Romanticism as a direction in art. Romanticism in European painting-presentation on MHK The main features of romanticism in art

The art of the period of romanticism at the heart of its idea has the spiritual and creative value of the individual, as the main topic for philosophy and reflection. It appeared at the end of the 18th century and is characterized by romantic motifs associated with various oddities and picturesque events or landscapes. At its core, the appearance of this trend was an opposition to classicism, and the harbinger of its appearance was sentimentalism, which was quite clearly expressed in the literature of that time.

By the beginning of the 19th century, romanticism flourished and completely immersed itself in sensual and emotional images. In addition, a very important fact was the rethinking of the attitude towards religion in this era, as well as the emergence of atheism expressed in the work. The values ​​​​of feelings and heartfelt experiences are put at the head, and there is also a gradual public recognition of a person's intuition.

Romanticism in painting

The direction is characterized by the allocation of sublime themes, which is the main one for this style in any creative activity. Sensuality is expressed in any possible and acceptable way, and this is the most important difference in this direction.

(Christiano Banti "Galileo before the Roman Inquisition")

Among the founders of philosophical romanticism, Novalis and Schleiermacher can be distinguished, but in painting, Theodore Gericault distinguished himself in this regard. In literature, one can note particularly bright writers of the period of romanticism - the brothers Grimm, Hoffmann and Heine. In many European countries, this style developed under strong German influence.

The main features can be called:

• romantic notes clearly expressed in creativity;
• fabulous and mythological notes even in completely non-fairytale prose;
• philosophical reflections on the meaning of human life;
• deepening in the subject of personality development.

(Friedrich Caspar David "Moonrise over the sea")

It can be said that romanticism is characterized by notes of the cultivation of nature and the naturalness of human nature, and natural sensuality. The unity of man with nature is also glorified, and images of the knightly era, surrounded by an aura of nobility and honor, as well as travelers who easily embark on romantic journeys, are also very popular.

(John Martin "Macbeth")

Events in literature or painting develop around the strongest passions experienced by the characters. Heroes have always been personalities prone to adventurism, playing with fate and predetermination of fate. In painting, romanticism is perfectly characterized by fantastic phenomena that demonstrate the process of becoming a person and the spiritual development of a person.

Romanticism in Russian art

In Russian culture, romanticism was especially pronounced in literature, and it is believed that the first manifestations of this trend are expressed in Zhukovsky's romantic poetry, although some experts believe that his works are close to classical sentimentalism.

(V. M. Vasnetsov "Alyonushka")

Russian romanticism is characterized by freedom from classical conventions, and this trend is characterized by romantic dramatic plots and long ballads. In fact, this is the latest understanding of the essence of man, as well as the significance of poetry and creativity in people's lives. In this regard, the same poetry acquires a more serious, meaningful meaning, although earlier writing poetry was considered ordinary empty fun.

(Fedor Alexandrovich Vasiliev "Thaw")

Most often in Russian romanticism, the image of the protagonist is created as a lonely and deeply suffering person. It is suffering and emotional experiences that are given the most attention by authors both in literature and in painting. In fact, this is an eternal movement along with various thoughts and reflections, and the struggle of a person with constant changes in the world that surrounds him.

(Orest Kiprensky "Portrait of Life Hussars Colonel E.V. Davydov")

The hero is usually quite self-centered and constantly rebels against the vulgar and material goals and values ​​​​of people. It promotes getting rid of material values ​​in favor of spiritual and personal ones. Among the Russian most popular and striking characters created within the framework of this creative direction, one can single out the main character from the novel "A Hero of Our Time". It is this novel that very clearly demonstrates the motives and notes of romanticism in that period.

(Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky "Fishermen on the seashore")

The painting is characterized by fairy-tale and folklore motifs, romantic and full of various dreams. All works are as aesthetic as possible and have correct, beautiful constructions and forms. In this direction, there is no place for hard lines and geometric shapes, as well as overly bright and contrasting shades. In this case, complex structures and many small, very important details in the picture are used.

Romanticism in architecture

The architecture of the Romantic era is similar in itself to fairy-tale castles, and is distinguished by incredible luxury.

(Blenheim Palace, England)

The most striking and famous buildings of this time are characterized by:

• the use of metal structures, which was a new invention during this period, and represented a rather unique innovation;
• complex silhouettes and designs that involve incredible combinations of beautiful elements, including turrets and bay windows;
• the richness and variety of architectural forms, the abundance of various combinations of technologies for the use of iron alloys with stone and glass;
• the building acquires visual lightness, thin forms allow you to create even very large buildings with minimal bulkiness.

The most famous bridge of this period was created in 1779 in England, and was thrown over the River Severn. It has a fairly short length, just over 30 meters, but it was the first such structure. Later, bridges over 70 meters were created, and after a few years, cast-iron structures began to be used in the construction of buildings.

The buildings had up to 4-5 floors, and the interior layouts were characterized by asymmetric shapes. Asymmetry can also be seen in the facades of this era, and forged lattices on the windows make it possible to emphasize the appropriate mood. You can also use stained glass windows, which is especially true for churches and cathedrals.

1.1 Main features of romanticism

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

The French word romantisme goes back to the Spanish romance (in the Middle Ages, the Spanish romances were called so, and then the chivalrous romance), the English romantic, which turned into the 18th century. in romantique and then meaning "strange", "fantastic", "picturesque". At the beginning of the XIX century. romanticism becomes the designation of a new direction, opposite to classicism.

Entering into the antithesis "classicism" - "romanticism", the direction assumed the opposition of the classicist requirement of rules to romantic freedom from rules. The center of the artistic system of romanticism is the individual, and its main conflict is between individuals and society. The decisive prerequisite for the development of romanticism was the events of the French Revolution. The emergence of romanticism is associated with the anti-enlightenment movement, the causes of which lie in disappointment in civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, which resulted in new contrasts and contradictions, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual.

Enlightenment preached the new society as the most "natural" and "reasonable". The best minds of Europe substantiated and foreshadowed this society of the future, but the reality turned out to be beyond the control of "reason", the future - unpredictable, irrational, and the modern social order began to threaten the nature of man and his personal freedom. The rejection of this society, the protest against lack of spirituality and selfishness is already reflected in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism. Romanticism expresses this rejection most acutely. Romanticism also opposed the Enlightenment on a verbal level: 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, typical, for example, for classical tragedy.

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

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge 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. The rejection of this side, the 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, completely change life. This is the path to perfection, "to the goal, the explanation of which must be sought on the other side of the visible" (A. De Vigny). For some romantics, incomprehensible and mysterious forces dominate the world, which must be obeyed and not try to change fate (Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, "global evil" provoked protest, demanded revenge, struggle (early A.S. Pushkin). The common thing was that they all saw in man a single entity, the task of which is not at all reduced to solving ordinary 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.

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

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

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

It is in the era of Romanticism that the discovery of the culture of the Middle Ages takes place, and the admiration for antiquity, characteristic of the past era, also does not weaken at the end of the XVIII - beginning. 19th century The diversity of national, historical, individual characteristics also had a philosophical meaning: the wealth of a single world whole consists of the totality of these individual features, and the study of the history of each people separately makes it possible to trace, in the words of Burke, uninterrupted life through new generations following one after another.

The era of Romanticism was marked by the flourishing of literature, one of the distinguishing features of which was a passion for social and political problems. Trying to comprehend the role of man in ongoing historical events, romantic writers gravitated towards accuracy, concreteness, and reliability. At the same time, the action of their works often unfolds in an environment unusual for a European - for example, in the East and America, or, for Russians, in the Caucasus or in the Crimea. Thus, romantic poets are predominantly lyric poets and poets of nature, and therefore in their work (however, just like in many prose writers) a significant place is occupied by the landscape - first of all, the sea, mountains, sky, stormy elements, with which the hero is associated complex relationships. Nature can be akin to the passionate nature of a romantic hero, but it can also resist him, turn out to be a hostile force with which he is forced to fight.

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

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

Romanticism is characterized by a synthesis of genera and genres, their interpenetration. The romantic art system was based on a synthesis of art, philosophy, and religion. For example, for such a thinker as Herder, linguistic research, philosophical doctrines, and travel notes serve as the search for ways of revolutionary renewal of culture. Much of the achievement of romanticism was inherited by nineteenth-century realism. - a penchant for fantasy, grotesque, a mixture of high and low, tragic and comic, the discovery of "subjective man".

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

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

1.2 Romanticism in Russia

By the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, romanticism occupies a key place in Russian art, revealing more or less fully its national identity. It is extremely risky to reduce this originality to some feature or even the sum of features; what we have before us is rather the direction of the process, as well as its pace, its forcedness - if we compare Russian romanticism with the older "romanticisms" of European literatures.

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

The overestimation of reason, the hypertrophy of sensitivity, the cult of nature and the natural man, elegiac melancholy and epicureanism were combined with elements of systematism and rationality, which were especially evident in the field of poetics. Styles and genres were streamlined (mainly by the efforts of Karamzin and his followers), there was a struggle against excessive metaphor and ornateness of speech for the sake of its "harmonic accuracy" (Pushkin's definition of the distinctive feature of the school founded by Zhukovsky and Batyushkov).

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

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

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

Only gradually the conflict nature of the elements grew into their antinomy; the idea of ​​the desired synthesis dissolved into the idea of ​​alienation and confrontation, the optimistic major mood gave way to a feeling of disappointment and pessimism.

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

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

Often, "literary Decembrism" was identified with a certain imperative outside of artistic creativity, when all artistic means are subordinated to an extraliterary goal, which, in turn, stems from the Decembrist ideology. This goal, this "task" was allegedly leveled or even pushed aside by "signs of syllable or genre signs." In reality, everything was much more complicated.

The specific nature of Russian romanticism is clearly visible in the lyrics of this time, i.e. in the lyrical relation to the world, in the main tone and perspective of the author's position, in what is commonly called the "image of the author". Let us look at Russian poetry from this point of view, in order to form at least a cursory idea of ​​its diversity and unity.

Russian romantic poetry has revealed a fairly wide range of "images of the author", sometimes approaching, sometimes, on the contrary, polemicizing and contrasting with each other. But always the "image of the author" is such a condensation of emotions, moods, thoughts, or everyday and biographical details (the "scraps" of the author's line of alienation, more fully represented in the poem, get into the lyrical work), which follows from the opposition to the environment. The connection between the individual and the whole has been broken. The spirit of confrontation and disharmony wafts over the author's appearance even when in itself it seems uncomplicatedly clear and whole.

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

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

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the ideas of classicism and the Enlightenment lost their appeal and relevance. The new, which, in response to the canonical methods of classicism and the moral social theories of the Enlightenment, turned to man, his inner world, gained strength and took over the minds. Romanticism was very widespread in all areas of cultural life and philosophy. Musicians, artists and writers in their works sought to show the high destiny of man, his rich spiritual world, the depth of feelings and experiences. From now on, a person with his inner struggle, spiritual quests and experiences, and not "blurred" ideas of general well-being and prosperity, have become the dominant theme in works of art.

