The era of impressionism. School Encyclopedia In which country did Impressionism originate?

The term "Impressionism" originated with light hand criticism of the magazine "Le Charivari" Louis Leroy, who titled his feuilleton about the Salon Les Misérables "Exhibition of the Impressionists", based on the name of the painting by Claude Monet "" (fr. Impression, soleil levant). Initially, this term was somewhat disparaging, indicating a corresponding attitude towards artists who wrote in a new "careless" manner.

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Impressionism in painting

origins

By the mid-1880s, impressionism gradually ceased to exist as a single direction, and disintegrated, giving a noticeable impetus to the evolution of art. By the beginning of the 20th century, the trend of abandoning realism gained momentum and a new generation of artists turned away from impressionism.

The emergence of the name

The first important exhibition of the Impressionists was held from April 15 to May 15, 1874 in the studio of the photographer Nadar. There were presented 30 artists, 165 works in total. Canvas Monet - “Impression. Rising Sun " ( Impression, soleil levant), now in the Musée Marmottin, Paris, written in 1872, gave birth to the term "Impressionism": the little-known journalist Louis Leroy, in his article in the magazine Le Charivari, called the group "Impressionists" to express his disdain. Artists, out of a challenge, accepted this epithet, later it took root, lost its original negative meaning and came into active use.

The name "Impressionism" is rather meaningless, in contrast to the name "Barbizon School", where at least there is an indication of the geographical location artistic group. There is even less clarity with some artists who were not formally included in the circle of the first impressionists, although their technical methods and means are completely “impressionistic” - Whistler, Edouard Manet, Eugene Boudin, etc. In addition, the technical means of the Impressionists were known long before XIX century and they were (partially, limitedly) used by Titian and Velasquez, without breaking with the dominant ideas of their era.

There was another article (authored by Emile Cardon) and another title - "Rebel Exhibition", absolutely disapproving and condemning. It was it that accurately reproduced the disapproving attitude of the bourgeois public and criticism towards the artists (Impressionists), which dominated for years. The Impressionists were immediately accused of immorality, rebellious moods, failure to be respectable. IN currently this is surprising, because it is not clear what is immoral in the landscapes of Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, the everyday scenes of Edgar Degas, the still lifes of Monet and Renoir.

Decades have passed. And a new generation of artists will come to a real collapse of forms and impoverishment of content. Then both the critics and the public saw in the condemned Impressionists - realists, and a little later, the classics of French art.

The specificity of the philosophy of impressionism

French impressionism did not raise philosophical problems and did not even try to penetrate the colored surface of everyday life. Instead, Impressionism, being art to a certain extent campy and mannerist, focuses on superficiality, the fluidity of a moment, mood, lighting, or angle of view.

Like the art of the Renaissance (Renaissance), impressionism is built on the features and skills of perceiving perspective. At the same time, the Renaissance vision explodes with proven subjectivity and relativity. human perception, which makes color and shape autonomous components of the image. For impressionism, it is not so important what is shown in the figure, but how it is shown is important.

Impressionist paintings do not carry social criticism, do not affect social problems, such as hunger, disease, death, representing only positive aspects life. This later led to a split among the Impressionists themselves.

Impressionism and society

Impressionism is characterized by democracy. By inertia, art in the 19th century was considered a monopoly of aristocrats, the upper strata of the population. It was they who acted as the main customers for murals, monuments, it was they who were the main buyers of paintings and sculptures. Plots with the hard work of the peasants, the tragic pages of our time, the shameful aspects of wars, poverty, social turmoil were condemned, not approved, not bought. Criticism of the blasphemous morality of society in the paintings of Theodore Géricault, Francois Millet found a response only from supporters of artists and a few experts.

The Impressionists in this matter occupied quite compromise, intermediate positions. Biblical, literary, mythological, historical plots inherent in official academicism were discarded. On the other hand, they ardently desired recognition, respect, even awards. Indicative is the activity of Edouard Manet, who for years sought recognition and awards from the official Salon and its administration.

Instead, a vision of everyday life and modernity appeared. Artists often painted people in motion, during fun or relaxation, imagined a view of a certain place in a certain light, nature was also the motive of their work. They took subjects of flirting, dancing, staying in cafes and theaters, boat trips, on beaches and in gardens. Judging by the paintings of the Impressionists, life is a series of small holidays, parties, pleasant pastimes outside the city or in a friendly environment (a number of paintings by Renoir, Manet and Claude Monet). The Impressionists were among the first to paint in the air, without finalizing their work in the studio.

