What is romanticism in painting. Abstract: Romanticism as a movement in art

WORLD ART CULTURE: Concept, content and morphology of a multimedia complex for secondary schools. – St. Petersburg: Asterion, 2004. – 279 p.

5.4. Age of Romanticism

5.4.1. General characteristics

Romanticism is an ideological and artistic movement in European culture of the late XVIII - 1st half of the 19th century V. This is the era of bourgeois revolutions, political and economic upheavals in Europe, characterized by criticality in relation to contemporary reality and, at the same time, to the social and political principles of the past of the 18th century that it rejected. (Era of Enlightenment). Romanticism as a special type of worldview has become one of the most complex and internally contradictory phenomena in the history of culture. Disappointment in the ideals of the Enlightenment and the results of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789 predetermined a pessimistic view of social development; the mentality of “world sorrow” was combined in Romanticism with the desire for harmony in the world order. Rejecting the rationalism and mechanism of the Enlightenment, the romantics, nevertheless, retained the fundamental concepts of the previous era: “natural man”, a view of nature as a great good principle, the desire for justice and equality.

In artistic culture, the collapse of hopes for freedom, universal peace and social well-being determined the main motive of that period, which was of fundamental importance for the aesthetics of Romanticism - “the collapse of illusions.” Another important motive of artistic activity, generated by the discord between the ideal and reality, the inability to achieve ideals, is “two worlds,” i.e. escape from reality into the illusory world of mysticism, idealized antiquity or distant, exotic countries for Europe. Thus, among the romantics, world harmony was disrupted. The world fell apart into categories opposed to each other: earthly life and eternal life, God and the devil, hero and crowd, present time and distant past, beautiful and ugly, ideal and everyday life.

In connection with the new worldview in the era of Romanticism, the understanding of the individual and the relationship between the importance of the individual and society for culture gradually changed. Unlike classicism, which emphasized the natural similarity all people, i.e. the priority of the general, romanticism placed the individual at the forefront otherness. Hence the understanding of the romantic personality as lonely, misunderstood, rebellious (actively or passively) against everyone and everything, filled with pride, challenging God, society, and the crowd.

In artistic culture, romanticism became a reaction to the rationalistic aesthetics of classicism. However, we cannot say that romanticism in art completely rejects what was achieved in classicism: romanticism leaves the stylistic foundations of classicism, rethinking the language of artistic forms, as well as the ideological orientation of art. Despite the apparent “polarity” of the views of classicism and romanticism on man and his place in the world, the idea of ​​personality of the late 18th – early 19th centuries. involves a combination of the rationalistic ideal of a man of the Enlightenment with the obligatory reduction of everything private, subjective to the general, transpersonal and a certain romantic “patina”. This idea received its most vivid expression in lyric poetry - the most subjective type of literature, which became the exponent of romantic tendencies in art.

Romanticism as a style in art appeared first in literature, and then in other forms of art. Even the very concept of “romanticism” came from literature and was derived from the epithet “romantic” (first introduced as a literary term by Novalis). Until the 18th century this epithet pointed to some features of literary works written in Romance languages, in particular, entertainment, many adventures and events. At the end of the 18th century. “Romantic” began to be understood more broadly: not only as adventurous, entertaining, but also as ancient, original folk, distant, naive, fantastic, spiritually sublime, ghostly, as well as amazing, frightening. That is why romantics often idealized the past and tried to breathe new life into myths and biblical stories. Fiction becomes a contrast to reality.

In addition to literature (especially lyric poetry), another form of art in which romantic tendencies were fully embodied was music. Individualism, which took root in sentimentalism, reached unprecedented proportions in the romantic era. As a result, the status of the individual, the artist-creator, has sharply increased. Personal fate, personal drama acquired a universal resonance, therefore, in the era of Romanticism, works with confessional motives became especially popular. Music in any of its manifestations is “confession of the soul.” It is no coincidence that I.I. Sollertinsky called the music “a sounding autobiography,” “a kind of symphonic, vocal-song, piano diary.”

Unlike literary romanticism, which appeared at the end of the 18th century, musical romanticism manifested itself only in the second decade of the 19th century. It is significant that the term “romantic music” belongs to E.T.A. Hoffmann, a writer and composer, whose very work symbolized the union of literature and music, which was very important for romantic aesthetics. If during the Renaissance the main form of art was painting, and the main ideas of the Enlightenment were reflected in the theater, then romantic aesthetics put literature and music in first place. Moreover, the romantics themselves did not come to a consensus as to which of these types of art occupied a higher position in the “hierarchy” of the arts, and the idea of ​​​​the union of literature and music put such “synthetic” genres as opera, program music, romance in first place -song. In the area instrumental music, less susceptible to the ideas of romanticism, the most important became the piano miniature, capable of creating a quick sketch of a mood, landscape, or characteristic image. In painting, the main romantic genre can be considered the portrait, in which the main thing was the identification of bright characters, the tension of spiritual life, the fleeting movement of human feelings, as well as the self-portrait, which was almost never seen in the 18th century. Many features inherent in romantic painting were continued in later stylistic movements, for example, mysticism and complex allegorism - in symbolism, increased emotionality and impulsiveness – in expressionism.

Characterizing Western European romanticism, Ivanov-Razumnik divided it into three varieties: German, English and French, characterizing them respectively as logical, or romanticism of thought, ethical, or romanticism of will, and aesthetic, or romanticism of feeling.