Romanticism in painting

The painters convey the depth of ideas and their personal experiences through the created with the help of composition, color, accents. Different countries of Europe had their own peculiarities in the interpretation of romantic images. This is due to philosophical trends, as well as the socio-political situation, to which art was a lively response. Painting was no exception. Fragmented into small principalities and duchies, Germany did not experience serious social upheavals, the artists did not create monumental canvases depicting titan heroes, here the deep spiritual world of man, his beauty and grandeur, moral quests aroused interest. Therefore, romanticism in German painting is most fully represented in portraits and landscapes. The works of Otto Runge are classic examples of this genre. In the portraits made by the painter, through a fine study of facial features, eyes, through the contrast of light and shadow, the artist's desire is conveyed to show the inconsistency of the personality, its power and depth of feeling. Through the landscape, a slightly fantastic, exaggerated image of trees, flowers and birds, the artist also tried to discover the diversity of the human personality, its similarity with nature, diverse and unknown. A prominent representative of romanticism in painting was the landscape painter K. D. Friedrich, who emphasized the strength and power of nature, mountain and sea landscapes, consonant with man.

Romanticism in French painting developed according to other principles. Revolutionary upheavals, turbulent social life were manifested in painting by the artists' gravitation towards depicting historical and fantastic subjects, with pathos and "nervous" excitement, which was achieved by bright color contrast, expression of movements, some randomness, spontaneity of the composition. The most complete and vivid romantic ideas are presented in the works of T. Gericault, E. Delacroix. Artists masterfully used color and light, creating a pulsating depth of feelings, a sublime impulse for struggle and freedom.

Romanticism in Russian painting

Russian social thought responded very vividly to new directions and currents emerging in Europe. and then the war with Napoleon - those significant historical events that most seriously influenced the philosophical and cultural searches of the Russian intelligentsia. Romanticism in Russian painting was represented in three main landscapes, monumental art, where the influence of classicism was very strong, and romantic ideas were closely intertwined with academic canons.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, more and more attention was paid to the image of the creative intelligentsia, poets and artists of Russia, as well as ordinary people and peasants. Kiprensky, Tropinin, Bryullov tried with great love to show the depth and beauty of a person’s personality, through the look, turn of the head, the details of the costume to convey the spiritual quest, the freedom-loving nature of their “models”. Great interest in the personality of a person, its central place in art contributed to the flourishing of the self-portrait genre. Moreover, the artists did not paint self-portraits to order, it was a creative impulse, a kind of self-report to contemporaries.

Landscapes in the works of the Romantics were also distinguished by their originality. Romanticism in painting reflected and conveyed the mood of a person, the landscape had to be in tune with him. That is why the artists tried to display the rebellious nature of nature, its power and spontaneity. Orlovsky, Shchedrin, depicting the sea, mighty trees, mountain ranges, on the one hand, conveyed the beauty and multicolor of real landscapes, on the other hand, created a certain emotional mood.

Romanticism as a trend in painting was formed in Western Europe at the end of the 18th century. Romanticism reached its peak in the art of most Western European countries in the 1920s and 1930s. 19th century.

The term "romanticism" itself originates from the word "novel" (in the 17th century, literary works written not in Latin, but in languages ​​​​derived from it - French, English, etc.) were called novels. Later, everything incomprehensible and mysterious began to be called romantic.

As a cultural phenomenon, romanticism was formed from a special worldview generated by the results of the French Revolution. Disillusioned with the ideals of the Enlightenment, the Romantics, striving for harmony and integrity, created new aesthetic ideals and artistic values. The main object of their attention was the outstanding characters with all their experiences and desire for freedom. The hero of romantic works is an outstanding person who, by the will of fate, found himself in difficult life circumstances.

Although romanticism arose as a protest against the art of classicism, it was in many ways close to the latter. Romantics were partly such representatives of classicism as N. Poussin, C. Lorrain, J. O. D. Ingres.

Romantics introduced into painting original national features, that is, something that was lacking in the art of the classicists.
The largest representative of French romanticism was T. Gericault.

Theodore Géricault

Theodore Gericault, the great French painter, sculptor and graphic artist, was born in 1791 in Rouen into a wealthy family. The talent of the artist manifested itself in him quite early. Often, instead of attending classes at school, Géricault sat in the stable and drew horses. Even then, he sought not only to transfer the external features of animals to paper, but also to convey their temper and character.

After graduating from the Lyceum in 1808, Géricault became a student of the then-famous painter Carl Vernet, who was famous for his ability to depict horses on canvas. However, the young artist did not like Vernet's style. Soon he leaves the workshop and goes to study with another, no less talented painter than Vernet, P. N. Guerin. While studying with two famous artists, Gericault nevertheless did not continue their traditions in painting. J. A. Gros and J. L. David should probably be considered his real teachers.

Gericault's early works are distinguished by the fact that they are as close to life as possible. Such paintings are unusually expressive and pathetic. They show the enthusiastic mood of the author when assessing the world around him. An example is a painting called “Officer of the Imperial Horse Rangers during an Attack”, created in 1812. This canvas was first seen by visitors to the Paris Salon. They accepted the work of the young artist with admiration, appreciating the talent of the young master.

The work was created during that period of French history, when Napoleon was at the zenith of his glory. Contemporaries idolized him, the great emperor, who managed to conquer most of Europe. It was with such a mood, under the impression of the victories of Napoleon's army, that the picture was painted. The canvas shows a soldier galloping on a horse. His face expresses determination, courage and fearlessness in the face of death. Whole composition
unusually dynamic and emotional. The viewer gets the feeling that he himself becomes a real participant in the events depicted on the canvas.

The figure of a brave soldier will appear more than once in the work of Géricault. Among such images, of particular interest are the heroes of the paintings "Officer of the Carabinieri", "Officer of the Cuirassier before the attack", "Portrait of a Carabinieri", "Wounded Cuirassier", created in 1812-1814. The last work is remarkable in that it was presented at the next exhibition held at the Salon in the same year. However, this is not the main advantage of the composition. More importantly, it showed the changes that had taken place in the artist's creative style. If sincere patriotic feelings were reflected in his first canvases, then in the works dating back to 1814, pathos in the depiction of heroes is replaced by drama.

A similar change in the artist's mood was again associated with the events taking place at that time in France. In 1812, Napoleon was defeated in Russia, in connection with which he, who was once a brilliant hero, acquires from his contemporaries the glory of an unsuccessful military leader and an arrogant proud man. Géricault embodies his disappointment in the ideal in the painting "The Wounded Cuirassier". The canvas depicts a wounded warrior trying to leave the battlefield as soon as possible. He leans on a saber - a weapon that, perhaps, only a few minutes ago he was holding, holding it high up.

It was Géricault's dissatisfaction with Napoleon's policy that dictated his entry into the service of Louis XVIII, who took the French throne in 1814. The fact that after the second seizure of power in France by Napoleon (the Hundred Days period) the young artist leaves his native country together with Bourbons. But here, too, disappointment awaited him. The young man could not calmly watch how the king destroys everything that was achieved during the reign of Napoleon. In addition, under Louis XVIII there was an intensification of the feudal-Catholic reaction, the country rolled back faster and faster, returning to the old state system. This could not be accepted by a young, progressive-minded person. Very soon, the young man, who lost faith in his ideals, leaves the army led by Louis XVIII, and again takes up brushes and paints. These years cannot be called bright and anything remarkable in the artist's work.

In 1816, Gericault went on a trip to Italy. Having visited Rome and Florence and having studied the masterpieces of famous masters, the artist is fond of monumental painting. Michelangelo's frescoes, which adorned the Sistine Chapel, especially occupy his attention. At this time, works were created by Géricault, in their scale and majesty, in many respects reminiscent of the canvases of the painters of the High Renaissance. Among them, the most interesting are "The Abduction of the Nymph by the Centaur" and "The Man Throwing the Bull."

The same features of the style of the old masters are also visible in the painting “Running of free horses in Rome”, painted around 1817 and representing horsemen's competitions at one of the carnivals taking place in Rome. A feature of this composition is that it was compiled by the artist from previously made natural drawings. Moreover, the nature of the sketches differs markedly from the style of the entire work. If the former are scenes describing the life of the Romans - the artist's contemporaries, then in the overall composition there are images of courageous ancient heroes, as if they had come out of ancient narratives. In this, Gericault follows the path of J. L. David, who, in order to give the image of heroic pathos, clothed his heroes in ancient forms.

Soon after the painting of this picture, Gericault returns to France, where he becomes a member of the opposition circle formed around the painter Horace Vernet. Upon arrival in Paris, the artist was especially interested in graphics. In 1818, he created a series of lithographs on a military theme, among which the most significant was "Return from Russia". The lithograph represents the defeated soldiers of the French army wandering through a snow-covered field. The figures of crippled and war-weary people are depicted in a lifelike and truthful way. There is no pathos and heroic pathos in the composition, which was typical for Gericault's early works. The artist seeks to reflect the real state of things, all the disasters that the French soldiers abandoned by their commander had to endure in a foreign land.

In the work "Return from Russia" for the first time the theme of man's struggle with death was heard. However, here this motive is not yet expressed as clearly as in the later works of Géricault. An example of such canvases can be a painting called "The Raft of the Medusa". It was written in 1819 and exhibited at the Paris Salon the same year. The canvas depicts people struggling with the raging water element. The artist shows not only their suffering and torment, but also the desire to emerge victorious in the fight against death at all costs.

The plot of the composition is dictated by an event that took place in the summer of 1816 and excited all of France. The then-famous frigate "Medusa" ran into reefs and sank off the coast of Africa. Of the 149 people who were on the ship, only 15 were able to escape, among whom were the surgeon Savigny and the engineer Correard. Upon arrival in their homeland, they published a small book telling about their adventures and happy rescue. It was from these memories that the French learned that the misfortune happened through the fault of the inexperienced captain of the ship, who got on board thanks to the patronage of a noble friend.

The images created by Gericault are unusually dynamic, plastic and expressive, which was achieved by the artist through long and painstaking work. In order to truly depict terrible events on the canvas, to convey the feelings of people dying at sea, the artist meets with eyewitnesses of the tragedy, for a long time he studies the faces of emaciated patients being treated in one of the hospitals in Paris, as well as sailors who managed to escape from shipwrecks. At this time, the painter created a large number of portrait works.

The raging sea is also filled with deep meaning, as if trying to swallow a fragile wooden raft with people. This image is unusually expressive and dynamic. It, like the figures of people, was drawn from nature: the artist made several sketches depicting the sea during a storm. Working on a monumental composition, Gericault repeatedly turned to previously prepared sketches in order to fully reflect the nature of the elements. That is why the picture makes a huge impression on the viewer, convinces him of the realism and truthfulness of what is happening.

"The Raft of the Medusa" presents Géricault as a remarkable master of composition. For a long time, the artist thought about how to arrange the figures in the picture in order to most fully express the author's intention. Several changes were made during the course of the work. The sketches preceding the painting indicate that initially Gericault wanted to depict the struggle of the people on the raft with each other, but later abandoned such an interpretation of the event. In the final version, the canvas represents the moment when already desperate people see the Argus ship on the horizon and stretch out their hands to it. The last addition to the picture was the human figure placed below, on the right side of the canvas. It was she who was the final touch of the composition, which after that acquired a deeply tragic character. It is noteworthy that this change was made when the painting was already on display at the Salon.

