Romanticism in art (XVIII – XIX centuries). Fine art of romanticism The era of romanticism in art briefly

The beginning of the 19th century was a time of cultural and spiritual upsurge in Russia. If in economic and socio-political development Russia lagged behind advanced European states, then in cultural achievements it not only kept pace with them, but was often ahead. The development of Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century was based on the transformations of the previous time. The penetration of elements of capitalist relations into the economy has increased the need for literate and educated people. Cities became major cultural centers.

New social strata were drawn into social processes. Culture developed against the background of the ever-increasing national self-awareness of the Russian people and, in connection with this, had a pronounced national character. She had a significant influence on literature, theater, music, and fine arts. Patriotic War of 1812, which to an unprecedented degree accelerated the growth of the national self-awareness of the Russian people and its consolidation. There was a rapprochement with the Russian people of other peoples of Russia.

The beginning of the 19th century is rightly called the golden age of Russian painting. It was then that Russian artists reached a level of skill that put their works on a par with the best examples of European art.

Three names reveal Russian painting of the 19th century - Kiprensky , Tropinin , Venetsianov. Everyone has a different origin: an illegitimate landowner, a serf and a descendant of a merchant. Everyone has their own creative aspiration - romantic, realist and “village lyricist”.

Despite early infatuation historical painting Kiprensky is known primarily as an outstanding portrait painter. It can be said that in early XIX V. he became the first Russian portrait painter. The old masters, who became famous in the 18th century, could no longer compete with him: Rokotov died in 1808, Levitsky, who survived him by 14 years, no longer painted due to an eye disease, and Borovikovsky, who did not live several months before the uprising Decembrists, worked very little.

Kiprensky was lucky enough to become an artistic chronicler of his time. “History in the faces” can be considered his portraits, which depict many participants in those historical events, whose contemporary he was: heroes of the War of 1812, representatives of the Decembrist movement. The technique of pencil drawing, the teaching of which was given serious attention at the Academy of Arts, was also useful. Kiprensky created, essentially, new genre- a pictorial portrait.

Kiprensky created many portraits of Russian cultural figures, and, of course, the most famous among them is Pushkin. It was written by order Delviga, the poet’s lyceum friend, in 1827. Contemporaries noted the amazing similarity of the portrait to the original. The artist freed the image of the poet from the everyday features that are inherent in the portrait of Pushkin by Tropinin, painted in the same year. Alexander Sergeevich was captured by the artist at a moment of inspiration when he was visited by a poetic muse.

Death overtook the artist during his second trip to Italy. Last years many things went wrong with the famous painter. A creative slump began. Shortly before his death, his life was overshadowed by a tragic event: according to contemporaries, the artist was falsely accused of murder and was afraid to leave the house. Even marrying his Italian pupil did not brighten up his last days.

Few people mourned the Russian painter who died in a foreign land. Among the few who truly understood what kind of master Russian culture had lost was the artist Alexander Ivanov, who was in Italy at that time. In those sad days he wrote: Kiprensky “was the first to make the Russian name known in Europe.”

Tropinin entered the history of Russian art as an outstanding portrait painter. He said: “A portrait of a person is painted for the memory of those close to him, those who love him.” According to contemporaries, Tropinin painted about 3,000 portraits. Whether this is so is difficult to say. One of the books about the artist contains a list of 212 precisely identified persons whom Tropinin portrayed. He also has many works entitled “Portrait of an Unknown Woman”. State dignitaries, nobles, warriors, businessmen, minor officials, serfs, intellectuals, and figures of Russian culture posed for Tropinin. Among them: historian Karamzin, writer Zagoskin, art critic Odoevsky, painters Bryullov and Aivazovsky, sculptor Vitali, architect Gilardi, composer Alyabyev, actors Shchepkin and Mo-chalov, playwright Sukhovo-Kobylin.

One of best works Tropinina - portrait of a son. It must be said that one of the “discoveries” of the Russian art of the 19th century V. there was a child's portrait. In the Middle Ages, a child was viewed as a small adult who had not yet grown up. Children were even dressed in outfits that were no different from adults: in the middle of the 18th century. girls wore tight corsets and wide skirts with flaps. Only at the beginning of the 19th century. they saw a child in the child. Artists were among the first to do this. There is a lot of simplicity and naturalness in Tropinin’s portrait. The boy is not posing. Interested in something, he turned around for a moment: his mouth was slightly open, his eyes were shining. The child's appearance is surprisingly charming and poetic. Golden disheveled hair, an open, childishly plump face, a lively look from intelligent eyes. You can feel how lovingly the artist painted the portrait of his son.

