The originality of Russian painting of the late XIX - early XX century.

As in literature, in the visual arts there was many destinations: from realism, which continued the traditions of the Wanderers of the 19th century, to avant-gardism, which created contemporary art, the art of tomorrow. Each trend had its fans and opponents.

At this time, there was a gradual decline in genre painting - the basis of the art of the Wanderers, and the flourishing of portrait art, graphics, theatrical and decorative art.

During this period, along with the "Association of Traveling Exhibitions", a number of new associations of artists were created: "World of Art" in St. Petersburg (1899-1924; S. Diaghilev - founder, A. Benois, K. Somov, L. Bakst, I. Grabar, A. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and others), "Union of Russian Artists" in Moscow (1903-1923; K. Korovin, K. Yuon, A. Arkhipov and others), "Blue Rose" (1907; P. Kuznetsov , V. Maryan, S. Sudeikin and others), "Jack of Diamonds" (1910-1916; P. Konchalovsky, R. Falk, A. Lentulov and others). The composition of the associations was fluid and mobile. The dynamics of the development of events was high, often the organizers themselves, and members left one union and moved to another. The rapidity of artistic evolution gradually increased.

Characteristic features period are:

• alignment of uneven development various kinds arts: architecture, arts and crafts, book graphics, sculpture, theatrical scenery become next to painting; the hegemony of the easel painting of the middle of the century is a thing of the past;
• a new type of universal artist is being formed who "can do everything" - paint a picture and a decorative panel, perform a vignette for a book and a monumental painting, fashion a sculpture and "compose" a theatrical costume (Vrubel, artists of the World of Art);
• extraordinary activity of exhibition life in comparison with the previous period;
• interest in the art of financial circles, the emergence of a culture of patronage, etc.

The realistic trend in painting was represented by I. E. Repin. From 1909 to 1916, he painted many portraits: P. Stolypin, psychiatrist V. Bekhterev, and others. Since 1917, the artist turned out to be an "emigrant", after Finland gained independence.

New painting and new artists

The turbulent time of searching gave the world new painting and great names of artists. Let's take a closer look at the work of some of them.

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (1865-1911)

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov(1865-1911). V. A. Serov was born in the family of a prominent Russian composer Alexander Nikolaevich Serov, author of the operas Judith, Rogneda, Enemy Force. The artist's mother, also a composer and pianist, played a big role in shaping his personality. From the age of 10, V. Serov studied drawing and painting with I. Repin, on his advice in 1880 he entered the Academy of Arts and studied with the famous teacher Pavel Petrovich Chistyakov (1832-1919), who combined the traditions of academic education with the traditions of realism. Phenomenal performance and dedication, natural original talent turned Serov into one of the best and most diverse artists of the turn of the century.

He played a special role in the creative biography of Serov Abramtsevo circle(Mammoth circle). It was in Abramtsevo that the 22-year-old Serov wrote "The Girl with Peaches" (1887, Vera Mamontova) (ill. 27), and a year later a new masterpiece - "The Girl Illuminated by the Sun" (Masha Simonovich). Serov's glory begins with these works. Valentin was young, happy, in love, he was going to get married, he wanted to write something gratifying, beautiful, to leave aside the plots of the Wanderers. Here the genres are mixed portrait mixed with the landscape, with the interior. This mixture was loved by the Impressionists. There is reason to believe that Serov began as an impressionist.

The period of intoxication with the world is short-lived, gradually impressionism is waning, the artist has deep, serious views. In the 90s. he becomes a first-rate portrait painter. Serov is interested in the identity of the creator: artist, writer, artist. By this time, his view of the model had changed. He was interested important character traits. In his work on portraits, he developed the idea of ​​"reasonable art", the artist subordinated his eye to reason. At this time, the "Portrait of the Artist Levitan" appeared, quite a few images of children, portraits of sad women.

The second trend in Serov's painting in 1890-1900 are works dedicated to Russian village in which the genre and landscape beginnings are combined. "October. Domotkanovo" is a simple rural Russia with cows, a shepherd, rickety huts.

The turbulent times of the beginning of the 20th century. changed the artist and his painting. Serov begins to occupy the task of transforming reality, writing, rather than writing from nature.

In a portrait, he goes to a monumental form. Canvas sizes are increasing. Increasingly, the figure is drawn in full growth. These are the famous portraits of M. Gorky, M. N. Ermolova, F. I. Chaliapin (1905). Not bypassed Serov and passion for modernity. This can be seen in the portrait of the famous dancer "Ida Rubinstein" (1910). The naked body emphasizes extravagant behavior and at the same time her tragic break. She, like a beautiful butterfly, is pinned to the canvas. And the figure seems brittle and incorporeal. There are only 3 colors in the picture. Close to this style and "Portrait of O. K. Orlova" (1911).

During the years 1900-1910. Serov addresses to historical and mythological genres. "Peter I" (1907) is a small painting done in tempera. There are no turning points here, but there is the spirit of the era. The king on Vasilyevsky Island is both great and terrible.

At the end he got carried away ancient mythology. After a trip to Greece, a fantastic and real picture "The Abduction of Europe" (1910) appears. In it, he got to the origins of the myth and brought antiquity closer to us - Serov stood on the threshold of a new discovery, since he never stopped on the spot. He made a huge creative journey, trying himself in several directions and in many pictorial genres.

During the years of the 1st Russian Revolution, Serov proved himself as a man of humanistic ideals. In response to the execution of a peaceful demonstration on January 9, he resigned his title of academician and resigned from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, where he had taught with Konstantin Korovin since 1901 and trained a galaxy of outstanding artists, including P. Kuznetsov, K. Petrov-Vodkin, S. Sudeikin, R. Falk, K. Yuon, I. Mashkov and others.

Victor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905)

Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov(1870-1905). The artist came from the most ordinary Saratov family, his father served as an accountant for railway. At the age of three, a misfortune happened to him - as a result of a fall, the boy injured his spine, which subsequently caused a cessation of growth and the appearance of a hump. The appearance made the artist suffer from loneliness, from dissimilarity to others, from physical pain. But all this did not prevent him from being a leader among young artists during the years of study. He was a conspicuous person - restrained, serious, charming, emphatically elegant, dressed carefully, even elegantly. He wore fashionable bright ties and a heavy silver snake bracelet.

During the years of study (1890 - MUZHVZ, 1891 - Academy of Arts, 1893 - Moscow, 1895 - Paris), he added the second part of the surname Borisov, named after his grandfather, which gave it an aristocratic sonority. During these years in Moscow, he has a strong feeling for the charming, cheerful girl Elena Vladimirovna Alexandrova. Which only in 1902 will become his wife and give birth to his daughter. The artist depicted Elena Vladimirovna in the painting "Reservoir" together with her sister.

The peculiar creativity of Borisov-Musatov is ranked among various areas. Someone classifies him symbolist artists, someone believes that his art, starting from impressionism, became post-impressionistic in a pictorial and decorative version. Whatever direction it belongs to, his art was original and had a direct influence on a group of artists who appeared in 1907 at the Blue Rose exhibition (a blue rose is a symbol of an unfulfilled dream).

His paintings- this is a longing for the lost beauty and harmony, the elegiac poetry of the empty old estates and parks. These dying "noble nests" are impossible without female images. Favorite model was his younger sister Elena("Self-portrait with her sister", 1898, "Tapestry", 1901, etc.), she was also his assistant and close friend. In most of Borisov-Musatov's paintings there is no narrative beginning, no plot. The main thing here is the play of colors, light, lines. The viewer admires the beauty of the painting itself, its musicality. Borisov-Musatov, better than others, was able to discover the connection between sounds and painting. Musatov's world is, as it were, outside of time and space. His paintings are similar to old tapestries ("Emerald Necklace" 1903-1904, "Pond", 1902, etc.), which are made in an exquisite cold "Musatov scale" with a predominance of blue, green, and purple tones. Color for the artist was the main expressive means of his musical and poetic canvases, in which "the melody of ancient sadness" sounded distinctly.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910)

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel(1856-1910). Mikhail Vrubel was born on March 17, 1856 in Omsk, his father was a military man and the family often changed their place of residence.

Vrubel entered the Academy of Arts in 1880 (together with Serov), before that he graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University and the Richelieu Gymnasium in Odessa with a gold medal.

In 1884 he left Chistyakov's workshop and went to Kyiv, where he supervised the restoration of the frescoes of St. Cyril's Church and performed a number of monumental compositions. Vrubel's dream was to paint the Vladimir Cathedral in Kyiv, but Vasnetsov already worked there, but at that time a series of watercolors appeared with the themes of "Tombstone" and "Resurrection", in which the unique Vrubel style took shape. Vrubel's style is based on crushing the surface of the form into sharp, sharp edges, likening objects to some kind of crystalline formations. Color is a kind of illumination, light penetrating the facets of crystalline forms.