With its monumentality and heightened emotionality, Gericault's painting is in many ways reminiscent of the work of the High Renaissance masters (mostly Michelangelo's The Last Judgment), whom the artist met while traveling in Italy.

The painting "The Raft of the Medusa", which became a masterpiece of French painting, was a huge success in opposition circles, who saw it as a reflection of revolutionary ideals. For the same reasons, the work was not accepted among the highest nobility and official representatives of the fine arts of France. That is why at that time the canvas was not bought by the state from the author.

Disappointed by the reception given to his creation at home, Gericault goes to England, where he presents his favorite work to the court of the British. In London, art connoisseurs received the famous canvas with great enthusiasm.

Gericault approaches English artists, who win him over with their ability to sincerely and truthfully depict reality. Gericault devotes a cycle of lithographs to the life and life of the capital of England, among which the works that received the titles “The Great English Suite” (1821) and “The Old Beggar Dying at the Doors of the Bakery” (1821) are of the greatest interest. In the latter, the artist depicted a London tramp, which reflected the impressions received by the painter in the process of studying the life of people in the working-class quarters of the city.

The same cycle included such lithographs as "The Flanders Smith" and "At the Gates of the Adelphin Shipyard", presenting to the viewer a picture of the life of ordinary people in London. Of interest in these works are images of horses, heavy and overweight. They are noticeably different from those graceful and graceful animals that were painted by other artists - contemporaries of Géricault.

Being in the capital of England, Gericault is engaged in the creation of not only lithographs, but also paintings. One of the most striking works of this period was the canvas "Race at Epsom", created in 1821. In the picture, the artist depicts horses rushing at full speed, and their legs do not touch the ground at all. This cunning technique (the photograph proved that horses cannot have such a position of the legs during a run, this is the artist’s fantasy) is used by the master in order to give dynamism to the composition, to give the viewer the impression of lightning-fast movement of horses. This feeling is enhanced by the accurate transfer of plasticity (poses, gestures) of human figures, as well as the use of bright and rich color combinations (red, bay, white horses; deep blue, dark red, white-blue and golden-yellow jackets of jockeys) .

The theme of horse racing, which has long attracted the attention of the painter with its special expression, was repeated more than once in the works created by Géricault after the completion of work on Horse Racing at Epsom.

By 1822 the artist left England and returned to his native France. Here he is engaged in the creation of large canvases, similar to the works of the Renaissance masters. Among them are "Negro trade", "Opening the doors of the prison of the Inquisition in Spain". These paintings remained unfinished - death prevented Gericault from completing the work.

Of particular interest are portraits, the creation of which art historians attribute to the period from 1822 to 1823. The history of their writing deserves special attention. The fact is that these portraits were commissioned by a friend of the artist, who worked as a psychiatrist in a clinic in Paris. They were supposed to become a kind of illustrations demonstrating various mental illnesses of a person. So the portraits "Crazy old woman", "Crazy", "Crazy, imagining himself a commander" were painted. For the master of painting, it was important not so much to show the external signs and symptoms of the disease, but to convey the inner, mental state of a sick person. Tragic images of people appear on the canvases in front of the viewer, whose eyes are filled with pain and sorrow.

Among the portraits of Géricault, a special place is occupied by a portrait of a Negro, which is currently in the collection of the Rouen Museum. A determined and strong-willed person looks at the viewer from the canvas, ready to fight to the end with forces hostile to him. The image is unusually bright, emotional and expressive. The man in this picture is very similar to those strong-willed heroes that Gericault had previously shown in large compositions (for example, on the canvas “The Raft of the Medusa”).

Gericault was not only a master of painting, but also an excellent sculptor. His works in this art form at the beginning of the 19th century were the first examples of romantic sculptures. Among such works, the unusually expressive composition "Nymph and Satyr" is of particular interest. Images frozen in motion accurately convey the plasticity of the human body.

Théodore Gericault died tragically in 1824 in Paris, crashing in a fall from a horse. His early death was a surprise to all the contemporaries of the famous artist.

The work of Gericault marked a new stage in the development of painting not only in France, but also in world art - the period of romanticism. In his works, the master overcomes the influence of classical traditions. His works are unusually colorful and reflect the diversity of the natural world. By introducing human figures into the composition, the artist strives to reveal the inner feelings and emotions of a person as fully and vividly as possible.

After Gericault's death, the traditions of his romantic art were picked up by the artist's younger contemporary, E. Delacroix.

Eugene Delacroix

Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix, the famous French artist and graphic artist, the successor to the traditions of romanticism that had developed in the work of Géricault, was born in 1798. Without completing his education at the Imperial Lyceum, in 1815 Delacroix went to study with the famous master Guerin. However, the artistic methods of the young painter did not meet the requirements of the teacher, so after seven years the young man leaves him.

Studying with Guerin, Delacroix devotes a lot of time to studying the work of David and the masters of painting of the Renaissance. He considers the culture of antiquity, the traditions of which David also followed, to be fundamental for the development of world art. Therefore, the aesthetic ideals for Delacroix were the works of poets and thinkers of ancient Greece, among them the artist especially appreciated the works of Homer, Horace and Marcus Aurelius.

The first works of Delacroix were unfinished canvases, where the young painter sought to reflect the struggle of the Greeks with the Turks. However, the artist lacked the skill and experience to create an expressive picture.

In 1822, Delacroix exhibited his work at the Paris Salon under the title Dante and Virgil. This canvas, unusually emotional and bright in color, in many ways resembles the work of Géricault "The Raft of the Medusa".

Two years later, another painting by Delacroix, The Massacre at Chios, was presented to the audience of the Salon. It was in it that the artist’s long-standing plan was embodied to show the struggle of the Greeks with the Turks. The overall composition of the picture consists of several parts, which form groups of people placed separately, each of them has its own dramatic conflict. In general, the work gives the impression of a deep tragedy. The feeling of tension and dynamism is enhanced by the combination of smooth and sharp lines that form the figures of the characters, which leads to a change in the proportion of the person depicted by the artist. However, it is precisely because of this that the picture acquires a realistic character and life credibility.

The creative method of Delacroix, fully expressed in the "Massacre of Chios", is far from the classic style then accepted in the official circles of France and among representatives of the fine arts. Therefore, the picture of the young artist was met with sharp criticism in the Salon.

Despite the failure, the painter remains true to his ideal. In 1827, another work appeared devoted to the theme of the struggle of the Greek people for independence - "Greece on the ruins of Missolonghi". The figure of a resolute and proud Greek woman depicted on the canvas personifies unconquered Greece here.

In 1827, Delacroix performed two works that reflected the master's creative search in the field of means and methods of artistic expression. These are the canvases "Death of Sardanapalus" and "Marino Faliero". On the first of them, the tragedy of the situation is conveyed in the movement of human figures. Only the image of Sardanapal himself is static and calm here. In the composition of "Marino Faliero" only the figure of the main character is dynamic. The rest of the heroes seemed to freeze in horror at the thought of what was about to happen.

In the 20s. 19th century Delacroix performed a number of works, the plots of which were taken from famous literary works. In 1825 the artist visited England, the birthplace of William Shakespeare. In the same year, under the impression of this journey and the tragedy of the famous playwright Delacroix, the lithograph "Macbeth" was made. In the period from 1827 to 1828, he created a lithograph "Faust", dedicated to the work of the same name by Goethe.

In connection with the events that took place in France in 1830, Delacroix performed the painting "Liberty Leading the People". Revolutionary France is presented in the image of a young, strong woman, imperious, resolute and independent, boldly leading the crowd, in which the figures of a worker, a student, a wounded soldier, a Parisian gamen stand out (an image that anticipated Gavroche, who later appeared in Les Misérables by V. Hugo ).

This work was noticeably different from similar works by other artists who were only interested in the truthful transmission of an event. The canvases created by Delacroix were characterized by high heroic pathos. The images here are generalized symbols of the freedom and independence of the French people.

With the coming to power of Louis Philippe - the king-bourgeois heroism and lofty feelings preached by Delacroix, there was no place in modern life. In 1831 the artist made a trip to African countries. He traveled to Tangier, Meknes, Oran and Algiers. At the same time, Delacroix visits Spain. The life of the East literally fascinates the artist with its rapid flow. He creates sketches, drawings and a number of watercolor works.

Having visited Morocco, Delacroix paints canvases dedicated to the East. The paintings, in which the artist shows the horse races or the battle of the Moors, are unusually dynamic and expressive. In comparison with them, the composition "Algerian women in their chambers", created in 1834, seems calm and static. It does not have that impetuous dynamism and tension inherent in the earlier works of the artist. Delacroix appears here as a master of color. The color scheme used by the painter in its entirety reflects the bright diversity of the palette, which the viewer associates with the colors of the East.

The canvas “Jewish wedding in Morocco”, written approximately in 1841, is characterized by the same slowness and measuredness. A mysterious oriental atmosphere is created here thanks to the artist’s accurate rendering of the originality of the national interior. The composition seems surprisingly dynamic: the painter shows how people move up the stairs and enter the room. The light entering the room makes the image realistic and convincing.

Eastern motifs were still present in the works of Delacroix for a long time. So, at the exhibition organized in the Salon in 1847, out of six works presented by him, five were devoted to the life and life of the East.

In the 30-40s. In the 19th century, new themes appear in the work of Delacroix. At this time, the master creates works of historical themes. Among them, the canvases "Protest of Mirabeau against the dissolution of the States General" and "Boissy d'Angles" deserve special attention. The sketch of the latter, shown in 1831 at the Salon, is a vivid example of compositions on the theme of a popular uprising.

The paintings “The Battle of Poitiers” (1830) and “The Battle of Taybur” (1837) are devoted to the image of the people. With all the realism, the dynamics of the battle, the movement of people, their fury, anger and suffering are shown here. The artist seeks to convey the emotions and passions of a person seized by the desire to win at all costs. It is the figures of people that are the main ones in conveying the dramatic nature of the event.

Very often in the works of Delacroix, the winner and the vanquished are sharply opposed to each other. This is especially clearly seen on the canvas “The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders”, written in 1840. A group of people overcome by grief is shown in the foreground. Behind them is a delightful, enchanting landscape with its beauty. The figures of victorious riders are also placed here, whose formidable silhouettes contrast with the mournful figures in the foreground.

"The Capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders" presents Delacroix as a remarkable colorist. Bright and saturated colors, however, do not enhance the tragic beginning, which is expressed by mournful figures located close to the viewer. On the contrary, a rich palette creates a feeling of a holiday arranged in honor of the winners.

