Romanticism in literature and fine arts. Romanticism in European painting - presentation on the Moscow Art Exhibition

Romanticism, having replaced the Age of Enlightenment and passing through sentimentalism, established itself in European culture at the end of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries.

This ideological and artistic direction was opposite to classicism and the Enlightenment. And the harbinger of romanticism was sentimentalism. The birthplace of romanticism is Germany.

Philosophy of Romanticism

Romanticism affirmed the cult of nature, feelings and the natural in man. But, you may object, this is also what sentimentalism asserted. So what is the difference between them?
Yes, the protest against lack of spirituality and selfishness is already reflected in sentimentalism. Romanticism expresses this rejection most acutely. Romanticism in general is a more complex and contradictory phenomenon than sentimentalism. If in sentimentalism the ideal is the soul of a common man, which sentimentalists see not only equal to the soul of an aristocrat, but sometimes higher and nobler, then romanticism is interested not only in virtue, but also in evil, which it even tries to ennoble; he is also interested in the dialectic of good and evil in man (remember the main character of M.Yu. Lermontov’s novel “A Hero of Our Time”).

M. Vrubel. Illustration for Lermontov’s novel “Hero of Our Time.” Duel between Pechorin and Grushnitsky

Romantic poets began to use images of angels, especially fallen ones, in their works. For example, interest in the image of a demon: several poems and the poem “Demon” by Lermontov; a cycle of paintings dedicated to the demon by M. Vrubel.

M. Vrubel “The Seated Demon”
The Romantics sought to unravel the mystery of human existence, turning to nature, trusting their religious and poetic feelings. But at the same time, romanticism even tries to rethink religion.
The romantic hero is a complex, passionate personality, with a deep but contradictory inner world - this is a whole universe. M.Yu. Lermontov said so in his novel: “The history of the human soul, even the smallest soul, is almost more interesting and useful than the history of an entire people.” The characteristic features of romanticism were an interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and the secret movements of the soul.
Another feature of romanticism is its interest in folklore, myth, and fairy tales. In Russian romanticism, especially popular genres are the ballad and romantic drama. Thanks to Zhukovsky's translations, Russian readers became acquainted with ballads, I.V. Goethe, F. Schiller, W. Scott, and after that many poets turned to the ballad genre: A.S. Pushkin (“Song of the Prophetic Oleg”, “The Drowned”), M.Yu. Lermontov (“Airship”, “Mermaid”), A.K. Tolstoy and others. And another genre of literature has established itself in Russia, thanks to V. Zhukovsky - elegy.
Romantics were interested in various historical eras, their uniqueness, as well as exotic and mysterious countries and circumstances. The creation of the genre of historical novel is also the merit of romanticism. The founder of the historical novel is W. Scott, but this genre is further developed in the works of F. Cooper, A. Vigny, V. Hugo and others.
And another feature of romanticism (by no means the only one) is the creation of its own, special world, more beautiful and real than reality. The romantic hero lives in this world, passionately defending his freedom and believing that he does not obey the rules of the outside world, but only his own rules.
During the era of romanticism, literature flourished. But, unlike the literature of sentimentalism, this literature did not fence itself off from social and political problems.

I.K. Aivazovsky, I.E. Repin “Pushkin’s Farewell to the Sea” (1877)
A significant place in the work of the romantics (in all types of art) is occupied by landscape - first of all, the sea, mountains, sky, stormy elements with which the hero has 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.

I. Aivazovsky “The Ninth Wave” (1850). State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
In different countries, the fate of romanticism had its own characteristics.

Romanticism in painting

T. Gericault

Many artists from different European countries painted in the style of romanticism. But for a long time, romanticism was in a struggle with classicism. And only after the appearance of Theodore Gericault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa,” which was considered innovative, adherents of the academic style recognized romanticism as a new artistic direction in art, although the painting was initially received with disapproval. But it was this picture that marked the beginning of French romanticism. The traditions of classicism were strong in France, and the new direction had to overcome opposition.

T. Gericault “The Raft of the Medusa” (1819). Canvas, oil. 491 x 716 cm. Louvre (Paris)
The plot of the film is the story of the frigate "Medusa", which, due to the incompetence of the captain, crashed off the coast of Senegal in 1816. 140 passengers and crew members tried to escape by landing on the raft. Only on the 12th day they were picked up by the brig Argus, but only 15 people survived. In 1817, two of them, engineer Correard and surgeon Henri Savigny, would write a book about this tragedy.
Theodore Gericault, like many others, was shocked by what happened to Medusa. He talks with eyewitnesses of the event, makes sketches of the executed and dying, and writes hundreds of sketches of the raging sea. And although the painting is distinguished by its monochrome color, its main advantage is the deep psychologism of the situation depicted on the canvas.
Another leader of the romantic trend in European painting was the French painter and graphic artist Eugene Delacroix.

Eugene Delacroix "Self-Portrait" (1837)
His painting “Liberty Leading the People” (1830) was created based on the July Revolution of 1830, which put an end to the Restoration regime of the Bourbon monarchy.
The woman depicted in the center of the picture symbolizes freedom. On her head is a Phrygian cap (a symbol of freedom or revolution), in her right hand is the flag of Republican France, in her left is a gun. The bare chest symbolizes the dedication of the French of that time, who went bare-chested against the enemy. Around Liberty is a worker, a bourgeois, a teenager, who symbolize the unity of the French people during the July Revolution. Some art historians and critics suggest that the artist depicted himself as a man in a top hat to the left of the main character.

O. Kiprensky “Self-portrait” (1828)
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782-1836) - famous Russian artist, graphic artist and painter, master of portraiture.

O. Kiprensky “Portrait of A.S. Pushkin" (1827). Canvas, oil. 63 x 54 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery (Moscow)
This is perhaps the most famous portrait of Pushkin, commissioned from the artist by Pushkin’s friend, Delvig. On the canvas, Pushkin is depicted waist-deep, with his arms crossed on his chest. A checkered Scottish plaid is draped over the poet’s right shoulder—it is with this detail that the artist denotes Pushkin’s connection with Byron, the idol of the era of romanticism.

K. Bryullov “Self-portrait” (1848)
The work of the Russian artist K. Bryullov is classified as academic, but some of his paintings are the pinnacle of late Russian romanticism, with their sense of tragedy and conflict in life, interest in strong passions, extraordinary themes and situations, and in the destinies of huge human masses.

K. Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii” (1830-1833). Canvas, oil. 465.5 x 651 cm. State Russian Museum (St. Petersburg)
Bryullov combined in the picture dramatic action, romantic lighting effects and sculptural, classically perfect plasticity of figures.
The painting depicts the famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. e. and the destruction of the city of Pompeii near Naples. “The Last Day of Pompeii” illustrates the romanticism of Russian painting, mixed with idealism, increased interest in plein air and gravitating towards similar historical subjects. The deep psychologism characteristic of romanticism helps to see a personality in each character: respectable and selfless (a group of people in the lower right corner of the picture carrying an elderly man), greedy (a figure in white carrying someone’s property stolen on the sly), loving (the young man on the right side painting, trying to save his beloved), devotee (mother hugging her daughters in the lower left corner of the painting), etc.
The artist's image in the left corner of the painting is a self-portrait of the author.
And here is the artist's brother, Bryullov Alexander Pavlovich, was a representative of romanticism in architecture (although he was also an artist).

A. Bryullov “Self-portrait” (1830)
He created projects for buildings in St. Petersburg and its environs.

The building of the Mikhailovsky Theater was also built according to the design of A. Bryullov.

Orthodox Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in the village of Pargolovo (now the territory of St. Petersburg)

Romanticism in music

M. Wodzinskaya “Portrait of F. Chopin” (1835)

Having developed in the 1820s, romanticism in music captured the entire 19th century. and is represented by a whole galaxy of talented composers, of whom it is even difficult to single out one or more, so as not to offend others. Therefore, we will try to name as many names as possible. The most prominent representatives of romanticism in music are Franz Schubert, Franz Liszt, as well as the late romantics Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler (Austria-Hungary); Ludwig van Beethoven (partly), Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, Anna Maria Weber, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn (Germany); Frederic Chopin (Poland); Niccolo Paganini, Vincenzo Bellini, early Giuseppe Verdi (Italy); A. A. Alyabyev, M. I. Glinka, A. S. Dargomyzhsky, M.A. Balakirev, N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, M.P. Mussorgsky, A.P. Borodin, Ts.A. Cui, P. I. Tchaikovsky (Russia).

J. Kriehuber “Portrait of R. Schumann” (1849)
Romantic composers tried to express the depth and richness of a person’s inner world with the help of musical means. The music becomes more prominent and individual. Song genres are being developed, including ballads.

P.I. Chaikovsky
Romantic music, like other types of romantic art, is characterized by a deep interest in the human personality, the predominance of a personal tone in the music. Often musical works had a touch of autobiography, which brought special sincerity to the music. For example, many of Schumann's piano works are connected with the story of his love for Clara Wieck. Wagner emphasized the autobiographical nature of his operas. The music of Chopin, who expressed his longing for his homeland (Poland) in his mazurkas, polonaises, and ballads, can also be called autobiographical. P.I., who deeply loved Russia and Russian nature. Tchaikovsky paints pictures of nature in many of his works, and the cycle of piano pieces “The Seasons” is entirely dedicated to it.

Romanticism in literature

Brothers Grimm: Wilhelm and Jacob

Romanticism first arose in Germany, among the writers and philosophers of the Jena school. This is a group of figures of the romantic movement who gathered in 1796 in the university city of Jena (brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck, Novalis). They begin to publish the Athenaeum magazine, where they formulate their own aesthetic program of romanticism. Subsequently, German romanticism was distinguished by its interest in fairy-tale and mythological motifs (the works of the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, Hoffmann).

R. Westall "Portrait of Byron"
A prominent representative of English romanticism is D.G. Byron, who, in the words of A.S. Pushkin was “clothed in dull romanticism and hopeless egoism.” His work is imbued with the pathos of struggle and protest against the modern world, glorifying freedom and individualism.
English romanticism includes the works of Shelley, John Keats, and William Blake.

Prosper Merimee
Romanticism became widespread in other European countries. In France, its representatives are Chateaubriand, J. Stael, Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Vigny, Prosper Merimee, George Sand. In Italy - N.U. Foscolo, A. Manzoni. In Poland - Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki and others, in the USA - Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry Longfellow and others.

Adam Mickiewicz

Romanticism in Russian literature

K. Bryullov “Portrait of V. Zhukovsky”

Romantic poets include K. N. Batyushkov, E. A. Baratynsky, N. M. Yazykov. The early poetry of A. S. Pushkin is within the framework of romanticism. The poetry of M. Yu. Lermontov, who was called the “Russian Byron,” is considered the pinnacle of Russian romanticism.

P. Zabolotsky. “Portrait of M.Yu. Lermontov in the mentique of the Life Guards Hussar Regiment" (1837)
Personality and soul are the main realities of existence for Lermontov, the study of personality and the human soul is the main theme of his works. Exploring the origins of good and evil, Lermontov comes to the conclusion that both good and evil exist not outside a person, but within him. Therefore, it is impossible to hope that a person will change for the better as a result of changing the world. Hence the poet’s almost complete absence of calls to fight for social justice. Lermontov’s main attention is to the human soul and his spiritual path.
The philosophical lyrics of F. I. Tyutchev complete romanticism in Russia.

F. I. Tyutchev (1860-1861). Photo by S. Levitsky
F.I. Tyutchev did not consider himself a poet (he served as a diplomat), but all his poetry is autobiographical and full of philosophical reflections about the world and man in it, about the contradictions that torment the human soul, about the meaning of life and death.

Be silent, hide and hide
And your feelings and dreams -
Let it be in the depths of your soul
They get up and go in
Silently, like stars in the night, -
Admire them - and be silent.

How can the heart express itself?
How can someone else understand you?
Will he understand what you live for?
A spoken thought is a lie.
Exploding, you will disturb the keys, -
Feed on them - and be silent.

Just know how to live within yourself -
There is a whole world in your soul
Mysteriously magical thoughts;
They will be deafened by the outside noise,
Daylight rays will disperse, -
Listen to their singing - and be silent!..
_______________
* Silence! (lat.)

We have already said more than once that an artist, poet or composer does not always work in one particular artistic style. In addition, the artistic style does not always fit into a certain time period. Thus, features of any artistic style can be found at any time. Sometimes it’s fashion (for example, just recently the Empire style has suddenly become popular again), sometimes it’s the artist’s need for just this way of self-expression.

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

Romanticism in European painting

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

Contents of Romantic Art

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

"Oh, let me bleed,

But give me space quickly.

I'm scared to suffocate here,

In the damned world of traders...

No, better is a vile vice,

Robbery, violence, robbery,

Than accountant morality

And the virtue of well-fed faces.

Hey little cloud, take me away

Take it with you on a long journey,

To Lapland, or to Africa,

Or at least to Stettin - somewhere!

G. Heine

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

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

Romanticism in fine arts

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck!

Examination essay

Subject: "Romanticism as a movement in art."

Performed student of class 11 "B" of school No. 3

Boyright Anna

World Art Teacher

culture Butsu T.N.

Brest 2002

1. Introduction

2. Reasons for the emergence of romanticism

3. Main features of romanticism

4. Romantic hero

5. Romanticism in Russia

a) Literature

b) Painting

c) Music

6. Western European romanticism

a) Painting

b) Music

7. Conclusion

8. References

1. INTRODUCTION

If you look into the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, you can find several meanings of the word “romanticism”: 1. A movement in literature and art of the first quarter of the 19th century, characterized by the idealization of the past, isolation from reality, and the cult of personality and man. 2. A movement in literature and art, imbued with optimism and the desire to show in vivid images the high purpose of man. 3. A state of mind imbued with an idealization of reality and dreamy contemplation.

As can be seen from the definition, romanticism is a phenomenon that manifests itself not only in art, but also in behavior, clothing, lifestyle, psychology of people and arises at turning points in life, therefore the topic of romanticism is still relevant today. We live at the turn of the century, we are in a transitional stage. In this regard, in society there is a lack of faith in the future, a loss of faith in ideals, a desire arises to escape from the surrounding reality into the world of one’s own experiences and at the same time to comprehend it. It is these features that are characteristic of romantic art. That’s why I chose the topic “Romanticism as a movement in art” for research.

Romanticism is a very large layer of different types of art. The purpose of my work is to trace the conditions of origin and reasons for the emergence of romanticism in different countries, to explore the development of romanticism in such forms of art as literature, painting and music, and to compare them. The main task for me was to highlight the main features of romanticism, characteristic of all types of art, to determine what influence romanticism had on the development of other movements in art.

When developing the topic, I used textbooks on art, authors such as Filimonova, Vorotnikov and others, encyclopedic publications, monographs dedicated to various authors of the Romantic era, biographical materials of such authors as Aminskaya, Atsarkina, Nekrasova and others.

2. REASONS FOR THE ARISE OF ROMANTICISM

The closer we get to modern times, the shorter the periods of dominance of one style or another become. The time period of the end of the 18th-1st third of the 19th centuries. is considered to be the era of romanticism (from the French Romantique; something mysterious, strange, unreal)

What influenced the emergence of the new style?

These are three main events: the Great French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of the national liberation movement in Europe.

The thunder of Paris echoed throughout Europe. The slogan “Freedom, equality, brotherhood!” had enormous attractive power for all European peoples. As bourgeois societies formed, the working class began to act against the feudal order as an independent force. The opposing struggle of three classes - the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat formed the basis of the historical development of the 19th century.

The fate of Napoleon and his role in European history for 2 decades, 1796-1815, occupied the minds of his contemporaries. “The ruler of thoughts,” A.S. said about him. Pushkin.

For France, these were years of greatness and glory, albeit at the cost of the lives of thousands of Frenchmen. Italy saw Napoleon as its liberator. The Poles had great hopes for him.

Napoleon acted as a conqueror acting in the interests of the French bourgeoisie. For European monarchs, he was not only a military opponent, but also a representative of the alien world of the bourgeoisie. They hated him. At the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, his “Great Army” included many direct participants in the revolution.

The personality of Napoleon himself was phenomenal. The young man Lermontov responded to the 10th anniversary of Napoleon’s death:

He is alien to the world. Everything about him was a secret

The day of exaltation - and the hour of fall!

This mystery especially attracted the attention of romantics.

In connection with the Napoleonic wars and the maturation of national self-awareness, this period was characterized by the rise of the national liberation movement. Germany, Austria, Spain fought against the Napoleonic occupation, Italy - against the Austrian yoke, Greece - against Turkey, in Poland they fought against Russian tsarism, Ireland - against the British.

Amazing changes have taken place before the eyes of one generation.

France was seething most of all: the stormy five years of the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Robespierre, Napoleonic campaigns, Napoleon’s first abdication, his return from the island of Elba (“one hundred days”) and the final

the defeat at Waterloo, the gloomy 15th anniversary of the restoration regime, the July Revolution of 1860, the February Revolution of 1848 in Paris, which caused a revolutionary wave in other countries.

In England, as a result of the industrial revolution in the 2nd half of the 19th century. machine production and capitalist relations were established. The parliamentary reform of 1832 cleared the path for the bourgeoisie to state power.

In the lands of Germany and Austria, feudal rulers retained power. After the fall of Napoleon, they dealt harshly with the opposition. But even on German soil, the steam locomotive, brought from England in 1831, became a factor in bourgeois progress.

Industrial revolutions and political revolutions changed the face of Europe. “The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and colossal productive forces than all previous generations combined,” wrote the German scientists Marx and Engels in 1848.

