and where evil.

"The portrait will become for him a clear indicator of conscience - even if the image stops changing. There was only one consolation for him: the portrait helped him realize how unfair, how cruel he was with Sybil Vane." As soon as Dorian is alone, he, reflecting on his act, realizes that he was wrong, but being next to Lord Henry, he again indulges in youthful selfishness and forgets Sybil, as if nothing had happened.

Dorian begins to lead a dirty and vicious life. He cannot stop, at first he even likes to look at how ugly the portrait becomes day by day, but one day he is still horrified by what he has done.

Gray decides to reform and start new life so that the portrait finally becomes the same, beautiful, as it was. But his attempts are in vain, Dorian understands that his self-denial was empty, and he is not capable of real repentance.

Unable to bear the portrait any longer, Dorian decides to get rid of it. But, piercing the portrait with a knife, he also pierced his soul, his conscience.

In the room they find only a beautiful, as before, portrait of Dorian, and an ugly old man lying on the floor with a knife in his chest.

In essence, Gray sold his soul to the devil in exchange for youth, losing both as a result. Dorian rushes from one extreme to another, his hobbies (fabrics, stones, poisons) are endless, and the young man still cannot find peace, more and more mired in debauchery and sin. The very first scene where Dorian and Lord Henry meet reminded me of a scene from the Bible where the serpent tempts Adam and Eve. Basil, like God, protects Dorian from evil. Then, when Dorian's soul has already changed beyond recognition, the artist will come to save him, and he himself, like Christ, will die at the hands of Gray.

It seems to me that in this work the main role is played not by art as such. In fact, how can one explain the strange existence of the soul in the portrait? Yes, Gray himself asked that his portrait grow old instead of him, but can we call the changes taking place with the portrait aging? They say that when God wants to punish, he grants wishes. So the desire of Dorian Gray - for the portrait to grow old instead of him - was fulfilled. But is Dorian himself to blame for everything? Of course, Lord Henry influenced him very much, but Gray always had a chance to go back, a chance to choose between vice and virtue.

Wilde tells us that art can and should be conscientious, that true creation carries with it the ability to punish or direct. And although the writer claims that all art is useless, but does his novel speak of this? Here art brings retribution, punishment: Dorian loses everything, he turns into an animal: “Oh, if I could love someone! he exclaims. “But it seems that I have lost this ability and even forgot how to want it.” Life and the art that reflects it are closely connected: the vice that wins in the human soul is capable of killing art. One of the main thoughts of the novel is the idea of ​​the responsibility of the creator, the artist. After all, Basil did not see in Dorian Gray what Sir Henry saw, felt: spiritual weakness, selfishness, a tendency to narcissism. It is for this that Basil is punished at the end of the novel. Vice and art are incompatible. There is no beauty, perfection, harmony in art without morality, soul. That, I think, is the main idea of ​​this novel.

Written by I. S. Shmelev at the end of 1918, the story "The Inexhaustible Chalice" touches upon the problem of the artist's mission, in general - the role of art in people's lives. The plot of the "Inexhaustible Chalice" resembles a little life - the life of a righteous man. It is a strange combination of pure, tender memories and feelings that go along with Ilya through the whole story, and an unusual, bright sadness that fills the story. When you read, you imagine everything described as if in a light haze, filled with bright light. And the images of the young lady Anastasia Lyapunova, the artist Ilya, the old icon painter Arefiy are so touchingly bright and pure.

I. S. Shmelev tells about the fate of Ilya, the only son of a serf household man, a painter: “He lived in a barnyard, with calves. Without any screening - God's eyes. The pigs trampled on it and the calves kicked it; the bull once hooked a horn under the shirt and threw it into the nettles, but kept the eye of God. The extraordinary presence of God next to Elijah continues throughout the story: wonderful eyes in the sky, dreams, icons

It seems to me that all this connection between Ilya’s life and God, his faith, began with his first visit to the monastery and from the meeting with the nun, when “the Lord put His tears of slaves on the scales of truth and punished the tyrant with a needless death.” Ilya remembers that monastery for the rest of his life, as well as the prayer of the old nun.

When, under the new master, in the spring they began to renovate the cathedral in the monastery, Father Ilya was sent to work there. Ilya asks the master for permission to go to him.

“Ilya worked happily in the monastery. Even more he fell in love with the splendid silence, the soft voice and the holy faces on the walls. I felt in my heart that there can be joy in life. All his life, Ilya has been striving for this monastery, recalls the old man Arefiy, whom he fell in love with for his “handsomeness and quiet disposition.” There, Ilya receives the knowledge that no one after that: neither Ivan Mikhailovich nor Terminelli could give. That time in the monastery gave Ilya's soul the ground where his extraordinary talent grew, helped to acquire calmness, harmony and silence within himself.