No less colorful is the composition "Justice of Trajan", created in the same 1840. The artist's contemporaries recognized this picture as one of the best among all the painter's canvases. Of particular interest is the fact that in the course of work the master experiments in the field of color. Even the shadows take on a variety of shades from him. All the colors of the composition correspond exactly to nature. The execution of the work was preceded by long observations of the painter for changes in shades in nature. The artist entered them in his diary. Then, according to the notes, scientists confirmed that the discoveries made by Delacroix in the field of tonality were fully consistent with the doctrine of color that was born at that time, the founder of which is E. Chevreul. In addition, the artist compares his discoveries with the palette used by the Venetian school, which was an example of painting skill for him.

Portraits occupy a special place among Delacroix's paintings. The master rarely turned to this genre. He painted only those people with whom he had known for a long time, whose spiritual development took place in front of the artist. Therefore, the images in the portraits are very expressive and deep. These are the portraits of Chopin and George Sand. The canvas dedicated to the famous writer (1834) depicts a noble and strong-willed woman who delights her contemporaries. The portrait of Chopin, painted four years later, in 1838, represents a poetic and spiritual image of the great composer.

An interesting and unusually expressive portrait of the famous violinist and composer Paganini, painted by Delacroix around 1831. Paganini's musical style was in many ways similar to the artist's painting method. Paganini's work is characterized by the same expression and intense emotionality that were characteristic of the painter's works.

Landscapes occupy a small place in the work of Delacroix. However, they turned out to be very significant for the development of French painting in the second half of the 19th century. Delacroix's landscapes are marked by the desire to accurately convey the light and elusive life of nature. Vivid examples of this are the paintings “Sky”, where a sense of dynamics is created thanks to snow-white clouds floating across the sky, and “The Sea, visible from the shores of Dieppe” (1854), in which the painter masterfully conveys the gliding of light sailboats on the surface of the sea.

In 1833, the artist received an order from the French king to paint a hall in the Bourbon Palace. Work on the creation of a monumental work lasted for four years. When fulfilling the order, the painter was guided primarily by the fact that the images were extremely simple and concise, understandable to the viewer.
The last work of Delacroix was the painting of the chapel of the Holy Angels in the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. It was made in the period from 1849 to 1861. Using bright, rich colors (pink, bright blue, lilac, placed on an ash-blue and yellow-brown background), the artist creates a joyful mood in the compositions, causing the viewer to feel rapturous glee. The landscape, included in the painting "The Expulsion of Iliodor from the Temple" as a kind of background, visually increases the space of the composition and the premises of the chapel. On the other hand, as if trying to emphasize the isolation of space, Delacroix introduces a staircase and a balustrade into the composition. The figures of people placed behind it seem to be almost flat silhouettes.

Eugene Delacroix died in 1863 in Paris.

Delacroix was the most educated among the painters of the first half of the 19th century. Many subjects of his paintings are taken from the literary works of famous masters of the pen. An interesting fact is that most often the artist painted his characters without using a model. This is what he wanted to teach his followers. According to Delacroix, painting is something more complex than the primitive copying of lines. The artist believed that art primarily lies in the ability to express the mood and creative intent of the master.

Delacroix is ​​the author of several theoretical works on the issues of color, method and style of the artist. These works served as a beacon for painters of subsequent generations in the search for their own artistic means used to create compositions.

Exam abstract

Subject: "Romanticism as a trend in art".

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

Boiprav Anna

World art teacher

culture Butsu T.N.

Brest, 2002

1. Introduction

2. Causes of Romanticism

3. The 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 trend in literature and art of the first quarter of the 19th century, characterized by the idealization of the past, isolation from reality, the cult of personality and man. 2. A direction 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 the idealization of reality, dreamy contemplation.

As can be seen from the definition, romanticism is a phenomenon that manifests itself not only in art, but also in the behavior, clothing, lifestyle, psychology of people and occurs at critical moments in life, so the theme of romanticism is still relevant today. We live at the turn of the century, we are at a transitional stage. In this regard, in society there is disbelief in the future, distrust in ideals, there is a desire to escape from the surrounding reality into the world of one's own experiences and at the same time comprehend it. It is these features that are characteristic of romantic art. That is why I chose the topic “Romanticism as a trend 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 for the emergence and causes of the emergence of romanticism in different countries, to investigate the development of romanticism in such art forms 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 trends in art.

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

2. REASONS FOR THE ORIGIN OF ROMANTICISM

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

What influenced the emergence of a new style?

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

The thunders of Paris resounded throughout Europe. The slogan "Freedom, Equality, Fraternity!" possessed a tremendous attraction for all European peoples. With the formation of bourgeois societies, the working class began to act against the feudal system 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 contemporaries. "The ruler of thoughts" - A.S. spoke about him. Pushkin.

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

Napoleon acted as a conqueror acting in the interests of the French bourgeoisie. For the 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, there were many direct participants in the revolution in his "Great Army".

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

He is a stranger to the world. Everything about him was a mystery.

The day of exaltation - and the fall of the hour!

This mystery especially attracted the attention of romantics.

In connection with the Napoleonic wars and the maturation of national self-consciousness, this period is 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.

Astonishing changes took place before the eyes of one generation.

France seethed most of all: the turbulent fifth anniversary of the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Robespierre, the Napoleonic campaigns, Napoleon's first abdication, his return from the island of Elba ("hundred days") and the final

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 second half of the XIX century. machine production and capitalist relations were established. The parliamentary reform of 1832 cleared the way 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, political revolutions changed the face of Europe. "The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class domination, created more numerous and grandiose productive forces than all previous generations put together," wrote the German scholars 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, the alignment of classes changed. The whole 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 the freedom of the individual, gave rise to the bourgeois order, the spirit of acquisitiveness 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 controversial phenomenon. In every country he had a bright national expression. It is not easy to find features in literature, music, painting and theater that unite Chateaubriand and Delacroix, Mickiewicz and Chopin, Lermontov and Kiprensky.

Romantics occupied various 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 his own ideal. But with all the many faces and diversity, romanticism has stable features.

Disappointment in modern times gave rise to a special interest in the past: to pre-bourgeois social formations, to patriarchal antiquity. Many romantics were characterized by the idea that the picturesque exoticism of the countries of the south and east - Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey - is a poetic contrast to the boring bourgeois everyday life. In these countries, then still little affected by civilization, the romantics were looking for bright, strong characters, an original, colorful way of life. Interest in the national past gave rise to a mass of historical works.

In an effort to somehow rise above the prose of being, to liberate the diverse abilities of the individual, to ultimately self-realize in creativity, the romantics opposed the formalization of art and the straightforward and judicious approach to it, characteristic of classicism. They all came from denial of the Enlightenment and the rationalistic canons of classicism, which fettered the creative initiative of the artist. 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 a person in harmony with the vast world. And romanticism opposes harmony to the inner world. It is with romanticism that real psychologism begins to appear.

The main task 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, the romantics transformed the unattractive reality or went 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 for the first time poses the problem of the language of art. “Art is a language of a very different kind than nature; but it also contains the same miraculous power that just as secretly and incomprehensibly affects the human soul ”(Wackenroder and Tieck). An artist is an interpreter of the language of nature, an intermediary between the world of the spirit and people. “Thanks to the artists, humanity emerges as a whole individuality. Artists through modernity 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 trend: its ideological development went in different directions. Among the romantics were reactionary writers, adherents of the old regime, who sang of the feudal monarchy and Christianity. On the other hand, romantics with a progressive outlook expressed democratic protest against feudal and all kinds of oppression, embodied the revolutionary impulse of the people for a better future.

Romanticism left a whole era in the world artistic culture, its representatives were: in literature V. Scott, J. Byron, Shelley, V. Hugo, A. Mickiewicz, and others; in the fine arts of E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, F. Runge, J. Constable, W. Turner, O. Kiprensky and others; in the music of 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 art forms more or less equalized in their significance and produced magnificent works of art, although the romantics gave priority to music in the ladder of 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 the collision with reality, he lives in a ‘pink’ state, he is possessed by the desire for achievement, change of the world; after a collision with reality, he continues to consider this world both vulgar and boring, but he does not become a skeptic, a pessimist. With a clear understanding that nothing can be changed, the desire for a feat degenerates into a desire for danger.

Romantics could give eternal, enduring value to every little thing, to every concrete fact, to everything singular. Joseph de Maistre calls it "the paths of Providence", Germaine de Stael - "the fruitful bosom 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 bond, "the thread of life that connects us with our ancestors and which we must extend to our descendants." Only the heart of a person, and not his mind, can understand and hear the voice of the Creator, through the beauty of nature, through deep feelings. Nature is divine, it is a source of harmony and creative forces, its metaphors are often transferred by romantics into the political lexicon. For romantics, the tree becomes a symbol of family, spontaneous development, perception of the juices of the native land, a symbol of national unity. The more innocent and sensitive the nature of a person, the easier he hears the voice of God. A child, a woman, a noble youth more often than others see the immortality of the soul and the value of eternal life. Romantics' thirst for bliss 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 cost a person life."

A special place in the work of romantics is occupied by the problem of the development and education of the individual. Childhood is devoid of laws, its momentary impulses violate public morality, obeying its own rules of childish play. In an adult, similar reactions lead to death, to 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 the 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 lofty interests. Without mixing the merits of different sexes, romantics advocate the equality of the spiritual development of men and women. In the same way, love for God and his institutions dictates civic duty. Personal striving finds its completion in the common cause, in the striving of the whole nation, of all mankind, of the whole world.

Every culture has its own romantic hero, but Byron, in his work Charld Harold, gave a typical representation of the romantic hero. He put on the mask of his hero (he says that there is no distance between the hero and the author) and managed to comply with the romantic canon.

All romantic works are characterized by characteristic features:

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

Secondly, the author of the hero does not judge, but even if something bad is said about him, the plot is built 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, cataclysms.

5. ROMANTICISM IN RUSSIA.

Romanticism in Russia differed from Western European in favor of a different historical setting and a different cultural tradition. The French Revolution cannot be counted as one of the causes of its occurrence; a very narrow circle of people had any hopes for 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. did not stand. Therefore, there was no such reason. The real reason was the Patriotic War of 1812, in which all the power of the people's initiative was manifested. But after the war, the people did not get the will. The best of the nobility, dissatisfied with reality, went to Senate Square in December 1825. This act also left its mark on the creative intelligentsia. The turbulent post-war years became the environment 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, carried out a special outlook in life ... Let the romantic trend come from the outside, from Western life and Western literatures, it found in Russian nature the soil ready for its perception, and therefore was reflected in completely original phenomena, as the poet and critic Apollon Grigoriev assessed - this is a unique cultural phenomenon, and its characterization shows the essential complexity of romanticism , from the bowels of which the young Gogol came out and with whom he was associated not only at the beginning of his writing career, but throughout his life.

Apollon Grigoriev accurately determined the nature of the impact of the romantic school on literature and life, including 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 worldview 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, the imperious influence of the past, the era of sentimentalism, is still felt, 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 for 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 melancholic longing, a vague, barely perceptible yearning of the heart, in a word, to 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, complacent and meek Zhukovsky was under the noticeable influence of 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 a “revelation” of higher truths, it was “sacred” for him. It is typical for German romantics to identify 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 merged with the coolness of plants!