So, the Great French Revolution (1789-1794) marked a special milestone separating the new era from the Age of Enlightenment. Not only the forms of the state, the social structure of society, and the arrangement of classes changed. The entire system of ideas, illuminated for centuries, was shaken. The Enlighteners ideologically prepared the revolution. But they could not foresee all its consequences. The “kingdom of reason” did not take place. The revolution, which proclaimed individual freedom, gave rise to the bourgeois order, the spirit of acquisition and selfishness. Such was the historical basis for the development of artistic culture, which put forward a new direction - romanticism.

3. MAIN FEATURES OF ROMANTICism

Romanticism as a method and direction in artistic culture was a complex and contradictory phenomenon. In every country it had a strong national expression. In literature, music, painting and theater it is not easy to find features that unite Chateaubriand and Delacroix, Mickiewicz and Chopin, Lermontov and Kiprensky.

Romantics occupied different social and political positions in society. They all rebelled against the results of the bourgeois revolution, but they rebelled in different ways, since each had their own ideal. But for all its many faces and diversity, romanticism has stable features.

Disillusionment with modernity gave rise to a special interest in the past: to pre-bourgeois social formations, to patriarchal antiquity. Many romantics had the idea that the picturesque exoticism of the countries of the south and east - Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey - was a poetic contrast to the boring bourgeois everyday life. In these countries, then little touched by civilization, romantics looked for bright, strong characters, an original, colorful way of life. Interest in the national past has given rise to a lot of historical works.

Striving to rise above the prose of existence, to liberate the diverse abilities of the individual, to achieve maximum self-realization in creativity, the romantics opposed the formalization of art and the straightforward and reasonable approach to it, characteristic of classicism. They all came from denial of the Enlightenment and the rationalistic canons of classicism, which fettered the artist’s creative initiative. And if classicism divides everything in a straight line, into good and bad, into black and white, then romanticism divides nothing in a straight line. Classicism is a system, but romanticism is not. Romanticism advanced the advancement of modern times from classicism to sentimentalism, which shows the inner life of man in harmony with the wider world. And romanticism contrasts harmony with the inner world. It is with romanticism that real psychologism begins to appear.

The main goal of romanticism was image of the inner world, spiritual life, and this could be done on the material of stories, mysticism, etc. It was necessary to show the paradox of this inner life, its irrationality.

In their imagination, romantics transformed the unsightly reality or retreated into the world of their experiences. The gap between dream and reality, the opposition of beautiful fiction to objective reality, lay at the heart of the entire romantic movement.

Romanticism first raised the problem of the language of art. “Art is a language of a completely different kind than nature; but it also contains the same miraculous power, which equally secretly and incomprehensibly affects the human soul” (Wackenroder and Tieck). The artist is an interpreter of the language of nature, a mediator between the world of spirit and people. “Thanks to artists, humanity emerges as a complete individuality. Through modernity, artists unite the world of the past with the world of the future. They are the highest spiritual organ in which the vital forces of their outer humanity meet each other and where the inner humanity manifests itself first of all” (F. Schlegel).

However, romanticism was not a homogeneous movement: its ideological development went in different directions. Among the romantics were reactionary writers, adherents of the old regime, who glorified the feudal monarchy and Christianity. On the other hand, romantics with a progressive worldview expressed a democratic protest against feudal and all kinds of oppression, and embodied the revolutionary impulse of the people for a better future.

Romanticism left an entire era in world artistic culture, its representatives were: in literature V. Scott, J. Byron, Shelley, V. Hugo, A. Mickiewicz, etc.; in fine arts E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, F. Runge, J. Constable, W. Turner, O. Kiprensky and others; in music F. Schubert, R. Wagner, G. Berlioz, N. Paganini, F. Liszt, F. Chopin and others. They discovered and developed new genres, paid close attention to the fate of the human personality, revealed the dialectic of good and evil, masterfully revealed human passions, etc.

The types of art more or less equalized in importance and produced magnificent works of art, although the romantics gave primacy to music in the ladder of the arts.

4. ROMANTIC HERO

Who is a romantic hero and what is he like?

This is an individualist. A superman who has lived through two stages: before colliding with reality, he lives in a “pink” state, he is overcome by the desire for achievement, to change the world; after colliding with reality, he continues to consider this world both vulgar and boring, but he does not become a skeptic or a pessimist. With a clear understanding that nothing can be changed, the desire for achievement degenerates into a desire for danger.

The Romantics could attach eternal lasting value to every little thing, every concrete fact, every single thing. Joseph de Maistre calls this “the paths of Providence,” Germaine de Stael calls it “the fruitful womb of the immortal universe.” Chateaubriand in The Genius of Christianity, in a book devoted to history, directly points to God as the beginning of historical time. Society appears as an unshakable connection, “a thread of life that connects us with our ancestors and which we must extend to our descendants.” Only a person’s heart, and not his mind, can understand and hear the voice of the Creator, through the beauty of nature, through deep feelings. Nature is divine, a source of harmony and creativity, and its metaphors are often carried into the political lexicon by romantics. For romantics, a tree becomes a symbol of clan, spontaneous development, perception of the juices of the native land, a symbol of national unity. The more innocent and sensitive a person’s nature, the easier he hears the voice of God. A child, a woman, a noble youth more often than others perceives the immortality of the soul and the value of eternal life. The thirst for bliss among the romantics is not limited to the idealistic desire for the Kingdom of God after death.

In addition to mystical love for God, a person needs real, earthly love. Unable to possess the object of his passion, the romantic hero became an eternal martyr, doomed to wait for a meeting with his beloved in the afterlife, “for great love is worthy of immortality when it costs a person his life.”

The problem of personality development and education occupies a special place in the work of romantics. Childhood is devoid of laws; its instantaneous impulses violate public morality, obeying its own rules of children's play. In an adult, similar reactions lead to death, to the condemnation of the soul. In search of the heavenly kingdom, a person must comprehend the laws of duty and morality, only then can he hope for eternal life. Since duty is dictated to romantics by their desire to gain eternal life, the fulfillment of duty gives personal happiness in its deepest and most powerful manifestation. To the moral duty is added the duty of deep feelings and sublime interests. Without mixing the merits of different sexes, romantics advocate the equality of spiritual development of men and women. In the same way, civic duty is dictated by love for God and his institutions. Personal aspiration finds its completion in a common cause, in the aspiration of the whole nation, all humanity, the whole world.

Every culture had its own romantic hero, but Byron gave the typical idea of ​​the romantic hero in his work "Charold Harold". He put on the mask of his hero (suggests that there is no distance between the hero and the author) and managed to correspond to the romantic canon.

All romantic works are distinguished by characteristic features:

Firstly, in every romantic work there is no distance between the hero and the author.

Secondly, the author does not judge the hero, but even if something bad is said about him, the plot is structured in such a way that the hero is not to blame. The plot in a romantic work is usually romantic. Romantics also build a special relationship with nature; they like storms, thunderstorms, and disasters.

5. ROMANTICISM IN RUSSIA.

Romanticism in Russia differed from Western Europe due to a different historical situation and a different cultural tradition. The French Revolution cannot be counted among the causes of its occurrence; a very narrow circle of people pinned any hopes on transformations in its course. And the results of the revolution were completely disappointing. The question of capitalism in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. didn't stand. Therefore, there was no reason for this either. The real reason was the Patriotic War of 1812, in which the full force of popular initiative was demonstrated. But after the war, the people did not receive freedom. The best of the nobility, not satisfied with reality, came to Senate Square in December 1825. This act also did not pass without a trace for the creative intelligentsia. The turbulent post-war years became the setting in which Russian romanticism was formed.

Romanticism, and moreover ours, Russian, developed and molded into our original forms, romanticism was not a simple literary, but a life phenomenon, an entire era of moral development, an era that had its own special color, carrying out a special view in life... Let the romantic trend come from the outside, from Western life and Western literature, it found in Russian nature soil ready for its perception, and therefore was reflected in completely original phenomena, as the poet and critic Apollo Grigoriev assessed - this is a unique cultural phenomenon, and its characteristics show the essential complexity of romanticism , from the depths of which young Gogol emerged and with which he was connected not only at the beginning of his writing career, but throughout his entire life.

Apollo Grigoriev precisely defined the nature of the influence of the romantic school on literature and life, including on the prose of that time: not a simple influence or borrowing, but a characteristic and powerful life and literary trend that gave completely original phenomena in young Russian literature.

a) Literature

Russian romanticism is usually divided into several periods: initial (1801-1815), mature (1815-1825) and the period of post-Decembrist development. However, in relation to the initial period, the conventionality of this scheme is striking. For the dawn of Russian romanticism is associated with the names of Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, poets whose work and attitude are difficult to put side by side and compare within the same period, their goals, aspirations, and temperaments are so different. In the poems of both poets one can still feel the powerful influence of the past - the era of sentimentalism, but if Zhukovsky is still deeply rooted in it, then Batyushkov is much closer to new trends.

Belinsky rightly noted that Zhukovsky’s work is characterized by “complaints about imperfect hopes that had no name, sadness over lost happiness, which God knows what it consisted of.” Indeed, in the person of Zhukovsky, romanticism was still taking its first timid steps, paying tribute to sentimental and melancholy melancholy, vague, subtle heartache, in a word, that complex set of feelings that in Russian criticism was called “romanticism of the Middle Ages.”

A completely different atmosphere reigns in Batyushkov’s poetry: the joy of being, frank sensuality, a hymn to pleasure.

Zhukovsky is rightfully considered a prominent representative of Russian aesthetic humanism. Alien to strong passions, the complacent and meek Zhukovsky was noticeably influenced by the ideas of Rousseau and the German romantics. Following them, he attached great importance to the aesthetic side in religion, morality, and social relations. Art acquired a religious meaning from Zhukovsky; he sought to see in art the “revelation” of higher truths; it was “sacred” for him. The German romantics were characterized by the identification of poetry and religion. We find the same thing in Zhukovsky, who wrote: “Poetry is God in the holy dreams of the earth.” In German romanticism, he was especially close to the attraction to everything beyond, to the “night side of the soul,” to the “inexpressible” in nature and man. Nature in Zhukovsky’s poetry is surrounded by mystery, his landscapes are ghostly and almost unreal, like reflections in water:

How incense is fused with the coolness of plants!

How sweet is the splashing of the jets in the silence by the shore!

How softly the zephyr blows across the waters

And the fluttering of the flexible willow!

Zhukovsky’s sensitive, gentle and dreamy soul seems to sweetly freeze on the threshold of “that mysterious light.” The poet, in the apt expression of Belinsky, “loves and doves his suffering,” but this suffering does not prick his heart with cruel wounds, for even in melancholy and sadness his inner life is quiet and serene. Therefore, when in a letter to Batyushkov, “the son of bliss and fun,” he calls the epicurean poet “relative of the Muse,” it is difficult to believe in this relationship. Rather, we will believe the virtuous Zhukovsky, who friendly advises the singer of earthly pleasures: “Reject voluptuousness, dreams are pernicious!”

Batyushkov is a figure opposite to Zhukovsky in everything. He was a man of strong passions, and his creative life ended 35 years before his physical existence: as a very young man he plunged into the abyss of madness. He gave himself over to both joys and sorrows with equal strength and passion: in life, as in its poetic understanding, the “golden mean” was alien to him - unlike Zhukovsky. Although his poetry is also characterized by praise of pure friendship, the joy of a “humble corner,” his idyll is by no means modest and quiet, for Batyushkov cannot imagine it without the languid bliss of passionate pleasures and the intoxication of life. At times the poet is so carried away by sensual joys that he is ready to recklessly reject the oppressive wisdom of science:

Is it possible that in sad truths

Gloomy stoics and boring sages,

Seated in funeral dresses,

Between the rubble and coffins,

Will we find the sweetness of our lives?

From them, I see, joy

Flies like a butterfly from thorn bushes.

For them there is no charm in the delights of nature,

The maidens do not sing to them, intertwining in round dances;

For them, as for the blind,

Spring without joy and summer without flowers.

True tragedy rarely sounds in his poems. Only at the end of his creative life, when he began to show signs of mental illness, was one of his last poems written down from dictation, in which the motives of the futility of earthly existence are clearly heard:

Do you remember what you said?

Saying goodbye to life, gray-haired Melchizedek?

A man was born a slave,

He will go to his grave as a slave,

And death will hardly tell him

Why did he walk through the valley of wonderful tears,

Suffered, cried, endured,

In Russia, romanticism as a literary movement developed in the twenties of the nineteenth century. Poets, prose writers, and writers stood at its origins; they created Russian romanticism, which differed from “Western European” in its national, original character. Russian romanticism was developed by poets of the first half of the nineteenth century, and each poet contributed something new. Russian romanticism developed widely, acquired characteristic features, and became an independent movement in literature. In "Ruslan and Lyudmila" A.S. Pushkin has the lines: “There is a Russian spirit, there is a smell of Russia.” The same can be said about Russian romanticism. The heroes of romantic works are poetic souls striving for the “high” and the beautiful. But there is a hostile world that does not allow one to feel freedom, that leaves these souls misunderstood. This world is rough, so the poetic soul runs to another, where there is an ideal, it strives for the “eternal.” Romanticism is based on this conflict. But poets had different attitudes to this situation. Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, based on one thing, build the relationship between their heroes and the world around them differently, therefore their heroes had different paths to the ideal.

Reality is terrible, rude, impudent and selfish, there is no place in it for the feelings, dreams and desires of the poet and his heroes. The “true” and the eternal are in the other world. Hence the concept of dual worlds; the poet strives for one of these worlds in search of an ideal.

Zhukovsky’s position was not the position of a person who entered into a struggle with the outside world, who challenged it. It was a path through unity with nature, a path of harmony with nature, in an eternal and beautiful world. Zhukovsky, according to many researchers (including Yu.V. Mann), expresses his understanding of this process of unification in “The Inexpressible.” Unity is the flight of the soul. The beauty that surrounds you fills your soul, it is in you, and you are in it, the soul flies, neither time nor space exists, but you exist in nature, and in this moment you live, you want to sing about this beauty, but there are no words to express your condition, there is only a feeling of harmony. You are not disturbed by the people around you, the prosaic souls, more is revealed to you, you are free.

Pushkin and Lermontov approached this problem of romanticism differently. There is no doubt that the influence exerted by Zhukovsky on Pushkin could not but be reflected in the latter’s work. Pushkin's early work is characterized by "civil" romanticism. Under the influence of “The Singer in the Camp of Russian Warriors” by Zhukovsky and the works of Griboedov, Pushkin wrote the ode “Liberty”, “To Chaadaev”. In the latter he calls:

“My friend! Let us dedicate our souls to our Fatherland with wonderful impulses...” This is the same desire for the ideal that Zhukovsky had, only Pushkin understands the ideal in his own way, therefore the path to the ideal is different for the poet. He does not want and cannot strive for the ideal alone; the poet calls for him. Pushkin looked at reality and ideal differently. You can’t call it a riot, it’s a reflection on a rebellious element. This was reflected in the ode "Sea". This is the strength and power of the sea, the sea is free, it has reached its ideal. Man must also become free, his spirit must be free.

The search for an ideal is the main characteristic feature of romanticism. It manifested itself in the works of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, and Lermontov. All three poets were looking for freedom, but they were looking for it in different ways, they understood it differently. Zhukovsky was looking for freedom sent by the “creator”. Having found harmony, a person becomes free. For Pushkin, freedom of spirit was important, which should manifest itself in a person. For Lermontov, only the rebellious hero is free. Revolt for freedom, what could be more beautiful? This attitude towards the ideal was preserved in the love lyrics of poets. In my opinion, this attitude is due to time. Although they all worked almost in the same period, the time of their creativity was different, events developed with extraordinary speed. The characters of the poets also greatly influenced their relationships. The calm Zhukovsky and the rebellious Lermontov are completely opposite. But Russian romanticism developed precisely because the natures of these poets were different. They introduced new concepts, new characters, new ideals, and gave a complete understanding of what freedom is, what real life is. Each of them represents their own path to the ideal; this is the right of choice for each individual.

The very emergence of romanticism was very disturbing. The human individual now stood at the center of the whole world. The human “I” began to be interpreted as the basis and meaning of all existence. Human life began to be viewed as a work of art, art. In the 19th century, romanticism was very widespread. But not all poets who called themselves romantics conveyed the essence of this movement.

Now, at the end of the 20th century, we can already classify the romantics of the last century on this basis into two groups. One and probably the most extensive group is the one that united “formal” romantics. It is difficult to suspect them of insincerity; on the contrary, they convey their feelings very accurately. Among them are Dmitry Venevitinov (1805-1827) and Alexander Polezhaev (1804-1838). These poets used the romantic form, considering it the most suitable for achieving their artistic goal. Thus, D. Venevitinov writes:

I feel it's burning inside me

Holy flame of inspiration,

But the spirit soars towards a dark goal...

Will I find a reliable cliff,

Where can I rest my foot firmly?

This is a typical romantic poem. It uses traditional romantic vocabulary - both “flame of inspiration” and “soaring spirit”. Thus, the poet describes his feelings. But nothing more. The poet is constrained by the framework of romanticism, its “verbal appearance”. Everything is simplified to some cliches.

Representatives of another group of romantics of the 19th century, of course, were A.S. Pushkin and M. Lermontov. These poets, on the contrary, filled the romantic form with their own content. The romantic period in A. Pushkin’s life was short, so he had few romantic works. “Prisoner of the Caucasus” (1820-1821) is one of the earliest romantic poems by A.S. Pushkin. Before us is a classic version of a romantic work. The author does not give us a portrait of his hero, we do not even know his name. And this is not surprising - all romantic heroes are similar to each other. They are young, beautiful... and unhappy. The plot of the work is also classically romantic. A Russian captive among the Circassians, a young Circassian woman falls in love with him and helps him escape. But he hopelessly loves another... The poem ends tragically - the Circassian woman throws herself into the water and dies, and the Russian, freed from “physical” captivity, falls into another, more painful captivity - captivity of the soul. What do we know about the hero's past?