Vrubel brings to easel painting monumentality. So "The Demon Seated" (1890) is written. The light here comes from within, resembling the effect of a stained glass window. Vrubel's Demon is not a devil, he is comparable to a prophet, Faust, Hamlet. This is the personification of titanic strength and painful internal struggle. He is beautiful and majestic, but in his eyes looking into the abyss, in the gesture of clasped hands, boundless longing is read. The image of the Demon will pass through all of Vrubel's work ("The Demon Flying", 1899, "The Demon Downtrodden", 1902; as contemporaries and witnesses say, not the best versions of Demons have come down to us). In 1906, the symbolist organ - the magazine "Golden Fleece" - published a poem by V. Bryusov "To M. I. Vrubel", written under the impression of "Demon Defeated":

And at the hour of the fiery sunset
You saw between the eternal mountains,
Like a spirit of greatness and curses
Fell into a hole from a height.
And there, in the solemn desert,
Only you comprehended to the end
Outstretched wings glitter peacocks
And the sorrow of the face of Eden!

Working in Kyiv, Vrubel was a beggar, he was forced to work in a drawing school, give private lessons, color photographs. At the age of 33, the brilliant artist left Kyiv forever (1889) and went to Moscow. He settled in the workshop of Serov and Korovin. Korovin introduced him to the mammoth circle. And Savva Ivanovich Mamontov himself played a huge role in Vrubel's life. He offered him to settle in his mansion on Sadovo-Spasskaya Street, and work in Abramtsevo in the summer. Thanks to Mamontov, he repeatedly traveled abroad.

The Moscow period of creativity was the most intense, but the most tragic. Vrubel often found himself at the center of controversy. If Stasov called him a decadent, then Roerich admired the genius of his work. This is understandable, since Vrubel's work itself was not without contradictions and denials. His work has received the highest awards in international exhibitions(gold medal in Paris in 1900 for a majolica fireplace) and a dirty curse of official reactionary criticism. In the canvases of the artist, a cold, night color prevails. The poetry of the night triumphs in the picturesque panel "Lilac", in the landscape "Toward the Night" (1990), in the mythological painting "Pan" (1899), in the fabulous "The Swan Princess" (1900) (ill. 28). Many of Vrubel's paintings are autobiographical.

In life, he went through a period of non-recognition, wandering, unsettled life. The star of hope lit up from the moment of meeting Nadezhda Zabela - opera singer(1896), which introduced him to the world of music, brought him together with Rimsky-Korsakov (under the influence of friendship with the composer and his music, Vrubel painted his fabulous canvases "The Swan Princess", "Thirty-three Bogatyrs", etc., made sculptures "Volkhov", "Mizgir", etc.). But a strong nervous tension made itself felt. In 1903, after the death of his two-year-old son Savva, he himself asked to be taken to a hospital for the mentally ill. In moments of enlightenment of consciousness, he wrote, among the painted 2 more portraits of his Nadezhda (the 1st against the background of bare autumn birches, the 2nd after the performance, by the open fireplace). Towards the end of his life he became blind. April 14, 1910

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel died in the St. Petersburg clinic of Dr. Bari. In 1910, a large number of people took part in the funeral of the artist on April 16 at the cemetery of the St. Petersburg Novodevichy Convent. A. Blok spoke at the grave: "...Before what Vrubel and his ilk reveal to humanity once a century - I can only tremble. We do not see those worlds that they saw." Vrubel's creative heritage is very diverse from easel paintings to monumental murals, from majolica to curves, from the design of performances in Mamontov's private opera to the design of the interior of the Morozov mansion by architect Fyodor Osipovich Shekhtel. Maybe that's why some call him a symbolist artist and compare his work with Scriabin's symphonies, the early poetry of Blok and Bryusov, others - an artist of modern style. Perhaps both are right. He himself did not consider himself a member of any current, the only cult for him was beauty, but with a Vrubel tinge of melancholy and "divine boredom."

"World of Art" (1899-1924)

In the late 1890s, with the financial support of Princess Tenisheva and Mamontov, Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev founded magazine "World of Art", on which he spent most of his own fortune. Soon the name of the magazine became common and became the definition of an entire aesthetic platform.

The "World of Art" was a kind of reaction of the creative intelligentsia of Russia to the excessive publicism of the fine arts of the Wanderers, to the politicization of the whole culture as a whole, due to the aggravation of the general crisis of the Russian Empire. The main core of the magazine's editorial staff was young artists and writers who had been friends since school days: Somov, Benois, Bakst, Dobuzhinsky, Roerich, Serov, Korovin, Vrubel, Bilibin. Their works were islands of beauty in a contradictory complex world. Turning to the art of the past with a frank rejection of modern reality, the World of Art introduced the Russian public to new artistic trends in Russia (impressionism), and also revealed the great names of Rokotov, Lavitsky, Borovikovsky and others forgotten by contemporaries.

The magazine had the highest printing quality with many illustrations - it was an expensive edition. Mamontov in 1904 suffered heavy financial losses. Diaghilev did everything possible to save the magazine. He spent most of his own capital to continue publishing it, but the costs grew uncontrollably and the publication had to be discontinued.

And in 1906, Diaghilev managed to arrange an exhibition of Russian painting in Paris as part of the Autumn Salon.

For the first time at this exhibition, Paris saw Russian painters and sculptors. Every school of painting was represented, from early icons to the fantasies of the most avant-garde experimenters. The success of the exhibition was enormous.

Let us dwell in more detail on some members of this society (the membership of the "World of Art" has changed).

The aesthetic legislator and ideologist of the "World of Art" was Alexander Benois. The Miriskusniks did not want to depend in their work on the topic of the day, like the realists, the Wanderers. They advocated the individual freedom of the artist, who can worship anything and depict it on canvases. But there was a very significant limitation: only beauty and admiration for beauty can be a source of creativity. Modern reality is alien to beauty, which means that the source of beauty can be art and a glorious past. Hence the isolation of the World of Art from life, the attacks on the peasant realism of the Wanderers, the contempt for the prose of bourgeois society.

Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1961)

Alexander Nikolaevich Benois(1870-1961) was born in the family of a Petersburg court architect. He grew up in an atmosphere saturated with interest in the palace art of the past. He studied at the Academy of Arts and attended the workshop of I. E. Repin.

Benois was an ideologue "World of Art". The favorite motif of his paintings was the regal splendor of aristocratic art. Refusing to look for beauty in the chaos of life, Benoit turned to bygone artistic eras. portraying the times Louis XIV, Elizabeth and Catherine, carried away by the beauty of Versailles, Tsarskoye Selo, Peterhof and Pavlovsk, he felt that all this was gone forever ("Bath of the Marquise", 1906, "King", 1906, "Parade under Paul I", 1907, etc .; we meet the same motifs in E. Lansenre (1875-1946), "Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo" and others).

But Benois had to face the truth of life through the works of Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, when he worked on book illustrations and theatrical scenery for their works.

Freedom, inventiveness and inner energy of the drawing distinguished Benoit's illustrations for " Bronze Horseman"A. S. Pushkin. When Benois conveys the pursuit of the royal horseman for Eugene, he rises to genuine pathos: the artist draws retribution for the "rebellion" of a little man against the genius of the founder of St. Petersburg.

Working on theater sets Benois used the World of Art program, since theatrical spectacle is a bizarre fiction, "stage magic", artificial mirages. He was called the "theatrical sorcerer". It is directly related to the glory of Russian art in Paris during the theater seasons of Sergei Diaghilev (Benoit is the artistic director of the theater seasons in Paris 1908-1911). He created stage designs for Wagner's opera The Fall of the Gods (Mariinsky Theatre, 1902-1903), Tcherepnin's ballet Pavilion of Artemis at the Mariinsky Theatre, 1907 and 1909, Stravinsky's ballet Petrushka ( big theater, 1911-12), the opera The Nightingale (Diaghilev's entreprise in Paris, 1909).

Benois willingly resorted in his works to the forms of the court theater of the 17th-18th centuries, to the methods of old foreign comedies, buffoonery, a farce, where there was a fantastic fictional "World of Art".

Benois accepted Stanislavsky's suggestion and designed several performances of the Moscow Art Theater, among them "The Imaginary Sick", "Marriage by Captivity" by Molière (1912), "The Hostess of the Inn" by Goldoni (1913), The Stone Guest, "Feast During the Plague", "Mozart and Salieri" by Pushkin (1914). Benois brought genuine dramatic pathos to these scenery.

Painter and graphic artist, excellent illustrator and refined book designer, theater artist With world fame and director, one of the largest Russian art critics, Benois did a lot to ensure that Russian painting took its rightful place in the history of world art.

Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939)

Konstantin Andreevich Somov(1869-1939) - the son of a famous historian and art critic, one of the greatest masters of the "World of Art" in his work also surrendered to the whims of the imagination. Somov graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, he is a brilliant member of Repin, continued his education in Paris.

His "Lady in Blue"(1900) is called the muse of the "World of Art", which is immersed in dreams of the past.

This portrait of the artist E. M. Martynova (1897-1900) (ill. 30) is Somov's program work. Dressed in an old dress, the heroine, with an expression of fatigue and melancholy, inability to struggle in life, makes you mentally feel the depth of the abyss that separates the past from the present. In this work of Somov, the pessimistic background of "abandonment into the past" and the impossibility for modern man to find salvation from himself is most frankly expressed.