Germany At that time, it was a fragmented country that did not have the opportunity to take an active part in the colonization of the East; it did not have enough resources to fight wars in Europe without anyone’s help. However, it is in Germany that many philosophical schools and teachings take shape - it is not capable of active and decisive action, but has powerful ideological potential. German romanticism is characterized by melancholy, contemplation, and mystical-pantheistic moods. German romanticism turns to myths, legends, traditions and tales of its people, which is reflected in literature, music, and painting of this period. E.T.A. Hoffmann writes fairy tales using many motifs from German folklore; his opera “Ondine” also refers to folk legends. R. Wagner's work is almost entirely rooted in German mythology, heroic epics (Lohengrin, Parsifal, The Ring of the Nibelung, etc.) and the legendary past of his country (The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, etc. .). K.M. Weber (opera “Free Shooter”) also turns to the traditions of his people.

By the beginning of the 19th century. Austria was a huge empire that included Hungary, the Czech Republic, northern Italy, and southeastern Bavaria, so its national composition was diverse: Czechs and Hungarians, Slovaks and Croats, Romanians and Ukrainians, Poles and Italians, with Austrians and Germans themselves making up one third of the population. Traditions, customs, folklore and artistic creativity of each of these peoples influenced the formation of specific features of Austrian culture. However, all these peoples were united by the Habsburg dynasty. Unlike Germany, in which peoples with developed national culture did not have a single state and therefore sought to create a national state as a guarantee of preserving their culture, the peoples of the Austrian Empire lived within the framework of a single state, which was formed long before the industrial revolution according to the dynastic principle and was not identified with any of the peoples under its rule. Due to the fact that German was native to members of the ruling dynasty, it was considered by them as the official language of the country and the most preferred means of interethnic communication of its inhabitants. Perhaps this is why many of the features inherent in the artistic culture of Germany were also characteristic of Austria. For example, the attitude towards nature as a refuge from the troubles of civilization, consolation, healing of a restless person is clearly reflected in the works of F. Schubert (for example, the vocal cycle “The Beautiful Miller's Wife”), in whose work the emotional experiences of the individual are closely connected with images of nature.

Unlike Germany, England At that time, it was an advanced country with rich political and economic traditions and a form of government that all of Europe looked up to, considering it the most successful (parliamentary monarchy). However, as the history of art shows, England of the romantic period did not create any interesting music, and the achievements of romanticism were translated into two types of art: literature and painting. The main themes of English romanticism were reflections on the romantic personality, the hero of his time, as well as what moral qualities this hero should have (for example, in the works of J. G. Byron “Childe Harold”, “Don Juan” and in “Endymion” J. Keats). In English romantic painting, the landscape prevailed as a reflection of the spiritual purity and great possibilities of the “natural man” (for example, the landscapes of J. Constable).

French Romanticism was a vivid reflection of the events of 1789, i.e. Great French Revolution. That is why, of all the regional variants of romanticism, French is the most effective and active, the most emotionally rich. He gave many names to various types art. Thus, in literature, one of the most prominent romantics, who was the first to formulate the main characteristics of French romanticism (preface to the drama “Cromwell”), was V. Hugo, another was A. de Musset, famous for his confessional work “Confession of a Son of the Century.” In music, G. Berlioz became a great innovator, one of the first to create the genre program symphony(“Fantastic Symphony”) and reformed the means of musical expression. French artists also reform artistic and expressive means: they dynamize the composition, combining forms with rapid movement, use bright, rich colors based on contrasts of light and shadow, warm and cold tones.

American Romanticism, for many reasons, did not present a single picture. The lack of deep national roots, geographical distance from European countries, the mosaic nature of the culture created on the new continent, as well as concern for establishing independence from Europe predetermined the path of American romanticism. First of all, this is an attempt to find the roots of one’s culture in the depths of the culture of the aborigines - the Indians. That is why many artists, in particular literature, turn to the idealization of the life of Indians, their image (F. Cooper, G. Longfellow). Others are interested in the nature of this fertile land, which means that landscape becomes one of the most common romantic genres.

It is well known that Russian romanticism was significantly different from Western European. Russia turn of the 18th–19th centuries. in its economic development it had not yet “caught up” with Europe, had not experienced its bourgeois revolution, therefore the tragedy and hopelessness of “world sorrow”, the “retreat” into the idealized Middle Ages, characteristic of German, French and English romanticism, were alien to Russian culture. Speaking about Western European traditions in Russian romanticism, we note that the sentiments characteristic of Europe at the end of the 18th century became relevant in Russia in connection with two events in Russian history - the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist uprising. Patriotic War contributed to the growth of national self-awareness, and the Decembrist uprising was a kind of resolution to a revolutionary situation similar to Western Europe. That is why early Russian romanticism, which flourished in the second decade of the 19th century, in contrast to Western European, was “more optimistic, active, offensive” (G. Gukovsky). Russian culture was experiencing a time of revolutionary upsurge in all spheres of culture. Another significant difference between Western European and Russian romanticism was that the main driving social force in Europe was the third estate, while in Russia it was the nobles - which is why Russian romanticism is often called “noble”. Indeed, the most significant phenomena in the field of Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century. took place among the nobility. Even the struggle for the abolition of serfdom was carried out mainly by the nobles.