A long way leads to Russia...

.....................................

Where I embraced terrible suffering,

Where the stormy life ruined

Hope, joy and desire.

He came to the steppe in search of freedom, trying to escape from his past life. And now, when happiness seemed so close, he has to run away again. But where? Back to the world where he “embraced terrible suffering.”

Renegade of light, friend of nature,

He left his native land

And flew to a distant land

With the cheerful ghost of freedom.

But the “ghost of freedom” remained a ghost. He will forever haunt the romantic hero. Another romantic poem is “Gypsies”. In it, the author again does not give the reader a portrait of the hero; we only know his name - Aleko. He came to the camp to experience true pleasure, true freedom. For her sake, he abandoned everything that previously surrounded him. Has he become free and happy? It would seem that Aleko loves, but with this feeling only misfortune and contempt come to him. Aleko, who so longed for freedom, could not recognize the will in another person. This poem revealed another of the extremely characteristic features of the romantic hero’s worldview - selfishness and complete incompatibility with the world around him. Aleko is punished not by death, but more terrible - by loneliness and debate. He was alone in the world from which he fled, but in the other, so desired, he was left alone again.

Before writing “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” Pushkin once said: “I am not fit to be the hero of a romantic poem”; however, at the same time, in 1820, Pushkin wrote his poem “The Daylight Has Extinguished...”. In it you can find all the vocabulary inherent in romanticism. This is the “distant shore”, and the “gloomy ocean”, and “excitement and melancholy” that torment the author. The refrain runs through the entire poem:

Worry beneath me, sullen ocean.

It is present not only in the description of nature, but also in the description of the hero’s feelings.

...But former heart wounds,

Nothing has healed the deep wounds of love...

Make noise, make noise, obedient sail,

Worry beneath me, gloomy ocean...

That is, nature becomes another character, another lyrical hero of the poem. Later, in 1824, Pushkin wrote the poem “To the Sea.” The romantic hero in it, as in “The Daylight Has Gone Out...”, again became the author himself. Here Pushkin turns to the sea as a traditional symbol of freedom. The sea is an element, which means freedom and happiness. However, Pushkin constructs this poem unexpectedly:

You waited, you called... I was chained;

My soul was torn in vain:

Enchanted by powerful passion,

I was left by the shores...

We can say that this poem ends the romantic period of Pushkin's life. It is written by a man who knows that after achieving so-called “physical” freedom, the romantic hero does not become happy.

In the forests, in the deserts are silent

I’ll bear it, I’m full of you,

Your rocks, your bays...

At this time, Pushkin comes to the conclusion that true freedom can only exist within a person and only it can make him truly happy.

The version of Byron's romanticism was lived and felt in his work first by Pushkin, then by Lermontov. Pushkin had the gift of attention to people, and yet the most romantic of the romantic poems in the work of the great poet and prose writer is undoubtedly “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai”.

The poem “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” still only continues Pushkin’s search in the genre of a romantic poem. And there is no doubt that this was prevented by the death of the great Russian writer.

The romantic theme in Pushkin’s works received two different versions: there is a heroic romantic hero (“prisoner”, “robber”, “fugitive”), distinguished by a strong will, who has gone through a cruel test of violent passions, and there is a suffering hero in whom subtle emotional experiences are incompatible with the cruelty of the outside world (“exile”, “prisoner”). The passive principle in the romantic character now acquired a feminine guise in Pushkin. “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” develops precisely this aspect of the romantic hero.

In “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” all the attention was paid to the “prisoner” and very little to the “Circassian woman”, now on the contrary - Khan Girey is a figure of no more than an undramatic one, and indeed the main character is a woman, even two - Zarema and Maria. Pushkin also uses the solution to the hero’s duality found in previous poems (through the image of chained brothers): the passive principle is depicted in the person of two characters - the jealous, passionately in love Zarema and the sad, lost hope and love Maria. Both of them are two contradictory passions of a romantic nature: disappointment, despondency, hopelessness and at the same time spiritual ardor, intensity of feelings; the contradiction is resolved tragically in the poem - Maria’s death did not bring happiness to Zarema either, since they are connected by mysterious ties. So in “The Robber Brothers,” the death of one of the brothers forever darkened the life of the other.

However, B.V. Tomashevsky rightly noted, “the lyrical isolation of the poem also determined a certain poverty of content... The moral victory over Zarema does not lead to further conclusions and reflections... “Prisoner of the Caucasus” has a clear continuation in Pushkin’s work: both Aleko and Evgeny Onegin resolve ... questions posed in the first southern poem. “The Bakhchisarai Fountain” has no such continuation...”

Pushkin felt and identified the most vulnerable place of a person’s romantic position: he wants everything only for himself.

Lermontov's poem "Mtsyri" also does not fully reflect the characteristic features of romanticism.

There are two romantic heroes in this poem, therefore, if this is a romantic poem, then it is very unique: firstly, the second hero is conveyed by the author through an epigraph; secondly, the author does not connect with Mtsyri, the hero solves the problem of self-will in his own way, and Lermontov throughout the entire poem only thinks about solving this problem. He does not judge his hero, but he does not justify him either, but he takes a certain position - understanding. It turns out that romanticism in Russian culture is transformed into reflection. It turns out romanticism from the point of view of realism.

We can say that Pushkin and Lermontov failed to become romantics (however, Lermontov once managed to comply with romantic laws - in the drama Masquerade). With their experiments, the poets showed that in England the position of an individualist could be fruitful, but in Russia it was not. Although Pushkin and Lermontov failed to become romantics, they opened the way for the development of realism. In 1825, the first realistic work was published: “Boris Godunov”, then “The Captain’s Daughter”, “Eugene Onegin”, “Hero of Our Time” and many others.

b) Painting

In the fine arts, romanticism manifested itself most clearly in painting and graphics, less expressively in sculpture and architecture. Prominent representatives of romanticism in the fine arts were Russian romantic painters. In their paintings they expressed the spirit of freedom, active action, and passionately and temperamentally called for the manifestation of humanism. The everyday paintings of Russian painters are distinguished by their relevance, psychologism, and unprecedented expression. Spiritualized, melancholic landscapes are again the same attempt of the romantics to penetrate into the human world, to show how a person lives and dreams in the sublunary world. Russian romantic painting differed from foreign painting. This was determined by both the historical situation and tradition.

Features of Russian romantic painting:

Enlightenment ideology weakened but did not collapse, as in Europe. Therefore, romanticism was not clearly expressed.

Romanticism developed in parallel with classicism, often intertwined with it.

Academic painting in Russia has not yet exhausted itself.

Romanticism in Russia was not a stable phenomenon; romantics were drawn to academicism. By the middle of the 19th century. the romantic tradition has almost died out.

Works related to romanticism began to appear in Russia already in the 1790s (the works of Theodosius Yanenko “Travelers Caught in a Storm” (1796), “Self-Portrait in a Helmet” (1792). The prototype in them is obvious - Salvator Rosa, very popular in the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Later, the influence of this proto-romantic artist will be noticeable in the work of Alexander Orlovsky. Robbers, scenes around the fire, and battles accompanied his entire creative career. As in other countries, artists belonging to Russian romanticism introduced portraiture into the classical genres, landscape and genre scenes create a completely new emotional mood.

In Russia, romanticism began to appear first in portrait painting. In the first third of the 19th century, it largely lost contact with the dignitary aristocracy. Portraits of poets, artists, art patrons, and images of ordinary peasants began to occupy a significant place. This tendency was especially pronounced in the works of O.A. Kiprensky (1782 – 1836) and V.A. Tropinin (1776 – 1857).

Vasily Andreevich Tropinin strove for a lively, relaxed characterization of a person, expressed through his portrait. Portrait of a Son (1818), “Portrait of A.S. Pushkin” (1827), “Self-Portrait” (1846) amaze not by their portrait resemblance to the originals, but by their unusually subtle penetration into the inner world of a person.

Portrait of a son- Arseny Tropinina is one of the best in the master’s work. The refined, soft golden color scheme is reminiscent of 18th-century valerie painting. However, compared to the typical child portrait in 18th century romanticism. Here the impartiality of the design is striking - this child poses to a very small extent. Arseny's gaze slides past the viewer, he is dressed casually, the gate seems to be accidentally thrown open. The lack of representation lies in the extraordinary fragmentation of the composition: the head fills almost the entire surface of the canvas, the image is cut off right up to the collarbone, and thus the boy’s face is mechanically moved towards the viewer.

The history of creation is extremely interesting “Portrait of Pushkin.” As usual, for the first acquaintance with Pushkin, Tropinin came to Sobolevsky’s house on the dog run, where the poet then lived. The artist found him in his office fiddling with the puppies. It was then, apparently, that a small sketch was written based on the first impression that Tropinin valued so much. For a long time he remained out of sight of his pursuers. Only almost a hundred years later, by 1914, it was published by P.M. Shchekotov, who wrote that of all the portraits of Alexander Sergeevich, he “best conveys his features... the poet’s blue eyes here are filled with a special brilliance, the head turns quickly, and the facial features are expressive and mobile. Undoubtedly, the authentic facial features of Pushkin are captured here, which we separately encounter in one or another of the portraits that have come down to us. One remains perplexed,” adds Shchekotov, “why this charming sketch did not receive due attention from publishers and connoisseurs of the poet.” This is explained by the very qualities of the small sketch: there was no brilliance of colors, no beauty of brushwork, no skillfully written “circumstances” in it. And Pushkin here is not a folk “vitia”, not a “genius”, but first of all a person. And it is hardly amenable to analysis why such a large human content is contained in the monochromatic grayish-green, olive tones, in the hasty, seemingly random strokes of the brush of an almost inconspicuous-looking sketch. Going over in memory all the lifetime and subsequent portraits of Pushkin, this sketch, in terms of the power of humanity, can only be placed next to the figure of Pushkin, sculpted by the Soviet sculptor A. Matveev. But this is not the task Tropinin set for himself, this is not the kind of Pushkin his friend wanted to see, although he ordered the poet to be depicted in a simple, homely form.

In the artist’s assessment, Pushkin was a “tsar-poet.” But he was also a people's poet, he was one of his own and close to everyone. “The similarity of the portrait to the original is striking,” Polevoy wrote after finishing it, although he noted the lack of “quickness of gaze” and “liveness of facial expression,” which changes and becomes animated in Pushkin with every new impression.

In the portrait, everything is thought out and verified to the smallest detail, and at the same time, there is nothing deliberate, nothing brought in by the artist. Even the rings that adorn the poet’s fingers are highlighted to the extent that Pushkin himself attached importance to them in life. Among Tropinin's pictorial revelations, the portrait of Pushkin amazes with the sonority of its range.

Tropinin's romanticism has clearly expressed sentimentalistic origins. It was Tropinin who was the founder of the genre, somewhat idealized portrait of a man from the people (“The Lacemaker” (1823)). “Both experts and non-experts,” writes Svinin about “The Lacemaker,” -- come to admiration when looking at this picture, which truly unites all the beauties of pictorial art: the pleasantness of the brush, the correct, happy lighting, the clear, natural coloring; moreover, in this portrait the soul of the beauty is revealed and that sly glance of curiosity that she casts on someone. who entered at that moment. Her arms, bared by the elbow, stopped along with her gaze, the work stopped, a sigh flew out of the virgin breast, covered with a muslin scarf - and all this is depicted with such truth and simplicity that this picture can very easily be mistaken for the most successful work of the glorious Dream. Incidental items, such as a lace pillow and a towel, are arranged with great skill and worked out with finality...”

At the beginning of the 19th century, Tver was a significant cultural center of Russia. All prominent people of Moscow attended literary evenings here. Here young Orest Kiprensky met A.S. Pushkin, whose portrait, painted later, became the pearl of world portrait art, and A.S. Pushkin dedicated poems to him, where he called him “the darling of light-winged fashion.” Portrait of Pushkin O. Kiprensky’s brushes are a living embodiment of poetic genius. In the decisive turn of the head, in the energetically crossed arms on the chest, in the poet’s entire appearance, a feeling of independence and freedom is reflected. It was about him that Pushkin said: “I see myself as in a mirror, but this mirror flatters me.” In the work on the portrait of Pushkin, Tropinin and Kiprensky meet for the last time, although this meeting does not take place in person, but many years later in the history of art, where, as a rule, two portraits of the greatest Russian poet, created simultaneously, but in different places, are compared - one in Moscow. The other is in St. Petersburg. Now this is a meeting of masters equally great in their significance for Russian art. Although Kiprensky’s admirers claim that the artistic advantages are on the side of his romantic portrait, where the poet is presented immersed in his own thoughts, alone with the muse, the nationality and democracy of the image are certainly on the side of Tropinsky’s “Pushkin”.

Thus, two portraits reflected two directions of Russian art, concentrated in two capitals. And critics will subsequently write that Tropinin was for Moscow what Kiprensky was for St. Petersburg.

A distinctive feature of Kiprensky’s portraits is that they show the spiritual charm and inner nobility of a person. The portrait of a hero, brave and strongly feeling, was supposed to embody the pathos of the freedom-loving and patriotic sentiments of the progressive Russian people.

In the front door “Portrait of E.V. Davydov”(1809) shows the figure of an officer who directly showed the expression of that cult of a strong and brave personality, which was so typical of the romanticism of those years. The fragmentarily shown landscape, where a ray of light fights the darkness, hints at the hero’s spiritual anxieties, but on his face there is a reflection of dreamy sensitivity. Kiprensky looked for the “human” in a person, and the ideal did not shield him from the personal character traits of the model.

Kiprensky’s portraits, if you look at them in your mind’s eye, show the spiritual and natural wealth of a person, his intellectual strength. Yes, he had an ideal of a harmonious personality, as his contemporaries also spoke about, but Kiprensky did not strive to literally project this ideal onto an artistic image. In creating an artistic image, he followed nature, as if measuring how far or close it was to such an ideal. In essence, many of those depicted by him are on the threshold of the ideal, aspired to it, but the ideal itself, according to the ideas of romantic aesthetics, is hardly achievable, and all romantic art is only the path to it.

Noting the contradictions in the souls of his heroes, showing them in anxious moments of life, when fate changes, old ideas are broken, youth fades, etc., Kiprensky seems to be experiencing together with his models. Hence the portraitist’s special involvement in the interpretation of artistic images, which gives the portrait a sincere touch.

In the early period of Kiprensky’s work, you will not see people infected with skepticism, soul-corroding analysis. This will come later, when the romantic time experiences its autumn, giving way to other moods and feelings, when hopes for the triumph of the ideal of a harmonious personality collapse. In all the portraits of the 1800s and the portraits executed in Tver, Kiprensky’s bold brush is visible, easily and freely constructing form. The complexity of technical techniques and the nature of the figure changed from work to work.

It is noteworthy that on the faces of his heroes you will not see heroic elation; on the contrary, most of the faces are rather sad, they indulge in reflection. It seems that these people are concerned about the fate of Russia, thinking about the future more than the present. In the female images representing the wives and sisters of participants in significant events, Kiprensky also did not strive for deliberate heroic elation. A feeling of ease and naturalness prevails. At the same time, in all the portraits there is so much true nobility of soul. Female images attract with their modest dignity and integrity of nature; in the faces of the men one can discern an inquisitive thought, a readiness for asceticism. These images coincided with the maturing ethical and aesthetic ideas of the Decembrists. Their thoughts and aspirations were then shared by many (the creation of secret societies with certain social and political programs occurred in the period 1816-1821), and the artist knew about them, and therefore we can say that his portraits of participants in the events of 1812-1814, images of peasants , created in the same years, is a kind of artistic parallel to the emerging concepts of Decembrism.

Marked with the bright stamp of the romantic ideal “Portrait of V.A. Zhukovsky”(1816). The artist, creating a portrait commissioned by S.S. Uvarov, decided to show his contemporaries not only the image of the poet, who was well known in literary circles, but also to demonstrate a certain understanding of the personality of the romantic poet. Before us is a type of poet who expressed the philosophical and dreamy direction of Russian romanticism. Kiprensky introduced Zhukovsky at a moment of creative inspiration. The wind has tousled the poet's hair, the trees are anxiously splashing their branches in the night, the ruins of ancient buildings are barely visible. This is what it seemed like a creator of romantic ballads should look like. Dark colors enhance the mysterious atmosphere. On the advice of Uvarov, Kiprensky does not complete individual fragments of the portrait, so that “excessive completeness” does not extinguish the spirit, temperament, and emotionality.

Many portraits were painted by Kiprensky in Tver. Moreover, when he painted Ivan Petrovich Wulf, the Tver landowner, he looked with emotion at the girl standing in front of him, his granddaughter, the future Anna Petrovna Kern, to whom one of the most captivating lyrical works was dedicated - the poem by A.S. Pushkin “I remember a wonderful moment...” Such associations of poets, artists, musicians became a manifestation of a new direction in art - romanticism.