It is in the monastery that the first signs of the wonderful gift given to him are revealed. “I have no work at all, only joy,” says Ilya. Old Arefiy wondered: just show it, but Ilya seemed to know everything. This is where the real talent lies: Ilya already knew what others should learn, he carried this knowledge in himself from birth, and what others discovered for themselves for the first time, he already knew and loved.

Soon he leaves the monastery to go to study in Italy. Everything he ever dreamed of was waiting for him there: the kindness of people, freedom, happy holidays, beautiful churches. “But in the spring, the soul pulled home to melancholy.” As if in temptation, people are sent to him who persuade him to stay. “You, Ilya, are an ungrateful person. Your work will be seen by the king of Naples! You're a crazy guy, Russian Ilya! I'll put you a thousand lire a month! Think. The time will come, and I give you my word: you will paint a portrait of the most holy pope! This honor rarely falls.

But Ilya, realizing that his place is not here, in prosperous Italy, his ministry is not what Terminelli describes to him, so he leaves for Russia, for his Lyapunovka.

There he again gets to work: he paints the walls of the monastery. Soon a gentleman and a lady come to look at his work. “And he saw her. He saw her tender beauty - the joyful eyes of a star, unrealizable, which no one has, the meek features of a virgin face that reminded him of his Saint Cecilia, a completely pink mouth, childishly half open, and a sweet dress falling in straight folds. There was a new lady in a white dress - for the first time Ilya saw her so close. She seemed to him young and pure, a damsel. She stood as a white bride in the middle of the church, with wild flowers.

Ilya falls in love with a lady. Inspired by her, he writes his best works: her portrait, images of the Inexhaustible Chalice, St. George Anastasia was like his muse. In it, for Ilya, all the beauty, all the harmony of the world, its divine beginning were personified. The love of the artist and Anastasia is spiritual, the lovers did not need words, a fleeting glance was enough for them to understand each other's feelings and thoughts.

Shmelev shows us what miracles art, sanctified by love, can do, how it can heal. Soon the lady dies, followed by Ilya, leaving the miraculous icon painted by him in the monastery.

In the story there are no experiences, like Gogol, about the loss of talent, there is nothing dark, evil. Overcoming the temptations and temptations that come his way, Ilya is true to his calling, he remains bright and kind, he saves his soul, and with it his gift.

It seemed that the artist was forgotten: the gravestone was overgrown with moss, went into the ground, not to read the name of Elijah on it. But the bright icon carrying the miracle of healing is alive - the image of the Inexhaustible Chalice.

The story of I. S. Shmelev gives, it seems to me, the most complete and clear answer to the question: what is the purpose of art and the artist. It is impossible to betray the moral instinct in oneself, to be faithful to the gift given by God and, in spite of worldly misfortunes, to bring light and beauty to people - this is the purpose of the artist.

Four writers who lived in different countries, in different historical eras, touched on the same range of questions: what should true art be like? What should be a real artist? And despite the differences in the writer's manner, in their views, their ideas are extremely close. We find the poetic expression of these thoughts in the beautiful verses of Boris Pasternak:

The goal of creativity is self-giving,

Not a hype, not a success.

It's shameful, meaning nothing

Be a parable on everyone's lips.

But we must live without imposture,

So live so that in the end

Attract the love of space

Hear the call of the future.

Others on the trail

They will go your way span by span,

But defeat from victory

You don't have to be different.

And owe not a single slice

Don't back away from your face

But to be alive, alive and only,

Alive and only - until the end.

A literary and artistic work is a work of art in the narrow sense of the word *, that is, one of the forms public consciousness. Like all art in general, a work of art is an expression of a certain emotional and mental content, some ideological and emotional complex in a figurative, aesthetically significant form. Using the terminology of M.M. Bakhtin, we can say that a work of art is a “word about the world” spoken by a writer, a poet, an act of reaction of an artistically gifted person to the surrounding reality.
___________________
* O different values the words "art" see: Pospelov G.N. Aesthetic and artistic. M, 1965. S. 159–166.

According to the theory of reflection, human thinking is a reflection of reality, the objective world. This, of course, fully applies to artistic thinking. A literary work, like all art, is a special case of subjective reflection of objective reality. However, reflection, especially at the highest stage of its development, which is human thinking, should by no means be understood as a mechanical, mirror reflection, as a one-to-one copying of reality. The complex, indirect nature of reflection, perhaps to the greatest extent, is reflected in artistic thinking, where the subjective moment, the unique personality of the creator, his original vision of the world and the way of thinking about it are so important. A work of art, therefore, is an active, personal reflection; one in which not only the reproduction of life reality takes place, but also its creative transformation. In addition, the writer never reproduces reality for the sake of reproduction itself: the very choice of the subject of reflection, the very impulse to creative reproduction of reality is born from the writer's personal, biased, indifferent view of the world.