What are the characters and plots of other Somov's paintings?

Love game - dates, notes, kisses in the alleys, arbors of gardens or lavishly decorated boudoirs - the usual pastime of Somov heroes with their powdered wigs, high hairstyles, embroidered camisoles and dresses with crinolines ("Family Happiness", "Island of Love", 1900, " Lady in a Pink Dress, 1903, The Sleeping Marquise, 1903, Fireworks, 1904, Harlequin and Death, 1907, The Ridiculous Kiss, 1908, Pierrot and the Lady, 1910, The Lady and the Devil, 1917 and others).

But in the fun of Somov's paintings there is no true cheerfulness. People rejoice not from the fullness of life, but from the fact that they know nothing else. This is not a cheerful world, but a world doomed to fun, to a tiresome eternal holiday that turns people into puppets of a ghostly pursuit of the pleasures of life.

Life is likened to a puppet theater, so through the images of the past, an assessment was made of life, contemporary to Somov.

In the second half of the 1900s, Somov created a series of portraits of the artistic and aristocratic milieu. Partrets by A. Blok, M. Kuzmin, M. Dobuzhinsky, E. Lansere belong to this series.

Since 1923, Somov lived abroad, died in Paris.

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957)

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky(1875-1957), Lithuanian by nationality, was born in Novgorod. He received his art education at the drawing school of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists in St. Petersburg, which he attended simultaneously with his studies at the university from 1885 to 1887. Then he continued his art studies in Munich in the studios of A. Ashbe and S. Holloshy (1899-1901). Returning to St. Petersburg, in 1902 he became a member of the "World of Art".

Among the artists of the "World of Art" Dobuzhinsky stood out for his thematic repertoire dedicated to the modern city, if Benois and Lansere created the image of the city of past eras full of harmonic beauty, then the city of Dobuzhinsky is acutely modern.

The dark gloomy courtyards-wells of St. Petersburg, like in Dostoevsky's ("The Courtyard", 1903, "The House in St. Petersburg", 1905), express the theme of the miserable existence of a person in a stone bag of the Russian capital.

In pictures of the past Dobuzhinsky laughs like Gogol through his tears. "Russian province of the 1830s." (1907-1909) he also depicts dirt in the square, a lazy sentry and dressed up young lady and a flock of crows circling over the city.

In the image of a man Dobuzhinsky also brings in a moment of ruthless dramatic sense of time. In the image of the poet K. A. Sunnenberg ("The Man with Glasses", 1905-1997) (ill. 31), the master concentrates the features of a Russian intellectual. There is something demonic and pathetic about this man at the same time. He is a terrible creature and at the same time a victim of the modern city.

The urbanism of modern civilization puts pressure on lovers ("Lovers"), who are unlikely to be able to preserve the purity of their feelings in corrupt reality.

Dobuzhinsky did not avoid a passion for the theater. Like many, Dobuzhinsky hoped to influence the order of life through art. The most favorable conditions for this were provided by the theater, where painters and musicians worked alongside the writer-playwright, director and actors, creating a single work for many spectators.

In the Ancient Theater he performed the scenery for the medieval play by Adam de la Halle "The Game of Robin and Marion" (1907), stylizing a medieval miniature, the artist created a spectacle magnificent in its fantasticness. Styling a lubok, the scenery for "Demonic Action" by A. M. Remizov (1907) was made in the theater of V. F. Komissarzhevskaya.

According to Dobuzhinsky's sketches, scenery for A. A. Blok's play "The Rose and the Cross" (1917) was made.

At the Moscow Art Theater, Dobuzhinsky designed the play "Nikolai Stavrogin" based on Dostoevsky's play "Demons". Now, already on the stage, Dobuzhinsky expressed his attitude to the inhuman world, crippling souls and life.

Dobuzhinsky performed sketches of costumes and scenery for musical performances.

In 1925 Dobuzhinsky left Soviet Union, lived in Lithuania, from 1939 - England, USA, died in New York.

Lev Bakst

He was distinguished by interesting works in theatrical and decorative arts. Lev Bakst(1866-1924). Masterpieces were his sets and costumes for Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov (1910), Stravinsky's The Firebird (1910), Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe (1912), Debussy's The Afternoon of a Faun (1912) in staged by Vaslav Nizhensky. All these performances brought the Parisian audience into indescribable delight during the entreprise of Sergei Diaghilev.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927)

For Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev(1878-1927) were a source of creative inspiration traditional features of Russian national life. He liked to depict a peaceful patriarchal province, cheerful village holidays and fairs with their multi-colored chintz and sundresses, carnivals sparkling with frosty snow and sun with carousels, booths, dashing troikas, as well as scenes of merchant life - especially merchants, dressed in luxurious dresses, ceremoniously drinking tea or making traditional shopping trips accompanied by lackeys ("Merchant", 1915, "Maslenitsa", 1916, etc.).

Art education Kustodiev began in his homeland, in Austrakhan. In 1896 he was transferred to the workshop of Repin, after 5 years he graduated from college with the right to retire to Paris.

Let's say a few words about studying at the Academy of Arts. In 1893, a reform took place at the Academy, its structure and the nature of education changed. Pupils after general classes began to work in workshops, they were led by outstanding artists of that time: in 1894, I. E. Repin, V. D. Polenov, A. I. Kuindzhi, I. I. Shishkin, V. A Makovsky, V. V. Mate, P. O. Kovalevsky.

The most popular was Repin's workshop. It was the focus of advanced artistic and public interests. "The entire force of the post-reform Academy is now concentrated in the cities of Repin and Mate," wrote A. N. Benois in the article "Student Exhibitions at the Academy." Repin developed in his students the spirit of creativity, social activity, protected their individuality. No wonder such different and dissimilar artists as K. A. Somov, I. Ya. Bilibin, F. A. Malyavin, I. I. Brodsky, B. M. Kustodiev, A. P. Ostroumova came out of Repin’s workshop -Lebedeva and others. It was Repin's students who made a devastating criticism of the old system during the years of the 1st Russian revolution, who actively spoke in the press during the revolution of 1905-1907. with caricatures against the tsar and the generals who carried out reprisals against the rebellious people. At this time, many magazines appeared ("Sting", "Zhupel", etc.), about 380 titles that responded to the topic of the day, in which graphic works were printed (this time is considered the heyday of graphics). Kustodiev was among them.

The final maturation of the work of the artist Kustodiev falls on 1911-1912. It was during these years that his painting acquires that festivity and majority, that decorativeness and color that became characteristic of the mature Kustodiev ("Merchant's Woman", 1912. "Merchant's Woman", 1915, "Shrovetide", 1916, "Feast in the Village", etc. ). The creative impulse turned out to be stronger than the disease, in 1911-1912. a long-standing illness turned into a difficult one for the artist incurable disease- complete immobility of the legs ... During these years, he met Blok, whose lines about the merchant class:

... And under the lamp near the icon
Drinking tea, snapping off the bill,
Then flip the coupons
Pot-bellied opening the chest of drawers.
And on downy feather beds
Falling into a deep sleep...

They approach the merchants Kustodiev, his "Tea drinking", a merchant counting money, a plump beauty, immersed in hot down jackets.

In 1914-1915. Kustodiev inspiredly works at the invitation of Stanislavsky at the Moscow Art Theater, where he designed the performances "The Death of Pazukhin" by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, "Autumn Violins" by D.S. Surguchev and others.

His masterpieces are associated with the last period of creativity:

• paintings "Balagany", "Merchant for tea", "Blue house", " Russian Venus",
• scenery for the performances "Thunderstorm", "Snow Maiden", "Enemy Force" by A. N. Serov, "The Tsar's Bride", "Flea",
• illustrations for the works of N. S. Leskov, N. A. Nekrasov,
• lithographs and linocuts.

Kustodiev's house was one of art centers Petrograd - A. M. Gorky, A. N. Tolstoy, K. A. Fedin, V. Ya. Shishkov, M. V. Nesterov (ill. 29), S. T. Konenkov, F. I. Chaliapin were here and many others: the boy Mitya Shostakovich came here to play.

Kustodiev created a whole gallery of portraits of his contemporaries:

• artists ("Group portrait of the artists of the "World of Art", 1916-1920, portrait of I. Ya. Bilibin, 1901, portrait of V. V. Mate, 1902, self-portraits of different years, etc.),
• artists (Portrait of I. V. Ershov, 1905, portrait of E. A. Polevitskaya, 1095, portrait of V. I. Chaliapin, 1920-1921, etc.),
• writers and poets (Portrait of F. Sologub, 1907, portrait of V. Ya. Shishkov, 1926, Blok’s portrait, 1913, not preserved, and many others),
• composers Scriabin, Shostakovich.

If in his genre painting the artist embodied life in all forms of its being, often creating hyperbolic images, then his portraits created in painting, sculpture, drawing and engraving are always strictly authentic, life-like.

"A man of high spirit" called Kustodiev V. I. Chaliapin, who did not part with his portrait, made by Boris Mikhailovich.