“The Young Gardener” (1817) by Kiprensky, “Italian Noon” (1827) by Bryullov, “The Reapers” or “The Reaper” (1820s) by Venetsianov are works of the same typological series. They are focused on nature and were written explicitly using it. However, the task each of the artists - to embody the aesthetic perfection of simple nature - led to a certain idealization of appearances, clothes, situations for the sake of creating an image-metaphor. Observing life, nature, the artist rethought it, poeticizing the visible. In this qualitatively new combination of nature and imagination with the experience of ancient and Renaissance masters, giving birth to images unknown to art before, and this is one of the features of romanticism of the first half of the 19th century. The metaphorical nature, generally characteristic of these works of Venetsianov and Bryullov, was one of the most important features of the romantic when Russian artists were still new to Western European romantic portraiture . "Portrait of a Father (A.K. Schwalbe)"(1804) was written by Orest Kiprensky of art and the portrait genre in particular.

The most significant achievements of Russian romanticism are works in the portrait genre. The brightest and best examples of romanticism come from the early period. Long before his trip to Italy, in 1816, Kiprensky, internally ready for a romantic vision of the world, saw paintings by old masters with new eyes. The dark coloring, figures highlighted by light, burning colors, intense drama had a strong impact on him. "Portrait of a Father" is undoubtedly inspired by Rembrandt. But the Russian artist took only external techniques from the great Dutchman. “Portrait of a Father” is an absolutely independent work, possessing its own internal energy and the power of artistic expression. A distinctive feature of album portraits is the liveliness of their execution. There is no picturesqueness here - the instant transfer of what is seen onto paper creates a unique freshness of graphic expression. Therefore, the people depicted in the pictures seem close and understandable to us.

Foreigners called Kiprensky the Russian Van Dyck; his portraits are in many museums around the world. The successor of the work of Levitsky and Borovikovsky, the predecessor of L. Ivanov and K. Bryullov, Kiprensky gave the Russian art school European fame with his work. In the words of Alexander Ivanov, “he was the first to bring the Russian name to Europe...”.

The increased interest in a person’s personality, characteristic of romanticism, predetermined the flourishing of the portrait genre in the first half of the 19th century, where the self-portrait became dominant. As a rule, the creation of a self-portrait was not an accidental episode. Artists repeatedly wrote and drew themselves, and these works became a kind of diary, reflecting various states of mind and stages of life, and at the same time were a manifesto addressed to their contemporaries. Self-portrait was not a custom genre, the artist wrote for himself and here, more than ever, he became free in self-expression. In the 18th century, Russian artists rarely painted original images; only romanticism, with its cult of the individual and exceptional, contributed to the rise of this genre. The variety of types of self-portrait reflects the artists’ perception of themselves as a rich and multifaceted personality. They either appear in the familiar and natural role of the creator ("Self-portrait in a velvet beret" by A. G. Varnek, 1810s), then they plunge into the past, as if trying it on themselves ("Self-portrait in a helmet and armor" by F. I. Yanenko , 1792), or, most often, appears without any professional attributes, affirming the significance and self-worth of every person, liberated and open to the world, searching and rushing, such as F. A. Bruni and O. A. Orlovsky in self-portraits 1810s. The readiness for dialogue and openness characteristic of the figurative solutions of works of the 1810-1820s are gradually replaced by fatigue and disappointment, absorption, and withdrawal into oneself ("Self-Portrait" by M. I. Terebenev). This trend was reflected in the development of the portrait genre as a whole.

Kiprensky’s self-portraits appeared, it is worth noting, at critical moments of life; they testified to the rise or decline of mental strength. The artist looked at himself through his art. At the same time, he did not use a mirror, like most painters; he painted mainly himself according to his imagination; he wanted to express his spirit, but not his appearance.

“Self-portrait with brushes behind the ear” built on a refusal, and clearly demonstrative, in the external glorification of the image, its classical normativity and ideal construction. Facial features are outlined approximately, generally. Side light falls on the face, highlighting only the side features. Individual reflections of light fall on the artist’s figure, extinguishing the barely visible drapery that represents the background of the portrait. Everything here is subordinated to the expression of life, feelings, mood. This is a look at romantic art through the art of self-portraiture. The artist’s involvement in the secrets of creativity is expressed in the mysterious romantic “sfumato of the 19th century.” The peculiar greenish tone creates a special atmosphere of the artistic world, in the center of which is the artist himself.

Almost simultaneously with this self-portrait, he also painted “Self-portrait in a pink neckerchief”, where another image is embodied. Without a direct indication of the profession of a painter. The image of a young man has been recreated, feeling at ease, naturally, freely. The painting surface of the canvas is finely constructed. The artist's brush confidently applies paint. Leaving large and small strokes. The color scheme is perfectly developed, the colors are soft and harmoniously combined with each other, the lighting is calm: the light gently pours onto the young man’s face, outlining his features, without unnecessary expression or deformation.

Another outstanding portrait painter was Venetsianov. In 1811, he received from the Academy the title of academician, appointed for “Self-portrait” and “Portrait of K.I. Golovachevsky with three students of the Academy of Arts.” These are extraordinary works.

Venetsianov declared himself to be truly skilled in "Self-Portrait" 1811. It was written differently than other artists painted themselves at that time - A. Orlovsky, O. Kiprensky, E. Varnek and even the serf V. Tropinin. All of them tended to imagine themselves in a romantic aura; their self-portraits represented a kind of poetic confrontation in relation to their surroundings. The exclusivity of the artistic nature was manifested in the pose, gestures, and the unusualness of the specially designed costume. In Venetsianov’s “Self-Portrait,” researchers note, first of all, the stern and tense expression of a busy man... Correct efficiency, different from that ostentatious “artistic negligence” indicated by the robes or coquettishly pulled caps of other artists. Venitsianov looks at himself soberly. For him, art is not an inspired impulse, but, above all, a matter that requires concentration and attention. Small in size, almost monochrome in its coloring of olive tones, exceptionally accurately written, it is simple and complex at the same time. Not attractive by the external side of the painting, it stops you with its gaze. The perfectly thin rims of the thin gold frames of the glasses do not hide, but rather emphasize the keen sharpness of the eyes, not so much directed at nature (the artist depicted himself with a palette and brush in his hands), but rather into the depths of his own thoughts. The large wide forehead, the right side of the face, illuminated by direct light, and the white shirtfront form a light triangle, first of all attracting the viewer’s gaze, which in the next moment, following the movement of the right hand holding a thin brush, slides down to the palette. Wavy strands of hair, the arms of a shiny frame, a loose tie round the collar, a soft shoulder line and, finally, a wide semicircle of the palette form a moving system of smooth, flowing lines, within which there are three main points: tiny highlights of the pupils, and the sharp end of the shirtfront, almost closing with palette and brush. This almost mathematical calculation in constructing the composition of the portrait imparts partial internal composure to the image and gives reason to assume that the author has an analytical mind, prone to scientific thinking. In “Self-Portrait” there is no trace of any romanticism, which was then so common when artists depicted themselves. This is a self-portrait of an artist-researcher, artist-thinker and worker.

Other work – portrait of Golovachevsky- conceived as a kind of plot composition: the older generation of Academy masters, represented by the old inspector, gives instructions to the growing talents: a painter (with a folder of drawings. An architect and a sculptor. But Venetsianov did not allow even a shadow of any far-fetchedness or didacticism in this picture: the kind old Golovachevsky friendly interprets to teenagers some page read in a book. The sincerity of expression is supported in the pictorial structure of the picture: its subdued, subtly and beautifully harmonized colorful tones create the impression of peace and seriousness. The faces are beautifully painted, full of inner significance. The portrait was one of the highest achievements of Russian portraiture painting.

And in Orlovsky’s work of the 1800s, portrait works appeared, mostly done in the form of drawings. Such an emotionally rich portrait sheet dates back to 1809 as “Self-portrait”. Filled with a rich, free stroke of sanguine and charcoal (backlit with chalk), Orlovsky’s “Self-Portrait” attracts with its artistic integrity, characteristic image, and artistry of execution. At the same time, it allows one to discern some unique aspects of Orlovsky’s art. Orlovsky’s “self-portrait”, of course, does not have the goal of accurately reproducing the typical appearance of the artist of those years. Before us is largely deliberate. The exaggerated appearance of an “artist”, contrasting his own “I” with the surrounding reality, he is not concerned with the “decency” of his appearance: a comb and a brush did not touch his lush hair, on his shoulder was the edge of a checkered raincoat right on top of his house shirt with an open collar. A sharp turn of the head with a “gloomy” look from under knitted eyebrows, a close crop of the portrait in which the face is depicted in close-up, contrasts of light - all this is aimed at achieving the main effect of contrasting the person depicted with the environment (and thereby the viewer).

The pathos of affirmation of individuality - one of the most progressive features in the art of that time - forms the main ideological and emotional tone of the portrait, but appears in a unique aspect, almost never found in Russian art of that period. The affirmation of personality comes not so much by revealing the richness of its inner world, but by a more external way of rejecting everything around it. At the same time, the image undoubtedly looks impoverished and limited.

Such solutions are difficult to find in Russian portrait art of that time, where already in the middle of the 18th century civic and humanistic motives sounded loudly and a person’s personality never broke strong ties with the environment. Dreaming of a better, democratic social system, the best people of Russia of that era were by no means divorced from reality and consciously rejected the individualistic cult of “personal freedom” that flourished on the soil of Western Europe, loosened by the bourgeois revolution. This clearly manifested itself as a reflection of actual factors in Russian portrait art. One has only to compare Orlovsky’s “Self-Portrait” with the simultaneous “Self-portrait” Kiprensky (for example, 1809), so that the serious internal difference between both portrait painters would immediately catch the eye.

Kiprensky also “heroizes” a person’s personality, but he shows its true inner values. In the artist’s face, the viewer discerns the features of a strong mind, character, and moral purity.

Kiprensky's entire appearance is shrouded in amazing nobility and humanity. He is able to distinguish between “good” and “evil” in the world around him and, rejecting the second, love and appreciate the first, love and appreciate like-minded people. At the same time, before us is undoubtedly a strong individuality, proud of the awareness of the value of his personal qualities. Exactly the same concept of a portrait image underlies the famous heroic portrait of D. Davydov by Kiprensky.

Orlovsky, in comparison with Kiprensky, as well as with some other Russian portrait painters of that time, resolves the image of a “strong personality” in a more limited, more straightforward and outward manner, while clearly focusing on the art of bourgeois France. When you look at his “Self-Portrait”, the portraits of A. Gros and Gericault involuntarily come to mind. Orlovsky’s profile “Self-Portrait” of 1810, with its cult of individualistic “inner strength”, also reveals an internal closeness to French portrait art, although it is already deprived of the sharp “sketch” form of the “Self-Portrait” of 1809 or “Portrait of Duport.” In the latter, Orlovsky, just as in “Self-Portrait,” uses a spectacular, “heroic” pose with a sharp, almost cross movement of the head and shoulders. He emphasizes the irregular structure of Duport's face and his disheveled hair, with the goal of creating a portrait image that is self-sufficient in its unique, random characteristic.

“The landscape must be a portrait,” wrote K. N. Batyushkov. Most artists who turned to the genre adhered to this attitude in their work. landscape. Among the obvious exceptions, who gravitated towards the fantastic landscape, were A. O. Orlovsky ("Sea View", 1809); A. G. Varnek (“View in the vicinity of Rome”, 1809); P. V. Basin (“Sky at sunset in the vicinity of Rome”, “Evening landscape”, both - 1820s). While creating specific types, they preserved the spontaneity of sensation and emotional richness, achieving monumental sound through compositional techniques.

Young Orlrvsky saw in nature only titanic forces, not subject to the will of man, capable of causing catastrophe, disaster. The struggle of man against the raging elements of the sea is one of the artist’s favorite themes of his “rebellious” romantic period. It became the content of his drawings, watercolors and oil paintings of 1809 – 1810. the tragic scene is shown in the picture "Shipwreck"(1809(?)). In the pitch darkness that has fallen to the ground, among the raging waves, drowning fishermen frantically climb onto the coastal rocks on which their ship crashed. The color in harsh red tones enhances the feeling of anxiety. The onslaughts of mighty waves foreshadowing a storm are menacing, and in another picture - “On the seashore”(1809). The stormy sky, which occupies most of the composition, also plays a huge emotional role in it. Although Orlovsky did not master the art of aerial perspective, the gradual transition of plans is resolved here more harmoniously and softly. The color became lighter. The red spots on the fishermen's clothes play beautifully against the reddish-brown background. Restless and alarming sea elements in watercolor "Sailboat"(c.1812). And even when the wind does not ruffle the sail and ripple the surface of the water, as in watercolor “Seascape with ships”(c.1810), the viewer has a premonition that a storm will follow the calm.

With all the drama and excitement of feelings, Orlovsky’s seascapes are not so much the fruit of his observations of atmospheric phenomena as the result of direct imitation of the classics of art. In particular, J. Vernet.

The landscapes of S. F. Shchedrin were of a different nature. They are filled with the harmony of coexistence between man and nature (“Terrace on the seashore. Cappuccini near Sorrento”, 1827). Numerous views of Naples and the surrounding area by his brush enjoyed extraordinary success and popularity.

The creation of a romantic image of St. Petersburg in Russian painting is associated with the work of M. N. Vorobyov. On his canvases, the city appeared shrouded in the mysterious St. Petersburg fogs, the soft haze of white nights and an atmosphere saturated with sea moisture, where the outlines of buildings are erased and moonlight completes the mystery. The same lyrical principle distinguishes the views of the St. Petersburg environs he performed ("Sunset in the vicinity of St. Petersburg", 1832). But the artists also saw the northern capital in a different, dramatic way, as an arena for the collision and struggle of natural elements (V. E. Raev, “The Alexander Column during a Thunderstorm,” 1834).

The brilliant paintings of I.K. Aivazovsky vividly embodied the romantic ideals of the rapture of struggle and the power of natural forces, the resilience of the human spirit and the ability to fight to the end. Nevertheless, a large place in the master’s heritage is occupied by night seascapes dedicated to specific places where the storm gives way to the magic of the night, a time that, according to the views of romantics, is filled with a mysterious inner life, and where the artist’s pictorial searches are aimed at extracting extraordinary light effects ( "View of Odessa on a moonlit night", "View of Constantinople by moonlight", both - 1846).

The theme of natural elements and a person taken by surprise, a favorite theme of romantic art, was interpreted in different ways by artists of the 1800-1850s. The works were based on real events, but the meaning of the images is not an objective retelling of them. A typical example is the painting by Peter Basin "Earthquake at Rocca di Papa near Rome"(1830). It is devoted not so much to the description of a specific event, but to the depiction of the fear and horror of a person faced with the manifestation of the elements.

The luminaries of Russian painting of this era were K.P. Bryullov (1799–1852) and A.A. Ivanov (1806 – 1858). Russian painter and draftsman K.P. Bryullov, while still a student at the Academy of Arts, mastered the incomparable skill of drawing. Bryullov’s work is usually divided into before “The Last Day of Pompeii” and after. What was created before...?!

“Italian Morning” (1823), “Ermilia with the Shepherds” (1824) based on Torquatto Tasso’s poem “The Liberation of Jerusalem”, “Italian Afternoon” (“Italian Woman Picking Grapes”, 1827), “Horsewoman” (1830), “Bathsheba” (1832) - all these paintings are imbued with a bright, undisguised joy of life. Such works were consonant with the early epicurean poems of Pushkin, Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, and Delvig. The old style, based on imitation of the great masters, did not satisfy Bryullov and he wrote “Italian Morning”, “Italian Afternoon”, “Bathsheba” in the open air.

While working on the portrait, Bryullov painted only the head from life. Everything else was often suggested to him by his imagination. The fruit of such free creative improvisation is "Rider". The main thing in the portrait is the contrast of the heated, soaring animal with flared nostrils and sparkling eyes and the graceful rider calmly restraining the frenzied energy of the horse (the taming of animals is a favorite theme of classical sculptors; Bryullov solved it in painting).

IN “Bathsheba” the artist uses the biblical story as a pretext to display naked bodies in the open air and convey the play of light and reflexes on light skin. In “Bathsheba” he created the image of a young woman full of joy and happiness. The naked body glows and shines, surrounded by olive greenery, cherry clothes, and a clear pond. The soft, elastic forms of the body are beautifully combined with the whitening fabric and chocolate color of the Arab woman serving Bathsheba. The fluid lines of bodies, bodies of water, and fabrics give the composition of the painting a smooth rhythm.

The painting became a new word in painting "The last day of Pompeii"(1827-1833). She made the artist's name immortal and very famous during her lifetime.

Its plot, apparently, was chosen under the influence of his brother Alexander, who intensively studied the ruins of Pompeii. But the reasons for painting the picture are deeper. Gogol noticed this, and Herzen said directly that in “The Last Day of Pompeii” they found their place, perhaps, an unconscious reflection of the artist’s thoughts and feelings caused by the defeat of the Decembrist uprising in Russia. It is not without reason that Bryullov placed his self-portrait among the victims of the raging disaster in dying Pompeii and gave the features of his Russian acquaintances to other characters in the picture.

Bryullov’s Italian entourage also played a role, which could tell him about the revolutionary storms that swept across Italy in previous years, about the sad fate of the Carbonari during the years of reaction.

The grandiose picture of the death of Pompeii is imbued with the spirit of historicism; it shows the change from one historical era to another, the suppression of ancient paganism and the onset of a new Christian faith.

The artist perceives the course of history dramatically, the change of eras as a shock to humanity. In the center of the composition, a woman who fell from a chariot and died, apparently personified the end of the ancient world. But the artist placed a living baby near the mother’s body. Depicting children and parents, a young man and an old mother, sons and a decrepit father, the artist showed old generations passing into history and new ones replacing them. The birth of a new era on the ruins of an old world crumbling into dust is the true theme of Bryullov’s painting. No matter what changes history brings, the existence of humanity does not cease, and its thirst for life remains unfading. This is the main idea of ​​“The Last Day of Pompeii”. This picture is a hymn to the beauty of humanity, which remains immortal in all the cycles of history.