Technique

The new trend differed from academic painting both technically and ideologically. First of all, the Impressionists abandoned the contour, replacing it with small separate and contrasting strokes, which they applied in accordance with the color theories of Chevreul, Helmholtz and Rude. The sunbeam splits into its components: violet, blue, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, but since blue is a variety of blue, their number is reduced to six. Two colors placed side by side reinforce each other and, conversely, when mixed, they lose their intensity. In addition, all colors are divided into primary, or primary, and dual, or derivatives, with each dual paint being additional to the first:

• Blue - Orange
• Red Green
• Yellow - Purple

Thus, it became possible not to mix paints on the palette and to obtain the desired color by correctly applying them to the canvas. This later became the reason for the rejection of black.

Then the Impressionists stopped concentrating all the work on the canvases in the workshops, now they prefer the open air, where it is more convenient to grab a fleeting impression of what they saw, which became possible thanks to the invention of steel tubes for paint, which, unlike leather bags, could be closed so that the paint did not dry out.

Also, the artists used opaque paints that do not transmit light well and are unsuitable for mixing because they quickly turn gray, this allowed them to create paintings not with " internal", A " external» light reflecting off the surface.

Technical differences contributed to the achievement of other goals, first of all, the Impressionists tried to capture a fleeting impression, the smallest changes in each subject depending on the lighting and time of day, the highest embodiment was Monet's cycles of paintings "Haystacks", "Rouen Cathedral" and "Parliament of London".

In general, many masters worked in the style of impressionism, but the basis of the movement was Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Frederic Basil and Berthe Morisot. However, Manet always called himself an "independent artist" and never participated in exhibitions, and although Degas participated, he never painted his works en plein air.

Timeline by artists

Impressionists

Exhibitions

• First exhibition(April 15 - May 15)

Address: Boulevard Capuchinok, 35 (studio of the photographer Nadar). Members: Astruc, Attendu, Beliar, Bracquemont, Brandon, Boudin, Bureau, Guillaumin, Debra, Degas, Cals, Colin, La Touche, Lever, Lepic, Lepin, Meyer, de Molin, Monet, Morisot, Mulot-Durivage, Giuseppe De Nittis , A. Otten, L. Otten,

Impressionism (fr. impressionnisme, from impression- impression) - a direction in the art of the latter thirds of XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, which originated in France and then spread throughout the world, whose representatives sought to develop methods and techniques that made it possible to most naturally and vividly capture real world in its mobility and variability, to convey their fleeting impressions. Usually, the term "impressionism" refers to a direction in painting (but this is, first of all, a group of methods), although its ideas have also been embodied in literature and music, where impressionism also appeared in a certain set of methods and techniques for creating literary and musical works, in which the authors sought to convey life in a sensual, direct form, as a reflection of their impressions

The task of the artist at that time was the most plausible image of reality, not showing the subjective feelings of the artist. If he was ordered formal portrait- then it was necessary to show the customer in a favorable light: without deformities, stupid facial expressions, etc. If it was a religious story, then it was necessary to evoke a feeling of reverence and amazement. If the landscape - then show the beauty of nature. However, if the artist despised the rich man who commissioned the portrait, or was an unbeliever, then there was no choice and all that remained was to develop his own unique technique and hope for good luck. However, in the second half of the nineteenth century, photography began to actively develop and realistic painting began to gradually move aside, since even then it was extremely difficult to convey reality as believably as in photography.

In many ways, with the advent of the Impressionists, it became clear that art can be of value as the subjective representation of the author. After all, each person perceives reality differently and reacts to it in his own way. The more interesting to see how in the eyes different people reflects reality and what emotions they experience at the same time.

The artist has an incredible amount of opportunities for self-expression. Moreover, self-expression itself has become much freer: take a non-standard plot, topic, tell something other than religious or historical topics, use your own unique technique, etc. For example, the Impressionists wanted to express a fleeting impression, the first emotion. That is why their work is vague and as if unfinished. This was done in order to show an instant impression, when the objects had not yet taken shape in the mind and only slight overflows of light, halftones and blurry contours were visible. Myopic people will understand me) imagine that you have not yet seen the whole object, you see it from afar or simply do not peer, but already form some kind of impression about it. If you try to portray this, then it is likely that you will end up with something like impressionist paintings. Something like a sketch. That is why it turned out that for the Impressionists it was more important not what is depicted, but how.

The main representatives of this genre in painting were: Monet, Manet, Sisley, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne. Separately, Umlyam Turner should be noted as their predecessor.

Speaking of the plot:

Their paintings represented only the positive aspects of life, not affecting social problems, including such as hunger, disease, death. This later led to a split among the Impressionists themselves.

Color schemes

The Impressionists paid great attention to color, fundamentally refusing gloomy shades, especially black. Such attention to the coloristics of their works brought the color itself to a very important place in the picture and prompted future generations of artists and designers to be attentive to color as such.

Composition

The composition of the Impressionists resembled Japanese painting, complex compositional schemes were used, other canons (not golden ratio or center). In general, the structure of the picture has become more often asymmetric, more complex and interesting from this point of view.