Thus, a work of art is an indissoluble unity of objective and subjective, reproduction reality and the author's understanding of it, life as such, included in the work of art and cognizable in it, and the author's attitude to life. These two aspects of art were pointed out by N.G. Chernyshevsky. In his treatise “The Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality”, he wrote: “The essential meaning of art is the reproduction of everything that is interesting for a person in life; very often, especially in works of poetry, the explanation of life, the verdict on its phenomena, also comes to the fore. True, Chernyshevsky, polemically sharpening the thesis about the primacy of life over art in the fight against idealistic aesthetics, mistakenly considered the main and obligatory only the first task - "reproduction of reality", and the other two - secondary and optional. It is more correct, of course, to speak not about the hierarchy of these tasks, but about their equality, or rather, about the indissoluble connection between the objective and the subjective in a work: after all, a true artist simply cannot depict reality without comprehending and evaluating it in any way. However, it should be emphasized that the very presence of a subjective moment in a work of art was clearly recognized by Chernyshevsky, and this was a step forward in comparison with, say, the aesthetics of Hegel, who was very inclined to approach a work of art in a purely objectivist way, belittling or completely ignoring the activity of the creator.
___________________
* Chernyshevsky N.G. Full coll. cit.: In 15 t. M., 1949. T. II. C. 87.

To realize the unity of the objective image and subjective expression in a work of art is also necessary in methodological plan, for the sake of practical problems of analytical work with the product. Traditionally, in our study and especially teaching of literature, more attention is paid to the objective side, which undoubtedly impoverishes the idea of ​​a work of art. In addition, here a kind of substitution of the subject of research can occur: instead of studying a work of art with its inherent aesthetic laws, we begin to study the reality reflected in the work, which, of course, is also interesting and important, but has no direct connection with the study of literature as an art form. Methodological setting aimed at researching mainly the objective side artwork, voluntarily or unwittingly, reduces the significance of art as an independent form of people's spiritual activity, and ultimately leads to ideas about the illustrative nature of art and literature. At the same time, a work of art is largely deprived of its lively emotional content, passion, pathos, which, of course, are primarily associated with the author's subjectivity.

In the history of literary criticism, this methodological trend has found its most obvious embodiment in the theory and practice of the so-called cultural-historical school, especially in European literary criticism. Its representatives looked in literary works, first of all, for signs and features of reflected reality; “we saw cultural and historical monuments in works of literature”, but “ artistic specificity, all the complexity literary masterpieces at the same time, researchers were not interested”*. Individual representatives of the Russian cultural-historical school saw the danger of such an approach to literature. Thus, V. Sipovsky wrote bluntly: “One cannot look at literature only as a reflection of reality”**.
___________________
* Nikolaev P.A., Kurilov A.S., Grishunin A.L. History of Russian literary criticism. M., 1980. S. 128.
** Sipovsky V.V. The history of literature as a science. St. Petersburg; M. . S. 17.

Of course, a conversation about literature may well turn into a conversation about life itself - there is nothing unnatural or fundamentally untenable in this, because literature and life are not separated by a wall. However, at the same time, the methodological setting is important, which does not allow one to forget about the aesthetic specificity of literature, to reduce literature and its meaning to the meaning of illustration.

If, in terms of content, a work of art is a unity of reflected life and the author's attitude towards it, that is, it expresses a certain "word about the world", then the form of the work is figurative, aesthetic. Unlike other types of social consciousness, art and literature, as you know, reflect life in the form of images, that is, they use such specific, single objects, phenomena, events that, in their specific singularity, carry a generalization. In contrast to the concept, the image has a greater “visibility”, it is characterized not by logical, but by concrete-sensory and emotional persuasiveness. Imagery is the basis of artistry, both in the sense of belonging to art and in the sense of high skill: due to their figurative nature, works of art have aesthetic dignity, aesthetic value.
So, we can give such a working definition of a work of art: it is a certain emotional and mental content, a “word about the world”, expressed in an aesthetic, figurative form; a work of art has integrity, completeness and independence.

Functions of a work of art

The work of art created by the author is subsequently perceived by readers, that is, it begins to live its own relatively independent life, while performing certain functions. Let's consider the most important of them.
Serving, in the words of Chernyshevsky, as a "textbook of life", explaining life in one way or another, a literary work performs a cognitive or epistemological function.

The question may arise: why is this function necessary for literature, art, if there is science, the direct task of which is to cognize the surrounding reality? But the fact is that art cognizes life in a special perspective, accessible only to him alone and therefore irreplaceable by any other cognition. If the sciences dismember the world, abstract its individual aspects in it, and each study its own subject, respectively, then art and literature cognize the world in its integrity, indivisibility, and syncretism. Therefore, the object of knowledge in literature may partly coincide with the object of certain sciences, especially "human sciences": history, philosophy, psychology, etc., but never merges with it. Consideration of all aspects remains specific to art and literature. human life in an undifferentiated unity, "conjugation" (L.N. Tolstoy) of the most diverse life phenomena into a single holistic picture of the world. Life opens up to literature in its natural course; At the same time, literature is very interested in that concrete everyday life of human existence, in which big and small, natural and accidental, psychological experiences and ... a torn off button are mixed. Science, of course, cannot set itself the goal of comprehending this concrete beingness of life in all its variegation; it must abstract from details and individually random "trifles" in order to see the general. But in the aspect of syncretism, integrity, concreteness, life also needs to be comprehended, and it is art and literature that take on this task.