The canvas was exhibited in 1833 at the Milan Art Exhibition, it caused a flurry of enthusiastic responses. The battered Italy was conquered. Bryullov’s student G.G. Gagarin testifies: “This great work aroused boundless enthusiasm in Italy. The cities where the painting was exhibited gave the artist receptions, poems were dedicated to him, he was carried through the streets with music, flowers and torches... Everywhere he was received with honor as a well-known, triumphant genius, understood and appreciated by everyone.”

The English writer Walter Scott (a representative of romantic literature, famous for his historical novels) spent a whole hour in Bryullov’s studio, about which he said that it was not a painting, but a whole poem. The Academies of Arts of Milan, Florence, Bologna and Parma elected the Russian painter as an honorary member.

Bryullov's canvas evoked enthusiastic responses from Pushkin and Gogol.

Vesuvius opened its mouth - smoke poured out in a cloud of flames

Widely developed as a battle flag.

The earth is agitated - from the shaky columns

Idols fall!..

Pushkin wrote under the impression of the painting.

Starting with Bryullov, turning points in history became the main subject of Russian historical painting, which depicted grandiose folk scenes, where every person is a participant in a historical drama, where there is no main and secondary.

“Pompeii” belongs, in general, to classicism. The artist masterfully brought out the plasticity of the human body on canvas. All the emotional movements of people were conveyed by Bryullov primarily in the language of plasticity. Individual figures, given in violent movement, are collected into balanced, frozen groups. Flashes of light emphasize the shapes of bodies and do not create strong painterly effects. However, the composition of the painting, which has a strong breakthrough in depth in the center, depicting an extraordinary event in the life of Pompeii, was inspired by romanticism.

Romanticism in Russia as a worldview existed in its first wave from the end of the 18th century to the 1850s. The line of the romantic in Russian art did not stop in the 1850s. The theme of the state of being, discovered by the romantics for art, was later developed by the artists of the Blue Rose. The direct heirs of the romantics were undoubtedly the symbolists. Romantic themes, motifs, and expressive techniques have entered the art of different styles, trends, and creative associations. The romantic worldview or worldview turned out to be one of the most vibrant, tenacious, and fruitful.

Romanticism as a general attitude, characteristic mainly of youth, as a desire for ideal and creative freedom, still constantly lives in world art.

c) Music

Romanticism in its purest form is a phenomenon of Western European art. In Russian music of the 19th century. from Glinka to Tchaikovsky, the features of classicism were combined with the features of romanticism, the leading element being a bright, original national principle. Romanticism in Russia gave an unexpected rise when this trend seemed to be a thing of the past. Two 20th-century composers, Scriabin and Rachmaninov, again resurrected such features of romanticism as unbridled flights of fantasy and sincerity of lyrics. Therefore, the 19th century called the century of musical classics.

Time (1812, the Decembrist uprising, the subsequent reaction) left its mark on the music. Whatever genre we take - romance, opera, ballet, chamber music - everywhere Russian composers have said their new word.

The music of Russia, with all its salon elegance and strict adherence to the traditions of professional instrumental writing, including sonata-symphonic writing, is based on the unique modal coloring and rhythmic structure of Russian folklore. Some rely widely on everyday songs, others on original forms of music-making, and still others on the ancient modality of ancient Russian peasant modes.

Beginning of the 19th century These are the years of the first and brightest flowering of the romance genre. The modest, sincere lyrics still resonate and delight listeners. Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabyev (1787-1851). He wrote romances based on poems by many poets, but the immortal ones are "Nightingale" to poems by Delvig, “Winter Road”, “I Love You” based on Pushkin's poems.

Alexander Egorovich Varlamov (1801-1848) wrote music for dramatic performances, but we know him best from famous romances “Red sundress”, “Don’t wake me up at dawn”, “The lonely sail is white”.

Alexander Lvovich Gurilev (1803-1858)- composer, pianist, violinist and teacher, he wrote such romances as “The bell rings monotonously”, “At the dawn of foggy youth” and etc.

The most prominent place here is occupied by Glinka's romances. No one else had yet achieved such a natural fusion of music with the poetry of Pushkin and Zhukovsky.

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857)- a contemporary of Pushkin (5 years younger than Alexander Sergeevich), a classic of Russian literature, became the founder of musical classics. His work is one of the pinnacles of Russian and world musical culture. It harmoniously combines the riches of folk music and the highest achievements of composing skills. Glinka’s deeply folk realistic creativity reflected the powerful flowering of Russian culture in the 1st half of the 19th century, associated with the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist movement. The bright, life-affirming character, the harmony of forms, the beauty of expressively melodious melodies, the variety, colorfulness and subtlety of harmonies are the most valuable qualities of Glinka’s music. In the most famous opera “Ivan Susanin”(1836) the idea of ​​popular patriotism received a brilliant expression; the moral greatness of the Russian people is glorified in the fairy-tale opera “ Ruslan and Ludmila". Orchestral works by Glinka: “Waltz Fantasy”, “Night in Madrid” and especially “Kamarinskaya”, form the basis of Russian classical symphonism. The music for the tragedy is remarkable for the power of dramatic expression and brightness of characteristics. "Prince Kholmsky". Glinka's vocal lyrics (romances “I remember a wonderful moment”, “Doubt”) is an unsurpassed embodiment of Russian poetry in music.

6. WESTERN EUROPEAN ROMANTICISM

a) Painting

If the ancestor of classicism was France, then “to find the roots... of the romantic school,” wrote one of his contemporaries, “we should go to Germany. There she was born, and there the modern Italian and French romantics formed their tastes.”

Fragmented Germany did not know the revolutionary upsurge. The pathos of advanced social ideas was alien to many of the German romantics. They idealized the Middle Ages. They gave themselves over to unaccountable emotional impulses and talked about the abandonment of human life. The art of many of them was passive and contemplative. They created their best works in the field of portrait and landscape painting.

An outstanding portrait painter was Otto Runge (1777-1810). The portraits of this master, while outwardly calm, amaze with their intense and intense inner life.

The image of a romantic poet is seen by Runge in "Self-portrait". He carefully examines himself and sees a dark-haired, dark-eyed, serious, full of energy, thoughtful, self-absorbed and strong-willed young man. The romantic artist wants to know himself. The manner of execution of the portrait is fast and sweeping, as if the spiritual energy of the creator should be conveyed in the texture of the work; In a dark color scheme, contrasts of light and dark appear. Contrast is a characteristic painting technique of the Romantic masters.

A romantic artist will always try to catch the changing play of a person’s moods and look into his soul. And in this regard, children's portraits will serve as fertile material for him. IN Portrait of the Huelsenbeck children(1805) Runge not only conveys the liveliness and spontaneity of a child’s character, but also finds a special technique for a bright mood that delights the plein air discoveries of the 2nd floor. XIX century The background in the painting is a landscape, which testifies not only to the artist’s gift for color and admiring attitude towards nature, but also to the emergence of new problems in the masterful reproduction of spatial relationships, light shades of objects in the open air. The master romantic, wanting to merge his “I” with the vastness of the Universe, strives to capture the sensually tangible appearance of nature. But with this sensuality of the image he prefers to see a symbol of the big world, “the artist’s idea.”

Runge was one of the first romantic artists who set himself the task of synthesizing the arts: painting, sculpture, architecture, music. The ensemble sound of the arts was supposed to express the unity of the divine forces of the world, each particle of which symbolizes the cosmos as a whole. The artist fantasizes, reinforcing his philosophical concept with the ideas of the famous German thinker of the 1st floor. XVII century Jacob Boehme. The world is a kind of mystical whole, each particle of which expresses the whole. This idea is akin to the romantics of the entire European continent. In poetic form, the English poet and artist William Blake expressed the same thing as follows:

See eternity in one moment,

A huge world in the mirror of sand,

In a single handful - infinity

And the sky is in the cup of a flower.

Runge's cycle, or, as he called it, “a fantastic-musical poem” “Times of the day”– morning, noon, night, is an expression of this concept. He left an explanation of his conceptual model of the world in poetry and prose. The image of a person, landscape, light and color act as symbols of the ever-changing cycle of natural and human life.

Another outstanding German romantic painter, Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840), preferred landscape to all other genres and painted only nature paintings throughout his seventy-year life. The main motive of Friedrich's work is the idea of ​​the unity of man and nature.

“Listen to the voice of nature that speaks inside us,” the artist instructs his students. The inner world of a person personifies the infinity of the Universe, therefore, having heard himself, a person is able to comprehend the spiritual depths of the world.

The listening position determines the basic form of human “communication” with nature and its image. This is the greatness, mystery or enlightenment of nature and the conscious state of the observer. True, very often Friedrich does not allow a figure to “enter” the landscape space of his paintings, but in the subtle penetration of the figurative structure of the sprawling expanses one can feel the presence of a feeling, a human experience. Subjectivism in the depiction of landscapes comes to art only with the work of the romantics, foreshadowing the lyrical revelation of nature among the masters of the 2nd gender. XIX century Researchers note in Friedrich’s works an “expansion of the repertoire” of landscape motifs. The author is interested in the sea, mountains, forests and various shades of the state of nature at different times of the year and day.

1811-1812 marked by the creation of a series of mountain landscapes as a result of the artist’s journey to the mountains. “Morning in the mountains” picturesquely represents a new natural reality emerging in the rays of the rising sun. Pinkish-purple tones envelop and deprive them of volume and material weight. The years of battle with Napoleon (1812-1813) turned Frederick to patriotic themes. Illustrating, inspired by Kleist's drama, he writes “Tomb of Arminius”- landscape with the graves of ancient German heroes.

Friedrich was a subtle master of seascapes: “Ages”, “Moonrise over the sea”, “The death of “Nadezhda” in the ice”.

The artist’s latest works are “Rest in the Field”, “Big Swamp” and “Memory of the Gigantic Mountains”, “Giant Mountains” - a series of mountain ranges and stones in the foreground darkened ground. This is, apparently, a return to the experienced feeling of a person’s victory over himself, the joy of ascension to the “top of the world,” the desire for brightening, unconquered heights. The artist’s feelings compose these mountain masses in a special way, and again one can read the movement from the darkness of the first steps to the future light. The mountain peak in the background is highlighted as the center of the master’s spiritual aspirations. The picture is very associative, like any creation of the romantics, and suggests different levels of reading and interpretation.

Friedrich is very precise in his drawing, musically harmonious in the rhythmic construction of his paintings, in which he tries to speak with emotions of color and lighting effects. “Many are given little, few are given much. The soul of nature is revealed to everyone differently. Therefore, no one dares to convey to another his experience and his rules as a mandatory unconditional law. No one is the standard for everyone. Each one carries within himself a measure only for himself and for natures more or less related to himself,” this reflection of the master proves the amazing integrity of his inner life and creativity. The uniqueness of the artist is palpable only in the freedom of his creativity - this is what the romantic Friedrich stands for.

It seems more formal to differentiate with the “classic” artists – representatives of the classicism of another branch of romantic painting in Germany – the Nazarenes. Founded in Vienna and settled in Rome (1809-1810), the “Union of St. Luke” united masters with the idea of ​​reviving monumental art with religious themes. The Middle Ages were the favorite period of history for the romantics. But in their artistic quest, the Nazarenes turned to the traditions of painting of the early Renaissance in Italy and Germany. Overbeck and Geforr were the initiators of the new alliance, which was later joined by Cornelius, J. Schnoff von Carolsfeld, and Veit Furich.

This movement of the Nazarenes corresponded to their own forms of opposition to the classicist academicians in France, Italy, and England. For example, in France, the so-called “primitivist” artists emerged from David’s workshop, and in England, the Pre-Raphaelites. In the spirit of the romantic tradition, they considered art the “expression of the times,” the “spirit of the people,” but their thematic or formal preferences, which at first sounded like a slogan of unification, after some time turned into the same doctrinaire principles as those of the Academy, which they denied.

The art of romanticism in France developed in special ways. The first thing that distinguished it from similar movements in other countries was its active offensive (“revolutionary”) character. Poets, writers, musicians, and artists defended their positions not only by creating new works, but also by participating in magazine and newspaper polemics, which researchers characterize as a “romantic battle.” The famous V. Hugo, Stendhal, George Sand, Berlioz and many other writers, composers, and journalists of France “sharpened their pens” in romantic polemics.

Romantic painting in France arose as an opposition to the classicist school of David, to academic art called the “school” in general. But this needs to be understood more broadly: it was opposition to the official ideology of the reactionary era, a protest against its petty-bourgeois limitations. Hence the pathetic nature of romantic works, their nervous excitement, attraction to exotic motifs, to historical and literary subjects, to everything that can lead away from the “dull everyday life”, hence this play of the imagination, and sometimes, on the contrary, daydreaming and a complete lack of activity.

Representatives of the “school”, academicians, rebelled primarily against the language of the romantics: their excited hot coloring, their modeling of form, not the statue-plastic, usual for the “classics”, but built on strong contrasts of color spots; their expressive drawing, which deliberately abandoned accuracy and classic precision; their bold, sometimes chaotic composition, devoid of majesty and unshakable calm. Ingres, an implacable enemy of the romantics, said until the end of his life that Delacroix “paints with a mad broom,” and Delacroix accused Ingres and all the artists of the “school” of being cold, rational, lacking movement, and not writing, but “painting.” your paintings. But this was not a simple clash of two bright, completely different individuals; it was a struggle between two different artistic worldviews.

This struggle lasted almost half a century, romanticism in art did not win victories easily and not immediately, and the first artist of this movement was Theodore Gericault (1791-1824) - a master of heroic monumental forms, who combined in his work both classicist features and the features of romanticism itself, and, finally, a powerful realistic beginning, which had a huge influence on the art of realism in the mid-19th century. But during his lifetime he was appreciated only by a few close friends.

The name of Theodore Jaricot is associated with the first brilliant successes of romanticism. Already in his early paintings (portraits of military men, images of horses), ancient ideals retreated before the direct perception of life.

In the salon in 1812, Géricault shows a painting “Officer of the Imperial Horse Chasseurs during the attack.” This was the year of the apogee of Napoleon's glory and the military power of France.

The composition of the painting presents the rider in an unusual perspective of a “sudden” moment when the horse reared up and the rider, maintaining an almost vertical position of the horse, turned towards the viewer. The depiction of such a moment of instability, the impossibility of a pose, enhances the effect of movement. The horse has one point of support; it must fall to the ground, screw itself into the fight that brought it to this state. Much came together in this work: Gericault’s unconditional faith in the possibility of a person mastering his own powers, a passionate love for depicting horses and the courage of a novice master in showing what previously only music or the language of poetry could convey - the excitement of battle, the beginning of an attack, the utmost tension of the forces of a living creature . The young author based his image on conveying the dynamics of movement, and it was important for him to encourage the viewer to “think through”, complete the drawing with “inner vision” and a feeling of what he wanted to depict.

France had practically no tradition of such dynamics in the pictorial narrative of romance, except perhaps in the reliefs of Gothic temples, therefore, when Gericault first came to Italy, he was stunned by the hidden power of Michelangelo’s compositions. “I trembled,” he writes, “I doubted myself and for a long time I could not recover from this experience.” But Stendhal pointed to Michelangelo as the forerunner of a new stylistic direction in art even earlier in his polemical articles.

Géricault's painting not only announced the birth of a new artistic talent, but also paid tribute to the author's passion and disappointment with the ideas of Napoleon. Several more works are related to this topic: “ Carabinieri officer”, “Cuirassier officer before the attack”, “Portrait of a carabinieri”, “Wounded cuirassier”.

In the treatise “Reflections on the State of Painting in France,” he writes that “luxury and the arts have become... a necessity and, as it were, food for the imagination, which is the second life of a civilized person... Not being an object of prime necessity, the arts appear only when essential needs are met and when abundance occurs. Man, freed from everyday worries, began to seek pleasure in order to get rid of boredom, which would inevitably overtake him in the midst of contentment.

This understanding of the educational and humanistic role of art was demonstrated by Géricault after returning from Italy in 1818 - he began to engage in lithography, replicating a variety of themes, including the defeat of Napoleon ( “Return from Russia”).

At the same time, the artist turns to the image of the death of the frigate “Medusa” off the coast of Africa, which agitated the society of that time. The disaster occurred due to the fault of an inexperienced captain appointed to the position under patronage. The surviving passengers of the ship, surgeon Savigny and engineer Correar, spoke in detail about the accident.

The sinking ship managed to drop a raft, which carried a handful of rescued people. For twelve days they were carried along the stormy sea until they met salvation - the ship "Argus".

Gericault became interested in the situation of extreme tension of human spiritual and physical strength. The painting depicted 15 survivors on a raft when they saw the Argus on the horizon. “The raft of the Medusa” was the result of the artist’s long preparatory work. He made many sketches of the raging sea, portraits of rescued people in the hospital. At first, Gericault wanted to show the struggle of people on a raft with each other, but then he settled on the heroic behavior of the winners of the sea elements and state negligence. The people bravely endured the misfortune, and hope for salvation did not leave them: each group on the raft had its own characteristics. In constructing the composition, Gericault chooses a point of view from above, which allowed him to combine the panoramic coverage of the space (sea distances are visible) and depict all the inhabitants of the raft, very close to the foreground. The movement is based on the contrast of the figures lying powerlessly in the foreground and the impetuous ones in the group giving signals to the passing ship. The clarity of the rhythm of increasing dynamics from group to group, the beauty of naked bodies, and the dark coloring of the picture set a certain note of conventionality in the image. But this is not the essence of the matter for the perceiving viewer, for whom the conventions of language even help to understand and feel the main thing: a person’s ability to fight and win. The ocean roars. The sail is groaning. The ropes are ringing. The raft is cracking. The wind drives the waves and tears the black clouds to shreds.