Tropinin painted self-portraits twice. On the later one, dated 1846, the artist is 70 years old. He depicted himself with a palette and brushes in his hands, leaning on a mashtabel - a special stick used by painters. Behind him is a majestic panorama of the Kremlin. In his younger years, Tropinin possessed heroic strength and good spirits. Judging by the self-portrait, he retained his strength of body even in old age. The round face with glasses radiates good nature. The artist died 10 years later, but his image remained in the memory of descendants - large, a kind person, enriched Russian art with your talent.

Venetsianov discovered the peasant theme in Russian painting. He was the first among Russian artists to show beauty in his canvases. native nature. The Academy of Arts did not favor the landscape genre. It occupied the penultimate place in importance, leaving behind an even more despicable one - household. Only a few masters painted nature, preferring Italian or imaginary landscapes.

In many of Venetsianov’s works, nature and man are inseparable. They are connected as closely as a peasant is with the land and its gifts. The artist created his most famous works - “Haymaking”, “On the arable land. Spring”, “At the harvest. Summer” - in the 20s. This was the peak of his creativity. No one in Russian art was able to show peasant life and the work of peasants with such love and as poetically as Venetsianov. In the painting "On the Plowed Field. Spring" a woman is harrowing a field. This hard, exhausting work looks sublime on Venetsianov’s canvas: a peasant woman in an elegant sundress and kokoshnik. With her beautiful face and flexible figure, she resembles an ancient goddess. Leading by the bridles of two obedient horses harnessed to a harrow, she does not walk, but seems to soar over the field. Life around flows calmly, measuredly, peacefully. Rare trees turn green, white clouds float across the sky, the field seems endless, on the edge of which a baby sits, waiting for its mother.

The painting “At the Harvest. Summer” seems to continue the previous one. The harvest is ripe, the fields are full of golden stubble - the time has come for the harvest. In the foreground, putting her sickle aside, a peasant woman is breastfeeding her child. The sky, the field, and the people working on it are inseparable for the artist. But still main subject his attention is always on the person.

Venetsianov created a whole gallery of portraits of peasants. This was new for Russian painting. In the 18th century people from the people, and especially serfs, were of little interest to artists. According to art historians, Venetsianov was the first in the history of Russian painting to “accurately capture and recreate the Russian folk type". "The Reapers", "Girl with Cornflowers", "Girl with a Calf", "Sleeping Shepherd" - beautiful images of peasants, immortalized by Venetsianov. A special place in the artist’s work was occupied by portraits of peasant children. How good is "Zakharka" - big-eyed, snub-nosed , a big-lipped boy with an ax on his shoulder! Zakharka seems to personify an energetic peasant nature, accustomed to work from childhood.

Alexey Gavrilovich left a good memory of himself not only as an artist, but also as an outstanding teacher. During one of his visits to St. Petersburg, he took on a novice artist as a student, then another, a third... Thus a whole art school, which went down in art history under the name Venetsianovskaya. Over a quarter of a century, about 70 talented young men passed through it. Venetsianov tried to redeem serf artists from captivity and was very worried if this failed. The most talented of his students, Grigory Soroka, never received his freedom from his landowner. He lived to see the abolition of serfdom, but, driven to despair by the omnipotence of his former owner, he committed suicide.

Many of Venetsianov's students lived in his house on full content. They learned the secrets of Venetian painting: firm adherence to the laws of perspective, close attention to nature. Among his students were many talented masters who left a noticeable mark on Russian art: Grigory Soroka, Alexey Tyranov, Alexander Alekseev, Nikifor Krylov. “Venetsianovtsy” - they lovingly called his pets.

Thus, it can be argued that in the first third of the 19th century there was a rapid rise in cultural development Russia and this time is called the golden age of Russian painting.

Russian artists have reached a level of skill that puts their works on a par with the best examples of European art.

Glorification of the people's feat, its idea spiritual awakening, exposing the ulcers of feudal Russia - these are the main themes of fine art of the 19th century.

In portraiture, the features of romanticism - the independence of the human personality, its individuality, the freedom to express feelings - are especially distinct.

Many portraits of Russian cultural figures, including children's portraits, were created. The peasant theme, the landscape that showed the beauty of our native nature, is coming into fashion.

1.1 Main features of romanticism

Romanticism - (French romantisme, from the medieval French romant - novel) is a direction in art that was formed within the framework of a general literary movement at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. in Germany. It has become widespread in all countries of Europe and America. The highest peak of romanticism occurred in the first quarter of the 19th century.

The French word romantisme goes back to the Spanish romance (in the Middle Ages, this was the name for Spanish romances, and then for a chivalric romance), the English romantic, which turned into the 18th century. in romantique and then meaning “strange”, “fantastic”, “picturesque”. At the beginning of the 19th century. Romanticism becomes the designation of a new direction, opposite to classicism.