A specific perspective of cognition of reality also determines a specific way of cognition: unlike science, art and literature cognize life, as a rule, not talking about it, but reproducing it - otherwise it is impossible to comprehend reality in its syncretism and concreteness.
Let us note, by the way, that to an “ordinary” person, to an ordinary (not philosophical and not scientific) consciousness, life appears exactly as it is reproduced in art - in its indivisibility, individuality, natural diversity. Consequently, ordinary consciousness most of all needs precisely such an interpretation of life, which is offered by art and literature. Chernyshevsky astutely noted that “the content of art is everything that is in real life interests a person (not as a scientist, but simply as a person).
___________________
* Chernyshevsky N.G. Full coll. cit.: In 15 vols. Vol. II. S. 17. 2

The second most important function of a work of art is evaluative, or axiological. It consists primarily in the fact that, in the words of Chernyshevsky, works of art "may have the meaning of a sentence to the phenomena of life." Depicting certain life phenomena, the author, of course, evaluates them in a certain way. The whole work turns out to be imbued with the author's, interested-biased feeling, a whole system of artistic affirmations and denials, assessments is formed in the work. But the point is not only in a direct "sentence" to one or another specific phenomena of life reflected in the work. The fact is that each work carries in itself and seeks to establish in the mind of the perceiver a certain system of values, certain type emotional value orientation. In this sense, such works also have an evaluative function, in which there is no “sentence” to specific life phenomena. Such, for example, are many lyric works.

Based on the cognitive and evaluative functions, the work is able to perform the third most important function - educational. The educational value of works of art and literature was recognized in antiquity, and it is indeed very great. It is only important not to narrow this meaning, not to understand it in a simplified way, as the fulfillment of a specific didactic task. Most often, in the educational function of art, the emphasis is on the fact that it teaches to imitate positive characters or encourages a person to one or another specific action. All this is true, but the educative significance of literature is by no means reduced to this. Literature and art carry out this function primarily by shaping a person's personality, influencing his system of values, gradually teaching him to think and feel. Communication with a work of art in this sense is very similar to communication with a good, smart person: it seems that he did not teach you anything specific, he did not give you any advice or life rules, but you nevertheless feel kinder, smarter, spiritually richer.

A special place in the system of functions of a work belongs to the aesthetic function, which consists in the fact that the work has a powerful emotional impact on the reader, gives him intellectual and sometimes sensual pleasure, in a word, is perceived personally. The special role of this particular function is determined by the fact that without it it is impossible to carry out all other functions - cognitive, evaluative, educational. Indeed, if the work did not touch the soul of a person, simply speaking, did not like it, did not cause an interested emotional and personal reaction, did not bring pleasure, then all the work was wasted. If it is still possible to coldly and indifferently perceive the content of scientific truth or even moral doctrine, then the content of a work of art must be experienced in order to be understood. And this becomes possible primarily due to the aesthetic impact on the reader, viewer, listener.

An absolute methodological error, especially dangerous in school teaching, is therefore the widespread opinion, and sometimes even the subconscious belief that the aesthetic function of works of literature is not as important as all others. From what has been said, it is clear that the situation is just the opposite - the aesthetic function of the work is almost the most important, if at all one can speak of the comparative importance of all the tasks of literature that really exist in an indissoluble unity. Therefore, it is certainly advisable, before starting to disassemble the work “by images” or interpreting its meaning, to give the student one way or another (sometimes good reading is enough) to feel the beauty of this work, to help him experience pleasure from it, positive emotion. And that help is usually needed here, that aesthetic perception also needs to be taught - there can be no doubt about it.

The methodological meaning of what has been said is, first of all, that one should not end the study of a work with the aesthetic aspect, as is done in the overwhelming majority of cases (if one even gets to the point of aesthetic analysis), but start with it. After all, there is a real danger that without this, both the artistic truth of the work and its moral lessons, and the system of values ​​contained in it will be perceived only formally.

Finally, it should be said about one more function of a literary work - the function of self-expression. This function is not usually referred to as the most important, since it is assumed that it exists only for one person - the author himself. But in fact, this is not so, and the function of self-expression turns out to be much wider, while its significance is much more essential for culture than it seems at first glance. The fact is that not only the personality of the author, but also the personality of the reader can be expressed in the work. Perceiving a work that we especially like, especially consonant with our inner world, we partly identify ourselves with the author, and quoting (in whole or in part, out loud or to ourselves), we already speak “on our own behalf”. The well-known phenomenon, when a person expresses his psychological state or life position with his favorite lines, clearly illustrates what has been said. Every personal experience knows the feeling that the writer, in one word or another, or in the work as a whole, expressed our innermost thoughts and feelings, which we were not able to express so perfectly ourselves. Self-expression through a work of art, therefore, is the lot of not just a few - authors, but millions - readers.