Isn't this France itself, driven by the storm of history? – thought Eugene Delacroix, standing by the painting. “The raft of the Medusa shocked Delacroix, he cried and, like crazy, jumped out of Gericault’s workshop, which he often visited.

David's art did not know such passions.

But Gericault’s life ended tragically early (he was terminally ill after falling from a horse), and many of his plans remained unfinished.

Gericault's innovation opened up new opportunities for conveying the movement that excited the romantics, the hidden feelings of a person, and the coloristic, textured expressiveness of the picture.

Eugene Delacroix became Géricault's heir in his quest. True, Delacroix was given twice as much life, and he managed not only to prove the correctness of romanticism, but also to bless a new direction in painting of the 2nd floor. XIX century – impressionism.

Before starting to paint on his own, Eugene studied at Lerain’s school: he painted from life, copied the great Rubens, Rembrandt, Veronese, Titian in the Louvre... The young artist worked 10-12 hours a day. He remembered the words of the great Michelangelo: “Painting is a jealous lover, it requires the whole person...”

After Géricault’s demonstrations, Delacroix was well aware that times of strong emotional upheaval had come in art. First, he tries to comprehend a new era for him through well-known literary plots. His picture “Dante and Virgil”, presented at the salon of 1822, is an attempt to look at the boiling cauldron, the “hell” of the modern era, through the historical associative images of two poets: Antiquity - Virgil and the Renaissance - Dante. Once upon a time, in his “Divine Comedy,” Dante took Virgil as his guide through all spheres (heaven, hell, purgatory). In Dante's work, a new Renaissance world emerged through the medieval experience of the memory of antiquity. The symbol of the romantic as a synthesis of antiquity, the Renaissance and the Middle Ages arose in the “horror” of the visions of Dante and Virgil. But the complex philosophical allegory turned out to be a good emotional illustration of the pre-Renaissance era and an immortal literary masterpiece.

Delacroix will try to find a direct response in the hearts of his contemporaries through his own heartache. Burning with freedom and hatred of the oppressors, the young people of that time sympathized with the liberation war of Greece. The romantic bard of England, Byron, goes there to fight. Delacroix sees the meaning of the new era in the depiction of a more specific historical event - the struggle and suffering of freedom-loving Greece. He dwells on the plot of the death of the population of the Greek island of Chios, captured by the Turks. At the Salon of 1824 Delacroix shows a painting “Massacre on the island of Chios.” against the backdrop of an endless expanse of hilly terrain. Which still screams from the smoke of the fires and the ongoing battle, the artist shows several groups of wounded, exhausted women and children. They had the last minutes of freedom before the approach of enemies. The Turk on a rearing horse on the right seems to hang over the entire foreground and the many sufferers there. The bodies and faces of passionate people are beautiful. By the way, Delacroix would later write that Greek sculpture was turned by artists into hieroglyphs, hiding the real Greek beauty of the face and figure. But, revealing the “beauty of the soul” in the faces of the defeated Greeks, the painter dramatizes the events so much that in order to maintain a single dynamic pace of tension, he goes to great lengths to deform the angles. These “mistakes” were already “resolved” by the work of Géricault, but Delacroix once again demonstrates the romantic credo that painting is “not the truth of a situation, but the truth of a feeling.”

In 1824, Delacroix lost his friend and teacher, Géricault. And he became the leader of new painting.

Years passed. One by one the pictures appeared: “Greece on the ruins of Missalunga”, “The Death of Sardanapalus” and others. The artist became an outcast in official circles of painting. But the July Revolution of 1830 changed the situation. She ignites the artist with the romance of victories and accomplishments. He is painting a picture “Freedom on the barricades.”

In 1831, at the Paris Salon, the French first saw Eugene Delacroix’s painting “Freedom on the Barricades,” dedicated to the “three glorious days” of the July Revolution of 1830. The painting made a stunning impression on its contemporaries with its power, democracy and boldness of artistic design. According to legend, one respectable bourgeois exclaimed: “You say - the head of the school? Better say - the head of the rebellion! After the closing of the Salon, the government, frightened by the formidable and inspiring appeal emanating from the painting, hastened to return it to the author. During the revolution of 1848, it was again put on public display at the Luxembourg Palace. And again they returned it to the artist. Only after the painting was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855 did it end up in the Louvre. One of the best creations of French romanticism is kept here to this day - an inspired eyewitness account and an eternal monument to the people’s struggle for their freedom.

What artistic language did the young French romantic find to merge these two seemingly opposite principles - a broad, all-encompassing generalization and a concrete reality cruel in its nakedness?

Paris of the famous days of July 1830. The air is saturated with blue smoke and dust. A beautiful and majestic city, disappearing in a haze of gunpowder. In the distance, barely noticeable, but proudly rise the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral - a symbol of history, culture, and the spirit of the French people. From there, from the smoke-filled city, over the ruins of the barricades, over the dead bodies of their fallen comrades, the rebels stubbornly and decisively step forward. Each of them may die, but the step of the rebels is unshakable - they are inspired by the will to victory, to freedom.

This inspiring power is embodied in the image of a beautiful young woman, passionately calling for her. With her inexhaustible energy, free and youthful swiftness of movement, she is like a Greek goddess

Nike wins. Her strong figure is dressed in a chiton dress, her face with ideal features, with burning eyes, is turned towards the rebels. In one hand she holds the tricolor flag of France, in the other - a gun. On the head is a Phrygian cap - an ancient symbol of liberation from slavery. Her step is swift and light - the way goddesses walk. At the same time, the image of the woman is real - she is the daughter of the French people. She is the guiding force behind the group's movement on the barricades. From it, as from a source of light in the center of energy, rays emanate, charging with thirst and the will to win. Those in close proximity to her, each in their own way, express their participation in this encouraging and inspiring call.

On the right is a boy, a Parisian gamen, waving pistols. He is closest to Freedom and, as it were, ignited by its enthusiasm and joy of free impulse. In his swift, boyishly impatient movement, he is even slightly ahead of his inspiration. This is the predecessor of the legendary Gavroche, portrayed twenty years later by Victor Hugo in the novel Les Misérables: “Gavroche, full of inspiration, radiant, took upon himself the task of putting the whole thing into motion. He scurried back and forth, went up, went down

down, rose again, made noise, sparkled with joy. It would seem that he came here to encourage everyone. Did he have any motive for this? Yes, of course, his poverty. Did he have wings? Yes, of course, his gaiety. It was some kind of whirlwind. It seemed to fill the air, being present everywhere at the same time... Huge barricades felt it on their ridges.”

Gavroche in Delacroix’s painting is the personification of youth, “beautiful impulse,” joyful acceptance of the bright idea of ​​Freedom. Two images - Gavroche and Freedom - seem to complement each other: one is fire, the other is a torch lit from it. Heinrich Heine told how the figure of Gavroche evoked a lively response among Parisians. "Damn it! - exclaimed some grocery merchant. “These boys fought like giants!”

On the left is a student with a gun. Previously, it was seen as a self-portrait of the artist. This rebel is not as swift as Gavroche. His movement is more restrained, more concentrated, more meaningful. The hands confidently grip the barrel of the gun, the face expresses courage, a firm determination to stand to the end. This is a deeply tragic image. The student is aware of the inevitability of losses that the rebels will suffer, but the victims do not frighten him - the will to freedom is stronger. Behind him stands an equally courageous and determined worker with a saber. There is a wounded man at the feet of Freedom. He rises with difficulty to once again look up at Freedom, to see and feel with all his heart the beauty for which he is dying. This figure brings a sharply dramatic element to the sound of Delacroix’s canvas. If the images of Gavroche, Liberty, a student, a worker - almost symbols, the embodiment of the unyielding will of freedom fighters - inspire and call on the viewer, then the wounded man calls for compassion. Man says goodbye to Freedom, says goodbye to life. He is still an impulse, a movement, but already a fading impulse.

His figure is transitional. The viewer's gaze, still fascinated and carried away by the revolutionary determination of the rebels, falls down to the foot of the barricade, covered with the bodies of the glorious dead soldiers. Death is presented by the artist in all the bareness and obviousness of the fact. We see the blue faces of the dead, their naked bodies: the struggle is merciless, and death is the same inevitable companion of the rebels, like the beautiful inspirer Freedom.

But not quite the same! From the terrible sight at the bottom edge of the picture, we again raise our gaze and see a young beautiful figure - no! life wins! The idea of ​​freedom, embodied so visibly and tangibly, is so focused on the future that death in its name is not scary.

The artist depicts only a small group of rebels, living and dead. But the defenders of the barricade seem unusually numerous. The composition is built in such a way that the group of fighters is not limited, not closed in on itself. She is just part of an endless avalanche of people. The artist gives, as it were, a fragment of the group: the picture frame cuts off the figures on the left, right, and below.

Typically, color in Delacroix's works acquires a highly emotional sound and plays a dominant role in creating a dramatic effect. The colors, now raging, now fading, muted, create a tense atmosphere. In "Freedom on the Barricades" Delacroix departs from this principle. Very precisely, carefully choosing paint and applying it with broad strokes, the artist conveys the atmosphere of the battle.

But the color scheme is restrained. Delacroix focuses attention on the relief modeling of the form. This was required by the figurative solution of the picture. After all, while depicting a specific yesterday’s event, the artist also created a monument to this event. Therefore, the figures are almost sculptural. Therefore, each character, being part of a single whole of the picture, also constitutes something closed in itself, is a symbol cast into a completed form. Therefore, color not only has an emotional impact on the viewer’s feelings, but also carries a symbolic meaning. In the brown-gray space, here and there, a solemn triad of red, blue, white - the colors of the banner of the French Revolution of 1789 - flashes. The repeated repetition of these colors maintains the powerful chord of the tricolor flag flying over the barricades.

Delacroix's painting “Freedom on the Barricades” is a complex work, grandiose in scope. Here the reliability of the directly seen fact and the symbolism of the images are combined; realism, reaching brutal naturalism, and ideal beauty; rough, terrible and sublime, pure.

The painting “Freedom on the Barricades” consolidated the victory of romanticism in French painting. In the 30s, two more historical paintings: “Battle of Poitiers” And “Murder of the Bishop of Liege.”

In 1822, the artist visited North Africa, Morocco, and Algeria. The trip made an indelible impression on him. In the 50s, paintings inspired by memories of this journey appeared in his work: “Lion hunt”, “Moroccan saddling a horse” etc. Bright contrasting colors create a romantic sound for these paintings. The broad stroke technique appears in them.

Delacroix, as a romantic, recorded the state of his soul not only through the language of picturesque images, but also formalized his thoughts literary. He well described the process of creative work of a romantic artist, his experiments in color, and reflections on the relationship between music and other forms of art. His diaries became favorite reading for artists of subsequent generations.

The French romantic school made significant changes in the field of sculpture (Rud and his relief “Marseillaise”), landscape painting (Camille Corot with his light-air images of the nature of France).

Thanks to romanticism, the artist's personal subjective vision takes the form of law. Impressionism will completely destroy the barrier between the artist and nature, declaring art to be an impression. Romantics talk about the artist’s imagination, “the voice of his feelings,” which allows him to stop the work when the master considers it necessary, and not as required by academic standards of completeness.

If Gericault's fantasies focused on conveying movement, Delacroix - on the magical power of color, and the Germans added to this a certain “spirit of painting”, then Spanish Romantics in the person of Francisco Goya (1746-1828) showed the folklore origins of the style, its phantasmagoric and grotesque character. Goya himself and his work seem far from any stylistic framework, especially since the artist very often had to follow the laws of the material of execution (when, for example, he created paintings for woven trellis carpets) or the requirements of the customer.

His phantasmagoria came to light in etching series “Caprichos” (1797-1799),"Disasters of War" (1810-1820),“Disparantes (“Follies”)(1815-1820), paintings of the “House of the Deaf” and the Church of San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid (1798). Serious illness in 1792 resulted in the artist's complete deafness. After suffering physical and spiritual trauma, the master’s art becomes more focused, thoughtful, and internally dynamic. The external world, closed due to deafness, activated Goya’s inner spiritual life.

In etchings “Caprichos” Goya achieves exceptional power in conveying instant reactions and rapid feelings. Black and white execution, thanks to the bold combination of large spots and the absence of linearity characteristic of graphics, acquires all the properties of a painting.

Goya creates the murals of the Church of St. Anthony in Madrid, it seems, in one breath. The temperament of the brushstroke, the laconicism of the composition, the expressiveness of the characteristics of the characters, whose type Goya took straight from the crowd, are amazing. The artist depicts the miracle of Anthony of Florida, who forced the murdered man to rise and speak, who named the murderer and thereby saved an innocent man from execution. The dynamism of the brightly reacting crowd is conveyed by Goya in both the gestures and facial expressions of the depicted persons. In the compositional scheme of distribution of paintings in the space of the church, the painter follows Tiepolo, but the reaction he evokes in the viewer is not baroque, but purely romantic, affecting the feelings of every viewer, calling him to turn to himself.

Most of all, this goal is achieved in the painting of Conto del Sordo (“House of the Deaf”), in which Goya lived since 1819. The walls of the rooms are covered with fifteen compositions of a fantastic and allegorical nature. Perceiving them requires deep empathy. The images appear as certain visions of cities, women, men, etc. The color, flashing, pulls out first one figure, then another. The painting as a whole is dark, it is dominated by white, yellow, pinkish-red spots, disturbing the senses with flashes. The etchings of the series can be considered a graphic parallel to “The House of the Deaf.” “Disparantes” .

Goya spent the last 4 years in France. It’s unlikely that he knew that Delacroix never parted with his “Caprichos.” And he could not foresee how Hugo and Baudelaire would be carried away by these etchings, what a huge influence his painting would have on Manet, and how in the 80s of the 19th century. V. Stasov will invite Russian artists to study his “Disasters of War”

But we, taking this into account, know what a huge influence this “styleless” art of a bold realist and an inspired romantic had on the artistic culture of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The fantastic world of dreams is also realized in his works by the English romantic artist William Blake (1757-1827). England was a classic country of romantic literature. Byron. The Shelleys became the banner of this movement far beyond the borders of Foggy Albion. In France, in magazine criticism during the “romantic battles,” the romantics were called “Shakespeareans.” The main feature of English painting has always been an interest in the human personality, which allowed the portrait genre to fruitfully develop. Romanticism in painting is very closely related to sentimentalism. The Romantics' interest in the Middle Ages gave rise to a large historical literature. The recognized master of which is W. Scott. In painting, the theme of the Middle Ages determined the appearance of the so-called Peraphaelites.

William Blake is an amazing type of romantic on the English cultural scene. He writes poetry, illustrates his own and other people's books. His talent sought to embrace and express the world in holistic unity. His most famous works are illustrations for the biblical “Book of Job”, Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, and Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. He populates his compositions with titanic figures of heroes, which correspond to their surroundings of an unreal, enlightened or phantasmagoric world. A feeling of rebellious pride or a harmony intricately created from dissonance overwhelms his illustrations.

The landscape engravings for the “Pastorals” of the Roman poet Virgil seem somewhat different - they are more idyllically romantic than their previous works.

Blake's romanticism tries to find its artistic formula and form of existence of the world.

William Blake, having lived his life in extreme poverty and obscurity, after his death was ranked among the classics of English art.

In the works of English landscape painters of the early 19th century. romantic hobbies are combined with a more objective and sober view of nature.

William Turner (1775-1851) creates romantically elevated landscapes. He loved to depict thunderstorms, showers, storms at sea, bright, fiery sunsets. Turner often exaggerated the effects of lighting and intensified the sound of color even when he painted the calm state of nature. For greater effect, he used watercolor techniques and applied oil paint in a very thin layer and painted directly on the ground, achieving rainbow tints. An example would be the picture “Rain, steam and speed”(1844). But even the famous critic of that time, Thackeray, could not correctly understand what was perhaps the most innovative picture in both concept and execution. “Rain is indicated by spots of dirty putty,” he wrote, “smeared onto the canvas with a palette knife; sunlight shines through with a dim flicker from under very thick lumps of dirty yellow chrome. The shadows are conveyed by cold shades of scarlet specks and spots of cinnabar in muted tones. And although the fire in the locomotive firebox seems red, I cannot say that it is not painted in cabalt or pea color.” Another critic found Turner’s coloring to be the color of “scrambled eggs and spinach.” The colors of late Turner generally seemed completely unthinkable and fantastic to his contemporaries. It took more than a century to see the grain of real observations in them. But as in other cases, it was here too. An interesting story has been preserved from an eyewitness, or rather, a witness to the birth of “Rain, Steam and Speed”. A certain Mrs. Simon was traveling in a compartment of the Western Express with an elderly gentleman sitting opposite her. He asked permission to open the window, stuck his head out into the pouring rain and remained in this position for quite a long time. When he finally closed the window. Water dripped from him in streams, but he blissfully closed his eyes and leaned back, clearly enjoying what he had just seen. An inquisitive young woman decided to experience his feelings for herself - she also stuck her head out the window. I got wet too. But I got an unforgettable impression. Imagine her surprise when a year later she saw “Rain, Steam and Speed” at an exhibition in London. Someone behind her critically remarked: “Extremely typical of Turner, right. No one has ever seen such a mixture of absurdities.” And she, unable to resist, said: “I saw it.”