At this time, the cultural opposition between St. Petersburg and Moscow intensified in the public consciousness of Russia. Let us remember that back in the 18th century. Moscow contrasted the reactionary classicist St. Petersburg with the advanced sentimentalism of that time. IN early XIX V. It was in Moscow that the first shoots of romanticism appeared. More patriarchal Moscow turned mainly to the passive direction of Romanticism, the main idea of ​​which was a retreat into idealism, while St. Petersburg culture reflected its active revolutionary-educational, collective beginning. The culture of Pushkin's Petersburg remained essentially oriented towards the achievements of the Western European Enlightenment, i.e. to some speculative maxims regarding the transformation of society, while Moscow sentimentalism grew into romanticism, putting the creative personality in first place.

Romanticism became the last pan-European style in art. However, along with the general features, it should be noted that each country created its own unique, original romantic flavor. This is due to the fact that within the framework of Romanticism, which initiated the rapid growth of national self-awareness, a huge number of national art schools are being created, each of which has its own unique ideas, subjects, favorite genres, as well as a special national style.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AGE OF ROMANTICISM.

Romanticism - (French)romanticism), ideological and artistic direction in European and American spiritual culture of the late 18th and 1st half of the 19th centuries. French romanticismtraces its ancestry to Spanishromance(this is what Spanish romances were called in the Middle Ages, and then romance), via Englishromantic(romantic), rendered in Frenchromanesqueand thenromantic and meaning in the 18th century. strange, fantastic, picturesque. At the beginning of the 19th century. the word romanticism becomes a term to designate a new literary movement, opposite to classicism.

Romanticism in the traditional, specifically historical meaning of the word was the high point of the anti-Enlightenment movement that swept across all European countries. Its main socio-ideological premise is disappointment in bourgeois civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, which has brought new contrasts and antagonisms, as well as spiritual devastation of the individual.

Inheriting the traditions of art of the Middle Ages, Spanish Baroque and English Renaissance, the romantics revealed the extraordinary complexity and depth of the inner nature of man. For them, a person is a small universe, a microcosm. Intense interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, in the secret movements of the soul, in its new side, craving for the individual, the unconscious - the essential features of romantic art.

Let us consider how romantic tendencies manifested themselves in various fields of art.

MUSIC.

In music, romanticism as a movement emerged in the 1820s. The final period of its development, called neo-romanticism, covers the last decades of the 19th century. Musical romanticism first appeared in Austria (F. Schubert), Germany (C.-M. von Weber, R. Schumann, R. Wagner) and Italy (N. Paganini, V. Bellini, early G. Verdi); somewhat later in France (G. Berlioz, D. Aubert), Poland (F. Chopin), Hungary (F. Liszt). In each country it took on a national form; sometimes different romantic movements developed in one country (the Leipzig school and the Weimar school in Germany). If the aesthetics of classicism focused on the plastic arts with their inherent stability and completeness of the artistic image, then for the romantics music became an expression of the essence of art as the embodiment of the endless dynamics of internal experiences.

Musical romanticism adopted such important general trends of romanticism as anti-rationalism, the primacy of the spiritual and its universalism, focus on the inner world of man, the infinity of his feelings and moods. Hence the special role of the lyrical principle, emotional spontaneity, freedom of expression. Like romantic writers, so too, musical romantics are characterized by an interest in the past, in distant exotic countries, a love of nature, admiration for folk art. Numerous folk tales, legends, and beliefs were translated into their works. They considered folk song as the basis of professional musical art. Folklore for them was a true carrier of national color, outside of which they could not imagine art.

Romantic music differs significantly from the music of the Viennese classical school that preceded it. It is less generalized in content and reflects reality not in an objective-contemplative way, but through the personal experiences of a person (the artist) in all its richness of shades. It tends to gravitate towards the sphere of the characteristic and at the same time portrait-individual, being fixed in two main varieties: psychological and genre-everyday. Irony, humor, and even the grotesque are much more widely represented. At the same time, interest in national-patriotic and heroic liberation themes (Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz) is increasing. Musical visualization and sound recording acquire great importance. Expressive means are being significantly updated. The melody becomes more individualized and prominent, internally changeable, responsive to the subtlest shifts in mental states; harmony and instrumentation become richer, brighter, more colorful. In contrast to the balanced and logically ordered structures of the classics, the role of comparisons and free combinations of different characteristic episodes increases.

The focus of many composers was the most synthetic genre of opera, based among the romantics mainly on fairy-tale-fantastic, magical, adventure and exotic plots. The first romantic opera was Hoffmann's Ondine.

In instrumental music, symphonies and sonatas remain the defining genres. However, they too were transformed from within. In instrumental works of various forms, tendencies towards musical painting are more clearly reflected. New genre varieties emerge, for example, the symphonic poem, which combines the features of the sonata allegro and the sonata-symphonic cycle. Its appearance is due to the fact that musical programming appears in romanticism as one of the forms of synthesis of arts, enriched in instrumental music through unity with literature. The instrumental ballad was also a new genre. The tendency of the romantics to perceive life as a motley series of individual states, paintings, scenes led to the development of various kinds of miniatures and cycles (Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms)

In the musical and performing arts, romanticism manifested itself in the emotional intensity of performance, richness of colors, bright contrasts, and virtuosity (Paganini, Chopin, Liszt). In musical performance, as in the work of lesser composers, romantic features are often combined with external efficiency and salonity. Romantic music remains an enduring artistic value and a living, effective legacy for subsequent eras.

THEATER.