The composition of the Impressionists began to have a more independent meaning, it became one of the subjects of painting, in contrast to the classical one, where it more often (but not always) carried the role of a scheme according to which any work was built. At the end of the 19th century, it became clear that this is a dead end, and the composition itself can carry certain emotions and support the plot of the picture.

Forerunners

El Greco - because he used similar techniques in applying paint and the color acquired a symbolic meaning from him. He also distinguished himself by a very original manner, individuality, which the Impressionists also aspired to.

Japanese engraving - because it gained great popularity in Europe of those years and showed that a picture can be built according to completely different rules than the classical canons of European art. This applies to composition, use of color, detailing, and so on. Also, in Japanese and in general oriental drawings and engravings, domestic scenes were much more often depicted, which was almost absent in European art.

Meaning

The Impressionists left a bright mark on world art, developing unique writing techniques and having a huge impact on all subsequent generations of artists with their vivid and memorable works, protest against classical school and unique work with color. Striving for maximum immediacy and accuracy in the transfer of the visible world, they began to write mainly on outdoors and raised the importance of the study from nature, which almost supplanted the traditional type of painting, carefully and slowly created in the studio.

Consistently clarifying their palette, the Impressionists freed painting from earthy and brown varnishes and paints. Conditional, "museum" blackness in their canvases gives way to an infinitely diverse play of reflexes and colored shadows. They immeasurably expanded the possibilities of fine art, opening not only the world of the sun, light and air, but also the beauty of the London fogs, the restless atmosphere of life. big city, scattering of its night lights and the rhythm of incessant movement.

By virtue of the very method of working in the open air, the landscape, including the urban landscape they discovered, occupied a very important place in the art of the Impressionists. However, it should not be assumed that their painting was characterized only by a "landscape" perception of reality, for which they were often reproached. The thematic and plot range of their work was quite wide. Interest in people, and especially in modern life France, in a broad sense, was inherent in a number of representatives of this direction. His life-affirming, basically democratic pathos clearly opposed the bourgeois world order.

At the same time, impressionism and, as we will see later, post-impressionism are two sides, or rather, two consecutive time stages of that fundamental change that marked the boundary between the art of modern and modern times. In this sense, impressionism, on the one hand, completes the development of everything after the Renaissance art, the leading principle of which was the reflection of the surrounding world in visually reliable forms of reality itself, and on the other hand, it is the beginning of the largest upheaval in the history of fine art after the Renaissance, which laid the foundations for a qualitatively new art. stage -

art of the twentieth century.

Impressionism is a trend in art that arose in the second half of the 19th century. His main goal was to convey fleeting, changeable impressions.

The emergence of impressionism is associated with science: with the latest discoveries of optics and color theory.

This direction affected almost all types of art, but it manifested itself most clearly in painting, where the transfer of color and light was the basis of the work of impressionist artists.

Term meaning

Impressionism(fr. Impressionnisme) from impression - impression). This style of painting appeared in France in the late 1860s. He was represented by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley, Jean Frederic Bazille. But the term itself appeared in 1874, when Monet's painting “Impression. Rising Sun (1872). In the title of the painting, Monet meant that he conveys only his fleeting impression of the landscape.

C. Monet “Impression. Sunrise" (1872). Marmottan Monet Museum, Paris
Later, the term "impressionism" in painting began to be understood more broadly: a careful study of nature in terms of color and lighting. The goal of the Impressionists was to depict instantaneous, as it were, “random” situations and movements. To do this, they used various techniques: complex angles, asymmetry, fragmentation of compositions. The picture of the Impressionist artists becomes, as it were, a frozen moment of a constantly changing world.

The artistic method of the Impressionists

The most popular genres of the Impressionists are landscapes and scenes from urban life. They were always written "in the open air", i.e. directly from nature, in nature, without sketches and preliminary sketches. The Impressionists noticed and were able to convey colors and shades on canvas, usually invisible to the naked eye and an inattentive viewer. For example, transfer of blue color in the shadows or pink - at sunset. They decomposed complex tones into their constituent pure colors of the spectrum. From this, their painting turned out to be light and quivering. Impressionist painters applied paint in separate strokes, in a free and even careless manner, so their paintings are best viewed from a distance - it is with this look that the effect of a lively flickering of colors is created.
The Impressionists abandoned the contour, replacing it with small separate and contrasting strokes.
K. Pissarro, A. Sisley and C. Monet preferred landscapes and urban scenes. O. Renoir liked to depict people in the bosom of nature or in the interior. French Impressionism did not raise philosophical and social issues. They did not turn to biblical, literary, mythological, historical subjects that were inherent in official academism. Instead, on the picturesque canvases appeared the image of everyday life and modernity; the image of people in motion, while relaxing or having fun. Their main subjects are flirting, dancing, people in cafes and theaters, boat trips, beaches and gardens.
The Impressionists tried to catch a fleeting impression, the smallest changes in each subject, depending on the lighting and time of day. In this regard, Monet's cycles of paintings "Haystacks", " Rouen Cathedral and Parliament of London.