But the significance of the function of self-expression turns out to be even more important if we remember that not only inner world individuality, but also the soul of the people, psychology social groups etc. In the "Internationale" the proletariat of the whole world found artistic self-expression; in the first days of the war, the song "Arise, great country ..." expressed itself to all our people.
The function of self-expression, therefore, must undoubtedly be ranked among the most important functions of a work of art. Without it, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to understand real life works in the minds and souls of readers, to appreciate the importance and indispensability of literature and art in the cultural system.

Artistic reality. Artistic convention

The specificity of reflection and depiction in art and especially in literature is such that in a work of art we see, as it were, life itself, the world, some kind of reality. It is no coincidence that one of the Russian writers called a literary work "a reduced universe." This kind of illusion of reality is a unique property of works of art that is not inherent in any other form of social consciousness. To designate this property in science, the terms "artistic world", "artistic reality" are used. It seems fundamentally important to find out in what proportions are the vital (primary) reality and artistic (secondary) reality.

First of all, we note that in comparison with primary reality, artistic reality is a certain kind of convention. It is created (as opposed to the miraculous reality of life), and created for something, for the sake of some specific purpose, which is clearly indicated by the existence of the functions of a work of art discussed above. This is also the difference from the reality of life, which has no purpose outside of itself, whose existence is absolutely, unconditional, and does not need any justification or justification.

Compared with life as such, a work of art appears to be a convention also because its world is a fictional world. Even with the strictest reliance on factual material the enormous creative role of fiction, which is an essential feature of artistic creativity, is retained. Even if one imagines an almost impossible option, when a work of art is based solely on the description of a reliable and real event, then here fiction, understood broadly as a creative processing of reality, will not lose its role. It will affect and manifest itself in the very selection of the phenomena depicted in the work, in the establishment of regular connections between them, in giving artistic expediency to the material of life.

Life reality is given to each person directly and does not require any special conditions for its perception. Artistic reality is perceived through the prism of a person's spiritual experience and is based on some conventionality. From childhood, we imperceptibly and gradually learn to recognize the difference between literature and life, to accept the "rules of the game" that exist in literature, and we master the system of conventions inherent in it. This can be illustrated very simple example: listening to fairy tales, the child very quickly agrees that animals and even inanimate objects are talking in them, although in reality he does not observe anything like that. An even more complex system of conventions must be adopted for the perception of "great" literature. All this fundamentally distinguishes artistic reality from life; in general terms, the difference boils down to the fact that the primary reality is the realm of nature, and the secondary is the realm of culture.

Why is it necessary to dwell in such detail on the conditionality of artistic reality and the non-identity of its life reality? The fact is that, as already mentioned, this non-identity does not prevent the creation of an illusion of reality in the work, which leads to one of the most common mistakes in analytical work - the so-called "naive-realistic reading". This mistake consists in the identification of life and artistic reality. Its most common manifestation is the perception of epic and dramatic works, a lyrical hero in lyrics as real-life personalities - with all the ensuing consequences. The characters are endowed with an independent existence, they are required to be personally responsible for their actions, the circumstances of their life are conjectured, and so on. Once upon a time, in a number of schools in Moscow, they wrote an essay on the topic “You are wrong, Sophia!” based on Griboyedov's comedy "Woe from Wit". Such an appeal “to you” to the heroes of literary works does not take into account the most essential, fundamental point: precisely the fact that this very Sophia never really existed, that her entire character from beginning to end was invented by Griboyedov and the whole system of her actions (for which she can bear responsibility to Chatsky as the same fictional person, that is, within the artistic world of comedy, but not to us, real people) is also invented by the author with a specific goal, in order to achieve some artistic effect.

However, the above theme of the essay is not yet the most curious example of a naive-realistic approach to literature. The costs of this methodology also include the extremely popular “trials” of literary characters in the 1920s - Don Quixote was tried for fighting windmills, and not the oppressors of the people, Hamlet was tried for passivity and lack of will ... Themselves the participants of such "courts" now remember them with a smile.