In theatrical art, romanticism was formed in the 1810-1840s. The basis of theatrical aesthetics was imagination and feelings. Rebelling against the classical principle of ennobling nature, the actors focused on depicting the contrasts and contradictions of human life. Public pathos, passion for denunciation, and loyalty to the ideal determined the intense emotionality, the bright + dramatic expression of the actors’ art, and the impetuous gesture. However, the romantic worldview also carried with it the danger of creative subjectivism (emphasis on the exceptional, the whimsical); emotionality was sometimes replaced by rhetorical effects and melodrama. Romantic theater was the first to establish stage experience, spontaneity, truthfulness and sincerity of acting as the main content of acting. Romanticism also enriched the expressive means of the theater (recreation of local color, historical authenticity of scenery and costumes, genre veracity of crowd scenes and production details). His artistic achievements prepared and largely determined the basic principles of realistic theater.

FINE ARTS.

IN fine arts Romanticism manifested itself most clearly in painting and graphics, less clearly in sculpture. In architecture, romanticism was poorly reflected, influencing mainly landscape gardening art and architecture of small forms, where a passion for exotic motifs affected, as well as the direction of false Gothic. At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. the features of romanticism are already inherent to varying degrees: in England - in the paintings and graphic works of Fusli, in which a dark, sophisticated grotesque often breaks through the classicist clarity of images; in the painting, graphics and poetry of W. Blake - romanticism is imbued with mystical visionaryness; in Spain – later creativity Goya's work is filled with unbridled fantasy and tragic pathos, a passionate protest against feudal oppression and violence.

Rejecting everything ordinary and inert in the present, turning only to the culminating, dramatically acute moments of modern history, the romantics found themes and plots in the historical past, legends, folklore, in the exotic life of the East, in the works of Dante, Shakespeare, Byron, Goethe - the creators of monumental images and strong characters.

Romanticism places man at the center of the universe. Man, in the view of the romantics, is the crown of the process of global rise. In a portrait, the main thing for the romantics was to reveal a person’s bright individuality, intense spiritual life, and the movement of his fleeting feelings. The romantic landscape, which emphasizes the power of natural elements, also becomes an echo of human passions. The Romantics sought to convey rebellious passion and heroic elation to their images, to recreate nature in all its unexpected, unique manifestations, in a tense, expressive, excited artistic form.

In contrast to classicism, the romantics gave the composition increased dynamics, combining forms with violent movement and resorting to sharp volumetric-spatial effects; they used bright, rich colors based on contrasts of light and shadow, warm and cold tones, a sparkling and light, often generalized style of writing.

Thus, with all the complexity of the ideological content of romanticism, its aesthetics as a whole opposed the aesthetics of classicism of the 17th and 18th centuries. The Romantics broke the centuries-old canons of classicism with its spirit of discipline and frozen greatness. In the struggle for the liberation of art from petty regulation, the romantics defended the unlimited freedom of the artist’s creative imagination. Rejecting the constraining rules of classicism, they insisted on mixing genres, justifying their demand by the fact that it corresponds to the true life of nature, where beauty and ugliness, the tragic and the comic are mixed. Glorifying the natural movements of the human heart, the romantics, in contrast to the rationalistic demands of classicism, put forward a cult of feeling; the logically generalized characters of classicism were opposed by their extreme individualization.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF STAGING AN OPERA PERFORMANCE IN THE ERA OF ROMANTICISM.

In the 19th century opera house. Two characteristic phenomena are observed:

- the trend of “historical reconstruction” in the field of stage design;

- the rise of “bel canto”;

Also in the 20s. 19th century the struggle to establish a romantic drama begins. There is a change in style in the decorative arts. The romantics attached great importance to the color of place and time. The stage had to reproduce the setting of the era that was depicted in the play. The location of the action is no longer generalized. Now this is not a palace and the square in front of it, but a Roman, French, Spanish palace with exact signs of the national style.

The landscape in the romantic theater strives to present nature without artificial embellishments in all its pristine grandeur.

Romantics introduced images of mysterious caves, dungeons, and dungeons into their plays. The scenery often depicts a storm at sea, a thunderstorm, a volcanic eruption and other natural phenomena.

In the conditions of a developed bourgeois society, some democratization of the theater is taking place. Public opera houses emerge, the auditorium of which reflects the class stratification of the audience. A huge hall with 5-6 tiers has seats for the public of different ranks and positions in society.

The most important changes over the course of the century have occurred in the lighting of the auditorium and stage. Already at the end of the 18th century. Instead of the candles that previously lit the theater space, gas lamps appeared, which remained throughout most of the 19th century. right up until they were replaced different types electric lighting. The first arc spotlight appeared in the mid-19th century. Since the invention of the dynamo in the last quarter of the century, the number and strength of such light sources has increased, allowing the creation of various lighting effects (bright rays of sunlight bursting into a dark room, moonlight, clouds moving across the evening sky, etc.)

At the end of the century, theaters switched to lighting with electric lamps, while also retaining floodlights.

Already in the first half of the century, spectacles were created in the theater that plausibly reproduced the movements of crews, riders, and sea vessels. Water pantomimes were of great interest, when huge pools of water were set up on stage, in which some kind of sea adventure was played out. In this regard, theaters, using old theatrical effects, created many new ones.