The split of the "World of Art"

In the mid 1900s. there is a split in the editorial office of the World of Art magazine, as the views of artists have evolved and the initial aesthetic attitudes have ceased to suit many. Publishing activity ceased, and since 1910 the "World of Art" has been functioning exclusively as an exhibition organization, not bound, as before, by the unity of creative tasks and stylistic orientations. Some artists continued the tradition of older comrades.

Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947)

A prominent role in the updated "World of Art" already in the 1910s. played Nicholas Roerich(1874-1947), he was chairman of the society in 1910-1919.

Roerich, a student of Kuindzhi at the Academy of Arts, he inherited from him a predilection for increased colorful effects, for a special picturesque composition. Roerich's work is associated with the traditions of symbolism. In 1900-1910. he dedicated his work to the ancient Slavs and Ancient Russia of the first years of Christianity, at this time Roerich was fond of archeology and the history of Ancient Russia ("Overseas Guests", 1901). The wooden ship of the Varangians resembles a "brother" - an ancient ladle that unites friends and fierce enemies in feasts. The bright colors of the picture make the plot more fabulous than real.

In many of Roerich's paintings, the influence of icon painting is felt, obviously, it was an important source in developing his own style.

In 1909 he became academician of painting. In the 1900s he worked a lot for the Moscow Art Theater, for S. P. Diaghilev's "Russian Seasons" and as a muralist (the church in Talashkino). Roerich is the author of many articles on art, as well as prose, poems, travel notes. He devoted a lot of time and energy to social activities.

In 1916, for health reasons, Roerich settled in Serdobol (Karelia), which in 1918 was ceded to Finland. In 1919 Roerich moved to England, then to America. In the 1920-1930s. makes expeditions to the Himalayas, Central Asia, Manchuria, China. All this is reflected in his works. Since the 1920s lived in India.

Petrov-Vodkin

Speaking of the "World of Art", one cannot but recall the monumental art Petrova-Vodkina, who sought to find a synthesis between modern artistic language and cultural heritage of the past. We will dwell on his work in more detail in the next chapter.

The results of the "World of Arts"

Summing up the conversation about the "World of Art", we note that this is the brightest phenomenon in the cultural life of the "Silver Age", and the significance of the artists of this group lies in the fact that they

• rejected the salonism of academism,
• rejected the tendentiousness (edification) of the Wanderers,
• created an ideological and artistic concept of Russian art,
• revealed to contemporaries the names of Rokotov, Levitsky, Kiprensky, Vetsianov,
• were in constant looking for a new,
• achieved world recognition of Russian culture ("Russian Seasons" in Paris).

"Union of Russian Artists" (1903-1923)

One of the largest exhibition associations of the early XX century. was "Union of Russian Artists". The initiative to create it belonged to Moscow painters - participants in the exhibitions of the World of Art, who were dissatisfied with the limited aesthetic program of the "World of Art" Petersburgers. The establishment of the "Union" dates back to 1903. Vrubel, Borisov-Musatov, Serov were the participants of the first exhibitions. Until 1910, all major masters of the World of Art were members of the "Union". But the face of the "Union" was determined mainly by the painters of the Moscow school, graduates of the Moscow School, who developed the traditions of Levitan's lyrical landscape. Among the members of the "Union" were the Wanderers, who also did not accept the "Westernism" of the "World of Art". So, A. E. Arkhipov (1862-1930) truthfully tells about the hard working life of the people ("Washerwomen", 1901). In the bowels of the Union, a Russian version of pictorial impressionism was formed with a fresh nature and poetry of peasant images of Russia.

The poetry of Russian nature revealed I. E. Grabar(1874-1960). Color harmony and colorful revelations are striking in the picture " february blue"(1904), which the artist himself called "a holiday of the azure sky, pearl birches, coral branches and sapphire shadows on lilac snow." In the same year, another painting was painted, distinguished by unique spring colors, "March snow". The texture of the painting imitates the surface of melting March snow, and the strokes resemble the murmur of spring waters.

In these landscapes, Grabar applied the method of divisionism - the decomposition of visible color into spectrally pure colors of the palette.

We meet peasant motives at F. A. Malyavina(1969-1940). In Whirlwind (1906), peasant chintzes were scattered in a wild round dance, which formed a bizarre decorative pattern in which the faces of laughing girls stand out. The riot of the artist's brush is comparable to the elements of a peasant revolt. A.P. Ryabushkin, a descendant of ordinary peasants, who lived most of his life in the modest village of Korodyn, turns us to the pre-Petrine life of peasants and merchants, talks about rituals, about folk holidays and weekdays. His characters, slightly conventional, slightly fabulous, froze, as in ancient icons ("Wedding Train", 1901, etc.).

An interesting artist of the "Union" is K. F. Yuon(187 5-1958). His paintings are an original fusion of the everyday genre with the architectural landscape. He admires the panorama of old Moscow, ancient Russian cities with ordinary street life.

The artists of the "Union" associated the national Russian flavor with winter and early spring. And it is no coincidence that one of Yuon's best landscapes is "March Sun" (1915).

The overwhelming majority of the artists of the "Union" continued the Savrasov-Levitan line of the Russian landscape.

Kuindzhi continued the traditions of the composed decorative landscape A. A. Rylov(1870-1939). In his "Green Noise" (1904) one feels optimism and dynamics, deep understanding and the heroic beginning of the landscape. A generalization of the image of nature is felt in the paintings "Swans over the Kama" (1912), "The Thundering River", "Anxious Night" (1917), etc.

One of the most famous artists of the "Union" was Korovin. The first steps of Russian pictorial impressionism are connected with him.

Association "Blue Rose"

Another major artistic association was "Blue Rose". Under this name, in 1907 in Moscow, in the house of M. Kuznetsov on Myasnitskaya, a exhibition of 16 artists- graduates and students of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, among them P. V. Kuznetsov, M. S. Saryan, N. N. Sapunov, S. Yu. Sudeikin, N. Krymov, sculptor A. Matveev. The exhibition had neither a manifesto nor a charter. The Blue Rose was supported and promoted by the Golden Fleece magazine, which considered itself a stronghold of modernism and a mouthpiece for the "latest" (in relation to the "World of Art") trend in art.

Blue Rose Artists were followers of Borisov-Musatov and sought to create a symbol of imperishable beauty. The name of the association is also symbolic. But Kuznetsov and Saryan soon escaped from the captivity of artificial aromas of the "mysterious gardens". Through the prism of a dream of a fabulous, enlightened world, they - the leading artists of the "rose" - opened the theme of the East. P. V. Kuznetsov(1878-1968) creates a series of canvases "Kyrgyz Suite". Before us is a primitive patriarchal idyll, a "golden age", a dream of harmony between man and nature, which came true ("Mirage in the Steppe", 1912, etc.). M. S. Saryan(1880-1972), who, together with Kuznetsov, graduated from the MUZhVZ classes, until the end of his life, in his colorful, pictorial canvases, he retained fidelity to the epic primevalness of the harsh mountainous nature of Armenia. Saryan's creative style is distinguished by laconicism ("Street. Midday. Constantinople", 1910, "Mullahs loaded with hay", 1910, "Egyptian masks", 1911, etc.). According to the theory of symbolism, the artists of the "Blue Rose" were subject to a visual transformation of the images of reality in order to exclude the possibility of a literal perception of things and phenomena. Theater becomes the sphere of the most effective universal transformation of reality. Therefore, the painting of the "Blue Rose" was in tune with the symbolic productions of V. Meyerhold.

N. N. Sapunov(1880-1912) and S. Yu. Sudeikin(1882-1946) were the first in Russia to design the symbolic dramas of M. Maeterlinck (at the Studio Theater on Povarskaya, 1905). Sapunov at Meyerhold designed productions of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Blok's Puppet Show (1906). "Blue Rose" is a bright page in the history of Russian art of the early 20th century, full of poetry, dreams, fantasy, unique beauty and spirituality.

Grouping "Jack of Diamonds"

At the turn of 1910-1911. a new group with a bold name appears on the arena of artistic life "Jack of Diamonds". The core of society until 1916 were artists

• P. P. Konchalovsky ("Portrait of Yakulov", "Agave", 1916, "Portrait of Siena, 1912, etc.),
• I. and Mashkov. ("Fruits on a platter", 1910, "Bread", 1910s, "Still life with blue plums", 1910, etc.),
• A. V. Lentulov ("Vasily the Blessed", 1913; "Ring", 1915, etc.),
• A. V. Kuprin ("Still life with a clay jug", 1917, etc.),
• R. R. Falk ("Crimea. Pyramidal poplar", "Sun. Crimea. Goats", 1916, etc.).

"Jack of Diamonds" had its charter, exhibitions, collections of articles and became a new influential trend in Russian art. In contrast to impressionism and the artists of the Blue Rose, objecting to the refined aestheticism of the World of Art, the painters of the Jack of Diamonds offered the viewer a simple nature, devoid of intellectual meaning, which did not evoke historical and poetic associations. Furniture, dishes, fruits, vegetables, flowers in colorful artistic combinations - this is beauty.