Perhaps this is the first image of a train in painting. the point of view was taken from somewhere above, which allowed for a wide panoramic coverage. The Western Express flies across the bridge at a speed that was absolutely exceptional for that time (exceeding 150 km per hour). In addition, this is probably the first attempt to depict light through rain.

English art of the mid-19th century. developed in a completely different direction than Turner’s painting. Although his skill was generally recognized, none of the youth followed him.

Turner has long been considered a forerunner of Impressionism. It would seem that his search for color from the world should have been further developed by French artists. But this is not true at all. In fact, the view of Turner's influence on the Impressionists goes back to Paul Signac's 1899 book From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, where he described how “in 1871, during their long stay in London, Claude Manet and Camille Pissarro discovered Turner. They marveled at the confident and magical quality of his paints, they studied his work, analyzed his technique. At first they were amazed by his rendering of snow and ice, shocked by the way in which he was able to convey a feeling of whiteness of snow that they themselves could not achieve, using large spots of silvery white, laid flat with broad brush strokes. They saw that this impression was achieved not only with whitewash. And a mass of multi-colored strokes. Applied one next to the other, which gave this impression when looked at from a distance.”

During these years, Signac looked everywhere for confirmation of his theory of pointillism. But in none of Turner’s paintings, which French artists could see in the National Gallery in 1871, there is the pointillism technique described by Signac, nor, indeed, are there “wide spots of white.” Essentially, Turner’s influence on the French was stronger not in 1870 -e, and in the 1890s.

Paul Signac studied Turner most carefully - not only as a forerunner of impressionism, which he wrote about in his book, but also as a great innovative artist. About Turner’s late paintings “Rain, Steam and Speed”, “Exile”, “Morning” and “Evening of the Flood” Signac wrote to his friend Angrand: “These are no longer paintings, but accumulations of paints (polychromine), scatterings of precious stones, painting in itself in the wonderful sense of the word.”

Signac's enthusiastic assessment marked the beginning of the modern understanding of Turner's pictorial quest. But in recent years, it sometimes happens that they do not take into account the subtext and complexity of the directions of his search, one-sidedly selecting examples from Turner’s truly unfinished “underpaintings”, trying to discover in him the predecessor of impressionism.

Of all the newest artists, a comparison naturally arises with Monet, who himself recognized the influence of Turner on him. There is even one plot that is absolutely similar for both - namely the western portal of the Rouen Cathedral. But if Monet gives us a study of the solar illumination of a building, he does not give us the Gothic, but some kind of naked model, with Turner you understand why the artist, completely absorbed in nature, was carried away by this theme - in his image what is striking is precisely the combination of the overwhelming grandeur of the whole and the infinite a variety of details that brings the creations of Gothic art closer to works of nature.

The special character of English culture and romantic art opened up the possibility of the appearance of the first plein air painter who laid the foundations for the light-air depiction of nature in the 19th century - John Constable (1776-1837). The Englishman Constable chooses landscape as the main genre of his painting: “The world is great; there are no two similar days or even two similar hours; Since the creation of the world, there have not been two identical leaves on one tree, and all works of true art, like the creations of nature, differ from each other,” he said.

Constable painted large plein air sketches in oil with subtle observations of different states of nature. In them he was able to convey the complexity of the inner life of nature and its everyday life (“View of Highgate from the Hampstead Hills”, OK. 1834; "Hay cart" 1821; “Detham Valley”, ca. 1828) achieved this using writing techniques. He painted with moving strokes, sometimes thick and rough, sometimes smoother and more transparent. The impressionists will come to this only at the end of the century. Constable's innovative painting influenced the works of Delacroix, as well as the entire development of French landscape.

Constable's art, as well as many aspects of Gericault's work, marked the emergence of a realistic movement in European art of the 19th century, which initially developed in parallel with romanticism. Later their paths diverged.

Romantics open the world of the human soul, an individual, unlike anyone else, but sincere and therefore close to everyone sensual vision of the world. The immediacy of the image in painting, as Gelacroix said, and not its consistency in literary execution, determined the artists’ focus on the most complex transmission of movement, for which new formal and coloristic solutions were found. Romanticism left a legacy to the second half of the 19th century. all these problems and artistic individuality liberated from the rules of academicism. The symbol, which among the romantics was supposed to express the essential connection of idea and life, in the art of the second half of the 19th century. dissolves in the polyphony of the artistic image, capturing the diversity of ideas and the surrounding world.

b) Music

The idea of ​​a synthesis of arts found expression in the ideology and practice of romanticism. Romanticism in music developed in the 20s of the 19th century under the influence of the literature of romanticism and developed in close connection with it, with literature in general (recourse to synthetic genres, primarily opera, song, instrumental miniatures and musical programming). The appeal to the inner world of man, characteristic of romanticism, was expressed in the cult of the subjective, the craving for emotional intensity, which determined the primacy of music and lyrics in romanticism.

Music of the 1st half of the 19th century. quickly evolved. A new musical language has emerged; in instrumental and chamber-vocal music, miniature has received a special place; the orchestra sounded with a varied spectrum of colors; the possibilities of the piano and violin were revealed in a new way; the music of the romantics was very virtuosic.

Musical romanticism manifested itself in many different branches associated with different national cultures and with different social movements. So, for example, there is a significant difference between the intimate, lyrical style of the German romantics and the “oratorical” civic pathos characteristic of the work of French composers. In turn, representatives of new national schools that arose on the basis of a broad national liberation movement (Chopin, Moniuszko, Dvorak, Smetana, Grieg), as well as representatives of the Italian opera school, closely associated with the Risorgimento movement (Verdi, Bellini), in many ways differ from their contemporaries in Germany, Austria or France, in particular, in their tendency to preserve classical traditions.

And yet, they are all marked by some common artistic principles that allow us to talk about a single romantic system of thought.

Thanks to the special ability of music to deeply and soulfully reveal the rich world of human experiences, it was put in first place among other arts by romantic aesthetics. Many romantics emphasized the intuitive nature of music and attributed to it the ability to express the “unknowable.” The work of outstanding romantic composers had a strong realistic basis. Interest in the life of ordinary people, fullness of life and truth of feelings, and reliance on everyday music determined the realism of the work of the best representatives of musical romanticism. Reactionary tendencies (mysticism, escapism) are inherent in only a relatively small number of works by the romantics. They appeared partly in Weber’s opera “Euryanthe” (1823), in some of Wagner’s musical dramas, in Liszt’s oratorio “Christ” (1862), etc.

By the beginning of the 19th century, fundamental studies of folklore, history, and ancient literature appeared; medieval legends, Gothic art, and Renaissance culture were resurrected. It was at this time that many national schools of a special type emerged in the compositional work of Europe, which were destined to significantly expand the boundaries of pan-European culture. Russian, which soon took, if not the first, then one of the first places in world cultural creativity (Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, the “Kuchkists”, Tchaikovsky), Polish (Chopin, Moniuszko), Czech (Smetana, Dvorak), Hungarian (Liszt), then Norwegian (Grieg), Spanish (Pedrel), Finnish (Sibelius), English (Elgar) - all of them, joining the general mainstream of European compositional creativity, in no way opposed themselves to the established ancient traditions. A new circle of images emerged, expressing the unique national features of the national culture to which the composer belonged. The intonation structure of a work allows you to instantly recognize by ear whether you belong to a particular national school.

Composers incorporate the intonation patterns of ancient, predominantly peasant folklore of their countries into the pan-European musical language. They, as it were, cleansed Russian folk song from varnished opera; they introduced song turns of folk genres into the cosmopolitan intonation system of the 18th century. The most striking phenomenon in the music of romanticism, especially clearly perceived when compared with the figurative sphere of classicism, is the dominance of the lyrical-psychological principle. Of course, a distinctive feature of musical art in general is the refraction of any phenomenon through the sphere of feelings. Music of all eras is subject to this pattern. But the romantics surpassed all their predecessors in the importance of the lyrical principle in their music, in the strength and perfection in conveying the depths of a person’s inner world, the subtlest shades of mood.

The theme of love occupies a dominant place in it, because it is this state of mind that most comprehensively and fully reflects all the depths and nuances of the human psyche. But it is highly characteristic that this theme is not limited to the motives of love in the literal sense of the word, but is identified with the widest range of phenomena. The purely lyrical experiences of the characters are revealed against the backdrop of a broad historical panorama. A person’s love for his home, for his fatherland, for his people runs like a through thread through the work of all romantic composers.

A huge place is given to the image of nature in musical works of small and large forms, which is closely and inextricably intertwined with the theme of lyrical confession. Like images of love, the image of nature personifies the hero’s state of mind, so often colored by a feeling of disharmony with reality.

The theme of fantasy often competes with images of nature, which is probably generated by the desire to escape from the captivity of real life. Typical of the romantics was the search for a wonderful world sparkling with a wealth of colors, opposed to gray everyday life. It was during these years that literature was enriched with fairy tales and ballads of Russian writers. For composers of the romantic school, fairy-tale, fantastic images acquire a unique national coloring. The ballads are inspired by Russian writers, and thanks to this, works of a fantastic grotesque plan are created, symbolizing, as it were, the reverse side of faith, striving to reverse the ideas of fear of the forces of evil.

Many romantic composers also acted as music writers and critics (Weber, Berlioz, Wagner, Liszt, etc.). The theoretical works of representatives of progressive romanticism made a very significant contribution to the development of the most important issues of musical art. Romanticism also found expression in the performing arts (violinist Paganini, singer A. Nurri, etc.).

The progressive meaning of Romanticism during this period lies mainly in the activities Franz Liszt. Liszt's work, despite the contradictory worldview, was fundamentally progressive and realistic. One of the founders and classics of Hungarian music, an outstanding national artist.

Hungarian national themes were widely reflected in many of Liszt's works. Liszt's romantic, virtuosic works expanded the technical and expressive capabilities of piano playing (concertos, sonatas). Liszt’s connections with representatives of Russian music, whose works he actively promoted, were significant.

At the same time, Liszt played a major role in the development of world musical art. After Liszt, “everything became possible for the piano.” The characteristic features of his music are improvisation, romantic elation, and expressive melody. Liszt is valued as a composer, performer, and musical figure. The composer's major works: the opera “ Don Sancho or the Castle of Love”(1825), 13 symphonic poems “ Tasso ”, ” Prometheus ”, “Hamlet” and others, works for orchestra, 2 concerts for piano and orchestra, 75 romances, choirs and other equally famous works.

One of the first manifestations of romanticism in music was creativity Franz Schubert(1797-1828). Schubert went down in the history of music as one of the greatest founders of musical romanticism and the creator of a number of new genres: the romantic symphony, the piano miniature, and the lyric-romantic song (romance). The greatest significance in his work is song, in which he showed especially many innovative tendencies. In Schubert's songs, the inner world of a person is most deeply revealed, his characteristic connection with folk music is most noticeable, one of the most significant features of his talent is most clearly manifested - the amazing variety, beauty, charm of melodies. The best songs of the early period include “ Margarita at the spinning wheel ”(1814) , “Forest king" Both songs are written to the words of Goethe. In the first of them, an abandoned girl remembers her beloved. She is lonely and deeply suffering, her song is sad. The simple and soulful melody is echoed only by the monotonous hum of the breeze. “The Forest King” is a complex work. This is not a song, but rather a dramatic scene where three characters appear before us: a father galloping on a horse through the forest, a sick child whom he is carrying with him, and a formidable forest king who appears to a boy in a feverish delirium. Each of them is endowed with its own melodic language. No less famous and beloved are Schubert’s songs “Trout”, “Barcarolle”, “Morning Serenade”. Written in later years, these songs are distinguished by a surprisingly simple and expressive melody and fresh colors.

Schubert also wrote two song cycles - “ Beautiful miller's wife”(1823), and “ winter journey”(1872) - based on the words of the German poet Wilhelm Müller. In each of them, the songs are united by one plot. The songs in the “Beautiful Miller's Wife” cycle tell about a young boy. Following the flow of the stream, he sets off on a journey to seek his happiness. Most of the songs in this cycle have a light character. The mood of the “Winter Retreat” cycle is completely different. A poor young man is rejected by a rich bride. In despair, he leaves his hometown and goes to wander around the world. His companions are the wind, a blizzard, and an ominously cawing raven.

The few examples given here allow us to talk about the peculiarities of Schubert's songwriting.

Schubert loved to write music for piano. He wrote a huge number of works for this instrument. Like songs, his piano works were close to everyday music and just as simple and understandable. His favorite genres of compositions were dances, marches, and in the last years of his life - impromptu.

Waltzes and other dances usually appeared in Schubert at balls and on country walks. There he improvised them and recorded them at home.

If you compare Schubert's piano pieces with his songs, you can find many similarities. First of all, there is great melodic expressiveness, grace, and colorful juxtaposition of major and minor.

One of the largest French composers of the second half of the 19th century Georges Bizet, creator of an immortal creation for musical theater - operas “Carmen” and wonderful music for the drama by Alphonse Daudet “ Arlesian ”.

Bizet's work is characterized by precision and clarity of thought, novelty and freshness of expressive means, completeness and grace of form. Bizet is characterized by the sharpness of psychological analysis in comprehending human feelings and actions, characteristic of the work of the composer's great compatriots - the writers Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant. The central place in Bizet's work, diverse in genres, belongs to opera. The composer's operatic art arose on national soil and was nurtured by the traditions of the French opera theater. Bizet considered the first task in his work to be overcoming the genre restrictions existing in French opera that hampered its development. “Grand” opera seems to him a dead genre, lyrical opera irritates him with its tearfulness and petty-bourgeois limitations, comic opera deserves attention more than others. For the first time in Bizet’s opera, rich and lively everyday and crowd scenes appear, anticipating vital and vibrant scenes.

Music by Bizet for the drama by Alphonse Daudet “Arlesian” is known mainly for two concert suites, composed of her best numbers. Bizet used some authentic Provençal melodies : “March of the Three Kings” And “Dance of the Frisky Horses.”

Bizet's Opera Carmen” is a musical drama that unfolds before the viewer with convincing truthfulness and breathtaking artistic power the story of love and death of its heroes: the soldier Jose and the gypsy Carmen. The opera Carmen was created on the basis of the traditions of French musical theater, but at the same time it introduced a lot of new things. Based on the best achievements of the national opera and reforming its most important elements, Bizet created a new genre - realistic musical drama.

In the history of the opera theater of the 19th century, the opera “Carmen” occupies one of the first places. In 1876, her triumphal march began on the stages of the opera houses of Vienna, Brussels, and London.

The manifestation of a personal attitude towards the environment was expressed among poets and musicians primarily in spontaneity, emotional “openness” and passion of expression, in the desire to convince the listener with the help of the constant intensity of the tone of recognition or confession.

These new trends in art had a decisive influence on the emergence lyric opera. It arose as the antithesis of “grand” and comic opera, but it could not ignore their conquests and achievements in the field of operatic drama and means of musical expression.

A distinctive feature of the new opera genre was the lyrical interpretation of any literary plot - on a historical, philosophical or modern topic. The heroes of the lyric opera are endowed with the features of ordinary people, devoid of exclusivity and some hyperbolism characteristic of romantic opera. The most significant artist in the field of lyric opera was Charles Gounod.

Among Gounod’s rather numerous operatic heritage is the opera “ Faust" occupies a special and, one might say, exclusive place. Its worldwide fame and popularity are unmatched by Gounod's other operas. The historical significance of the opera “Faust” is especially great because it was not only the best, but essentially the first among the operas of the new direction, about which Tchaikovsky wrote: “It is impossible to deny that “Faust” was written, if not brilliantly, then with extraordinary skill and without significant originality.” In the image of Faust, the acute inconsistency and “doubleness” of his consciousness, the eternal dissatisfaction caused by the desire to understand the world, are smoothed out. Gounod was unable to convey all the versatility and complexity of the image of Goethe's Mephistopheles, who embodied the spirit of militant criticism of that era.

One of the main reasons for the popularity of “Faust” was that it concentrated the best and fundamentally new features of the young genre of lyric opera: the emotionally direct and vividly individual conveyance of the inner world of the opera’s heroes. The deep philosophical meaning of Goethe's Faust, which sought to reveal the historical and social destinies of all humanity through the example of the conflict of the main characters, was embodied in Gounod in the form of the humane lyrical drama of Margarita and Faust.

French composer, conductor, music critic Hector Berlioz entered the history of music as the largest romantic composer, creator of the program symphony, innovator in the field of musical form, harmony and especially instrumentation. The features of revolutionary pathos and heroism were vividly embodied in his work. Berlioz knew M. Glinka, whose music he highly valued. He was on friendly terms with the leaders of the “Mighty Handful,” who enthusiastically accepted his writings and creative principles.

He created 5 musical stage works, including operas “ Benvenuto Chillini ”(1838), “ Trojans ”,”Beatrice and Benedick”(based on Shakespeare’s comedy “Much Ado About Nothing”, 1862); 23 vocal-symphonic works, 31 romances, choirs, he wrote the books “Great Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration” (1844), “Evenings in the Orchestra” (1853), “Through Songs” (1862), “Musical Curiosities” ( 1859), “Memoirs” (1870), articles, reviews.

German composer, conductor, playwright, publicist Richard Wagner entered the history of world musical culture as one of the greatest musical creators and major reformers of the art of opera. The goal of his reforms was to create a monumental programmatic vocal-symphonic work in dramatic form, designed to replace all types of opera and symphonic music. Such a work was a musical drama, in which the music flows in a continuous stream, merging all the dramatic links together. Abandoning the finished singing, Wagner replaced them with a kind of emotionally rich recitative. A large place in Wagner's operas is occupied by independent orchestral episodes, which are a valuable contribution to world symphonic music.