In the classical theater of antiquity, the scene of action was the same for the entire play. During the Renaissance in Italy, the same principle was preserved. In the 17th century In the theory of drama in France, the rules of unity of place were firmly established, according to which the entire action of the play took place in the same scenery. This rule was not taken into account in the public square theater, as well as in the folk humanistic theater of the Renaissance in Spain and England. But even there the rule of unity of place triumphed. Deviations from this rule were sometimes allowed in opera, which made it possible to effect a spectacular change of scenery with the help of telariums (rotating prisms). This was the case until the first decades of the 19th century. The Romantics rejected the unity of place in drama. Changes of scenery from now on began to occur several times throughout the performance. Changes took place during intermissions. But to reduce the pauses between actions, a more advanced technique was needed than what existed. Many of the previous means developed over centuries of theater development were supplemented by a number of important devices. The first in importance is a device for changing the scene board. By means of hydraulic and electric machines, the stage floor was partially or entirely raised and placed at an angle, allowing the creation of various conditions for a variety of stage action. The second improvement is the introduction of a new circle on the stage. And finally, the third improvement was the creation of so-called pockets - large areas on the sides of the stage, where parts of the scenery were prepared on moving tablets, quickly rolled forward and just as quickly moved behind the stage.

If we turn to the history of opera productions of the 19th century, we should pay attention to the existence of precise production scripts written by directors (this position appears for the first time in this era). First of all, they recorded entrances and departures, diagrams of stage positions, lighting effects, but nothing was said about the actor. Everything that concerns the actor’s concept of image, gestures, sonority, dramatic expressiveness, the absence of this information is explained not so much by the director’s helplessness, but by the fact that the actor was left to his own devices. It fell to the director's lot exclusively to plan the scenery, props and mise-en-scène, carried out in such a way as to free up the center of the stage for the performers of the main roles and so that when performing duets and ensembles the singers would be close to each other, so that, finally, the choirs would be grouped by voices, and all together we found ourselves as close as possible to the stage and the conductor.

Outside of these exceptions, a kind of operatic “realism” triumphs, i.e. convulsive rushing around the stage or, conversely, statue-like immobility with one leg moving forward and the notorious hand on the heart.

Since the era was replete with ballet talent, composers and conductors looked for every opportunity to demonstrate the art of dancers in every performance.

Thus, the opera performance was a vibrant spectacle, with a large number of architectural and landscape elements that served as a backdrop for the singer standing in the foreground.

PRODUCTION OF WAGNER'S OPERA "THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG".

Wagner, who outgrew his era and was far ahead of it as a creator and theorist of musical drama, is inextricably linked with it as a director of his own works.

"The Ring of the Nibelung" poses numerous problems for the director regarding machinery and scenery.

The bottom of the Rhine and the ceaseless flow of waters, swimming maidens and Alberich turning into a snake; Wotan, falling underground, and disappearing into the fog of Mime; the fire burned by the stone after the blow of Wotan’s spear, and the rainbow along which the gods enter Valhalla; the appearance of Erda and, finally, a grandiose picture of Valkyries rushing through the clouds with dead warriors tied to their saddles.

To realize all this, Wagner is content with a traditional opera stage with a picturesque backdrop, curtain screens, trap doors and primitive “magic lanterns”.

In his theoretical works, Wagner nowhere rebels against the artistic means of his contemporary theater, but, on the contrary, expresses his admiration for them: “Modern natural science and landscape painting are the achievements of our era, bringing us, from a scientific and artistic point of view, satisfaction and salvation from madness and mediocrity... Thanks to landscape painting, the scene becomes the embodiment of artistic truth, and drawing, color, and the invigorating use of light force nature to serve the highest artistic aspirations... The artistic use of all the optical means at his (the landscape painter's) disposal and the light itself allows him to create a complete illusion.”

However, in practice, all the “life-giving uses of light” and “optical means” led to nothing.

In Bayreuth productions one encounters the same set patterns that abounded in most productions of that era. Thus, the bottom of the Rhine in the first part of the tetralogy resembles a giant aquarium; Siegfried's mystical forest continues to be an operatic forest, with swaying canvas and lurid props, replete with descriptive details, a naturalistic “porridge” of leaves, branches and trunks. In the same category of effects is the raising of scenery representing rocks to show Wotan's descent into the caves of Nibelheim.

The erasure of the naturalistic contours of the design, which too intrusively emphasize the close kinship of Proto-Germanic vegetation with the lawns and “neighborhoods” of operas like “The White Lady,” is accomplished with the help of water vapor, which is used not only to create the illusion of fog and haze, but also to hide from the eyes of the spectators are technical maneuvers caused by the need to change the scenery with the curtain open.

However, no couple is able to hide the smile that Wagner’s instructions regarding Erda’s double appearance evoke. This most ancient of goddesses, mistress of the earth, mother of the gods, was supposed to stick out waist-deep from the theater hatch.

This naive-comic, one might say, grotesque solution to the stage situation, clearly contrasting with the magnificent call of Wotan and the mighty seething sounds of the orchestra, did not attract the attention and caustic attacks of critics of that era, who noted the primitiveness of the effect of using the “magic lantern” in the picture of the flight of the Valkyries and the childish fuss of Sieckfried with a dragon speaking into a megaphone, rolling its eyes, slapping the ground with its tail and clanking its teeth to the beat of the music.

The role of light comes down, first of all, to a naturalistic designation of day and night, as well as various changes in the atmosphere, although Wagner also uses it as a symbol, in some cases linking it with the appearance of certain characters. Erda appears in a halo of blue light; a sheaf of red rays illuminates Wotan’s “Walkyrie” and “Siegfried”. One of the critics speaks hostilely about this play of light: “electric rays, uneven in brightness and strength, “eat up” the colors of the scenery, and viewers see canvases instead of trees.”