Entering into the antithesis of “classicism” - “romanticism,” the movement suggested the opposition of the classicist demand for rules to romantic freedom from rules. The center of the artistic system of romanticism is the individual, and its main conflict is the individual and society. The decisive prerequisite for the development of romanticism were the events of the Great French Revolution. The emergence of romanticism is associated with the anti-enlightenment movement, the reasons for which lie in disappointment in civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, the result of which was new contrasts and contradictions, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual.

The Enlightenment preached the new society as the most “natural” and “reasonable”. The best minds of Europe substantiated and foreshadowed this society of the future, but reality turned out to be beyond the control of “reason,” the future became unpredictable, irrational, and the modern social order began to threaten human nature and his personal freedom. Rejection of this society, protest against lack of spirituality and selfishness is already reflected in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism. Romanticism expresses this rejection most acutely. Romanticism also opposed the Age of Enlightenment in verbal terms: the language of romantic works, striving to be natural, “simple”, accessible to all readers, was something opposite to the classics with its noble, “sublime” themes, characteristic, for example, of classical tragedy.

Among the late Western European romantics, pessimism in relation to society acquires cosmic proportions and becomes the “disease of the century.” The heroes of many romantic works are characterized by moods of hopelessness and despair, which acquire a universal human character. Perfection is lost forever, the world is ruled by evil, ancient chaos is resurrected. The theme of the “terrible world”, characteristic of all romantic literature, was most clearly embodied in the so-called “black genre” (in the pre-romantic “Gothic novel” - A. Radcliffe, C. Maturin, in the “drama of rock”, or “tragedy of rock” - Z. Werner, G. Kleist, F. Grillparzer), as well as in the works of Byron, C. Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, E. Poe and N. Hawthorne.

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge " scary world", - first of all, the ideas of freedom. The disappointment of romanticism is a disappointment in reality, but progress and civilization are only one side of it. Rejection of this side, lack of faith in the possibilities of civilization provide another path, the path to the ideal, to the eternal, to the absolute. This the path must resolve all contradictions, completely change life. This is the path to perfection, “towards a goal, the explanation of which must be sought on the other side of the visible” (A. De Vigny) For some romantics, the world is dominated by incomprehensible and mysterious forces that must be obeyed and obeyed. not to try to change fate (Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, “world evil” caused protest, demanded revenge, struggle (the early A.S. Pushkin had in common that they all saw a single essence in man). whose task is not at all limited to solving everyday problems. On the contrary, without denying everyday life, the romantics sought to unravel the mystery of human existence, turning to nature, trusting their religious and poetic feelings.

The romantic hero is a complex, passionate personality, inner world which is unusually deep, endless; it is a whole universe full of contradictions. Romantics were interested in all passions, both high and low, which were opposed to each other. High passion is love in all its manifestations, low passion is greed, ambition, envy. The romantics contrasted the life of the spirit, especially religion, art, and philosophy, with the base material practice. Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

We can talk about romance as a special type of personality - a person of strong passions and high aspirations, incompatible with the everyday world. Exceptional circumstances accompany this nature. Fantasy, folk music, poetry, legends become attractive to romantics - everything that for a century and a half was considered as minor genres, not worthy of attention. Romanticism is characterized by the affirmation of freedom, the sovereignty of the individual, increased attention to the individual, the unique in man, and the cult of the individual. Confidence in the self-worth of man turns into a protest against the fate of history. Often the hero of a romantic work becomes an artist who is capable of creatively perceiving reality. The classicist “imitation of nature” is contrasted with the creative energy of the artist who transforms reality. A special world is created, more beautiful and real than the empirically perceived reality. It is creativity that is the meaning of existence; it represents the highest value of the universe. Romantics passionately defended the creative freedom of the artist, his imagination, believing that the genius of the artist does not obey the rules, but creates them.

Romantics turned to various historical eras, they were attracted by their originality, attracted by exotic and mysterious countries and circumstances. Interest in history became one of the enduring achievements of the artistic system of romanticism. He expressed himself in the creation of the genre historical novel, the founder of which is considered to be W. Scott, and in general the novel, which acquired a leading position in the era under consideration. Romantics reproduce in detail and accurately the historical details, background, and flavor of a particular era, but romantic characters are given outside of history; they, as a rule, are above circumstances and do not depend on them. At the same time, the romantics perceived the novel as a means of comprehending history, and from history they went to penetrate into the secrets of psychology, and, accordingly, of modernity. Interest in history was also reflected in the works of historians of the French romantic school (A. Thierry, F. Guizot, F. O. Meunier).