Let us immediately note the negative consequences of the naive-realistic approach in order to assess its harmlessness. Firstly, it leads to the loss of aesthetic specificity - it is no longer possible to study a work as a proper artistic one, that is, in the end, to extract specific artistic information from it and receive from it a peculiar, irreplaceable aesthetic pleasure. Secondly, as it is easy to understand, such an approach destroys the integrity of a work of art and, tearing out individual details from it, greatly impoverishes it. If L.N. Tolstoy said that "every thought, expressed in words especially, loses its meaning, terribly decreases when one of the clutch in which it is located is taken ”*, then how much the value of an individual character torn out of the“ clutch ”is “decreased”! In addition, focusing on the characters, that is, on the objective subject of the image, the naive-realistic approach forgets about the author, his system of assessments and relations, his position, that is, it ignores the subjective side of the work of art. The dangers of such a methodological attitude have been discussed above.
___________________
* Tolstoy L.N. Letter to N.N. Strakhov dated April 23, 1876// Poly. coll. cit.: V 90 t. M „ 1953. T. 62. S. 268.

And finally, the last, and perhaps most important, because it is directly related to the moral aspect of the study and teaching of literature. The approach to the hero as to a real person, as to a neighbor or acquaintance, inevitably simplifies and impoverishes the artistic character itself. The faces drawn and realized by the writer in the work are always, of necessity, more significant than they really are. existing people, since they embody the typical, represent some generalization, sometimes grandiose in scope. By applying the scale of our everyday life to these artistic creations, judging them by today's standards, we not only violate the principle of historicism, but also lose any opportunity to grow up to the level of a hero, since we perform the exact opposite operation - we reduce him to our own level. It is easy to logically refute Raskolnikov's theory, it is even easier to stigmatize Pechorin as an egoist, albeit a "suffering" one - it is much more difficult to cultivate in oneself a readiness for a moral and philosophical search for such tension as is characteristic of these heroes. Ease of attitude towards literary characters, sometimes turning into familiarity, is absolutely not the attitude that allows you to master the full depth of a work of art, to get everything that it can give from it. And this is not to mention the fact that the very possibility of judging a person who is voiceless and unable to object does not have the best effect on the formation of moral qualities.

Consider another flaw in the naive-realistic approach to a literary work. At one time, it was very popular in school teaching to hold discussions on the topic: “Would Onegin go with the Decembrists to Senate Square?” In this they saw almost the implementation of the principle of problematic learning, completely losing sight of the fact that in this way a more important principle is completely ignored - the principle of scientific character. It is possible to judge future possible actions in relation only to real person, the laws of the artistic world make the very formulation of such a question absurd and meaningless. It is impossible to ask a question about Senate Square, if in the artistic reality of "Eugene Onegin" there is no Senate Square itself, if artistic time in this reality it stopped before reaching December 1825* and even the fate of Onegin itself no longer has any continuation, even hypothetical, like the fate of Lensky. Pushkin interrupted the action, leaving Onegin "in a moment that is bad for him", but thereby ended, completed the novel as an artistic reality, completely eliminating the possibility of any gaping about " future fate» hero. Asking “what would happen next?” in this situation it is as meaningless as asking what is beyond the edge of the world.
___________________
* Lotman Yu.M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". Comment: Teacher's guide. L., 1980. S. 23.

What does this example say? First of all, about the fact that a naive-realistic approach to a work naturally leads to ignoring the author's will, to arbitrariness and subjectivism in the interpretation of a work. How undesirable such an effect is for scientific literary criticism hardly needs to be explained.
The costs and dangers of naive-realistic methodology in the analysis of a work of art were analyzed in detail by G.A. Gukovsky in his book "The Study of a Literary Work at School". Speaking for the unconditional need for knowledge in a work of art, not only the object, but also its image, not only the character, but also the author's attitude towards him, saturated with ideological meaning, G.A. Gukovsky rightly concludes: “In a work of art, the “object” of the image does not exist outside the image itself, and without an ideological interpretation it does not exist at all. This means that by "studying" the object in itself, we do not just narrow down the work, not only make it meaningless, but, in essence, destroy it, like the given work. By distracting the object from its illumination, from the meaning of this illumination, we distort it.
___________________
* Gukovsky G.A. The study of literature in school. (Methodological essays on the methodology). M.; L., 1966. S. 41.