The romantic disorder and lack of expressiveness that characterizes the scenery is equally clear in the costumes, reminiscent of Lormier’s “historical reconstructions” at the Paris Opera during the time of “Robert the Devil.” Costume designers gravitated towards descriptive details and detail, so perhaps neither Brünnhilde’s armor, which emphasizes her waist in a fashion that is not at all mythological, nor her dress (also in fashionable folds), nor the striped shirt that, together with the animal skin, makes up Sigmund’s attire, neither the half Greek, half no tunic designed by Loge is able to show the world of mythical gods descending into the abyss of Nibelheim, walking on the rainbow and prancing in the clouds.

“In the theater only theatrical art reigns,” writes Wagner, and therefore, in contrast to the general spirit reigning on the opera stage, the acting side of the performance is the subject of his special concern.

A singer who is unable to perform his part as if it were a role in a spoken drama, with deep insight into the author's intention, is not able to give it the vocal expressiveness required by the composer. Therefore, Wagner requires special readings of the libretto, giving the opportunity not only to the soloists, but also to the choir, to penetrate into the artistic meaning of the work and find the appropriate expressiveness of the interpretation, so that it is always dictated by the specific situation.

Wagner clearly described the vocal style of his musical dramas in a letter to Liszt: “In my opera there is no difference between the phrases of the so-called “declamation” and “singing.” My recitation is at the same time singing, my singing is recitation. I do not have a clear ending of the “singing” and a clear appearance of the “recitative”, which usually signify two different styles vocal performance. Actually, Italian recitative, when the composer pays almost no attention to the rhythm of recitation, giving complete freedom to the singer, you will not find at all in my work. In those places where the poetic text, after excited lyrical flights, declines into simpler manifestations of emotional speech, I have never relinquished the right to indicate the character of the recitation as precisely as in the lyrical vocal scenes. Therefore, anyone who takes these passages for ordinary recitative and, as a result, arbitrarily changes the rhythm I have indicated, disfigures my music to the same extent as if he came up with other notes and harmonies for my lyrical melodies. Trying in these passages reminiscent of recitatives to accurately characterize the rhythm of the recitation, which corresponds to the expressive goals I pursue, I ask conductors and singers to perform these passages, first of all, in accordance with the musical notation of the original, the beat indicated in the score and at a tempo corresponding to the nature of the speech ... "

Wagner is concerned with the issue of word intelligibility. The hidden orchestra of the Bayreuth theater is not only a “mystical abyss”, but also an attempt to soften the orchestral commentary, so that the text spoken by the actor is in the foreground of the sound.

Thus, Wagner makes two main demands on the singer:

- strictly follow musical notation

- present the text so that it is audible and understandable.

The Wagnerian actor also faced other tasks. The main one is the need to coordinate acting with music. Wagner demands that the stage action precisely correspond to the accompanying orchestral motifs.

Following the desire to synchronize gestures and facial expressions with music comes the composer’s desire to make them noble and restrained. “Where the universal operatic manner has accustomed us to waving both arms wide apart, as if denoting calls for help, we have noticed that a slightly raised arm or a characteristic movement of the shoulder or head is quite enough to express even the strongest feeling.” ... found expression in the executive art(violinist Paganini, singer...

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 his early passion for historical painting, Kiprensky is known primarily as an outstanding portrait painter. We can say that at the beginning of the 19th century. 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 faces” can be considered his portraits, which depict many participants in the historical events of which he was a contemporary: 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. Recent 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 Russian art of the 19th century. 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 the 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, 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 the beauty of his native nature in his canvases. 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 beginning 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.

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 his main conflict- individuals 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, secret movements of the soul - characteristic features 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 a hero romantic work becomes an artist 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. 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 understand the role of man in what is happening historical events, romantic writers gravitated towards 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 the passionate nature of a romantic hero, but it 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 to revolutionize 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.

Romanticism in the fine arts was largely based on the ideas of philosophers and writers. In painting, as in other forms of art, the romantics were attracted by everything unusual, unknown, be it distant countries with their exotic customs and costumes (Delacroix), the world of mystical visions (Blake, Friedrich, the Pre-Raphaelites) and magical dreams (Runge) or gloomy depths subconscious (Goya, Fusli). The source of inspiration for many artists was the artistic heritage of the past: the Ancient East, the Middle Ages and the Proto-Renaissance (Nazarenes, Pre-Raphaelites).

In contrast to classicism, which exalted the clear power of reason, the romantics sang passionate, stormy feelings that captured a person entirely. The earliest responders to new trends were portraits and landscapes, which became favorite genres of romantic painting.

Heyday portrait genre was associated with the interest of the romantics in the bright human individuality, beauty and richness of it spiritual world. The life of the human spirit prevails in a romantic portrait over interest in physical beauty, in the sensual plasticity of the image.

In a romantic portrait (Delacroix, Géricault, Runge, Goya) the uniqueness of each person is always revealed, the dynamics, the intense beat of inner life, and rebellious passion are conveyed.

Romantics are also interested in the tragedy of a broken soul: the heroes of their works are often mentally ill people (Gericault “A Madwoman Suffering from an Addiction to Drugs”) gambling", "Children's thief", "Insane, imagining himself as a commander").

Scenery conceived by romantics as the embodiment of the soul of the universe; nature, like the human soul, appears in dynamics, constant variability. The ordered and ennobled landscapes characteristic of classicism were replaced by images of spontaneous, rebellious, powerful, ever-changing nature, corresponding to the confusion of feelings romantic heroes. The Romantics especially loved to write storms, thunderstorms, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, shipwrecks that could have a strong emotional impact on the viewer (Gericault, Friedrich, Turner).