In their pictorial searches, the artists gravitate towards the late Cezanne, Van Gogh, Matisse, they use the techniques of non-extreme cubism, futurism, born in Italy. Their material painting was called "cezannism". It is important that turning to world art, these artists used their own folk traditions - signs, toys, popular prints...

Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov (1881-1964)

In the 1910s appear on the art scene Mikhail Fedorovich Larionov(1881-1964) and Natalya Sergeevna Goncharova (1881-1962). Being one of the organizers of the "Jack of Diamonds", in 1911 Larionov broke with this group and became the organizer of new exhibitions under the shocking names "Donkey's Tail" (1912), "Target" (1913), "4" (1914, the names of the exhibitions were a mockery of the names "Blue Rose", "Wreath", "Golden Fleece").

Young Larionov was fond of first impressionism, then primitivism, coming from the French currents (Matisse, Rousseau). Like others, Larionov wanted to draw on the Russian traditions of ancient icons, peasant embroidery, city signs, and children's toys.

Larionov and Goncharova claimed painterly neo-primitivism(the name was invented by ourselves), which reached its peak in the 1910s. In their speeches, they contrasted their oriental painting Western, and also unwittingly continued the traditions of the Wanderers, as they again went to the everyday genre based on the narrative ("involuntary Wanderers"). We wanted to combine plot with new plasticity and we got a special primitive life of provincial streets, cafes, hairdressers, soldiers' barracks.

Larionov from the series "Hairdressing" refers to the masterpieces "Officer Barbershop"(1909). The painting was painted in imitation of a provincial sign. Larionov jokes with the characters (a hairdresser with huge scissors and a pompous officer), reveals the peculiarities of their behavior and admires them. The "soldier" series arose under the influence of his impressions of serving in the army. The artist treats his soldiers with love and irony ("Soldier on horseback" is likened to a child's toy, "Resting soldier" is made with the naivete of a child's drawing) and suggests unambiguous associations. Then follows the cycle of "Venus" ("soldier", "Moldavian", "Jewish") - naked women reclining on pillows - the subject of desires, dreams and fantasies.

Then he has naive allegories "Seasons". The soldier's style is replaced by "fence", different inscriptions appear, the street begins to speak from the artist's paintings. At the same time, he opens his own version of non-objective art - Rayonism. In 1913, his book Luchism was published.

The significance of Larionov's work is emphasized by the words of V. Mayakovsky: "We all went through Larionov."

The manner of Larionov's wife Natalya Goncharova is different, she chose the subjects of her paintings most often peasant labor, gospel scenes ("Harvesting", "Washing the Canvas", 1910; " Fishing"," Sheep shearing "," Bathing horses ", 1911) and created epic works of primordial folk life.

Benedikt Lifshitz wrote about Goncharova's paintings of 1910-1912: "By the fantastic splendor of colors, by the extreme expressiveness of the construction, by the intensity of the power of the texture, they seemed to me real treasures of world painting." In 1914, Goncharova's personal exhibition was held in Paris, the catalog for it was printed with a preface by the famous poet Guillaume Apoliner. In 1914, Goncharova made costumes and scenery for Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel for the theatre. A year later, Larionov and Goncharova went abroad to design Diaghilev's ballets. Communication with Russia was interrupted in life, but not in creativity. Until her death, the artist was occupied with the Russian theme.

The non-traditional art of Goncharova and Larionov was called formalism and was deleted from the history of Russian art for a long time.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky (1893-1930)

Futurist school headed V. V. Mayakovsky(1893-1930). He was a pupil of MUZhVZ, learned a lot from V. Serov and looked up to him in his paintings and drawings.

Artistic legacy of Mayakovsky is of great size and variety. He worked both in painting and in almost all genres of graphics, from portraits ("Portrait of L. Yu. Brik") and illustrations to posters and sketches theatrical productions(The tragedy "Vladimir Mayakovsky").

Mayakovsky had a universal talent. His poems on paper had a special graphics and rhythm, often accompanied by illustrations, in recitation they required theatrical performance. The synthesized universality of his works had the maximum effect on the listener and reader. From this point of view, we are most interested in his famous "ROSTA Windows". In them, Mayakovsky most clearly showed himself both as an artist and as a poet, who created a completely new phenomenon in the world art of the 20th century. Despite the fact that Mayakovsky "Windows" did after the revolution of 1917, we will stop on this page of his work in this chapter.

Mayakovsky made each "Window" as a whole poem on one topic, divided sequentially into "frames" with drawings and one or two lines of text. Rhymed and rhythmic verses dictated the plot, while drawings gave a visual, colorful sound to the word. Moreover, the then viewers of "Windows", accustomed to silent cinema, read the inscriptions aloud, and thus the posters were really "voiced". Thus, a holistic perception of "Windows" arose.

In his drawings, Mayakovsky, on the one hand, directly continued the tradition of Russian popular prints, on the other, he relied on experience the latest painting M. Larionov, N. Goncharova, K. Malevich, V. Tatlin, who most of all belonged to the merit of resurrecting a living attitude to living art in the early 20th century. So at the intersection of 3 arts - poetry, painting and cinema - a new type of art arose, which became a significant phenomenon of modern culture, in which words are read like drawings, and drawings simplified to a diagram (red - worker, purple - bourgeois, green - peasant, blue - White Guard, famine, devastation, commune, Wrangel, louse, hand, eye, rifle, Earth) are read as words. Mayakovsky himself called this style "revolutionary style". The drawing and the word in them are inseparable from each other and, in interaction, form a single language of ideography. It should be noted that many of Mayakovsky's like-minded people - the Cubo-Futurists - were both poets and artists, and their poetic works were often depicted in graphic language ("Reinforced Concrete Poem" by David Burliuk).

Wassily Vasilyevich Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Abstractionism in the Russian version developed in two directions: for Kandinsky it is a spontaneous, irrational play of color spots, for Malevich it is the appearance of mathematically verified rational geometric constructions. V. V. Kandinsky(1866-1944) and K. S. Malevich(1878-1935) were theorists and practitioners of abstract art. Therefore, it is difficult to understand their canvases without knowing their theoretical works, to understand what is behind all sorts of combinations of primary elements - lines, colors, geometric shapes.

So, Wassily Kandinsky considered the abstract form as an expression of the inner spiritual state of a person ("A true work of art arises in a mysterious, mysterious, mystical way" from the artist "). He was one of the first to set the goal of art to consciously "release" the energy of movement on the canvas by the artist, color, sound. And their synthesis for Kandinsky is "steps" to the future moral, spiritual purification of man. Kandinsky believed that "color is a means by which you can directly influence the soul. The color is the keys; eye - hammer; the soul is a multi-stringed piano." The artist expediently sets the human soul into vibration by means of the keys. Kandinsky interpreted colors and shapes arbitrarily: he attributed a certain "supersensual" color to the yellow color, and a certain "inhibiting movement" character to the blue color (then he also accidentally changed the characteristics), the top he considered the pointed triangle as an upward movement, as "an image of spiritual life" and declared it "an expression of immeasurable inner sadness."

Putting his theory into practice, Kandinsky created abstract works of three types - impressions, improvisations and compositions, equally devoid of meaning, not connected with life. But "color schemes" did not give results, colored geometric shapes did not lose their static nature, and Kandinsky turned to music, but not modernist (for example, Schoenberg's music), but to Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" - but to combine the incongruous is a thankless task (a spectacle in theater in Dessau in 1928 was monotonous and tedious: the actors moved around the stage with abstract shapes of triangles, rhombuses, squares; a similar film experiment with Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody was also unsuccessful). The most outstanding period in the work of Kandinsky is the 1910s. In later years, Kandinsky lost the uniqueness of this time.

Kandinsky started his journey late professional artist. He studied at a gymnasium in Odessa, then studied law at Moscow University, was interested in ethnography, made several trips around Russia related to his scientific interests, by the age of 30 he was ready to head a department in Derp (Tartu), but he abruptly changed his mind and went to Munich to study painting. Life in art lasted about 50 years.

The apprenticeship was short-lived. Kandinsky began to search for his face. With friends, he creates "Phalanx" (1901-1904). Her experience was not in vain, it was thanks to Kandinsky that the famous societies "New artistic association"(1909), "The Blue Rider" (1911). Having adopted Parisian Fauvism, German Expressionism, Kandinsky created his original art.

During World War I he lived in Russia. The October Revolution returned Kandinsky to active organizational, pedagogical and scientific activities. He participated in the creation of a museum of pictorial culture, a number of provincial museums, the organization of the State Academy art sciences, directs the Institute of Artistic Culture, teaches at the Vkhutemas - the famous Moscow higher educational institution that proclaimed new principles of artistic pedagogy, etc. But not everything went well, and at the end of 1921 the artist left Russia and went to Berlin, from where he moved a few months later in Weimar, and in 1925 - in Dessau and worked at the Bauhaus Art Institute. The Nazis declared his art degenerate, he went to France, where he died.