It was in the era of Romanticism that the discovery of the culture of the Middle Ages took place, and the admiration for antiquity, characteristic of the previous era, also did not weaken at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 18th century. XIX centuries A variety of national, historical, individual characteristics had and philosophical meaning: the wealth of a single world whole consists of the combination of these individual features, and the study of the history of each people separately makes it possible to trace, as Burke put it, uninterrupted life through new generations following one after another.

The era of Romanticism was marked by the flourishing of literature, one of the distinctive properties of which was a passion for social and political problems. Trying to comprehend the role of man in ongoing historical events, romantic writers gravitated toward accuracy, specificity, and authenticity. At the same time, the action of their works often takes place in settings that are unusual for a European - for example, in the East and America, or, for Russians, in the Caucasus or Crimea. Thus, romantic poets are primarily lyricists and poets of nature, and therefore in their work (as well as in many prose writers), landscape occupies a significant place - first of all, the sea, mountains, sky, stormy elements with which the hero is associated complex relationships. Nature can be akin to a passionate nature romantic hero, but can also resist him, turn out to be a hostile force with which he is forced to fight.

Unusual and vivid pictures of nature, life, way of life and customs of distant countries and peoples also inspired the romantics. They were looking for the traits that constitute the fundamental basis of the national spirit. National identity is manifested primarily in oral folk art. Hence the interest in folklore, the processing of folklore works, the creation of their own works based on folk art.

The development of the genres of the historical novel, fantastic story, lyric-epic poem, ballad is the merit of the romantics. Their innovation was also manifested in lyrics, in particular, in the use of polysemy of words, the development of associativity, metaphor, and discoveries in the field of versification, meter, and rhythm.

Romanticism is characterized by a synthesis of genders and genres, their interpenetration. The romantic art system was based on a synthesis of art, philosophy, and religion. For example, for a thinker like Herder, linguistic research, philosophical doctrines, and travel notes serve the search for ways of revolutionary renewal of culture. Much of the achievements of romanticism were inherited by realism of the 19th century. – a penchant for fantasy, the grotesque, a mixture of high and low, tragic and comic, the discovery of “subjective man.”

In the era of romanticism, not only literature, but also many sciences flourished: sociology, history, political science, chemistry, biology, evolutionary doctrine, philosophy (Hegel, D. Hume, I. Kant, Fichte, natural philosophy, the essence of which boils down to the fact that nature - one of the garments of God, “the living garment of the Divine”).

Romanticism is a cultural phenomenon in Europe and America. IN different countries his fate had its own characteristics.

1.2 Romanticism in Russia

By the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, romanticism occupied a key place in Russian art, revealing more or less fully its national identity. It is extremely risky to reduce this uniqueness to any trait or even a sum of traits; What we see is rather the direction of the process, as well as its pace, its acceleration - if we compare Russian romanticism with the older “romanticisms” of European literature.

We have already observed this acceleration of development in the prehistory of Russian romanticism - in the last decade of the 18th century. - in the first years of the 19th century, when there was an unusually close interweaving of pre-romantic and sentimental tendencies with the tendencies of classicism.

The revaluation of reason, hypertrophy of sensitivity, the cult of nature and natural man, elegiac melancholy and epicureanism were combined with moments of systematism and rationality, especially manifested in the field of poetics. Styles and genres were streamlined (mainly through the efforts of Karamzin and his followers), and there was a struggle against excessive metaphor and floridity of speech for the sake of its “harmonic accuracy” (Pushkin’s definition of the distinctive feature of the school founded by Zhukovsky and Batyushkov).

The speed of development also left its mark on the more mature stage of Russian romanticism. The density of artistic evolution also explains the fact that in Russian romanticism it is difficult to recognize clear chronological stages. Literary historians divide Russian romanticism into the following periods: the initial period (1801 - 1815), the period of maturity (1816 - 1825) and the period of its post-October development. This is an approximate diagram, because at least two of these periods (the first and third) are qualitatively heterogeneous and they are not characterized by at least a relative unity of principles that distinguished, for example, the periods of Jena and Heidelberg romanticism in Germany.

Romantic movement in Western Europe - especially in German literature- began under the sign of completeness and integrity. Everything that was separated strived for synthesis: in natural philosophy, and in sociology, and in the theory of knowledge, and in psychology - personal and social, and, of course, in artistic thought, which united all these impulses and, as it were, gave them new life .

Man sought to merge with nature; personality, individual - with the whole, with the people; intuitive knowledge - with logical; the subconscious elements of the human spirit - with the highest spheres of reflection and reason. Although the relationship between opposing moments sometimes seemed conflicting, the tendency towards unification gave rise to a special emotional spectrum of romanticism, multi-colored and variegated, with a predominance of a bright, major tone.