How sweet in the silence at the shore of the jets splashing!

How quiet is the wind of marshmallows on the waters

And flexible willow flutter!

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

Batyushkov is a figure in everything opposite to Zhukovsky. He was a man of strong passions, and his creative life was cut short 35 years earlier than his physical existence: as a very young man, he plunged into the abyss of madness. He devoted himself with equal force and passion to both joys and sorrows: in life, as well as in its poetic comprehension, he - unlike Zhukovsky - was alien to the "golden mean". Although his poetry is also characterized by the praise of pure friendship, the joy of a "humble corner", but his idyll is by no means modest and quiet, for Batiushkov cannot imagine it without the languid bliss of passionate pleasures and intoxication with 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 in the truths of sad

Gloomy stoics and boring sages,

Seated in funeral dresses,

Between rubble and coffins

Will we find the sweetness of our life?

From them, I see joy

It flies like a butterfly from thorn bushes.

For them there is no charm in the charms 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.

Genuine 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 recorded under dictation, in which the motifs of the futility of earthly existence clearly sound:

Do you remember what you said

Saying goodbye to life, gray-haired Melchizedek?

Man was born a slave

Will lie down as a slave in the grave,

And death will hardly tell him

Why did he walk through the valley of wondrous tears,

Suffered, wept, endured,

In Russia, romanticism as a literary trend developed by the twenties of the nineteenth century. Its origins were poets, prose writers, writers, and they created Russian romanticism, which differed from the "Western European" in its national, original character. Russian romanticism was developed by the poets of the first half of the nineteenth century, and each poet brought something new. Russian romanticism was widely developed, acquired characteristic features, and became an independent trend in literature. In "Ruslan and Lyudmila" A.S. Pushkin there are lines: "There is a Russian spirit, there it smells of Russia." The same can be said about Russian romanticism. The heroes of romantic works are poetic souls striving for "high" and beautiful. But there is a hostile world that does not allow you to feel freedom, which leaves these souls incomprehensible. This world is rough, so the poetic soul flees to another, where there is an ideal, it strives for the “eternal”. Romanticism is based on this conflict. But the poets reacted differently to this situation. Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, proceeding from one thing, build the relationship of their heroes and the world around them in different ways, 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, his heroes. "True" and eternal - in the other world. Hence the concept of two 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 him. It was a path through unity with nature, a path of harmony with nature, in an eternal and beautiful world. Zhukovsky, in the opinion of many researchers (including Yu.V. Mann), expresses his understanding of this process of unity 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 at this moment you live, you want to sing about this beauty, but there are no words to express your state, there is only a feeling of harmony. You are not disturbed by the people around you, prosaic souls, more is open 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 work of the latter. Pushkin's early work is characterized by "civil" romanticism. Under the influence of "The Singer in the Camp of Russian Warriors" Zhukovsky and the works of Griboyedov, Pushkin writes an ode to "Liberty", "To Chaadaev". In the latter, he calls:

"My friend! Let us dedicate our souls to the 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 the ideal differently. You can not call it a rebellion, this is a reflection on the rebellious elements. 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 work of Zhukovsky, and Pushkin, and Lermontov. All three poets were looking for freedom, but they looked 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 the spirit was important, which should manifest itself in a person. For Lermontov, only the rebellious hero is free. Rebellion for freedom, what could be more beautiful? This attitude to the ideal was preserved in the love lyrics of poets. In my opinion, this relationship is due to time. Although they all worked almost in the same period, the time of their work was different, events developed with extraordinary speed. The characters of the poets also greatly influenced their relationship. Calm Zhukovsky and 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, gave a complete picture of what freedom is, what real life is. Each of them represents its own path to the ideal, this is the right of choice for each individual.

The very emergence of romanticism was very disturbing. Human individuality 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 regarded as a work of art, art. Romanticism was very widespread in the 19th century. But not all poets who called themselves romantics conveyed the essence of this trend.

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 the “formal” romantics. It is difficult to suspect them of insincerity, on the contrary, they very accurately convey their feelings. 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. So, D. Venevitinov writes:

I feel it burns in me

Holy flame of inspiration

But the spirit soars towards the dark goal...

Will I find a reliable cliff,

Where can I rest my firm foot?

This is a typical romantic poem. It uses traditional romantic vocabulary - this is both “the flame of inspiration” and “soaring spirit”. Thus, the poet describes his feelings. But no more. The poet is bound by the framework of romanticism, its “verbal appearance”. Everything is simplified to some stamps.

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 the life of A. Pushkin was short, so he has 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 prisoner with 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 he embraced terrible suffering,

Where hectic life ruined

Hope, joy and desire.

He came to the steppe in search of freedom, tried to escape from his past life. And now, when happiness seemed so close, he again had to run. 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 a cheerful ghost of freedom.

But the “ghost of freedom” remained just 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 know true pleasure, true freedom. For her sake, he abandoned everything that used to surround him. Was he free and happy? It would seem that Aleko loves, but with this feeling only misfortune and contempt come to him. Aleko, who longed for freedom so much, could not recognize the will in another person. In this poem, another of the extremely characteristic features of the romantic hero's worldview was manifested - selfishness and complete incompatibility with the outside world. Aleko is not punished by death, but worse - by loneliness and debate. He was alone in the world from which he fled, but in another, so desirable, he was left alone again.

Before writing The 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 light of day went out ...". In it you can find all the vocabulary inherent in romanticism. This is the “remote shore”, and “gloomy ocean”, and “excitement and longing”, which torment the author. The refrain runs throughout the poem:

Wave under me, sullen ocean.

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

... But the former heart wounds,

Deep wounds of love, nothing healed ...

Noise, 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 light of day went out ...", again became the author himself. Here Pushkin refers 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;

Here my soul was torn:

Enchanted by mighty passion,

I stayed on the coast...

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

In the forests, in the deserts are silent

I will transfer, 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 variant of Byron's romanticism lived and felt in his work the first in Russian culture Pushkin, then Lermontov. Pushkin had a gift for paying 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 Bakhchisaray" still only continues Pushkin's search in the genre of a romantic poem. And it is certain that the death of the great Russian writer prevented this.

The romantic theme in Pushkin's work received two different options: there is a heroic romantic hero ("captive", "robber", "fugitive"), distinguished by a strong will, who went 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 beginning in a romantic character now acquired a feminine guise in Pushkin. The Fountain of Bakhchisaray develops precisely this aspect of the romantic hero.

In the "Prisoner of the Caucasus" all attention was paid to the "prisoner" and very little to the "Circassian", now on the contrary - Khan Girey is nothing more than an undramatic figure, and indeed the main character is a woman, even two - Zarema and Maria. The solution to the duality of the hero found in previous poems (through the image of the chained brothers) is also used by Pushkin here: the passive beginning is depicted in the face of two characters - the jealous, passionately in love Zarema and the sad, lost hope and love Mary. Both of them are two conflicting 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 - the death of Mary 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 overshadowed the life of the other.

However, B.V. Tomashevsky rightly noted, “the lyrical isolation of the poem also determined some paucity 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 Eugene Onegin allow ... questions posed in the first southern poem. “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” has no such continuation ... "

Pushkin groped for and identified the most vulnerable spot in 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 peculiar: 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 poem only thinks about solving this problem. He does not judge his hero, but he does not justify it either, but he takes a certain position - understanding. It turns out that romanticism in Russian culture is transformed into reflection. It turns out romanticism in terms of realism.

It can be said that Pushkin and Lermontov did not manage to become romantics (though Lermontov once managed to comply with romantic laws - in the drama ‘Masquerade’). By their experiments, the poets showed that in England the position of an individualist could be fruitful, but not in Russia. Although Pushkin and Lermontov failed to become romantics, they paved the way for the development of realism. In 1825, the first realistic work was published: "Boris Godunov", then "The Captain's Daughter", "Eugene Onegin", "A Hero of Our Time" and many others.

b) Painting

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

Features of Russian romantic painting:

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

Romanticism developed in parallel with classicism, often intertwining 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 XIX century. the romantic tradition has almost died out.

Works related to romanticism began to appear in Russia already in the 1790s (the works of Feodosy Yanenko "Travelers Caught in a Storm" (1796), "Self-Portrait in a Helmet" (1792). The prototype is obvious in them - Salvator Rosa, very popular on at 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, campfire scenes, battles accompanied his entire career. As in other countries, artists belonging to Russian romanticism introduced portraits, landscape and genre scenes a completely new emotional mood.

In Russia, romanticism began to manifest itself first in portrait painting. In the first third of the 19th century, for the most part, she lost contact with the high-ranking aristocracy. A significant place began to be occupied by portraits of poets, artists, art patrons, the image of ordinary peasants. This trend was especially pronounced in the work of O.A. Kiprensky (1782 - 1836) and V.A. Tropinin (1776 - 1857).

Vasily Andreevich Tropinin strove for a lively, laid-back characterization of a person, expressed through his portrait. Portrait of a son (1818), "Portrait of A.S. Pushkin" (1827), "Self-portrait" (1846) amaze not with a portrait resemblance to the originals, but with an unusually subtle penetration into the inner world of a person.

Portrait of a son- Arsenia Tropinina is one of the best in the master's work. Exquisite, soft golden colors reminiscent of valerie painting of the XVIII century. However, compared with a typical children's portrait in the romanticism of the XVIII century. here the unbiased design is striking - this child poses to a very small extent. Arseny's gaze glides past the viewer, he is dressed casually, the gate is as if accidentally thrown open. The lack of representativeness is in the extraordinary fragmentation of the composition: the head fills almost the entire surface of the canvas, the image is cut off to the very collarbones, and thus the boy’s face is automatically moved towards the viewer.

Extraordinarily interesting history of creation "Portrait of Pushkin". As usual, for the first acquaintance with Pushkin, Tropinin came to Sobolevsky's house on the dog playground, where the poet then lived. The artist found him in his office fiddling with puppies. At the same time, apparently, it was written according to the first impression, which Tropinin so appreciated, a small sketch. 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 “most conveys his features ... the poet’s blue eyes are filled with a special brilliance here, the turn of the head is quick, and the facial features are expressive and mobile. Undoubtedly, here are captured the true features of Pushkin's face, which we individually meet in one or another of the portraits that have come down to us. It remains to be puzzled,” 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 neither the brilliance of colors, nor the beauty of the brushstroke, nor masterfully written “roundabouts” in it. And Pushkin here is not a popular "vitia", not a "genius", but, above all, a man. And it is hardly amenable to analysis why such a great human content is contained in the monochromatic grayish-green, olive scale, in the hasty, as if random strokes of the brush of an almost nondescript-looking etude. Going over in memory all the lifetime and subsequent portraits of Pushkin, this study, in terms of the strength of humanity, can only be placed next to the figure of Pushkin, sculpted by the Soviet sculptor A. Matveev. But this was not the task that Tropinin set himself, this was not the kind of Pushkin his friend wanted to see, although he ordered to portray the poet in a simple, homely form.