C. Monet "Cathedral in Rouen in the sun" (1894). Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France
"Rouen Cathedral" is a series of 30 paintings by Claude Monet, which represent views of the cathedral depending on the time of day, year and lighting. This cycle was written by the artist in the 1890s. The cathedral allowed him to show the relationship between the constant, solid structure of the building and the changing, easily playful light that changes our perception. Monet concentrates on individual fragments of the Gothic cathedral and chooses the portal, the tower of St. Martin and the tower of Albane. He is only interested in the play of light on stone.

C. Monet "Rouen Cathedral, West Portal, Foggy Weather" (1892). Musee d'Orsay, Paris

C. Monet “Rouen Cathedral, portal and tower, morning effect; white harmony" (1892-1893). Musee d'Orsay, Paris

C. Monet "Rouen Cathedral, portal and tower in the sun, harmony of blue and gold" (1892-1893). Musee d'Orsay, Paris
Following France, impressionist artists appeared in England and the USA (James Whistler), in Germany (Max Lieberman, Lovis Corinth), in Spain (Joaquin Sorolla), in Russia (Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov, Igor Grabar).

About the work of some impressionist artists

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Claude Monet, photograph 1899
French painter, one of the founders of impressionism. Born in Paris. He was fond of drawing since childhood, at the age of 15 he proved to be a talented cartoonist. TO landscape painting he was introduced by Eugene Boudin - french artist, a forerunner of Impressionism. Monet later entered the university at the Faculty of Arts, but became disillusioned and left him, enrolling in the painting studio of Charles Gleyre. In the studio, he met the artists Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille. They were practically peers, held similar views on art, and soon formed the backbone of the Impressionist group.
Monet's fame was brought by the portrait of Camille Donsier, written in 1866 ("Camille, or a portrait of a lady in a green dress"). Camilla in 1870 became the artist's wife.

C. Monet "Camilla" ("The Lady in Green") (1866). Kunsthalle, Bremen

C. Monet "Walk: Camille Monet with her son Jean (Woman with an umbrella)" (1875). National Gallery art, Washington
In 1912, doctors diagnosed K. Monet with a double cataract, he had to undergo two operations. Having lost the lens in his left eye, Monet regained his sight, but began to see ultraviolet as blue or purple color, which is why his paintings have acquired new colors. For example, when painting the famous "Water Lilies", Monet saw lilies bluish in the ultraviolet range, for other people they were just white.

C. Monet "Water Lilies"
The artist died on December 5, 1926 in Giverny and was buried in the local church cemetery.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

C. Pissarro "Self-portrait" (1873)

French painter, one of the first and most consistent representatives of impressionism.
Born on the island of St. Thomas (West Indies), in a bourgeois family of a Sephardic Jew and a native of the Dominican Republic. Until the age of 12 he lived in the West Indies, at the age of 25 he moved to Paris with his whole family. Here he studied at the School of Fine Arts and at the Academy of Suisse. His teachers were Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Charles-Francois Daubigny. He began with rural landscapes and views of Paris. Pissarro rendered strong influence on the Impressionists, independently developing many of the principles that formed the basis of their style of painting. He was friends with the artists Degas, Cezanne and Gauguin. Pizarro was the only participant in all 8 Impressionist exhibitions.
He died in 1903 in Paris. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Already in early works ah, the artist paid special attention to the image of illuminated objects in the air. Light and air have since become the leading theme in the work of Pissarro.

C. Pissarro “Boulevard Montmartre. Afternoon, sunny" (1897)
in 1890, Pizarro became interested in the technique of pointillism (separate application of strokes). But after a while he returned to his usual manner.
IN last years Camille Pissarro's eyesight deteriorated noticeably. But he continued to work and created a series of views of Paris, filled with artistic emotions.

K. Pissarro "Street in Rouen"
The unusual angle of some of his paintings is explained by the fact that the artist painted them from hotel rooms. This series was one of the highest achievements of Impressionism in the transfer of light and atmospheric effects.
Pissarro also painted in watercolor and created a series of etchings and lithographs.
Here are some of his interesting statements about the art of impressionism: “The Impressionists on the right way, their art is healthy, it's based on feelings and it's honest."
“Happy is he who can see beauty in ordinary things, where others see nothing!”

C. Pissarro "The First Frost" (1873)

Russian impressionism

Russian impressionism developed from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. It was influenced by the work of the French Impressionists. But Russian impressionism has a pronounced national specificity and in many respects does not coincide with the textbook ideas about classical French impressionism. Objectivity and materiality predominate in the painting of the Russian Impressionists. It has a greater load of meaning and less dynamization. Russian impressionism is closer than French impressionism to realism. french impressionists emphasized the impression of what they saw, and the Russians added a display internal state artist. The work was to be completed in one session.
Some incompleteness of Russian Impressionism creates the "awe of life" that was characteristic of them.
Impressionism includes the work of Russian artists: A. Arkhipov, I. Grabar, K. Korovin, F. Malyavin, N. Meshcherin, A. Murashko, V. Serov, A. Rylov and others.