Kazimir Malevich (1878-1935)

Kazimir Malevich also considered it unworthy of a real artist to portray real world. In his movement towards generalization, he came from impressionism through cubo-futurism to suprematism (1913; Suprematism- from Polish - the highest, inaccessible; Polish was Malevich's native language). Suprematism was considered by its creator as the highest form of creativity in relation to figure art and was called upon to recreate, with the help of combinations of geometric figures painted in different tones, the spatial structure ("picturesque architectonics" of the world) and to convey certain cosmic patterns. In his non-objective paintings, which abandoned earthly "landmarks", the idea of ​​"top" and "bottom", of "left" and "right" disappeared - all directions are equal, as in the universe. And "Black Square" (1916) by Malevich symbolized the beginning new era in art based on complete geometry and schematism of forms. In 1916, in a letter to A. N. Benois, Malevich expressed his "credo" in this way: "Everything that we see in the fields of art is all the same rehashes of the past. Our world is enriched with every half century by the work of a brilliant creator -" technology! But the World of Art has enriched his contemporary time? He presented a pair of crinolines and several Peter's uniforms.

That is why I call only to those who can give their fruit of art to the present time. And I am happy that the face of my square cannot merge with any master or time. Is not it? I didn't listen to my fathers, I'm not like them.

And I'm a step.

I understand you, you are fathers and you want your children to be like you. And you drive them to the pasture of the old and stigmatize their young soul with the stamps of loyalty, as in the passport section.

I have one naked, unframed (like a pocket) icon of my time."

Malevich's Suprematism went through three stages: black, white and color. Philosophical basis art Suprematism K. Malevich considered intuitionism. “Intuition,” he wrote, “pushes the will to the creative principle, and in order to get to it, it is necessary to get rid of the objective, it is necessary to create new signs ... Having reached the complete annulment of objectivity in art, we will embark on the creative path of creating neoplasms, avoid any juggling on the wire of art with various objects, which is now being practiced by ... schools of fine arts. If the abstractionism of Malevich and Kandinsky developed initially exclusively within easel painting, then in creativity V. E. Tatlin(1885-1953), texture becomes the object of an abstract experiment. Tatlin combines different materials- tin, wood, glass, transforming the picture plane into a kind of sculptural relief. In the so-called counter-reliefs of Tatlin, the "heroes" are not real objects, but abstract categories of texture - rough, fragile, viscous, soft, sparkling - which live among themselves without a specific pictorial plot.

This kind of art was considered modern, corresponding to the time of the machine age.

It must be remembered that the social and cultural environment, which formed the worldview of Larionov, Malevich and Tatlin, differed sharply from the environment of Bakst, Benois, Somov. They came from simple families, without the slightest pretension to a higher culture, and left school early. They were not exposed to powerful cultural tradition, as artists of the "World of Art", therefore it is not legal to combine them with the ideas of refined symbolism and with higher mathematics. They were direct, elemental artists, obeying instinct, intuition, and not sober calculation, and the cultural influence on them was not spiritualistic sessions and not Mendeleev's table of chemical elements, but the circus, fair and street life.

conclusions

Summing up, we note that the main features of the art of this period are - democracy, revolutionary, synthesizing(interaction, interconnection, interpenetration of art forms).

Domestic art kept pace with the times, it included a variety of trends (realism, impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, cubism, expressionism, abstractionism, primitivism, etc.). Never before has there been such an ideological confusion, such contradictory searches and tendencies, and such an abundance of names. One after another, new associations arose with loud manifestos and declarations. Each of the directions claimed an exceptional role. Young artists tried to discourage the viewer, cause bewilderment, laughter.

A kind of savagery (often artists from the left wing called themselves "wild") came to a rude overthrow of the authorities. So, in the denial of realistic art, they reached the "trial of Repin" at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum. But be that as it may, this is one of the most interesting and controversial pages of Russian art, about which the conversation will never be boring, unambiguous and complete. A fantastically irrational beginning lies in the work of a remarkable artist from Vitebsk M. Z. Chagala(1887-1985). With his philosophy of painting, Chagall studied briefly with Y. Peng in Vitebsk and with Bakst in St. Petersburg.

At one of the stages of his development, man abandoned the goal of acting only for the sake of functionality, convenience and began to pay attention to beauty. This is how art appeared - something that brightens up the everyday life, evokes emotions and keeps in itself for whole centuries. Art is a way to pass on history through generations.

Among a large number of branches, each genre is distinguished by its features and nuances, ways to evoke impressions, originality and independence. Such is the painting, which has been pleasing to the eye of man for many centuries. It covers many styles and trends, which allows us to talk about painting as a limitless source of inspiration and deep emotions. Looking at the picture, everyone finds something of their own in it, notices the little things in which, perhaps, the author did not lay any sense. This is the value of visual art.

Paintings of the 19th century, along with modern ones, are capable of evoking the most diverse, often contradictory emotions that hit the brain and overturn the usual meaning of things.

19th century painting

The end of the 18th - the beginning of the 19th century is reflected in history as the predominance of high classicism in all forms of art, including painting. This period is filled with the desire of artists to convey in their creations romance, originality, individuality of beauty. Paintings of the 19th century - this is what makes you riveted your eyes to each stroke and admire it as part of a large, living canvas. This time again revealed to the world the beauty of the portrait, its ability to show not only the individual qualities of the depicted person and new techniques in painting, but also part of the artist himself, the way he sees the world.

Also, the paintings of the 19th century are filled with a gradation of two colors close in shade, which added life and reality to the paintings. Later, in the 50s, the sublimity and romanticism of the paintings changed to a reflection of life without exaggeration and embellishment - to realism. But still, despite the general trends, the artists wrote what they saw, what they felt and what they wanted to convey. time frames popular genre or priority technique did not affect them, because it is difficult to squeeze a creative person, a master of his craft into a certain format.

Paintings by Ivan Aivazovsky

If you say only two words - "sea" and "painting", then the first who comes to mind will be Ivan Aivazovsky. The way he conveyed the water element cannot be compared with anything. In his paintings, water, like a person, is filled with thoughts, emotions and experiences. Each of his paintings is a picture of the world of the 19th century, where ships struggle with the elements, where light and darkness find their contrast in every corner of life, where feelings overflow, as if the last day has already come.

His works, such as “Battles”, “Storm and Shipwreck”, “Crimea and Surroundings” are a portal through which you can get to the place depicted on the canvas and become its integral part. Giving a lot of time and effort to landscapes, Ivan Aivazovsky also created portraits. Some of them are "Portrait of Vice Admiral M. P. Lazarev", "Portrait of A. I. Kaznacheev" and others.

Karl Bryullov and his creations

Russian paintings of the 19th century are a collection of the most beautiful works of a large number of masters, among which Karl Bryullov stands out with a special love for art. Having received from his father the ability to appreciate the beautiful, Karl from childhood far outstripped many of his classmates in skill. In his work, he operated with a large list of techniques. Oil, watercolor, sepia or drawing - his paintings reflected the author's unquenchable interest in all facets of art.

Bryullov, inspired by the works the best craftsmen of all times, was able to convey plasticity, a special sense of form and an individual understanding of painting. The most significant work of this artist is the monumental historical painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", which took six years to create. The entire creative heritage of Bryullov is included in the "golden fund" of not only Russian, but also world painting.

Viktor Vasnetsov and his paintings of the 19th century

Many of the works of Viktor Vasnetsov get acquainted at school. This artist was noticed for his passion for folklore, historical and fairy tales, significance national history. "Heroes", "Knight at the Crossroads", "Tsar Ivan Vasilievich the Terrible" - all these works, like places of concentration of figurative energy, cause a strong internal impulse.

In Vasnetsov's paintings, the scene, the plot is important, and the color at the same time plays a secondary, but extremely important role, because it is precisely thanks to the exact selection of colors and the sweet awe, the spiritualized beauty of the depicted that his paintings can fill the soul with pleasant warmth and admiration.

Painting by Arkhip Kuindzhi

Simple but exciting; seemed undemanding, but impressive - such is the art of the 19th century. The paintings of Arkhip Kuindzhi fit perfectly into the atmosphere of that time. The absence of a plot in his works should have reduced their value and taken away that enthusiastic interest with which they are looked at, but all the same, these paintings catch and carry away into the distant depths of consciousness.

It's all about color. The fullness with which Arkhip Kuindzhi conveys the simplicity of the environment does not allow one not to admire his work. "Snowy peaks", "Sunrise", "Forest" - all this bright examples the high skill of Arkhip Ivanovich, thanks to which one can see the beauty and harmony of the surrounding world.

The world through the eyes of Isaac Levitan

All paintings by artists of the 19th century are exciting and touching in their own way, and the works of Isaac Levitan occupy their place among them. Within the framework of one canvas, the artist displayed many shades, thanks to which a special sensuality of his paintings was achieved.

The artist passionately loved life and all its facets. His works are simple and, at first glance, unpretentious landscapes, such as "Above Eternal Peace", "Wood Coast", but it is in their conciseness that emotional expressiveness is hidden.