In the artist's assessment, Pushkin was "the tsar-poet". But he was also a folk poet, he was his own and close to everyone. “The resemblance of the portrait to the original is striking,” Polevoy wrote at the end of it, although he noted the lack of “quickness of sight” and “lively expression of the face,” which changes and revives 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 introduced by the artist. Even the rings adorning the poet's fingers are highlighted to the extent that Pushkin himself attached importance to them in life. Among the picturesque revelations of Tropinin, the portrait of Pushkin strikes with the sonority of its range.

Tropinin's romanticism has distinctly 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 connoisseurs and not connoisseurs,” writes Svinin about "Lacemaker" -- come to admiration when looking at this picture, which truly connects all the beauties of pictorial art: the pleasantness of the brush, the right, happy lighting, the color is clear, natural, moreover, this portrait reveals the soul of a beauty and that sly look of curiosity that she throws at someone who entered at that moment. Her arms, bared at the elbow, stopped 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 be very easily mistaken for the most successful work of the glorious Dream. Secondary items, such as a lace pillow and a towel, are arranged with great art and worked out with finality ... ”

At the beginning of the 19th century, Tver was a significant cultural center of Russia. All the prominent people of Moscow have been here for literary evenings. Here, the young Orest Kiprensky met A.S. Pushkin, whose portrait, painted later, became the pearl of world portrait art, and A.S. Pushkin will dedicate poems to him, where he will call him “the favorite of light-winged fashion.” Portrait of Pushkin the brushes of O. Kiprensky are a living personification of a poetic genius. In the resolute turn of the head, in the arms crossed vigorously on the chest, the whole appearance of the poet reveals a sense of independence and freedom. 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 personally, but many years later in the history of art, where, as a rule, two portraits of the greatest Russian poet are compared, created simultaneously, but in different places - one in Moscow. Another in St. Petersburg. Now this is a meeting of masters equally great in their significance for Russian art. Although admirers of Kiprensky 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 definitely on the side of Tropininsky's Pushkin.

Thus, the two portraits reflected two areas of Russian art, concentrated in two capitals. And later critics will 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 moods of an advanced Russian person.

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

Portraits of Kiprensky, if you look at them with 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 spoke about, but Kiprensky did not seek to literally project this ideal onto an artistic image. In creating an artistic image, he went from nature, as if measuring how far or close it is to such an ideal. In fact, many of those depicted by him are on the eve of the ideal, directed towards it, while the ideal itself, according to the ideas of romantic aesthetics, is hardly achievable, and all romantic art is only a path to it.

Noting the contradictions in the soul of his heroes, showing them in anxious moments of life, when fate changes, old ideas break down, youth leaves, etc., Kiprensky seems to be experiencing along with his models. Hence the special involvement of the portrait painter in the interpretation of artistic images, which gives the portrait an intimate touch.

In the early period of creativity in Kiprensky you will not see faces infected with skepticism, analysis that corrodes the soul. This will come later, when the romantic time will survive 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 shows a bold brush, easily and freely building a form. The complexity of the techniques, the nature of the figure changed from work to work.

It is noteworthy that you will not see heroic elation on the faces of his heroes, on the contrary, most of the faces are rather sad, they indulge in reflections. It seems that these people are concerned about the fate of Russia, they think about the future more than about the present. In female images representing wives, sisters of participants in significant events, Kiprensky also did not strive for deliberate heroic elation. The feeling of ease, naturalness prevails. At the same time, in all the portraits there is so much true nobility of the soul. Women's images attract with their modest dignity, integrity of nature; in the faces of men one can guess 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 falls on the period 1816-1821), 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 - a kind of artistic parallel to the emerging concepts of Decembrism.

The bright seal of the romantic ideal is marked “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 trend of Russian romanticism. Kiprensky introduced Zhukovsky at a moment of creative inspiration. The wind has tousled the poet's hair, the trees are disturbingly splashing their branches in the night, the ruins of ancient buildings are barely visible. This is how the creator of romantic ballads should look like. Dark colors exacerbate the atmosphere of the mysterious. On the advice of Uvarov, Kiprensky does not finish painting 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 Vulf, a landowner from Tver, 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 - A.S. Pushkin's poem “I remember wonderful moment... Such associations of poets, artists, musicians became a manifestation of a new trend in art - romanticism.

“Young Gardener” (1817) by Kiprensky, “Italian Noon” (1827) by Bryullov, “Reapers” or “Reaper” (1820s) by Venetsianov are works of the same typological series. They are focused on nature and were written clearly 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, poetizing the visible. In this qualitatively new combination of nature and imagination with the experience of ancient and Renaissance masters, giving rise to images not known to art before, and is one of the features of romanticism in the first half of the 19th century.The metaphorical nature, generally characteristic of these works by Venetsianov and Bryullov, was one of the most important features of the romantic when Russian artists were still poorly acquainted with the Western European romantic portrait . "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 are from the early period. Long before his trip to Italy, in 1816, Kiprensky, inwardly ready for a romantic incarnation, saw with new eyes the paintings of the old masters. Dark colors, figures highlighted by light, burning colors, intense dramaturgy had a strong impact on him. "Portrait of a Father" is undoubtedly created under the impression of 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 power of artistic expression. A distinctive feature of landscape portraits is the liveliness of their performance. There is no picturesqueness here - the instantaneous transfer of what he saw to paper creates a unique freshness of graphic expression. Therefore, the people depicted in the drawings 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, with his work, gave the Russian art school European fame. In the words of Alexander Ivanov, "he was the first to bring the Russian name to Europe ...".

The increased interest in the personality of a person, characteristic of romanticism, predetermined the flowering of the portrait genre in the first half of the 19th century, where the self-portrait became the dominant feature. As a rule, the creation of a self-portrait was not a random 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 they were a manifesto addressed to contemporaries. self-portrait was not a custom genre, the artist wrote for himself, and here, as never before, he became free in self-expression. In the 18th century, Russian artists rarely painted original images, only romanticism, with its cult of the individual, the exceptional, contributed to the rise of this genre. The variety of self-portrait types reflects the artists' perception of themselves as a rich and multifaceted personality. They either appear in the usual 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, asserting the significance and self-worth of each person, liberated and open to the world, seeking and rushing about, as, for example, F. A. Bruni and O. A. Orlovsky in self-portraits 1810s. Readiness for dialogue and openness, characteristic of the figurative solution of the works of the 1810-1820s, are gradually replaced by fatigue and disappointment, immersion, withdrawal into oneself ("Self-portrait" by M. I. Terebenev). This trend was reflected in the development of the portrait genre as a whole.

Self-portraits of Kiprensky appeared, which is worth noting, in critical moments of life, they testified to the rise or fall of mental strength. Through his art, the artist looked at himself. However, he did not use, like most painters, a mirror; he painted himself mainly according to his idea, he wanted to express his spirit, but not his appearance.

“Self-portrait with brushes behind the ear” built on a refusal, and a clearly demonstrative one, in the external glorification of the image, its classical normativity and ideal construction. Facial features are outlined approximately, in general. Side light falls on the face, highlighting only the side features. Separate reflections of light fall on the figure of the artist, extinguished on a barely visible drapery, representing the background of the portrait. Everything here is subordinated to the expression of life, feelings, moods. 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". A 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, and written “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 is recreated, feeling at ease, naturally, freely. The pictorial surface of the canvas is finely constructed. The artist's brush confidently applies paint. Leaving large and small strokes. The coloring is superbly developed, the colors are not bright, they harmoniously combine with each other, the lighting is calm: the light gently pours onto the young man's face, outlining his features, without unnecessary expression and deformation.

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

Venetsianov declared himself a true mastery 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. It was common for all of them to imagine themselves in a romantic halo, their self-portraits were a kind of poetic confrontation in relation to the environment. The exclusivity of the artistic nature was manifested in the pose, gestures, in the extraordinaryness of the specially conceived costume. In "Self-portrait" by Venetsianov, the researchers note, first of all, the strict and intense expression of a busy person ... Correct efficiency, which differs from that ostentatious "artistic negligence", which is indicated by dressing gowns or coquettishly shifted hats of other artists. Venitsianov looks at himself soberly. Art for him 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, extremely accurately written, it is simple and complex at the same time. Not attracting with the outer side of the painting, he stops with his gaze. The ideally thin rims of the thin gold frame of the glasses do not hide, but rather emphasize the keen sharpness of the eyes, not so much focused on nature (the artist depicted himself with a palette and a brush in his hands), but in the depths of his own thoughts. A large wide forehead, the right side of the face, illuminated by direct light, and a white shirt-front form a light triangle, first of all attracting the eye of the viewer, who in the next moment, following the movement of the right hand holding a thin brush, slides down to the palette. Wavy strands of hair, shiny frames, a loose tie round at the collar, a soft line of the shoulder and, finally, a wide semicircle of the palette form a moving system of smooth, flowing lines, inside of which there are three main points: tiny glare of the pupils, and the sharp end of the shirt-front, almost closing with palette and brush. Such an almost mathematical calculation in the construction of the composition of the portrait gives the image a partial inner composure and gives reason to assume that the author has an analytical mind, prone to scientific thinking. In the "Self-portrait" there is no trace of any romanticism, which was then so frequent in the depiction of artists themselves. This is a self-portrait of an artist-researcher, an artist-thinker and a hard worker.

Other work - portrait of Golovachevsky- conceived as a kind of plot composition: the older generation of masters of the Academy in the person of the old inspector gives instructions to the growing talents: the painter (with a folder of drawings. The architect and the sculptor. But Venetsianov did not allow even a shadow of any artificiality or didacticism in this picture: the good old man Golovachevsky friendly interprets to teenagers some page read in a book. The sincerity of expression finds support in the picturesque 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 the work of Orlovsky of the 1800s, portrait works appear, mostly in the form of drawings. By 1809, such an emotionally rich portrait sheet as "Self-portrait". Executed with a juicy free stroke of sanguine and charcoal (with chalk highlighting), Orlovsky's "Self-portrait" attracts with its artistic integrity, characterization of the image, and artistry of performance. At the same time, it allows one to discern some peculiar aspects of Orlovsky's art. "Self-portrait" Orlovsky, of course, does not aim to accurately reproduce the typical appearance of the artist of those years. Before us - in many respects deliberate. The exaggerated appearance of an “artist”, opposing his own “I” to the surrounding reality, he is not concerned about the “decency” of his appearance: comb and brush did not touch his lush hair, on his shoulder is the edge of a checkered raincoat right over a home shirt with an open collar. A sharp turn of the head with a “gloomy” look from under the shifted eyebrows, a close cut of the portrait, in which the face is depicted close-up, contrasts of light - all this is aimed at achieving the main effect of opposing the depicted person to the environment (and thus to the viewer).

The pathos of asserting 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 peculiar aspect that is almost never found in Russian art of that period. The affirmation of the personality goes not so much by revealing the richness of its inner world, but by a more external way of rejecting everything that is around it. The image at the same time, of course, looks depleted, 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 loud and the person's personality never broke strong ties with the environment. Dreaming of a better, democratic social order, the best people of Russia of that era were by no means detached from reality, they consciously rejected the individualistic cult of “personal freedom” that flourished on the soil of Western Europe, loosened by the bourgeois revolution. This was clearly manifested as a reflection of real 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 the two portrait painters immediately catches the eye.