V. Serov "Girl with peaches" (1887)

This picture is considered the standard of Russian impressionism in the portrait.

Valentin Serov "Girl with Peaches" (1887). Canvas, oil. 91×85 cm State Tretyakov Gallery
The picture was painted in the estate of Savva Ivanovich Mamontov in Abramtsevo, which he acquired from the daughter of the writer Sergei Aksakov in 1870. The portrait depicts 12-year-old Vera Mamontova. The girl is drawn sitting at the table; she is wearing a pink blouse with a dark blue bow; on the table is a knife, peaches and leaves.
“All I wanted was freshness, that special freshness that you always feel in nature and you don’t see in pictures. I wrote for more than a month and exhausted her, poor thing, to death, I really wanted to preserve the freshness of painting with complete completeness - that's how the old masters ”(V. Serov).

Impressionism in other art forms

In literature

In literature, impressionism as a separate trend did not take shape, but its features were reflected in naturalism And symbolism .

Edmond and Jules Goncourt. Photo
Principles naturalism can be traced in the novels of the Goncourt brothers and George Eliot. But Emile Zola was the first to use the term "naturalism" to refer to his own work. The writers Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet, Huysmans and Paul Alexis were grouped around Zola. After the publication of the collection Medan Evenings (1880) with frank stories about the disasters of the Franco-Prussian war (including Maupassant's story Dumpling), the name of the Medan group was assigned to them.

Emile Zola
The naturalistic principle in literature has often been criticized for its lack of artistry. For example, I. S. Turgenev wrote about one of Zola's novels that "there is a lot of digging in chamber pots." Gustave Flaubert was also critical of naturalism.
Zola supported friendly relations with many impressionist painters.
Symbolists used symbols, understatement, hints, mystery, mystery. The main mood captured by the symbolists was pessimism, reaching to despair. Everything “natural” seemed to be only “appearance”, which had no independent artistic value.
Thus, impressionism in literature was expressed by the author's private impression, the rejection of an objective picture of reality, the image of every moment. In fact, this led to the absence of plot and history, the replacement of thought with perception, and reason with instinct.

G. Courbet "Portrait of P. Verlaine" (circa 1866)
A striking example of poetic impressionism is Paul Verlaine's collection Romances Without Words (1874). In Russia, the influence of impressionism was experienced by Konstantin Balmont and Innokenty Annensky.

V. Serov "Portrait of K. Balmont" (1905)

Innokenty Annensky. Photo
These sentiments also affected dramaturgy. In the plays there is a passive perception of the world, an analysis of moods, mental states. Dialogues concentrate fleeting disparate impressions. These features are characteristic of the work of Arthur Schnitzler.

In music

Musical impressionism developed in France in the last quarter of the 19th century. - the beginning of the XX century. He expressed himself most clearly in the works of Eric Satie, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Eric Satie
Musical impressionism is close to impressionism in French painting. They have not only common roots, but also cause-and-effect relationships. Impressionist composers sought and found not only analogies, but also expressive means in the works of Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Puvis de Chavannes and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Of course, the means of painting and the means musical art can be connected with each other only with the help of special, subtle associative parallels that exist only in consciousness. If you look at the blurry image of Paris "in the autumn rain" and the same sounds, "muffled by the noise of falling drops", then here you can only talk about the property artistic image but not the real picture.

Claude Debussy
Debussy writes "Clouds", "Prints" (the most figurative of which, a watercolor sound sketch - "Gardens in the rain"), "Images", "Reflections on the water", which evoke direct associations with the famous painting by Claude Monet "Impression: Sunrise ". According to Mallarmé, the Impressionist composers learned to “hear the light”, to convey in sounds the movement of water, the vibration of leaves, the breath of wind and the refraction of sunlight in the evening air.

Maurice Ravel
M. Ravel has direct connections between painting and music in his sound-pictorial "The Game of Water", the cycle of pieces "Reflections", the piano collection "Rustle of the Night".
The Impressionists created works of refined art and at the same time clear in expressive means, emotionally restrained, conflict-free and strict in style.

In sculpture

O. Rodin "The Kiss"

Impressionism in sculpture was expressed in the free plasticity of soft forms, which creates difficult game light on the surface of the material and a feeling of incompleteness. In the poses of the sculptural characters, the moment of movement and development is captured.

O. Rodin. Photograph 1891
This direction includes sculptural work O. Rodin (France), Medardo Rosso (Italy), P.P. Trubetskoy (Russia).