Only gradually did the conflicting elements develop into their antinomy; the idea of ​​the desired synthesis dissolved in the idea of ​​alienation and confrontation, the optimistic mood gave way to a feeling of disappointment and pessimism.

Russian romanticism is familiar with both stages of the process - both the initial and the final; however, at the same time he forced the general movement. The final forms appeared before the initial forms reached their peak; the intermediate ones crumpled or fell off. Compared to the background of Western European literature, Russian romanticism looked at the same time both less and more romantic: it was inferior to them in richness, ramifications, and breadth of the overall picture, but superior to them in the certainty of some final results.

The most important socio-political factor that influenced the formation of romanticism is Decembrism. The refraction of Decembrist ideology into the plane of artistic creativity is an extremely complex and lengthy process. Let us not, however, lose sight of the fact that it acquired precisely artistic expression; that Decembrist impulses were clothed in very specific literary forms.

Often “literary Decembrism” was identified with a certain imperative external to artistic creativity, when all artistic means were subordinated to an extra-literary goal, which, in turn, stemmed from Decembrist ideology. This goal, this “task” was allegedly leveled or even pushed aside “syllable features or genre features.” In reality, everything was much more complicated.

The specific character of Russian romanticism is clearly visible in the lyrics of this time, i.e. in lyrical attitude to the world, in basic tone and perspective author's position, in what is commonly called the “image of the author.” Let's look at Russian poetry from this angle in order to get at least a quick idea of ​​its diversity and unity.

Russian romantic poetry has revealed a fairly wide range of “images of the author,” sometimes converging, sometimes, on the contrary, polemicizing and contrasting with each other. But always the “image of the author” is such a condensation of emotions, moods, thoughts or everyday and biographical details (in lyrical work as it were, there are “scraps” of the author’s line of alienation, more fully represented in the poem), which stems from opposition to the environment. The connection between the individual and the whole has broken down. The spirit of confrontation and disharmony blows over the author's image even when in itself it seems uncloudedly clear and whole.

Pre-romanticism knew mainly two forms of expressing conflict in lyrics, which can be called lyrical oppositions - the elegiac and epicurean form. Romantic poetry developed them into a series of more complex, deep and individually differentiated ones.

But, no matter how important the above forms are in themselves, they, of course, do not exhaust the entire wealth of Russian romanticism.

Art, as we know, is extremely multifaceted. A huge number of genres and trends allows each author to realize his creative potential to the greatest extent, and gives the reader the opportunity to choose exactly the style that he likes.

One of the most popular and, without a doubt, beautiful art movements is romanticism. This direction has acquired wide use at the end of the 18th century, covering European and American culture, but later reaching Russia. The main ideas of romanticism are the desire for freedom, perfection and renewal, as well as the proclamation of the right of human independence. This trend, oddly enough, has spread widely in absolutely all major forms of art (painting, literature, music) and has become truly widespread. Therefore, we should consider in more detail what romanticism is, and also mention its most famous figures, both foreign and domestic.

Romanticism in literature

In this area of ​​art similar style originally appeared in Western Europe, after the bourgeois revolution in France in 1789. The main idea of ​​romantic writers was the denial of reality, dreams of a better time and a call to fight for a change in values ​​in society. Typically, the main character is a rebel who acts alone and seeker of truth, which, in turn, made him defenseless and confused in front of the outside world, which is why the works of romantic authors are often saturated with tragedy.

If we compare this direction, for example, with classicism, then the era of romanticism was distinguished by complete freedom of action - writers did not hesitate to use a variety of genres, mixing them together and creating a unique style, which was based in one way or another on the lyrical principle. The current events of the works were filled with extraordinary, sometimes even fantastic events, in which the inner world of the characters, their experiences and dreams were directly manifested.

Romanticism as a genre of painting

art also came under the influence of romanticism, and its movement here was based on the ideas of famous writers and philosophers. Painting as such was completely transformed with the advent of this movement; new, completely unusual images began to appear in it. Themes of Romanticism addressed the unknown, including distant exotic lands, mystical visions and dreams, and even the dark depths of the human consciousness. In their work, artists largely relied on the heritage of ancient civilizations and eras (the Middle Ages, the Ancient East, etc.).

The direction of this trend in Tsarist Russia was also different. If European authors touched on anti-bourgeois themes, then Russian masters wrote on the topic of anti-feudalism.

The craving for mysticism was much less pronounced than among Western representatives. Domestic figures had a different idea of ​​what romanticism was, which in their work can be seen in the form of partial rationalism.

These factors became fundamental in the process of the emergence of new trends in art on the territory of Russia, and thanks to them the world cultural heritage knows Russian romanticism exactly like this.