Kiprensky also "heroics" a person's personality, but he shows its true inner values. In the face of the artist, the viewer distinguishes the features of a strong mind, character, moral purity.

The whole appearance of Kiprensky is covered with amazing nobility and humanity. He is able to distinguish between “good” and “evil” in the surrounding world and, rejecting the second, love and appreciate the first, love and appreciate like-minded people. At the same time, we have before us, undoubtedly, a strong individuality, proud of the consciousness of the value of his personal qualities. Exactly the same concept of the portrait image underlies the well-known heroic portrait of D. Davydov by Kiprensky.

Orlovsky, in comparison with Kiprensky, as well as with some other Russian portrait painters of that time, more limitedly, more straightforwardly and outwardly resolves the image of a “strong personality”, while clearly focusing on the art of bourgeois France. When you look at his “Self-portrait”, the portraits of A. Gro, Gericault involuntarily come to mind. Orlovsky’s profile “Self-portrait” of 1810, with its cult of individualistic “inner strength”, however, is already devoid 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 criss-cross movement of the head and shoulders. He emphasizes the irregular structure of Duport's face, his disheveled hair, with the aim of creating a portrait image that is self-sufficient in its unique, random character.

"The landscape should be a portrait," wrote K. N. Batyushkov. Most of the artists who turned to the genre adhered to this setting in their work. landscape. Among the obvious exceptions, gravitating towards the fantastic landscape, were A. O. Orlovsky ("Sea View", 1809); A. G. Varnek ("View in the environs of Rome", 1809); P. V. Basin ("The Sky at Sunset in the Outskirts of Rome", "Evening Landscape", both - 1820s). Creating specific types, they retained the immediacy of sensation, emotional richness, achieving monumental sound with compositional techniques.

Young Orlrovsky saw in nature only titanic forces, not subject to the will of man, capable of causing a catastrophe, a disaster. The struggle of a man with a raging sea element is one of the favorite themes of the artist 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 the coastal rocks on which their ship crashed. Sustained in severe red tones, the color enhances the feeling of anxiety. Terrible are the raids of mighty waves, foreshadowing a storm, and in another picture - “By the sea”(1809). It also plays a huge emotional role in the stormy sky, which occupies most of the composition. Although Orlovsky did not master the art of aerial perspective, the gradual transitions of plans are resolved here more harmoniously and softly. The color has become lighter. Beautifully play on a reddish-brown background, the red spots of the clothes of the fishermen. Restless and anxious sea element in watercolor "Sailboat"(c.1812). And even when the wind does not shake the sail and does not ripple the surface of the water, as in watercolor “Seascape with ships”(c. 1810), the viewer does not leave the premonition that a storm will follow the calm.

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

The landscapes of S. F. Shchedrin had a different character. They are filled with the harmony of the coexistence of man and nature ("Terrace on the seashore. Cappuccini near Sorrento", 1827). Numerous views of Naples and the environs of 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 mysterious St. Petersburg fogs, a soft haze of white nights and an atmosphere saturated with sea moisture, where the contours of buildings are erased, and the moonlight completes the sacrament. The same lyrical beginning distinguishes the views of the St. Petersburg environs performed by him ("Sunset in the Outskirts of St. Petersburg", 1832). But the northern capital was also seen by artists in a different, dramatic vein, as an arena for the collision and struggle of natural elements (V. E. Raev, Alexander Column during a Thunderstorm, 1834).

The brilliant paintings of I. K. Aivazovsky vividly embodied the romantic ideals of intoxication with the struggle and the power of natural forces, the stamina 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 the romantics, is filled with a mysterious inner life, and where the artist’s pictorial search is directed towards extracting extraordinary lighting effects ( "View of Odessa on a moonlit night", "View of Constantinople in the moonlight", both - 1846).

The theme of the natural elements and a man taken by surprise, a favorite theme of romantic art, was interpreted differently by artists of the 1800-1850s. The works were based on real events, but the meaning of the images is not in their objective retelling. A typical example is the painting by Pyotr Basin "Earthquake in Rocca di Papa near Rome"(1830). It is devoted not so much to the description of a specific event as to the depiction of the fear and horror of a person who is faced with a 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 of 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 the poem by Torquatto Tasso “The Liberation of Jerusalem”, “Italian Noon” (“Italian Woman Harvesting Grapes”, 1827), “Horsewoman” (1830), “Bathsheba” (1832) - all these paintings are imbued with a bright, undisguised joy of life. Such works were in tune with the early epicurean poems of Pushkin, Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Delvig. The old manner, based on imitation of the great masters, did not satisfy Bryullov, and he wrote “Italian Morning”, “Italian Noon”, “Bathsheba” in the open air.

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

IN "Bathsheba" the artist uses the biblical story as a pretext for showing a naked body in the open air and conveying the play of light and reflexes on fair 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 greens, cherry clothes, a transparent reservoir. The soft elastic forms of the body are beautifully combined with the whitening fabric and the chocolate color of the Arab woman serving Bathsheba. The flowing lines of the bodies, the pond, and the fabrics give the composition of the picture a smooth rhythm.

Painting has become a new word in painting "The last day of Pompeii"(1827-1833). She made the name of the artist immortal and very famous during his lifetime.

Its plot, apparently, was chosen under the influence of his brother Alexander, who intensively studied the Pompeian ruins. But the reasons for writing 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 thoughts and feelings of the artist, caused by the defeat of the Decembrist uprising in Russia. Not without reason, among the victims of the raging elements in the dying Pompeii, Bryullov placed his self-portrait and gave the features of his Russian acquaintances to other characters in the picture.

The Italian entourage of Bryullov also played a role, which could tell him about the revolutionary storms that swept through the land of 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 of 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 smashed to death personified, apparently, the death of the ancient world. But near the body of the mother, the artist placed a living baby. Depicting children and parents, a young man and an old mother, sons and a decrepit father, the artist showed the old generations fading into history and the new ones coming to replace them. The birth of a new era on the ruins of an old, crumbling world is the true theme of Bryullov's painting. Whatever changes history brings, the existence of mankind does not stop, and its thirst for life remains unfading. This is the main idea behind 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. Weathered 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 arranged solemn receptions for the artist, 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, understandable and appreciated by everyone.

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

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

Vesuvius zev opened - smoke gushed in a club-flame

Widely developed like a battle banner.

The earth is worried - from the staggering columns

Idols are falling!..

Pushkin wrote under the impression of the painting.

Starting with Bryullov, turning points in history have become the main subject of Russian historical painting, depicting grandiose folk scenes, where each person is a participant in the historical drama, where there is no main and secondary.

"Pompeii" belongs, in general, to classicism. The artist skillfully revealed the plasticity of the human body on the canvas. All the spiritual movements of people were transmitted by Bryullov, primarily in the language of plasticity. Separate figures, given in a stormy movement, are collected in balanced, frozen groups. Flashes of light emphasize the shapes of bodies and do not create strong pictorial effects. However, the composition of the painting, which has a strong breakthrough in the center in the depth, depicting an extraordinary event in the life of Pompeii, was inspired by romanticism.

Romanticism as a worldview existed in Russia in its first wave from the end of the 18th century until 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, expressive devices entered the art of different styles, directions, creative associations. Romantic worldview or worldview turned out to be one of the most lively, tenacious, fruitful.

Romanticism as a general attitude, characteristic mainly of young people, as a desire for an ideal and creative freedom, is still constantly living in world art.

c) Music

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

Time (1812, the Decembrist uprising, the reaction that followed) left its mark on 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 extensively on everyday song, others on original forms of music-making, and still others on the ancient modality of ancient Russian peasant modes.

Early 19th century - these are the years of the first and bright flowering of the romance genre. The modest sincere lyrics still sound and delight the listeners. Alexander Alexandrovich Alyabyev (1787-1851). He wrote romances to the verses of many poets, but the immortals are "Nightingale" to the verses of Delvig, "Winter road", "I love you" on Pushkin's poems.

Alexander Egorovich Varlamov (1801-1848) wrote music for dramatic performances, but we know him more from famous romances “Red sundress”, “Don’t wake me at dawn”, “A lone sail turns white”.

Alexander Lvovich Gurilev (1803-1858)- composer, pianist, violinist and teacher, he owns such romances as “The bell rings monotonously”, “At the dawn of a 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, 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 richness of folk music and the highest achievements of composer's skill. Glinka's deeply folk realistic work reflected the powerful flowering of Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century, associated with the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Decembrist movement. Light, life-affirming character, harmony of forms, beauty of expressive and melodious melodies, variety, brilliance and subtlety of harmonies are the most valuable qualities of Glinka's music. At the famous opera "Ivan Susanin"(1836) received a brilliant expression of the idea of ​​popular patriotism; The moral greatness of the Russian people is also glorified in the fairy tale opera “ Ruslan and Ludmila". Orchestral works by Glinka: “Fantasy Waltz”, “Night in Madrid” and especially "Kamarinskaya", form the basis of Russian classical symphonism. Remarkable in terms of the power of dramatic expression and the brightness of the characteristics of the music for the tragedy "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 France was the ancestor of classicism, then “in order to find the roots of ... the romantic school,” wrote one of his contemporaries, “we should go to Germany. She was born there, and there the modern Italian and French romantics formed their tastes.

fragmented Germany did not know the revolutionary upsurge. Many of the German romantics were alien to the pathos of advanced social ideas. They idealized the Middle Ages. They surrendered to unaccountable spiritual impulses, 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). Portraits of this master, with outward calmness, amaze with an intense and intense inner life.

The image of the 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, introspective 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 already in the texture of the work; in a dark colorful range, contrasts of light and dark appear. Contrast is a characteristic pictorial technique of romantic masters.

To catch the changeable play of a person's moods, to look into his soul, an artist of a romantic warehouse will always try. And in this respect, children's portraits will serve as fertile material for him. IN portrait of the Hülsenbeck children(1805) Runge not only conveys the liveliness and immediacy of a child's character, but also finds a special reception for a bright mood, which delights the plein-air openings of the 2nd floor. 19th century The background in the picture is a landscape, which testifies not only to the artist's coloristic gift, admiring attitude to nature, but also to the emergence of new problems in the masterful reproduction of spatial relationships, light shades of objects in the open air. A master romantic, wishing to merge his “I” with the expanses of the Universe, strives to capture the sensually tangible appearance of nature. But with this sensuality of the image, he prefers to see the symbol of the big world, "the idea of ​​the artist."

Runge, one of the first Romantic artists, 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. 17th century Jacob Boehme. The world is a kind of mystical whole, each particle of which expresses the whole. This idea is related to the romantics of the entire European continent. In poetic form, the English poet and painter William Blake put it this way:

See eternity in one moment

A huge world - in the mirror of sand,

In a single handful - infinity

And the sky is in a cup of a flower.