V. Serov "Portrait of Paolo Trubetskoy"

Pavel (Paolo) Trubetskoy(1866-1938) - sculptor and artist, worked in Italy, USA, England, Russia and France. Born in Italy. Illegitimate son Russian emigrant, Prince Pyotr Petrovich Trubetskoy.
Since childhood, I have been sculpting and painting on my own. He had no education. In the initial period of his work, he created portrait busts, works small plastic, participated in competitions for the creation of large sculptures.

P. Trubetskoy "Monument Alexander III", Saint Petersburg
The first exhibition of Paolo Trubetskoy's works took place in the USA in 1886. In 1899 the sculptor came to Russia. He takes part in the competition for the creation of a monument to Alexander III and, unexpectedly for everyone, receives the first prize. This monument caused and continues to cause conflicting assessments. It is hard to imagine a more static and heavy monument. And only a positive assessment of the imperial family allowed the monument to take the appropriate place - they found similarities with the original in the sculptural image.
Critics believed that Trubetskoy worked in the spirit of "obsolete impressionism".

Trubetskoy’s image of the brilliant Russian writer turned out to be more “impressionistic”: there is clearly movement here - in the folds of the shirt, the flowing beard, the turn of the head, there is even a feeling that the sculptor managed to catch the tension of L. Tolstoy’s thought.

P. Trubetskoy "Bust of Leo Tolstoy" (bronze). State Tretyakov Gallery

There is an opinion that painting in impressionism occupies not such an important place. But impressionism in painting is the opposite. The statement is very paradoxical and contradictory. But this is only at first, superficial glance.

Perhaps, that for all the millennia of existence in the arsenal of mankind of artistic fine art, nothing more new, revolutionary has appeared. Impressionism is in any modern art canvas. It can be clearly seen both in the frames of the film of the famous master, and among the gloss of a ladies' magazine. He penetrated music and books. But once upon a time everything was different.

Origins of Impressionism

In 1901, in France, in the Combarel cave, they accidentally discovered cave drawings, the youngest of which was 15,000 years old. And it was the first impressionism in painting. Because the primitive artist did not set out to read morality to the viewer. He simply painted the life that surrounded him.

And then this method was forgotten for many, many years. Mankind has invented others And the transfer of emotions by the visual method has ceased to be topical for him.

In some ways, the ancient Romans were close to impressionism. But part of their efforts were covered in ashes. And where Vesuvius did not reach, the barbarians came.

Painting was preserved, but began to illustrate texts, messages, messages, knowledge. She ceased to be a feeling. It has become a parable, an explanation, a story. Look at the tapestry from Bayeux. He is wonderful and priceless. But this is not a picture. This is seventy meters of linen comics.

Painting in impressionism: the beginning

Slowly and majestically developed painting in the world for thousands of years. New colors and techniques appeared. Artists learned the importance of perspective and the power of a colorful hand-drawn message on the human mind. Painting became an academic science and acquired all the features of monumental art. She became clumsy, prim and moderately pretentious. At the same time, refined and unshakable, like a canonical religious postulate.

Religious parables, literature, staged genre scenes served as the source of plots for the paintings. The strokes were small and inconspicuous. Glazing was introduced into the rank of dogma. And the art of drawing in the foreseeable future promised to ossify like a primeval forest.

Life was changing, technology was rapidly developing, and only artists continued to churn out prim portraits and smoothed sketches of country parks. This state of affairs did not suit everyone. But the inertia of the consciousness of society was overcome with difficulty at all times.

However, the 19th century was already in the yard, having long passed its second half. Social processes that used to take centuries now took place before the eyes of one generation. Industry, medicine, economics, literature, and society itself developed rapidly. It was then that painting showed itself in impressionism.

Happy birthday! Impressionism in painting: paintings

Impressionism in painting, like paintings, has an exact dating of its birth - 1863. And his birth was not without curiosities.

The center of world art then, of course, was Paris. It annually hosted large Parisian salons - world exhibitions and sales of paintings. The jury, which selected works for the salons, was mired in petty internal intrigues, useless squabbles and stubbornly oriented towards the senile tastes of the then academies. As a result, new ones did not get into the salon at the exhibition, bright artists, whose talent did not correspond to the ossified academic dogmas. During the selection of participants in the exhibition in 1863, over 60% of applications were rejected. These are thousands of painters. A scandal was brewing.

Emperor-gallery

And the scandal erupted. The inability to exhibit deprived the livelihood and closed access to the general public a huge number artists. Among them are the names now known to the whole world: Monet and Manet, Renoir and Pizarro.

It is clear that this did not suit them. And there was a big buzz in the press. It got to the point that on April 22, 1863, Napoleon III visited the Paris Salon and, in addition to the exposition, purposefully examined some of the rejected works. And I did not find anything reprehensible in them. And even made this statement in the press. That is why, in parallel with the great Paris Salon, an alternative exhibition of paintings with works rejected by the salon jury was opened. It went down in history under the name "Exhibition of Outcasts".