The poeticization of the night, characteristic of romanticism - a strange, unreal world living according to its own laws - led to the flourishing of the “night genre”, which became a favorite in romantic painting, especially among German artists.

One of the first countries in whose fine arts romanticism developed wasGermany .

Creativity had a noticeable influence on the development of the genre of romantic landscapeCaspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). His artistic heritage is dominated by landscapes depicting mountain peaks, forests, the sea, the sea coast, as well as the ruins of old cathedrals, abandoned abbeys, monasteries (“Cross in the Mountains”, “Cathedral”, “Abbey among the Oak Trees”). They usually contain a feeling of constant sadness from the awareness of a person’s tragic loss in the world.

The artist loved those states of nature that most correspond to its romantic perception: early morning, evening sunset, moonrise (“Two Contemplating the Moon”, “Monastery Cemetery”, “Landscape with a Rainbow”, “Moonrise over the Sea”, “Chalk Cliffs” on the island of Rügen", "On a sailboat", "Harbor at night").

The constant characters in his works are lonely dreamers, immersed in the contemplation of nature. Looking into the vast distances and endless heights, they become familiar with the eternal secrets of the universe, carried away into beautiful world dreams. Friedrich conveys this wonderful world with the help of a magically shining light- radiant solar or mysterious lunar.

Friedrich's work aroused the admiration of his contemporaries, including I. W. Goethe and W. A. Zhukovsky, thanks to whom many of his paintings were acquired by Russia.

Painter, graphic artist, poet and art theoristPhilip Otto Runge (1777-1810), mainly devoted himself to the portrait genre. In his works, he poeticized images of ordinary people, often his loved ones (“The three of us” - a self-portrait with his bride and brother, has not survived; “Children of the Huelsenbeck family”, “Portrait of the artist’s parents”, “Self-portrait”). Runge’s deep religiosity was expressed in such paintings as “Christ on the Shores of Lake Tiberias” and “Rest on the Flight to Egypt” (unfinished). The artist summed up his thoughts about art in his theoretical treatise “The Color Sphere.”

The desire to revive religious and moral foundations in German art is associated with the creative activities of artists Nazarene school (F. Overbeck, von Karlsfeld,L. Vogel, I. Gottinger, J. Sutter,P. von Cornelius). Having united in a kind of religious brotherhood (“Union of St. Luke”), the “Nazarenes” lived in Rome according to the model of a monastic community and painted paintings on religious subjects. They considered Italian and German painting as a model for their creative searches.XIV - XVcenturies (Perugino, early Raphael, A. Durer, H. Holbein the Younger, L.Cranach). In the painting “The Triumph of Religion in Art,” Overbeck directly imitates Raphael’s “School of Athens,” and Cornelius in “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” imitates Durer’s engraving of the same name.

Members of the brotherhood considered spiritual purity and sincere faith to be the main virtues of the artist, believing that “only the Bible made Raphael a genius.” Leading a solitary life in the cells of an abandoned monastery, they elevated their service to art to the category of spiritual service.

The “Nazarenes” gravitated towards large monumental forms and tried to embody high ideals with the help of the newly revived fresco technique. Some of the paintings were completed by them together.

In the 1820s and 30s, members of the brotherhood dispersed throughout Germany, receiving leading positions in various art academies. Only Overbeck lived in Italy until his death, without changing his artistic principles. The best traditions of the “Nazarenes” were preserved for a long time in historical painting. Their ideological and moral quest influenced the English Pre-Raphaelites, as well as the work of such masters as Schwind and Spitzweg.

Moritz Schwind (1804-1871), Austrian by birth, worked in Munich. In easel works he mainly depicts the appearance and life of ancient German provincial cities with their inhabitants. This was done with great poetry and lyricism, with love for its characters.

Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) - Munich painter, graphic artist, brilliant draftsman, caricaturist, also not without sentimentality, but with great humor, talks about city life (“Poor Poet”, “Morning Coffee”).

Schwind and Spitzweg are usually associated with the movement in German culture known as Biedermeier.Biedermeier - this is one of the most popular styles of the era (primarily in the field of everyday life, but also in art) . He brought to the fore the burghers, the average man in the street. Central theme Biedermeier painting became the everyday life of a person, flowing in inextricable connection with his home and family. Biedermeier's interest not in the past, but in the present, not in the great, but in the small, contributed to the formation of a realistic tendency in painting.

French romantic school

The most consistent school of romanticism in painting developed in France. It arose as an opposition to classicism, which had degenerated into cold, rational academicism, and brought forward such great masters who determined the dominant influence of the French school throughout the 19th century.

French romantic artists gravitated toward subjects full of drama and pathos, internal tension, far from “dull everyday life.” By embodying them, they reformed pictorial and expressive means:

The first brilliant successes of romanticism in French painting are associated with the nameTheodora Gericault (1791-1824), who, before others, was able to express a purely romantic sense of conflict in the world. Already in his first works one can see his desire to show the dramatic events of our time. For example, the paintings “Mounted Rifle Officer Going on the Attack” and “Wounded Cuirassier” reflected the romance of the Napoleonic era.

Gericault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa,” dedicated to a recent event, had a huge resonance modern life- the death of a passenger ship due to the fault of the shipping company . Gericault created a giant canvas 7x5 m, on which he depicted the moment when people on the verge of death saw a rescue ship on the horizon. Extreme tension is emphasized by the harsh, gloomy color scheme, diagonal composition. This painting became a symbol of modern Gericault France, which, like people fleeing a shipwreck, experienced both hope and despair.