The presentation will introduce the work of outstanding painters of France, Germany, Spain and England of the Romantic era.

Romanticism in European painting

Romanticism is a movement in the spiritual culture of the late 18th - first third of the 19th centuries. The reason for its appearance was disappointment in the results of the French Revolution. The motto of the revolution is “Freedom, equality, brotherhood!” turned out to be utopian. The Napoleonic epic that followed the revolution and the gloomy reaction caused a mood of disappointment in life and pessimism. A new fashionable disease “World Sorrow” quickly spread in Europe and appeared new hero, yearning, wandering around the world in search of an ideal, and more often - in search of death.

Contents of Romantic Art

In the era of gloomy reaction, the English poet George Byron became the ruler of thoughts. His hero Childe Harold is a gloomy thinker, tormented by melancholy, wandering around the world in search of death and parting with life without any regret. My readers, I’m sure, now remember Onegin, Pechorin, Mikhail Lermontov. The main thing that distinguishes a romantic hero is his absolute rejection of gray, everyday life. The romantic and the philistine are antagonists.

"Oh, let me bleed,

But give me space quickly.

I'm scared to suffocate here,

In the damned world of traders...

No, better is a vile vice,

Robbery, violence, robbery,

Than accountant morality

And the virtue of well-fed faces.

Hey little cloud, take me away

Take it with you on a long journey,

To Lapland, or to Africa,

Or at least to Stettin - somewhere!

G. Heine

Escape from the gray everyday life becomes the main content of the art of romanticism. Where can a romantic “escape” from everyday life and dullness? If you, my dear reader, are a romantic at heart, then you can easily answer this question. Firstly, The distant past becomes attractive to our hero, most often the Middle Ages with its noble knights, tournaments, mysterious castles, and Beautiful Ladies. The Middle Ages were idealized and glorified in the novels of Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, in the poetry of German and English poets, in the operas of Weber, Meyerbeer, and Wagner. In 1764, the first English "Gothic" horror novel, Walpoll's The Castle of Otranto, was published. In Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, Ernest Hoffmann wrote “The Devil’s Elixir”; by the way, I advise you to read it. Secondly, a wonderful opportunity for “escape” for a romantic was the sphere of pure fiction, the creation of an imaginary, fantastic world. Remember Hoffmann, his “Nutcracker”, “Little Tsakhes”, “The Golden Pot”. It’s clear why Tolkien’s novels and Harry Potter stories are so popular these days. There are always romances! After all, this is a state of mind, don’t you agree?

Third way The romantic hero’s escape from reality is an escape to exotic countries untouched by civilization. This path led to the need for a systematic study of folklore. The art of romanticism was based on ballads, legends, and epics. Many works of romantic fine art and musical art related to literature. Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante again become the rulers of thoughts.

Romanticism in fine arts

In each country, the art of romanticism acquired its own national characteristics, but at the same time, all their works have much in common. All romantic artists are united by a special attitude towards nature. The landscape, in contrast to the works of classicism, where it served only as decoration, a background, for romantics acquires a soul. The landscape helps to emphasize the state of the hero. It will be useful to compare European fine art of romanticism with art and.

Romantic art prefers night landscape, cemeteries, gray mists, wild rocks, ruins of ancient castles and monasteries. A special attitude towards nature contributed to the birth of the famous landscape English parks (remember the regular French parks with straight alleys and trimmed bushes and trees). The subjects of paintings are often stories and legends of the past.

Presentation "Romanticism in European fine arts" contains a large number of illustrations introducing the work of outstanding romantic artists of France, Spain, Germany, and England.

If the topic interests you, perhaps you, dear reader, will be interested in reading the material in the article “ Romanticism: passionate nature" on the Arthive website dedicated to art.

I found most of the illustrations in excellent quality on the website Gallerix.ru. For those who want to go deeper into the topic, I recommend reading it:

• Encyclopedia for children. T.7. Art. – M.: Avanta+, 2000.
• Beckett V. History of painting. – M.: Astrel Publishing House LLC: AST Publishing House LLC, 2003.
• Great artists. Volume 24. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes. – M.: Publishing house “Direct-Media”, 2010.
• Great artists. Volume 32. Eugene Delacroix. – M.: Publishing house “Direct-Media”, 2010
• Dmitrieva N.A. Short story arts Issue III: Countries Western Europe XIX century; Russia of the 19th century. ‒ M.: Art, 1992
• Emokhonova L.G. World art culture: Textbook. A manual for students. avg. ped. textbook establishments. – M.: Publishing Center “Academy”, 1998.
• Lukicheva K.L. The history of painting in masterpieces. – Moscow: Astra-Media, 2007.
• Lvova E.P., Sarabyanov D.V., Borisova E.A., Fomina N.N., Berezin V.V., Kabkova E.P., Nekrasova World artistic culture. XIX century. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2007.
• Mini-encyclopedia. Pre-Raphaelism. – Vilnius: VAB “BESTIARY”, 2013.
• Samin D.K. One Hundred Great Artists. – M.: Veche, 2004.
• Freeman J. History of Art. – M.: Astrel Publishing House, 2003.