So, April 22, 1863 can be considered the birthday of all modern art. Art that has become independent of literature, music and religion. Moreover, painting itself began to dictate its terms to writers and composers, for the first time getting rid of subordinate roles.

Representatives of impressionism

When we talk about impressionism, we first of all mean impressionism in painting. Its representatives are numerous and multifaceted. Suffice it to name the most famous: Degas, Renouan, Pizarro, Cezanne, Morisot, Lepic, Legros, Gauguin, Renoir, Thilo, Forain and many, many others. For the first time, the Impressionists set the task of capturing not just a static picture from life, but snatching a feeling, an emotion, an inner experience. It was an instant cut, a high-speed photograph of the inner world, the emotional world.

Hence the new contrasts and colors, hitherto not used in painting. Hence the large, bold strokes and the constant search for new forms. There is no former clarity and slickness. The picture is blurry and fleeting, like a person's mood. This is not history. These are the feelings visible to the eye. Look at them. They are all a little cut off in mid-sentence, a little fleeting. These are not paintings. These are sketches brought to ingenious perfection.

The emergence of post-impressionism

It was the desire to bring a feeling to the fore, and not a frozen temporal fragment, that was revolutionary and innovative for that time. And then there was only one step left to post-impressionism - a trend of art that brought to the fore not emotion, but patterns. More precisely, the transfer by the artist of his inner, personal reality. This is an attempt to talk about outside world but rather about the inner way of how the artist sees the world. perception.

Impressionism and post-impressionism in painting are very close. And the division itself is very conditional. Both currents are close in time, and the authors themselves, often the same, as a rule, moved from one style to another quite freely.

And yet. Look at the work of the Impressionists. Slightly unnatural colors. A world familiar to us, but at the same time a little fictional. This is how the artist saw it. He does not give us a nature contemporary to him. He just bares his soul a little for us. The soul of Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Denis, Gauguin and Seurat.

Russian impressionism

The experience of impressionism, which captured the whole world, did not leave Russia aside either. Meanwhile, in our country, accustomed to a more measured life, not understanding the bustle and aspirations of Paris, impressionism could not get rid of academicism. He is like a bird that took off on takeoff, but froze halfway into the sky.

Impressionism in Russian painting did not receive the dynamism of the French brush. On the other hand, he acquired a dressed up semantic dominant, which made him a bright, somewhat isolated phenomenon in world art.

Impressionism is a feeling expressed in the form of a painting. He does not educate, does not demand. He claims.

Impressionism served Starting point for modern and expressionism, constructivism and avant-garde. All modern Art, in fact, began its report from the distant April 20, 1863. Impressionist painting is an art born in Paris.

The phrase "Russian Impressionism" only a year ago cut the ear of the average citizen of our vast country. Every educated person knows about light, light and swift french impressionism, can distinguish Monet from Manet and recognize Van Gogh's sunflowers from all still lifes. Someone heard something about the American branch of the development of this direction of painting - more urban compared to the French landscapes of Hassam and portraits of Chase. But researchers argue about the existence of Russian impressionism to this day.

Konstantin Korovin

The history of Russian impressionism began with the painting "Portrait of a chorus girl" by Konstantin Korovin, as well as with misunderstanding and condemnation of the public. When I first saw this work, I. E. Repin did not immediately believe that the work was done by a Russian painter: “Spaniard! I see. Boldly, juicy writes. Wonderful. But it's just painting for painting's sake. Spaniard, however, with temperament ... ". Konstantin Alekseevich himself began to paint his canvases in an impressionistic manner back in student years, being unfamiliar with the paintings of Cezanne, Monet and Renoir, long before his trip to France. Only thanks to Polenov's experienced eye did Korovin learn that he was using the technique of the French of that time, which he came to intuitively. At the same time, the Russian artist is given the subjects that he uses for his paintings - the recognized masterpiece "Northern Idyll", written in 1892 and stored in Tretyakov Gallery, shows us Korovin's love for Russian traditions and folklore. This love was instilled in the artist by the "Mammoth Circle" - a community of creative intelligentsia, which included Repin, Polenov, Vasnetsov, Vrubel and many other friends. famous philanthropist Savva Mamontov. In Abramtsevo, where the Mamontov estate was located and where members of the artistic circle, Korovin was lucky to meet and work with Valentin Serov. Thanks to this acquaintance, the work of the already accomplished artist Serov acquired the features of light, bright and impetuous impressionism, which we see in one of his early works - “Open Window. Lilac".