The artist found the theme of his last large painting, “Epsom Races,” in England. It depicts horses flying like birds (a favorite image of Gericault, who became an excellent rider as a teenager). The impression of swiftness is enhanced by a certain technique: the horses and jockeys are painted very carefully, and the background is broad.

After the death of Géricault (he died tragically, in the prime of his strength and talent), his young friend became the recognized head of the French romanticsEugene Delacroix (1798-1863). Delacroix was comprehensively gifted, possessing musical and literary talent. His diaries and articles about artists are the most interesting documents of the era. His theoretical studies of the laws of color had a huge influence on future impressionists and especially on V. Van Gogh.

Delacroix’s first painting, which brought him fame, was “Dante and Virgil” (“Dante’s Boat”), based on the plot of “The Divine Comedy.” She amazed her contemporaries with her passionate pathos and the power of her gloomy coloring.

The pinnacle of the artist’s creativity was “Freedom on the Barricades” (“Freedom Leading the People”). The authenticity of the real fact (the picture was created at the height of the July Revolution of 1830 in France) merges here with the romantic dream of freedom and the symbolism of the images. A beautiful young woman becomes a symbol of revolutionary France.

The earlier painting “Massacre on Chios”, dedicated to the struggle of the Greek people against Turkish rule, was also a response to modern events. .

Having visited Morocco, Delacroix discovered the exotic world of the Arab East, to which he devoted many paintings and sketches. In "Women of Algeria" the world of the Muslim harem appeared before the European audience for the first time.

The artist also created a series of portraits of representatives of the creative intelligentsia, many of whom were his friends (portraits of N. Paganini, F. Chopin, G. Berlioz, etc.)

IN late period Delacroix's creativity gravitated towards historical themes, worked as a monumentalist (murals in the Chamber of Deputies, Senate), and as a graphic artist (illustrations for the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron).

The names of English painters of the Romantic era - R. Benington, J. Constable, W. Turner - are associated with the genre of landscape. They have truly turned a new page in this area: native nature found such a broad and loving reflection in their work that no other country knew at that time.

John Constable (1776-1837) was one of the first in the history of European landscape to write sketches entirely from life, turning to direct observation of nature. His paintings are simple in their motifs: villages, farms, churches, a strip of river or sea beach: “Hay Wagon,” Detham Valley,” “Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Garden.” Constable's works served as an impetus for the development of realistic landscape in France.

William Turner (1775-1851) - marine painter . He was attracted by the stormy sea, showers, thunderstorms, floods, tornadoes: “The last voyage of the ship “Brave”, “Thunderstorm over the Piazzetta.” Bold coloristic explorations and rare lighting effects sometimes turn his paintings into shining phantasmagoric spectacles: “Fire of the London Parliament”, “Blizzard. The steamer leaves the harbor and sends distress signals when it gets into shallow water.” .

Turner owns the first painting of a steam locomotive running on rails - a symbol of industrialization. In the film "Rain, Steam and Speed" a steam locomotive rushes along the Thames through a foggy rain haze. All material objects seem to merge into a mirage image that perfectly conveys the feeling of speed.

Turner's unique study of light and color effects largely anticipated the discoveries of French impressionist artists.

In 1848, arose in Englandpre-raphaelite brotherhood (from Latin prae - “before” and Raphael), which united artists who did not accept their contemporary society and the art of the academic school. They saw their ideal in the art of the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance (hence the name). The main members of the brotherhood areWilliam Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In their early works, these artists used the abbreviation RV instead of signatures .

The love of antiquity was similar to the romantics of the Pre-Raphaelites. They turned to biblical subjects (“The Light of the World” and “The Unfaithful Shepherd” by W. H. Hunt; “The Childhood of Mary” and “The Annunciation” by D. G. Rossetti), plots from the history of the Middle Ages and plays by W. Shakespeare (“Ophelia” by Millais ).

In order to paint human figures and objects in their natural size, the Pre-Raphaelites increased the size of their canvases and made landscape sketches from life. The characters in their paintings had prototypes among real people. For example, D. G. Rossetti portrayed his beloved Elizabeth Siddal in almost all his works, continuing, like a medieval knight, to remain faithful to his beloved even after her untimely death (“Blue Silk Dress”, 1866).

The ideologist of the Pre-Raphaelites wasJohn Ruskin (1819-1900) - English writer, art critic and art theorist, author of the famous series of books “Modern Artists”.

The work of the Pre-Raphaelites significantly influenced many artists and became a harbinger of symbolism in literature (W. Pater, O. Wilde) and fine arts (O. Beardsley, G. Moreau, etc.).

The nickname "Nazarenes" may have come from the name of the city of Nazareth in Galilee, where Jesus Christ was born. According to another version, it arose by analogy with the name of the ancient Jewish religious community of the Nazarenes. It is also possible that the name of the group came from the traditional name for the “alla nazarena” hairstyle, common in the Middle Ages and known from A. Dürer’s self-portrait: the manner of wearing long hair parted in the middle was reintroduced by Overbeck.

Biedermeier(German: “brave Meyer”, philistine) - surname fictional character from the poetry collection of the German poet Ludwig Eichrodt. Eichrodt created a parody of real face- Samuel Friedrich Sauter, an old teacher who wrote naive poetry. Eichrodt in his caricature emphasized the philistine primitiveness of Biedermeier's thinking, which became a kind of parody symbol of the era. sweeping strokes of black, brown and greenish colors convey the fury of the storm. The viewer's gaze seems to be in the center of a whirlpool; the ship seems to be a toy of waves and wind.