Russian artistic culture, whose origins began with classicism, acquired a powerful folk sound, as high classicism, which was reflected in painting, gradually moved from romanticism to realism in Russian fine arts. The contemporaries of that time especially appreciated the direction of painting by Russian artists, in which the historical genre prevailed with an emphasis on national themes.

But at the same time, there were no particular changes in the art of historical painting compared to the masters of the second half of the 18th century and from the very beginning of the history of Russian portraiture. Often Russian artists dedicated their works to true heroes ancient Russia whose exploits inspired the writing of historical canvases. Russian painters of the early 19th century approved their own principle of describing a portrait, paintings, having developed their own directions in painting, in depicting a person, nature, indicating a completely independent figurative concept.

Russian artists in their paintings reflected various ideals of national upsurge, gradually abandoning the strict principles of classicism imposed by academic foundations. The 19th century was marked by the high flourishing of Russian painting, in which Russian artists left an indelible mark on the history of Russian fine art for posterity, imbued with the spirit of a comprehensive reflection of the life of the people.

The largest researchers of Russian painting in general note an outstanding role in the high flowering of the work of great Russian artists and the fine arts of the 19th century. Achievements and conquests of painting of the 19th century, in which domestic artists showed themselves, are of great importance and unique value in the visual arts, paintings created by Russian artists have always enriched Russian culture.

Famous artists of the 19th century

(1782-1836) Superbly and subtly painted portraits of the artist Kiprensky brought him fame and true recognition among his contemporaries. His works Self-portrait, A. R. Tomilova, I. V. Kusova, A. I. Korsakov 1808 Portrait of a boy Chelishchev, Golitsina A. M. 1809 Portrait of Denis Davydov, 1819 Girl with a wreath of poppies, the most successful 1827 portrait of A. S. Pushkin and others.

His portraits reflect the beauty of excitement, the refined inner world of images and the state of the soul. Contemporaries compared his work with the genres of lyric poetry, poetic dedication to friends, which was well known in Pushkin's time.

Kiprensky in many respects opened up new possibilities for himself in painting. Each of his portraits is distinguished by an ever new pictorial structure, well-chosen light and shadow, and a variety of contrasts. Orest Kiprensky is an outstanding master of portrait art, who gained particular fame among Russian artists.

(1791-1830) Master of Russian landscape romanticism and lyrical comprehension of nature. In more than forty of his paintings, Shchedrin depicted views of the Sorento. Among them are paintings of the Sorrento neighborhood. Evening, New Rome "Castle of the Holy Angel", the Mergellina Embankment in Naples, the Grand Harbor on the island of Capri, etc.

Completely surrendering to the romance of the landscape and the natural environment of perception, Shchedrin, as it were, replenishes with his paintings the fallen interest of the artists of that time in the landscape.

Shchedrin knew the dawn of his creativity and recognition. Graduated from the Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, in 1818 he came to Italy and lived for more than 10 years, in Rome, Naples, Amalfi and Sorrento, where he spent his last months of life. Having lived a short but creative life, Shchedrin was never able to return to Russia.

(1776-1857) A remarkable Russian artist, a native of serfs. His famous painting works: The Lacemaker, also Portrait of Pushkin A.S., engraver E.O. Skotnikova, An old man - a beggar, characterized by a slight color Portrait of the artist's son. 1826 paintings by Spinner, Goldsmith, these works especially attracted the attention of contemporaries. 1846

Tropinin developed his own figurative style of portraiture, which characterizes a specific Moscow genre of painting. At that time, Tropinin became the central figure of the Moscow beau monde, his work is especially reflected in the 20s and 30s, which brought him fame.

His softly written portraits are distinguished by high pictorial merit and ease of perception, human images are perceived with characteristic truthfulness and calmness without much inner excitement.

(1780-1847) The founder of the peasant everyday genre in Russian painting, His famous portrait of the Reaper, painting > Reapers, Girl in a headscarf, Spring on arable land, Peasant woman with cornflowers, Zakharka and others. It can be especially emphasized about the painting Gumno, which attracted the attention of Emperor Alexander 1, he was touched vivid images peasants, truthfully conveyed by the artist.

The artist loved ordinary people Finding a certain lyric in this, this was reflected in his paintings showing the difficult peasant life. his best works were created in the 20s. Venetsianov is a master of pastel, pencil and oil portraits, caricatures.

The style of the work is a student of Borovikovsky. In his paintings there are the most ordinary and simple scenes from village life: peasants in everyday and hard work, simple serf girls, in the harvest, or men in haymaking or plowing. The significance of Venetsianov's work in the visual arts is especially great, one of the first to establish the folk, peasant household genre.

(1799-1852) A master of historical painting, his painting The Last Day of Pompeii in the turmoil of the doomed inhabitants scatter from the fury of the volcano Vesuvius. The picture made a stunning impression on his contemporaries. He masterfully writes secular paintings, using the Horsewoman and portraits in bright coloristic moments in the composition of the picture, Countess Yu. P. Samoilova.

His paintings and portraits are composed of contrasts of light and shadow. . Under the influence of traditional academic classicism, Karl Bryullov endowed his paintings with historical authenticity, romantic spirit and psychological truth.

Bryullov was an excellent master of the formal portrait, in which he brightly accentuated characteristic features of a person, In other portraits he uses a more restrained coloring, a portrait of the outstanding Russian sculptor I.P. Vitali, the Poet N.V. Kukolnik, the writer A.N. Strugovshchikov. In ceremonial portraits, he surpassed many artists of his time.

(1806-1858) Magnificent master of the historical genre. For about two decades, Ivanov worked on his main picture The appearance of Christ to the people, emphasizing their passionate desire to depict the coming to earth of Jesus Christ. At the initial stage, these are the paintings of Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress 1831-1833, the Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the resurrection of 1835.

During his short life, Ivanov created many paintings, for each painting he writes many sketches of landscapes, portraits. He returned to his homeland in 1858, where he died of illness.

Ivanov, a man of extraordinary intelligence, always sought to show in his works the elements of popular movements in Russian history and deeply believed in the great future of Mother Russia. Being ahead of its time in the search for Russian realistic painting, the work of the great artist left an indelible mark of his skill for posterity.

(1815-1852) Master of the satirical direction in painting, who laid the foundation for critical realism in domestic genre. The Fresh Cavalier 1847 and The Picky Bride 1847,

The art of the early 19th century is associated with the era of social upsurge caused by Patriotic War 1812 and the anti-serf movement, which led in 1825 to the Decembrist uprising.

In the field of artistic culture given period there was a relatively fast change of direction: classicism gives way romanticism, and romanticism on the way of its development meets with increasing realism in art. Indeed, this was mainly in painting. If the artists of the 18th century strove for realism in conveying the individual uniqueness of the individual, then in the 19th century they began to depict what was valuable, what worried them in public life.

In the second quarter of the 19th century, capitalism had already established itself in most countries in Europe, while in Russia the disintegration of the feudal-serf system was still continuing. However, both in Europe and in Russia, this period is characterized by the rise of a stormy social life - in Europe it is primarily Great French revolution and its consequences, and in Russia the growing struggle against serfdom, especially after the failure of the Decembrist uprising.

During this period, classicism, which dominated the walls Academy of Arts, has exhausted its progressive significance. In 1829, the Academy was subordinated to the department of the imperial court, so it became conductor of official views. In an effort to strengthen their position in art, the professors of the Academy tried to master certain techniques characteristic of romanticism. Thus, the method of academic romanticism was formed, which was designed to create an ideal, sublime beauty, far from real everyday life.

In contrast to academic art, in the first half of the 19th century, another art began to take shape in Russia, which began to be called critical realism. Artists began openly, without resorting to the conditional form of gospel stories, to expose the vices of their contemporary society, the founder of Russian critical realism in painting is rightfully considered Pavel Fedotov.

The second half of the 19th century in Russia was marked by a new upsurge in the liberation struggle for a better life. The intelligentsia took the leading place in the social movement. Serfdom was abolished, but life did not become easier from this.

During this period, the importance of art increased, in particular, painting, which was considered a powerful means of educating people. At the end of the first half of the 19th century began to work Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, which has now begun to play a huge role in society, as a conductor of democratic paths. Here, the Venetian pedagogical system, based on a close study of the surrounding life, immediately took root. The fact that the School was located away from the capital, as if in the midst of people's life, also played its role. The most outstanding of the pupils of the School was V.G. Perov

Art in the period of the 2nd half is distinguished by high ideological content, passionate interest in solving urgent problems. public issues, his folk character. Serving the people has become one of the main goals of progressive Russian artists. For the first time in the history of Russian art, the life of the working people became the main theme of the works of democratic artists. The people are depicted not from the outside, but as if from the inside. The artists who became the defenders of the people, many of whom themselves came from the people, spoke about its oppression, hard life and lack of rights. These socially critical sentiments also penetrated the classes of the Academy of Arts: in 1861 its graduate V. Jacobi performed the painting "Halt of prisoners". And in 1864, the picture had a resounding success. K. Flavitsky "Princess Tarakanova", which is dedicated to the mysterious prisoner of the Peter and Paul Fortress, who was considered the daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna.