Struggling against the transformation of naive-realistic reading into a methodology of analysis and teaching, G.A. Gukovsky at the same time saw the other side of the issue. The naive-realistic perception of the art world, in his words, is "legitimate, but not enough." G.A. Gukovsky sets the task "to teach students to think and talk about her (the heroine of the novel. - A.E.) not only as a person, but also as an image." What is the "legitimacy" of the naive-realist approach to literature?
The fact is that due to the specifics of a literary work as a work of art, we, by the very nature of its perception, cannot get away from a naive-realistic attitude towards the people and events depicted in it. As long as the literary critic perceives the work as a reader (and, as is easy to understand, any analytical work begins with this), he cannot but perceive the characters of the book as living people (with all the ensuing consequences - he will like and dislike the characters, arouse compassion, anger , love, etc.), and the events happening to them - as really happened. Without this, we simply will not understand anything in the content of the work, not to mention the fact that a personal attitude towards the people depicted by the author is the basis of both the emotional contagiousness of the work and its living experience in the mind of the reader. Without an element of "naive realism" in reading a work, we perceive it dryly, coldly, which means that either the work is bad, or we ourselves as readers are bad. If the naive-realistic approach, elevated to the absolute, according to G.A. Gukovsky, destroys the work as a work of art, then its complete absence simply does not allow it to take place as a work of art.
The duality of the perception of artistic reality, the dialectic of the necessity and at the same time the insufficiency of naive-realistic reading was also noted by V.F. Asmus: “The first condition that is necessary for reading to proceed as reading a work of art is a special attitude of the reader’s mind that operates during the entire reading. By virtue of this attitude, the reader relates to what is read or to the “visible” through reading not as a continuous fiction or fable, but as a kind of reality. The second condition for reading a thing as an artistic thing may seem the opposite of the first. In order to read a work as a work of art, the reader must be aware during the entire time of reading that the piece of life shown by the author through art is not, after all, immediate life, but only its image.
___________________
* Asmus V.F. Questions of the theory and history of aesthetics. M., 1968. S. 56.

So, one theoretical subtlety is revealed: the reflection of primary reality in a literary work is not identical to reality itself, it is conditional, not absolute, but one of the conditions is precisely that the life depicted in the work is perceived by the reader as “real”, genuine , that is, identical to the primary reality. This is the basis of the emotional and aesthetic effect produced on us by the work, and this circumstance must be taken into account.
Naive-realistic perception is legitimate and necessary, since we are talking about the process of primary, reader's perception, but it should not become a methodological basis scientific analysis. At the same time, the very fact of the inevitability of a naive-realistic approach to literature leaves a certain imprint on the methodology of scientific literary criticism.

As already mentioned, the work is created. The creator of a literary work is its author. In literary criticism, this word is used in several related, but at the same time relatively independent meanings. First of all, it is necessary to draw a line between the real-biographical author and the author as a category of literary analysis. In the second sense, we mean by the author the bearer of the ideological concept of a work of art. It is associated with the real author, but is not identical to him, since the work of art does not embody the entirety of the author's personality, but only some of its facets (although often the most important ones). Moreover, the author of a work of art, in terms of the impression made on the reader, can be strikingly different from the author of a real one. Thus, brightness, festivity and a romantic impulse towards the ideal characterize the author in the works of A. Green, while A.S. Grinevsky was, according to contemporaries, a completely different person, rather gloomy and gloomy. It is known that not all humorous writers are cheerful people in life. Chekhov's lifetime criticism called the "singer of twilight", "pessimist", "cold blood", which did not at all correspond to the character of the writer, and so on. When considering the category of the author in literary analysis, we abstract from the biography of the real author, his journalistic and other non-fiction statements, etc. and we consider the personality of the author only insofar as it manifested itself in this specific work, we analyze his concept of the world, worldview. It should also be warned that the author must not be confused with the narrator of the epic work and lyrical hero in lyrics.
The image of the author, which is created in some works, should not be confused with the author as a real biographical person and with the author as the bearer of the concept of the work. verbal art. The image of the author is a special aesthetic category that arises when the image of the creator is created inside the work. this work. This may be the image of “himself” (“Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin, “What is to be done?” Chernyshevsky), or the image of a fictitious, fictitious author (Kozma Prutkov, Ivan Petrovich Belkin by Pushkin). In the image of the author, the artistic convention, the non-identity of literature and life is clearly manifested - for example, in "Eugene Onegin" the author can talk with the hero he created - a situation that is impossible in reality. The image of the author appears in literature infrequently, it is a specific artistic device, and therefore requires indispensable analysis, as it reveals artistic originality of this work.

A.B. Esin
Principles and techniques for analyzing a literary work: Tutorial. - 3rd ed. -M.: Flinta, Nauka, 2000. - 248 p.

• Music can help a person feel the beauty, relive the moments of the past
• The power of art can change a person's life
• The paintings of a truly talented artist reflect not only the appearance, but also the soul of a person.
• In difficult situations, music inspires a person, gives him vitality.
• Music can convey to people thoughts that cannot be expressed in words.
• Unfortunately, art can push a person to spiritual degradation.

Arguments

L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace". Nikolai Rostov, who lost a huge amount of money for his family in cards, is in a dejected, depressed state. He does not know what to do, how to confess everything to his parents. Already at home, he hears the beautiful singing of Natasha Rostova. The emotions caused by the music and singing of the sister overwhelm the soul of the hero. Nikolai Rostov realizes that there is nothing more important in life than all this. The power of art helps him overcome fear and confess everything to his father.

L.N. Tolstoy "Albert". In the work, we learn the story of a poor violinist with an outstanding talent. Once at the ball, the young man begins to play. With his music, he touches the hearts of people so much that he immediately ceases to seem poor and ugly to them. Listeners seem to relive the best moments of their lives, return to what is lost forever. Music influences Delesov so strongly that tears begin to flow down the cheeks of a man: thanks to music, he is transported to his youth, remembers the first kiss.