Portrait of a chorus girl, 1883

Northern idyll, 1886

Bird cherry, 1912

Gurzuf 2, 1915

Pier in Gurzuf, 1914

Paris, 1933

Valentin Serov

Serov's painting is permeated with a feature inherent only in Russian impressionism - his paintings reflect not only the impression of what the artist saw, but also the state of his soul in this moment. For example, in the painting "St. Mark's Square in Venice", painted in Italy, where Serov went to in 1887 due to a serious illness, cold gray tones, which gives us an idea of ​​the state of the artist. But, despite the rather gloomy palette, the picture is a reference impressionistic work, since on it Serov managed to capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey his fleeting impressions. In a letter to his bride from Venice, Serov wrote: “In this century they write everything heavy, nothing encouraging. I want, I want what is gratifying, and I will write only what is gratifying.”

Open window. Lilac, 1886

St. Mark's Square in Venice, 1887

Girl with peaches (Portrait of V. S. Mamontova)

Coronation. Confirmation of Nicholas II in the Assumption Cathedral, 1896

Girl illuminated by the sun, 1888

Bathing a horse, 1905

Alexander Gerasimov

One of the students of Korovin and Serov, who adopted their expressive brushstroke, bright palette and etude style of writing, was Alexander Mikhailovich Gerasimov. The heyday of the artist's work came at the time of the revolution, which could not but be reflected in the plots of his paintings. Despite the fact that Gerasimov gave his brush to the service of the party and became famous for his outstanding portraits of Lenin and Stalin, he continued to work on impressionistic landscapes that were close to his soul. The work of Alexander Mikhailovich “After the Rain” reveals to us the artist as a master of conveying air and light in the picture, which Gerasimov owes to the influence of his eminent mentors.

Artists at Stalin's dacha, 1951

Stalin and Voroshilov in the Kremlin, 1950s

After the rain. Wet Terrace, 1935

Still life. field bouquet, 1952

Igor Grabar

In a conversation about late Russian impressionism, one cannot but turn to the work of the great artist Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar, who adopted many techniques French painters second half of XIX century thanks to his numerous trips to Europe. Using the techniques of the classical impressionists, Grabar depicts absolutely Russian landscape motifs and everyday scenes in his paintings. While Monet paints blooming gardens Giverny, and Degas - beautiful ballerinas, Grabar depicts the harsh Russian winter with the same pastel colors and village life. Most of all, Grabar liked to depict frost on his canvases and dedicated a whole collection of works to him, consisting of more than a hundred small multi-colored sketches created at different times of the day and in different weather. The difficulty of working on such drawings was that the paint hardened in the cold, so I had to work quickly. But this is precisely what allowed the artist to recreate “that very moment” and convey his impression of it, which is the main idea of ​​classical impressionism. Often the painting style of Igor Emmanuilovich is called scientific impressionism, because he gave great importance light and air on the canvases and created many studies on the transfer of color. Moreover, it is to him that we owe the chronological arrangement of paintings in the Tretyakov Gallery, of which he was director in 1920-1925.

Birch alley, 1940

Winter landscape, 1954

Hoarfrost, 1905

Pears on a blue tablecloth, 1915

Corner of the estate (Ray of the sun), 1901

Yuri Pimenov

Completely non-classical, but still, impressionism developed in the Soviet era, a prominent representative of which is Yuri Ivanovich Pimenov, who came to the image of a “fleeting impression in pastel colors” after working in the style of expressionism. One of the most famous works Pimenov becomes the painting "New Moscow" of the 1930s - light, warm, as if painted with Renoir's airy strokes. But at the same time, the plot of this work is completely incompatible with one of the main ideas of impressionism - the rejection of the use of social and political themes. "New Moscow" by Pimenov just perfectly reflects social change in the life of the city, which have always inspired the artist. “Pimenov loves Moscow, its new, its people. The painter generously gives this feeling to the viewer,” wrote artist and researcher Igor Dolgopolov in 1973. And indeed, looking at the paintings of Yuri Ivanovich, we are imbued with love for Soviet life, new neighborhoods, lyrical housewarming and urbanism, captured in the technique of impressionism.

Pimenov's work proves once again that everything "Russian", brought from other countries, has its own special and unique path of development. So French impressionism in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union absorbed the features of the Russian worldview, national character and way of life. Impressionism, as a way of conveying only the perception of reality in its pure form, remained alien to Russian art, because every painting by Russian artists is filled with meaning, awareness, the state of the changeable Russian soul, and not just a fleeting impression. Therefore, next weekend, when the Museum of Russian Impressionism will re-present the main exposition to Muscovites and guests of the capital, everyone will find something for themselves among the sensual portraits of Serov, Pimenov's urbanism and landscapes atypical for Kustodiev.

New Moscow

Lyrical housewarming, 1965

Wardrobe Bolshoi Theater, 1972

Early morning in Moscow, 1961

Paris. Rue Saint-Dominique. 1958

Stewardess, 1964

Perhaps, for most people, the names of Korovin, Serov, Gerasimov and Pimenov are still not associated with a certain style of art, but the Museum of Russian Impressionism, which opened in May 2016 in Moscow, nevertheless collected the works of these artists under one roof.