Despite all these changes in the public life of Russia, the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts continued to defend academic art, far from life, abstract. The highest kind of painting was still considered history painting mainly on mythological and religious subjects. As a result, advanced artists, unwilling to accept the backward principles of the Academy, came into conflict with the old system of teaching, which resulted in open "riot 14" artists. The graduates, led by the artist Kramskoy, refused to complete their thesis on the mythological theme he had set. They demanded freedom in choosing a topic. The Council of the Academy denied the graduates their request, then they left the Academy in protest, refusing their diploma.

Upon leaving the Academy on November 9, 1863, the Protestants organized Artel of artists. The initiator of the whole affair was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. Members of the Artel rented an apartment and settled together. The household was run by Kramskoy's wife. Artel soon gained recognition. She was often called "Kramskoy Academy". Every Thursday, in the evenings, painters and writers gathered in the artel workshop. At these evenings, exciting issues of politics, social life, art were discussed - all this contributed to the education of artistic youth, the rallying of artistic forces.

The artel existed for about 7 years and broke up in 1870. The Artel was replaced by a new art association - Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.

A very important place in the art of the 19th century is activities of P.M. Tretyakov, who proved himself a real citizen of Russia, starting a collection of Russian painting and sculpture, starting from antiquity. He spent all his money on the purchase of paintings, and often supported poor talented artists with money.

The main area of ​​Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century was household genre. The leader was still peasant theme. Wanderers portrayed folk life, showing the social conflict between the ruling and oppressed classes of Russian society. Accusatory traditions continued in painting. Takes a big place children's theme.

In the second half of the 19th century, a reform took place in Russian fine arts, according to which mythological, religious themes began to give way to the depiction of real historical events. The beginning of this reform was laid by the Russian artist Ge N.N.

In the Russian landscape of the second half of the 19th century, a sharp struggle is unfolding for the establishment of a national theme. Remarkable artists Savrasov, Shishkin, Levitan and others in these years break with the traditions of the "idealized", "smoothed", far from life, mainly Italian and French, academic landscape and turn to the image of nature home country. Chernyshevsky's statement "The beautiful is life" found a warm response among the masters landscape painting. Representing nature in its everyday, natural appearance, the Wanderers showed in it broad poetry and beauty.

In the 2nd half of the 20th century, several particularly bright, powerful, talented painters, masters of historical painting, stood out in Russian painting - these are I. Repin, V. Surikrv, V. Vasnetsov.

Russian art at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries took shape in a revolutionary mood. Decadent views and pessimism penetrated the environment of the creative intelligentsia. Aesthetic values ​​have changed in society. In search of their own path in art, many artists began to unite in various artistic organizations - associations.

In 1903, many realist artists united in "Union of Russian Artists", where they continued the traditions of the Wanderers, wrote truthful, realistic works. Remarkable artists of this period were Serov, Vrubel, Nesterov, Ryabushkin, etc.

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In the first paragraph, we will consider landscape painting at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, its trends and development.

In the 20s - 30s. In the 19th century, the landscape genre occupies a worthy place in the development of Russian romanticism. Compositions of landscapes by Shchedrin and many other romantic artists of his era. The roots of this composition can be seen in the Flemish - Dutch landscape of the first half of the 17th century. Architectonic completeness in the Russian romantic landscape "panoramic" composition receives, proving its vitality, in the 70s. 19th century in the work of A.I. Kuindzhi. Worldview tendencies of a romantic nature, created with a certain compositional structure, can be traced in the landscape art of M. Nesterov, in which a lonely person is opposed to an endless world. “Along with the type of composition we have considered, a significant place in the Russian landscape was occupied by the motif of a road or an alley. In landscape painting, the motif of grottoes as an independent already in the 17th century. in the work of I. de Momper. The construction of interior and landscape space is based on a sharp opposition of the room, in which the person is, as it were, closed, and the natural natural world shining brightly and freely behind walls and shutters.

Representatives of the realistic landscape of the middle and second half

19th century gradually outlived the literary associativity of the romantic landscape, trying to show their own value of nature through the disclosure of the objective essence of the processes taking place in it. The landscape painters of this period sought naturalness and simplicity of composition, elaborated in detail the light and shade and valery relations, which made it possible to convey the material perceptibility of the natural environment. The ethical and philosophical sounding of the landscape, inherited from romanticism, now takes on a more democratic direction, manifested in the fact that people from the people, scenes of rural labor were increasingly included in the landscape.

On the 2nd half of the 19th century. there is a flourishing of a realistic landscape, closely connected with the activities of the Wanderers. Overcoming the artificiality and theatricality of the academic landscape, Russian artists turned to their native nature. At the end of the 19th century the line of the emotionally lyrical landscape, often imbued with motives of civil sorrow, finds its continuation in the mood landscape.

The dominant importance is acquired by the landscape among the masters of impressionism, who considered working in the open air an indispensable condition for creating a landscape image. The Impressionists made the most important component of the landscape a vibrating light-and-air environment rich in colorful shades, enveloping objects and ensuring the visual indissolubility of nature and man. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. several directions develop in the landscape, developing the principles of the impressionistic landscape and at the same time entering into antagonistic relations with them. Artists associated with symbolism and the “modern” style introduced into the landscape the idea of ​​the mysterious relationship between man and “mother earth”, played with various kinds of “through forms” in their compositions, the ornamental arrangement of which creates the illusion of a direct imitation of the rhythms of nature itself. At the same time, the search for a generalized image of the homeland, which is often saturated with folklore or historical reminiscences and combines the most established features of the national landscape, is intensified, typical for national-romantic movements.

In the art of the 20th century, a number of masters seek to find the most stable features of this or that landscape motif, clearing it of everything “coming” (representatives of cubism), others, using jubilant or dramatically intense color harmonies, emphasize the internal dynamics of the landscape, and sometimes its national identity ( representatives of Fauvism and Expressionism), others, partly under the influence of artistic photography, shift the main emphasis on the whimsicality and psychological expressiveness of the motif (representative of surrealism).

“Unpretentious, quiet, but amazing in craftsmanship, in the veracity of the effects and in their noble style. Landscapes during this period of time were very common, and there was also impressionism. Kuindzhi turns to impressionism, and later less significant artist- Zionglinsky. Svetoslavsky - a poet of the provinces, dirty, gray, but sweet, and in a purely colorful sense, no doubt, beautiful corners - at first, in the early 90s, he was one of Levitan's best comrades, moreover, a completely original artist who dissociated himself from a separate and very interesting area. All listed artists are realists.

In the Russian landscape at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. realistic traditions of the second half of the 19th century are intertwined with the influences of impressionism and "modern".

In the 19th century only two trends dominated - academism and wandering.

At the beginning of the 20th century there was such an association of artists as the Union of Russian Artists. The "Union of Russian Artists" mainly painted landscapes, which received a lot of attention here. These included A. Savrasov, I. Shishkin, V. Polenov, M. Nesterov and I. Levitan. The founder was Savrasov, he turned to the theme of depicting a generalized image of Russian nature. His follower is I. Shishkin, who, like Savrasov, addresses the problem of depicting a generalized image of Russian nature. I.I. Shishkin portrayed a generalized image of Russian nature as impenetrable, majestic and dense forests. In the "World of Art" the founders were L. Bakst, A. Benois, M. Dobuzhinsky, A. Ostroumova - Lebeleva.

Levitan, Serov, Korovin were involved in impressionism and, having not found a place for themselves in the partnership of the Wanderers, in 1903 organized their own exhibition called the Union of Russian Artists. The painters of the "Union" preferred the landscape, strove for the immediacy of the transfer of nature, in general, they continued the traditions of realistic painting of the Wanderers.

“The period of the artistic life of Russia from 1900 to 1930, despite the fact that it is divided in the middle by the great event of the 20th century - the October Revolution, is largely independent. Vrubel introduces us with his work to the 20th century. The artists of the new directions, which replaced the Wanderers, changed realism, moved away from popular interests, fell into aestheticism, became infected with formalism. Many of the works of the artists of these three decades have been relegated to the background and almost forgotten.

For modern landscape, developing in line with socialist realism, the most characteristic images reveal the life-affirming beauty of the world, its close connection with the transformative activity of people. In the 20s. modern industrial landscape, forms a type of memorial landscape.

From the 17th to the 19th centuries the landscape has reached its highest development and perfection. Through the landscape expressed the spiritual state and mood of the artist. The realistic Russian landscape faded into the background during these years, but despite this, G.I. Gurkin and A. O. Nikulin chose this path. At that time, such artists as Savrasov, Shishkin, Levitan turned to the realistic landscape. It so happened that fate brought the young Altai artist G.I. Gurkin with I.I. Shishkin, who became his teacher. The realistic manners of Shishkin and Gurkin are connected by a common goal in their work, by the fact that each of them sought to portray a generalized image of Russian nature, but each of them walked a little different ways. Shishkin sought to express through the grandeur of the forests, and Gurkin - through the grandeur of the mountain landscape. Nikulin, like Levitan and Serov, was involved in impressionism, he strove for a direct transfer of nature, therefore he liked to work in the open air.