Good luck!

The art of romanticism was formed in polemics with classicism. In the social aspect, the emergence of romanticism is associated with the Great French Revolution of the 18th century; it arises as a reaction of general enthusiasm about its beginning, but also as a deep disappointment in human capabilities in the event of its defeat. Moreover, German romanticism was later considered a bloodless version of the French Revolution.

As an ideological and artistic movement, romanticism manifested itself in the first half of the 19th century. It arises primarily as literary direction- here the activity of romantics is high and successful. No less significant is the music of that time: vocals, instrumental music, musical theater (opera and ballet) of romanticism still form the basis of the repertoire today. However, in the visual and spatial arts, romanticism showed itself less clearly both in the number of works created and in their level. Romanticism painting reaches the level of masterpieces in Germany and France, the rest of Europe lags behind. It is not customary to talk about the architecture of romanticism. Only landscape gardening art reveals some originality here, and even then the romantics developed here the idea of ​​an English landscape, or natural, park. There is also a place for some neo-Gothic tendencies; the romantics saw their art in the series: Gothic - Baroque - Romanticism. There are many such neo-Gothics in Slavic countries.

Fine art of romanticism

In the 18th century the term "romantic" meant "strange", "fantastic", "picturesque". It is easy to notice that the words “romance”, “romance” (knightly) are etymologically very close.

In the 19th century the term was interpreted as the name of a literary movement that was opposite in its principles to classicism.

In the fine arts, romanticism showed itself interestingly in painting and graphics, less clearly in sculpture. The most consistent school of romanticism developed in France, where there was a persistent struggle against dogmatism and abstract rationalism in official art in the spirit of academic classicism. The founder of the romantic school of painting was Theodore Gericault (1791-1824). He studied with the masters of classicism, but, retaining from classicism the inclination towards generally heroic images, Géricault for the first time expressed in painting the feeling of conflict in the world, the desire for expressive expression of significant events of our time. Already the artist’s first works reveal high emotionality, the “nerve” of the era of the Napoleonic wars, in which there was a lot of bravado (“Officer of the mounted rangers of the imperial guard, going on the attack,” “Wounded cuirassier leaving the battlefield”). They are marked by a tragic attitude and a feeling of confusion. The heroes of classicism did not experience such feelings or did not express them publicly and did not aestheticize despondency, confusion, and melancholy. The picturesque canvases of the artists of romanticism are painted dynamically; the coloring is dominated by a dark tone, which is enlivened by intense color accents and rapid impasto strokes.

Gericault creates an incredibly dynamic picture "Running of Free Horses in Rome." Here he surpasses all previous artists in convincingly conveying movement. One of Gericault's main works is the painting "The Raft of Medusa". In it he depicts real facts, but with such force of generalization that contemporaries saw in it not the image of one specific shipwreck, but of all of Europe in despair. And only a few, the most persistent people continue to fight for survival. The artist shows the complex range of human feelings - from gloomy despair to a stormy explosion of hope. The dynamics of this canvas are determined by the diagonal of the composition, the effective sculpting of volumes, and contrasting differences in light and shade.

Gericault managed to prove himself as a master of the portrait genre. Here he also acts as an innovator, defining the figurative specifics of the portrait genre. “Portrait of Twenty-Year-Old Delacroix” and self-portraits express the idea of ​​a romantic artist as an independent creator, a bright, emotional personality. He lays the foundations for the romantic portrait - later one of the most successful romantic genres.

Gericault also became familiar with the landscape. Traveling around England, he was amazed by its appearance and paid tribute to its beauty by creating many landscape paintings, painted in both oil and watercolor. They are rich in color, subtle in observation, and not averse to social criticism. The artist called them "Large and Small English Suites". How typical for a romantic to call a pictorial cycle a musical term!

Unfortunately, Gericault's life was short, but he laid the foundation for a glorious tradition.