Wagner’s hand belongs to 13 operas: “ The Flying Dutchman” (1843), “Tannhäuser” (1845), “Tristan and Isolde” (1865), “Das Rheingold” (1869) and etc.; choirs, piano pieces, romances.

Another outstanding German composer, conductor, pianist, teacher, and musical figure was Felix Mendelssohn–Bartholdy. At the age of 9 he began performing as a pianist, and at the age of 17 he created one of his masterpieces - the overture to the comedy “ C he's on a midsummer night" Shakespeare. In 1843 he founded the first conservatory in Germany in Leipzig. The works of Mendelssohn, “a classic among the romantics,” combine romantic features with a classical way of thinking. His music is characterized by bright melody, democratic expression, moderation of feelings, calmness of thought, the predominance of light emotions, lyrical moods, not without a slight touch of sentimentality, impeccability of forms, brilliant craftsmanship. R. Schumann called him “Mozart of the 19th century,” G. Heine called him “a musical miracle.”

Author of landscape romantic symphonies (“Scottish”, “Italian”), program concert overtures, a popular violin concerto, cycles of pieces for piano “Song without Words”; the opera “The Wedding of Camacho.” He wrote music for the dramatic performance “Antigone” (1841), “Oedipus at Colonus” (1845) by Sophocles, “Athalia” by Racine (1845), “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Shakespeare (1843) and others; oratorios “Paul” (1836), “Elijah” (1846); 2 concertos for piano and 2 for violin.

IN Italian musical culture has a special place in the history of Giuseppe Verdi, an outstanding composer, conductor, and organist. The main area of ​​Verdi's work is opera. He acted mainly as a spokesman for the heroic-patriotic feelings and national liberation ideas of the Italian people. In subsequent years, he paid attention to dramatic conflicts generated by social inequality, violence, oppression, and exposed evil in his operas. Characteristic features of Verdi's work: folk music, dramatic temperament, melodic brightness, understanding of the laws of the stage.

He wrote 26 operas: “ Nabucco”, “Macbeth”, “Troubadour”, “La Traviata”, “Othello”, “Aida”" and etc . , 20 romances, vocal ensembles .

Young Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) strived for the development of national music. This was expressed not only in his work, but also in the promotion of Norwegian music.

During his years in Copenhagen, Grieg wrote a lot of music: “ Poetic pictures” And "Humoresque" sonata for piano and first violin sonata, songs. With each new work, Grieg's image as a Norwegian composer emerges more clearly. In the subtle lyrical “Poetic Pictures” (1863), national features still timidly make their way. The rhythmic figure is often found in Norwegian folk music; it became characteristic of many of Grieg's melodies.

Grieg's creativity is vast and multifaceted. Grieg wrote works of various genres. The Piano Concerto and Ballads, three sonatas for violin and piano and a sonata for cello and piano, the quartet testify to Grieg's constant attraction to large-scale form. At the same time, the composer’s interest in instrumental miniatures remained constant. To the same extent as the piano, the composer was also attracted to chamber vocal miniatures - romances, songs. Without Grieg’s main focus, the field of symphonic creativity is marked by such masterpieces as the suites “ Pere Gounod ”, “From the time of Holberg" One of the characteristic types of Grieg's creativity is the processing of folk songs and dances: in the form of simple piano pieces, a suite cycle for piano four hands.

Grieg's musical language is clearly unique. The individuality of the composer's style is most determined by his deep connection with Norwegian folk music. Grieg widely uses genre features, intonation structure, and rhythmic formulas of folk song and dance melodies.

Grieg's remarkable mastery of variational and variant development of the melody is rooted in the folk traditions of repeating the melody many times with its changes. “I recorded the folk music of my country.” Behind these words lies Grieg’s reverent attitude towards folk art and recognition of its decisive role for his own creativity.

7. CONCLUSION

Based on all of the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

The emergence of romanticism was influenced by three main events: the Great French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of the national liberation movement in Europe.

Romanticism as a method and direction in artistic culture was a complex and contradictory phenomenon. In every country it had a strong national expression. Romantics occupied different social and political positions in society. They all rebelled against the results of the bourgeois revolution, but they rebelled in different ways, since each had their own ideal. But for all its diversity and diversity, romanticism has stable features:

All of them came from the denial of the Enlightenment and the rationalistic canons of classicism, which fettered the artist’s creative initiative.

They discovered the principle of historicism (enlightenmentists judged the past ahistorically; for them there was “reasonable” and “unreasonable”). We saw in the past human characters formed by their time. Interest in the national past has given rise to a lot of historical works.

Interest in a strong personality that opposes itself to the entire world around it and relies only on itself.

Attention to the inner world of a person.

Romanticism was widely developed both in Western Europe and in Russia. However, romanticism in Russia differed from Western Europe due to a different historical situation and a different cultural tradition. The real reason for the emergence of romanticism in Russia was the Patriotic War of 1812, in which the full power of popular initiative was demonstrated.

Features of Russian romanticism:

Romanticism was not opposed to the Enlightenment. Enlightenment ideology weakened, but did not collapse, as in Europe. The ideal of an enlightened monarch has not exhausted itself.

Romanticism developed in parallel with classicism, often intertwined with it.

Romanticism in Russia manifested itself differently in different types of art. It was not readable in architecture at all. In painting it dried up by the middle of the 19th century. It manifested itself only partially in music. Perhaps only in literature did romanticism manifest itself consistently.

In the fine arts, romanticism manifested itself most clearly in painting and graphics, less expressively in sculpture and architecture.

Romantics open the world of the human soul, an individual, unlike anyone else, but sincere and therefore close to everyone sensual vision of the world. The immediacy of the image in painting, as Delacroix said, and not its consistency in literary execution, determined the artists’ focus on the most complex transmission of movement, for which new formal and coloristic solutions were found. Romanticism left a legacy to the second half of the 19th century. all these problems and artistic individuality liberated from the rules of academicism. The symbol, which among the romantics was supposed to express the essential connection of idea and life, in the art of the second half of the 19th century. dissolves in the polyphony of the artistic image, capturing the diversity of ideas and the surrounding world. Romanticism in painting is closely related to sentimentalism.

Thanks to romanticism, the artist's personal subjective vision takes the form of law. Impressionism will completely destroy the barrier between the artist and nature, declaring art to be an impression. Romantics talk about the artist’s imagination, “the voice of his feelings,” which allows him to stop the work when the master considers it necessary, and not as required by academic standards of completeness.

Romanticism left an entire era in world artistic culture, its representatives were: in Russian literature Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov and others; in fine arts E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, F. Runge, J. Constable, W. Turner, O. Kiprensky, A. Venetsianov, A. Orlorsky, V. Tropinin and others; in music F. Schubert, R. Wagner, G. Berlioz, N. Paganini, F. Liszt, F. Chopin and others. They discovered and developed new genres, paid close attention to the fate of the human personality, revealed the dialectic of good and evil, masterfully revealed human passions, etc.

The types of art more or less equalized in importance and produced magnificent works of art, although the romantics gave primacy to music in the ladder of the arts.

Romanticism in Russia as a worldview existed in its first wave from the end of the 18th century to the 1850s. The line of the romantic in Russian art did not stop in the 1850s. The theme of the state of being, discovered by the romantics for art, was later developed by the artists of the Blue Rose. The direct heirs of the romantics were undoubtedly the symbolists. Romantic themes, motifs, and expressive techniques have entered the art of different styles, trends, and creative associations. The romantic worldview or worldview turned out to be one of the most vibrant, tenacious, and fruitful.

Romanticism as a general attitude, characteristic mainly of youth, as a desire for ideal and creative freedom, still constantly lives in world art.

8. REFERENCES

1. Amminskaya A.M. Alexey Gavrilovich Vnetsianov. -- M: Knowledge, 1980

2. Atsarkina E.N. Aleksandr Osipovich Orlovsky. - M: Art, 1971.

3. Belinsky V.G. Essays. A. Pushkin. – M: 1976.

4. Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Chief editor: Prokhorov A.M.).– M: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1977.

5. Vainkop Yu., Gusin I. Brief biographical dictionary of composers. – L: Music, 1983.

6. Vasily Andreevich Tropiin (edited by M.M. Rakovskaya). -- M: Fine Arts, 1982.

7. Vorotnikov A.A., Gorshkovoz O.D., Yorkina O.A. History of art. – Mn: Literature, 1997.

8. Zimenko V. Alexander Osipovch Orlovsky. - M: State Publishing House of Fine Arts, 1951.

9. Ivanov S.V. M.Yu. Lermontov. Life and art. – M: 1989.

10. Musical literature of foreign countries (edited by B. Levik).- M: Music, 1984.

11. Nekrasova E.A. Turner. -- M: Fine Arts, 1976.

12. Ozhegov S.I. Dictionary of the Russian language. – M: State Publishing House of Foreign and Russian Dictionaries, 1953.

13. Orlova M. J. Constable. - M: Art, 1946.

14. Russian artists. A.G. Venetsianov. – M: State Publishing House of Fine Arts, 1963.

15. Sokolov A.N. History of Russian literature of the 19th century (1 half). – M: Higher School, 1976.

16. Turchin V.S. Orest Kiprensky. -- M: Knowledge, 1982.

17. Turchin V.S. Theodore Gericault. -- M: Fine Arts, 1982.

18. Filimonova S.V. History of world artistic culture.-- Mozyr: White Wind, 1997.

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

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

Fine art of romanticism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, European and, including American, culture experienced a birth that was completely different from the period of reflection and philosophy of the Enlightenment, the stage of Romanticism. Gradually interspersing from Germany into the culture and art of England, France, Russia and other European countries, Romanticism enriched the artistic world with new colors, storylines and the boldness of the nude.

The name of the fresh movement was born from the close interweaving of several meanings of monophonic words from different countries - romantisme (France), romance (Spain), romantic (England). Subsequently, the name of the movement took root and has survived to this day as romantique — something picturesquely strange, fantastically beautiful, existing only in books, but not in reality.

general characteristics

Romanticism replaces the Age of Enlightenment and coincides with the industrial revolution, marked by the appearance of the steam engine, steam locomotive, steamship, photography and factory outskirts. If the Enlightenment is characterized by the cult of reason and civilization based on its principles, then romanticism affirms the cult of nature, feelings and the natural in man.

It was in the era of romanticism that the phenomena of tourism, mountaineering and picnics took shape, designed to restore the unity of man and nature. The image of a “noble savage”, armed with “folk wisdom” and not spoiled by civilization, is in demand. That is, the romanticists wanted to show an unusual person in unusual circumstances. In short, the romanticists opposed progressive civilization.

Romanticism in painting

The depth of their own personal experiences and thoughts — that’s what painters convey through their artistic image, which is made using color, composition and accents. Various European countries had their own characteristics in the interpretation of the romantic image. All this is connected with the philosophical current, as well as the socio-political situation, to which art was the only living response. Painting was no exception.

Germany at that time was fragmented into small duchies and principalities and was experiencing severe public turmoil. The painters did not depict titanic heroes, did not make monumental canvases; in this case, enthusiasm was evoked by the deep spiritual world of man, moral quests, his greatness and beauty. Therefore, romanticism in German painting is represented to the greatest extent in landscapes and portraits.

The traditional standard of this genre is the Works of Otto Runge. In the portraits of this painter, through the treatment of facial features and eyes, through the contrast of shadow and light, the artist’s zeal is conveyed to demonstrate the inconsistency of personality, its depth and power of feeling. Thanks to the landscape, the images of trees, birds and flowers are exaggerated and to a lesser extent mind-blowing. Otto Runge also tried to discover the diversity of the human personality, its similarity with nature, unidentified and different.

Self-portrait "The three of us", 1805, Philipp Otto Runge

In France, romanticism in painting developed according to different principles. Stormy social life, as well as revolutionary upheavals, are manifested in painting by the painters’ inclination to depict mind-blowing and historical subjects, also with “nervous” excitement and pathos, which were achieved by dazzling color contrast, some chaos, expression of movements, as well as spontaneity of compositions.

In the works of T. Gericault, romantic ideas are most clearly represented. The painter created a pulsating depth of emotion, using light and color professionally, depicting a sublime impulse towards freedom and struggle.

"Epsom Derby", 1821, Theodore Géricault

“Officer of the mounted rangers of the imperial guard, going on the attack,” 1812

The era of Romanticism was also reflected in the paintings of artists who exposed inner fears, impulses, love and hatred in clear contrasts of light, shadow and halftones. The whitewashed bodies of G.I. Fusli along with the phantasmagoria of fictional monsters, the naked touching female bodies of E. Delacroix against the backdrop of gloomy debris and smoke, paintings painted with the magical power of the brush of the Spanish painter F. Goya, the freshness of the calm and the gloom of the storm of I. Aivazovsky — pulled from the depths of the centuries of Gothic and Renaissance brought to the surface what was previously so skillfully masked by generally accepted canons.

Nightmare, 1781, Johann Heinrich Fusli

Liberty Leading the People, 1830, Eugene Delacroix

Rainbow, Ivan Aivazovsky

If the painting of the 13th and 14th centuries was stingy with emotions, and in the subsequent three hundred years of the formation of the art of the Early and High Renaissance, with its overcoming of religiosity and blind faith in something else, or the Enlightenment period, which put an end to the “witch hunt,” then the artistic representation on the canvases of Romanticism allowed look into a world different from the real one.

To convey passions, artists resorted to the use of rich colors, bright strokes and saturation of paintings with “special effects”.

Biedermeier

One of the branches of romanticism in painting is the style Biedermeier. The main feature of Biedermeier is idealism. In painting, everyday scenes predominate, while in other genres the paintings are of a chamber nature. Painting seeks to find features of idyllic attractiveness in the world of a small person. This tendency is rooted in the peculiarities of national German life, primarily the burghers.

Bookworm, ok. 1850, K. Spitzweg

One of the most prominent representatives of Biedermeier painting, Carl Spitzweg, painted eccentric philistines, as they were called in Germany, philistines, as he himself was.

Of course, his heroes are limited, these are the little people of the province, watering roses on the balcony, postmen, cooks, clerks. There is humor in Spitzweg's paintings; he laughs at his characters, but without malice.

Gradually, the concept of “Biedermeier” spread to fashion, applied art, graphics, interior design, and furniture. In applied art, painting of porcelain and glass receives the greatest development. By 1900, the word also came to mean "the good old days."

Biedermeier — the style is provincial, although metropolitan artists also worked in this style, in Berlin and Vienna. Biedermeier also penetrated into Russia. His influence is in the works of Russian masters, A. G. Venetsianov and V. A. Tropinin. The expression “Russian Biedermeier” exists, although it sounds ridiculous.

Sleeping shepherd, 1823-24, A. G. Venetsianov

Family portrait of the Counts Morkovs, 1813, V. A. Tropinin

In Russia, Biedermeier is Pushkin's times. Biedermeier fashion — the fashion of Pushkin’s times. This is a jacket, vest and top hat for men, a cane, tight trousers with straps. Sometimes — a tailcoat. Women wore dresses with narrow waists, wide necklines, wide bell-shaped skirts, and hats. Things were simple, without complex decorations.

Interiors in the Biedermeier style are characterized by intimacy, balanced proportions, simplicity of shape and light colors. The premises were light and spacious, which is why the interior was perceived as moderately simple, but psychologically comfortable. The walls of rooms with deep window niches were painted white or other light colors and covered with embossed striped wallpaper. The pattern on the window curtains and furniture upholstery was the same. These fabric interior parts were colored and contained designs depicting flowers.

The concept of a “clean room” appears, that is, a room that was not used on weekdays. This usually closed “Sunday room” served only for receiving guests. Furniture painted in warm colors and wall watercolors, engravings, as well as a large number of decorations and souvenirs added additional comfort to the residential interior. As with style preferences, the practical Biedermeier selects only those pieces of furniture that correspond to his idea of ​​functionality and comfort. Never before has furniture so fully met its purpose as in this era - decorativeness fades into the background.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Biedermeier began to be assessed negatively. He was understood as “vulgar, bourgeois.” He really had such features as intimacy, intimacy, sentimentality, poeticization of things, which led to such an assessment.

Romanticism in literature

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.

Romantic hero- a complex, passionate personality, whose inner world is unusually deep and 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 — love in all its manifestations, low — greed, ambition, envy. Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

Among the late Western European romantics, pessimism towards society acquires cosmic proportions and becomes the “disease of the century.” The heroes of many romantic works (F.R. Chateaubriand, A. Musset, J. Byron, A. Vigny, A. Lamartine, G. Heine, etc.) 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”, as well as in the works of Byron, C. Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffman, E. Poe and N. Hawthorne.

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge the “terrible world”—primarily 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 path must resolve all contradictions and 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 not try to change fate (poets of the “lake school”, Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, “world evil” caused protest, demanded revenge and struggle. (J. Byron, P. B. Shelley, S. Petofi, A. Mickiewicz, early A. S. Pushkin). What they had in common was that they all saw in man a single essence, the task of which 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.

By the way, it is thanks to Zhukovsky that Russian literature includes one of the favorite genres of Western European romantics — ballad. Thanks to Zhukovsky's translations, Russian readers became acquainted with the ballads of Goethe, Schiller, Burger, Southey, and W. Scott. “The translator in prose is a slave, the translator in verse is a rival”, these words belong to Zhukovsky himself and reflect his attitude towards his own translations.

After Zhukovsky, many poets turned to the ballad genre - A.S. Pushkin ( Song about Prophetic Oleg, Drowned), M.Yu. Lermontov ( Airship, Mermaid), A.K. Tolstoy ( Vasily Shibanov) and etc.