K.G. Paustovsky "The Old Chef". Before dying, the blind old cook asks his daughter Maria to go outside and call any person to confess the dying. Maria does this: she sees a stranger on the street and conveys her father's request. The old cook confesses to the young man that he has committed only one sin in his life: he stole a golden saucer from the service of the Countess Thun in order to help his sick wife Martha. The desire of the dying man was simple: to see his wife again as she was in her youth. The stranger begins to play the harpsichord. The power of music has such a strong influence on the old man that he sees moments from the past as if they were real. The young man who gave him these moments turns out to be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a great musician.

K.G. Paustovsky "Basket with fir cones". In the woods of Bergen great composer Edvard Grieg meets Dagny Pedersen, the daughter of a local forester. Communication with the girl prompts the composer to write music for Dagny. Knowing that a child cannot appreciate all the charm classical works, Edvard Grieg promises to give Dagny a gift in ten years, when she turns eighteen. The composer is true to his word: ten years later, Dagny Pedersen unexpectedly hears a piece of music dedicated to her. Music causes a storm of emotions: she sees her forest, hears the sound of the sea, the shepherd's horn, the whistle of birds. Dagny cries tears of gratitude. Edvard Grieg discovered for her the beauty of what a person should really live.

N.V. Gogol "Portrait". The young artist Chartkov quite by accident acquires a mysterious portrait with his last money. main feature of this portrait - incredibly expressive eyes that seem alive. Unusual picture does not give rest to everyone who sees it: it seems to everyone that the eyes are following him. Later it turns out that the portrait was painted very talented painter at the request of the moneylender, whose life story is striking in its mystery. He did his best to convey these eyes, but then he realized that these were the eyes of the devil himself.

O. Wilde “Portrait of Dorian Gray”. The portrait of the young handsome Dorian Gray painted by Basil Hallward is the artist's best work. The young man himself is delighted with his beauty. Lord Henry Wotton tells him that this is not forever, because all people grow old. In his feelings, the young man wishes that this very portrait would grow old instead of him. Later it becomes clear that the wish comes true: any act committed by Dorian Gray is reflected in his portrait, and he himself remains the same. A young man begins to commit inhuman, immoral acts, and this does not affect him in any way. Dorian Gray does not change at all: by the age of forty he looks the same as in his youth. We see that great picture instead of a beneficial effect, it destroys the personality.

A.T. Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin". Music can warm a person's soul even in difficult times. war time. Vasily Terkin, the hero of the work, plays the harmonica of the murdered commander. From music people become warmer, they go to music like fire, start dancing. This allows them to forget about hardships, difficulties, misfortunes at least for a while. The comrades of the slain commander give the accordion to Terkin so that he will continue to amuse his infantry.

V. Korolenko "The Blind Musician". For the hero of the work, the musician Petrus, music has become the true meaning of life. Blind from birth, he was very sensitive to sounds. When Petrus was a child, he was attracted to the melody of a pipe. The boy began to reach for music and later became a pianist. He soon became famous, his talent was much talked about.

A.P. Chekhov "Rothschild's Violin". People tried to avoid Yakov Matveevich, a gloomy and rude person. But a melody accidentally found touched his soul: for the first time, Yakov Matveyevich felt ashamed for offending people. The hero finally realized that without malice and hatred, the world around him would be simply beautiful.

Art appeared almost immediately after the advent of mankind, and over the centuries many of the greatest works in painting, sculpture and other areas of art have been created. Which of them is considered the best is a very controversial issue, because even experts disagree on this matter. Today we will try to compile a list of the ten most famous works art of all time.

10 PHOTOS

1. Starry Night, Van Gogh.

The picture painted Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh in 1889. The inspiration for this work of art was the night sky, which he observed from the window of his room at St. Paul's Orphanage.

Prehistoric rock carvings of animals created approximately 30,000 years ago. The Chauvet cave is located in the south of France.

Stone monolithic statues located on Easter Island in pacific ocean. It is believed that the statues were created by the natives of the island between 1250 and 1500 AD.

The most famous work of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, created in 1880.

This painting, painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1494 and 1498, is the scene of the last meal of Jesus with his disciples, described in the biblical gospel of John.

One of Michelangelo's most famous frescoes is located in Sistine Chapel Apostolic Palace in the Vatican. The fresco illustrates the story of the creation of Adam from the biblical book of Genesis.

One of the most famous ancient Greek sculptural works, created sometime between 130 and 100 BC. marble sculpture was discovered in 1820 on the island of Milos.

In the picture painted Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, the scene of the appearance of the goddess Venus from the sea is depicted. The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. 10. "Mona Lisa", da Vinci.

A masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci, created approximately between 1503 and 1506. The painting is in the Louvre Museum in Paris.