Since the 1820s becomes the head of romantic painters Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863). He was strongly influenced by Gericault, with whom he was friends from his student days. He studied the painting of old masters, especially Rubens. He traveled around England and was fascinated by Constable's paintings. Delacroix had a passionate temperament, powerful creative imagination and high efficiency. From the initial steps in his professional career, Delacroix decisively followed the romantics. The first painting he exhibited was of Dante and Virgil in a boat crossing the Styx (Dante's Boat). The picture is full of tragedy and gloomy pathos. With his next painting, “The Massacre on Chios,” he responded to real events, associated with the suffering of the Greeks from the Turkish yoke. Here he openly expressed his political position, taking the side of the Greeks in the conflict, with whom he sympathized, while the French government flirted with Turkey.

The painting caused both political and art criticism, especially after Delacroix, under the influence of Constable’s work, rewrote the painting in lighter colors. In response to criticism, the artist creates the canvas “Greece on the Ruins of Missolunga”, in which he again addresses the burning theme of Greece’s struggle for liberation from the Turkish yoke. This painting by Delacroix is ​​more symbolic, a female figure with a raised hand in a gesture of either a curse on the invaders or a call to fight, personifies the entire country. It seems to anticipate the image of Freedom in the artist’s future, most famous work.

In search of new heroes, strong personalities Delacroix often refers to literary images Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron, Scott: “Tasso in the Lunatic Asylum”, “The Death of Sardanapalus”, “The Murder of the Bishop of Liege”; makes lithographs for “Faust” and “Hamlet”, expressing the subtlest shades of the characters’ feelings, which earned Goethe’s praise. Delacroix approaches fiction the way his predecessors approached the Holy Scriptures, making it an endless source of subjects for paintings.

In 1830, under the direct impression of the July Revolution, Delacroix painted a large canvas, “Liberty Leading the People” (“Freedom on the Barricades”). Above the realistically depicted figures of participants in the revolutionary struggle, poor, mostly young people inspired by the struggle, hovers a magnificent woman, reminiscent of Veronese’s “geniuses”. She has a banner in her hands, her face is inspired. This is not just an allegory of freedom in the spirit of classicism, it is a high symbol of revolutionary impulse. However, one cannot abandon the living, sensual female figure - she is so attractive. The picture turned out to be complex, charming, and dynamic.

Like a true romantic, Delacroix travels to exotic countries: Algeria, Morocco. From his trip he brings back five paintings, including “Lion Hunt in Morocco,” apparently a tribute to his beloved Rubens.

Delacroix works a lot as a decorator, creating monumental works in the Bourbon and Luxembourg palaces and Parisian churches. He continues to work in the portrait genre, creating images of people of the Romantic era, for example F. Chopin. Delacroix's work belongs to the peaks of 19th-century painting.

Painting and graphics German romanticism mostly tends towards sentimentalism. And if German romantic literature really constitutes an entire era, then this cannot be said about the fine arts: in literature there was Sturm and Drang, and in the fine arts there was the idealization of family patriarchal life. Creativity is indicative in this sense Ludwig Richter (1803-1884): “Forest spring near Aricci”, “Wedding procession in spring”, etc. He also owns numerous drawings on themes of fairy tales and folk songs, made in a rather dry manner.

But there is one large-scale figure in German romanticism that cannot be ignored. This Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). He was a landscape painter and studied at the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen. Later he settled in Dresden and began teaching.

His landscape style is original, the paintings are remembered from the first acquaintance, you can feel in them that these are landscapes of a romantic artist: they consistently express the specifics of the romantic worldview. He painted landscapes of southern Germany and the Baltic coast, wild rocks overgrown with forest, desert dunes, and the frozen sea. People are sometimes present in his paintings, but we rarely see their faces: the figures, as a rule, have their backs turned to the viewer. Frederick sought to convey the elemental power of nature. He sought and discovered consonances between natural forces and human moods and quests. And although he reflects life quite accurately, Friedrich's art is not realistic. This frightened off Soviet art critics in the recent past; little was written about the artist, and there were almost no reproductions of him. Now the situation has changed, and we can enjoy the deep spirituality of his paintings, the melancholy detached contemplation of Friedrich’s landscapes. The clear rhythm of the composition and the severity of the drawing are combined in his works with contrasts of chiaroscuro, rich in lighting effects. But sometimes Friedrich reaches the point of aching melancholy in his emotionality, a feeling of the frailty of everything earthly, to the numbness of a mystical trance. Today we are experiencing a surge of interest in Friedrich's work. His most successful works are “The Death of “Nadezhda” in the Ice”, “Monastery Cemetery under the Snow”, “Mass in a Gothic Ruin”, “Sunset on the Sea”, etc.

IN Russian romanticism There is a lot of contradictory things in painting. Moreover, for many years it was believed that good artist- realist. This is probably why the opinion has been established that O. Kiprensky and A. Venetsianov, V. Tropinin and even A. Kuindzhi are realists, which seems to us incorrect, they are romantics.