The Runge cycle, or, as he called it, the "fantastic musical poem" "Times of the day"- morning, noon, night - the expression of this concept. He left in poetry and prose an explanation of his conceptual model of the world. The image of a person, landscape, light and color are 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 pictures of nature during 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 within 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 position of listening determines the main form of "communication" of a person 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 the figure to “enter” the landscape space of his paintings, but in the subtle penetration of the figurative structure of the sprawling expanses, the presence of a feeling, a person’s experience is felt. Subjectivism in the depiction of the landscape comes to art only with the work of romantics, foreshadowing the lyrical revelation of nature by the masters of the 2nd floor. 19th century Researchers note in the works of Friedrich "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, born in the rays of the rising sun. Pinkish-purple tones envelop and deprive them of volume and material gravity. The years of the battle with Napoleon (1812-1813) turn Friedrich to patriotic themes. Illustrating, inspired by the drama of Kleist, he writes "Tomb of Arminius"- a landscape with the graves of ancient Germanic heroes.

Friedrich was a subtle master of seascapes: “Ages”, “Moonrise over the Sea”, “Death of “Nadezhda” in the ice”.

The last works of the artist - "Rest on the field", "Big swamp" and "Memories of the Giant mountains", "Giant mountains" - a series of mountain ranges and stones in the foreground darkened. This, apparently, is 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 bright unconquered heights. The feelings of the artist in a special way compose these mountain masses, and again the movement from the darkness of the first steps to the future light is read. The mountain peak in the background is highlighted as the center of the master's spiritual aspirations. The picture is very associative, like any work of the romantics, and involves different levels of reading and interpretation.

Friedrich is very accurate in drawing, musically harmonious in the rhythmic construction of his paintings, in which he tries to speak through the emotions of color and light effects. “Many are given little, few are given much. Everyone opens the soul of nature in a different way. Therefore, no one dares to transfer his experience and his rules to another as a binding unconditional law. No one is the measure of all. Everyone carries within himself a measure only for himself and for natures more or less kindred 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 work - the romantic Friedrich stands on this.

More formal seems to be the disengagement from the artists - "classics" - representatives of 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 the masters with the idea of ​​reviving the monumental art of religious issues. The Middle Ages was a favorite period of history for the Romantics. But in their artistic quest, the Nazarenes turned to the traditions of early Renaissance painting in Italy and Germany. Overbeck and Geforr were the initiators of a new alliance, which was later joined by Cornelius, J. Schnoff von Karolsfeld, Veit Fürich.

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

The Art of Romanticism in France developed in specific ways. The first thing that distinguished it from similar movements in other countries was its active offensive (“revolutionary”) character. Poets, writers, musicians, artists defended their positions not only by creating new works, but also by participating in magazine and newspaper controversy, which is characterized by researchers as a “romantic battle”. The famous V. Hugo, Stendhal, George Sand, Berlioz and many other French writers, composers and journalists “honed their feathers” in romantic controversy.

Romantic painting in France arises as an opposition to the classicist school of David, academic art, referred to as the "school" in general. But this must be understood in a broader sense: it was opposition to the official ideology of the reactionary epoch, 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 plots, to everything that can lead away from the “dim everyday life”, hence this play of imagination, and sometimes, on the contrary, daydreaming and a complete lack of activity.

The representatives of the “school”, the academicians, rebelled primarily against the language of the romantics: their excited hot coloring, their modeling of the form, not the one familiar to the “classics”, statuary-plastic, but built on strong contrasts of color spots; their expressive design, deliberately refusing precision and classicism; their bold, sometimes chaotic composition, devoid of majesty and unshakable calm. Ingres, the implacable enemy of the romantics, until the end of his life said that Delacroix "writes with a mad broom", and Delacroix accused Ingres and all the artists of the "school" of coldness, rationality, lack of movement, that they do not write, but "paint" their paintings. But this was not a simple clash of two bright, completely different personalities, it was a struggle between two different artistic worldviews.

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

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

In the salon in 1812 Géricault shows a picture "Officer of the imperial horse rangers during the attack." It was the year of the apogee of the glory of Napoleon and the military power of France.

The composition of the picture presents the rider in an unusual perspective of the “sudden” moment when the horse reared up, and the rider, holding the almost vertical position of the horse, turned to the viewer. The image of such a moment of instability, the impossibility of posture enhances the effect of movement. The horse has one point of support, it must fall to the ground, screw into the fight that brought it to such a state. Much converged in this work: Gericault's unconditional faith in the possibility of a person owning his own powers, a passionate love for depicting horses and the courage of a novice master in showing what only music or the language of poetry could previously convey - the excitement of a battle, the beginning of an attack, the ultimate strain of a living being . The young author built his image on the transmission of the dynamics of movement, and it was important for him to set the viewer up for “thinking”, painting with “inner vision” and a sense of what he wanted to depict.

France had practically no traditions of such dynamics of the pictorial narrative of romance, except perhaps in the reliefs of Gothic temples, because 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 could not recover from this experience.” But Stendhal pointed to Michelangelo as the forerunner of a new stylistic trend in art even earlier in his polemical articles.

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

In the treatise “Reflection 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 a matter of prime necessity, the arts appear only when the essential needs are met and when abundance comes. A man, freed from everyday worries, began to seek pleasures in order to get rid of boredom, which would inevitably overtake him in the midst of contentment.

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

At the same time, the artist turns to the depiction of the sinking of the Meduza frigate off the coast of Africa, which excited the society of that time. The disaster occurred through the fault of an inexperienced captain, appointed to the post under patronage. The surviving passengers of the ship, the surgeon Savigny and the engineer Correar, spoke in detail about the accident.

The dying ship managed to throw off the raft, on which a handful of rescued people got. For twelve days they were carried along the raging sea until they met salvation - the ship "Argus".

Gericault was interested in the situation of the ultimate tension of human spiritual and physical strength. The painting depicted 15 surviving passengers on a raft when they saw the Argus on the horizon. “The raft of the Medusa” was the result of a long preparatory work of the artist. 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 element and state negligence. People courageously endured the misfortune, and the hope of salvation did not leave them: each group on the raft has its own characteristics. In the construction of the composition, Gericault chooses a point of view from above, which allowed him to combine the panoramic coverage of space (the sea distances are visible) and depict, bringing all the inhabitants of the raft very close to the foreground. The movement is built on the contrast of the figures lying helplessly in the foreground and the impetuous in the group giving signals to the passing ship. The clarity of the rhythm of the growth of dynamics from group to group, the beauty of naked bodies, the dark color of the picture set a certain note of the conventionality of the image. But this is not the point for the perceiving viewer, to whom the conventionality of the language even helps to understand and feel the main thing: the ability of a person to fight and win. The ocean roars. The sail is moaning. The ropes are ringing. The raft crackles. The wind drives the waves and tears the black clouds to shreds.

Is it not 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 a madman, jumped out of Gericault's workshop, which he often visited.

Such passions did not know the art of David.

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

Géricault's innovation opened up new opportunities for conveying the movement that worried the romantics, the underlying feelings of a person, the coloristic textural expressiveness of the picture.

Géricault's heir in his quest was Eugene Delacroix. True, Delacroix was allowed twice as long as his life span, and he managed not only to prove the correctness of romanticism, but also to bless the new direction in painting of the 2nd floor. 19th century - impressionism.

Before starting to write on his own, Eugene studied at the Lerain 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 mistress, it demands the whole person…”

Delacroix, after the demonstration performances by Géricault, was well aware that the time of strong emotional upheavals had come in art. First, he tries to comprehend a new era for him through well-known literary plots. His painting "Dante and Virgil", presented in the salon of 1822, is an attempt through the historical associative images of two poets: antiquity - Virgil and Renaissance - Dante - to look at a boiling cauldron, the "hell" of the modern era. Once in his "Divine Comedy" Dante took Virgil's land as an escort in all spheres (heaven, hell, purgatory). In Dante's work, a new renaissance world arose by experiencing the memory of antiquity in the Middle Ages. 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. Young people of that time, burning with freedom and hatred for the oppressors, sympathize with the liberation war of Greece. The romantic bard of England, Byron, is going 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 fires and unceasing 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 multitude of sufferers who are there. Beautiful bodies, faces of captivated people. By the way, Delacroix will later write that Greek sculpture was turned by artists into hieroglyphs that hid 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 the deformation of the angles of the figure. These "mistakes" were already "resolved" by Gericault's work, but Delacroix once again demonstrates the romantic creed 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 the new painting.

Years passed. One by one, pictures appeared: “Greece on the ruins of Missalunga”, “Death of Sardanapalus” and others. The artist became an outcast in the 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 paints a picture "Freedom on the Barricades".

In 1831, at the Paris Salon, the French first saw the painting by Eugene Delacroix "Freedom on the Barricades", dedicated to the "three glorious days" of the July Revolution of 1830. The canvas made a stunning impression on contemporaries with the power, democracy and courage of the artistic decision. According to legend, one respectable bourgeois exclaimed: “You say - the head of the school? Tell me better - the head of the rebellion! After the closing of the Salon, the government, frightened by the menacing and inspiring appeal emanating from the picture, hastened to return it to the author. During the revolution of 1848, it was again put on public display in the Luxembourg Palace. And again returned to the artist. Only after the canvas was exhibited at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1855, it ended 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 struggle of the people for their freedom.

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

Paris of the famous July days 1830. Air saturated with gray smoke and dust. A beautiful and majestic city, disappearing in a haze of powder. In the distance, hardly 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 smoky city, over the ruins of barricades, over the dead bodies of dead comrades, the insurgents stubbornly and resolutely come forward. Each of them can die, but the step of the rebels is unshakable - they are inspired by the will to win, to freedom.

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

Nick wins. Her strong figure is dressed in a chiton dress, her face with perfect features, with burning eyes, is turned to the rebels. In one hand she holds the tricolor banner 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 - this is how goddesses step. At the same time, the image of a woman is real - she is the daughter of the French people. She is the guiding force behind the movement of the group on the barricades. From it, as from a source of light in the center of energy, rays radiate, charging with thirst and the will to win. Those who are in close proximity to it, each in their own way, express their involvement in this inspiring and inspiring call.

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

down, rose again, rustled, sparkled with joy. It would seem that he came here in order to cheer everyone up. Did he have any motive for this? Yes, of course, his poverty. Did he have wings? Yes, of course, his cheerfulness. It was kind of a whirlwind. It seemed to fill the air with itself, being present everywhere at the same time ... Huge barricades felt it on its backbone.

Gavroche in Delacroix's painting is the personification of youth, a "beautiful impulse", a joyful acceptance of the bright idea of ​​Freedom. Two images - Gavroche and Liberty - seem to complement each other: one is a fire, the other is a torch lit from it. Heinrich Heine told what a lively response the figure of Gavroche evoked among the Parisians. "Damn it! exclaimed a grocer. “Those 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, meaningful. Hands confidently squeeze the barrel of the gun, the face expresses courage, firm determination to stand to the end. This is a deeply tragic image. The student is aware of the inevitability of the losses that the rebels will suffer, but the victims do not frighten him - the will to freedom is stronger. Behind him stands an equally brave and resolute worker with a saber. Wounded at the feet of Freedom. He rises with difficulty to once again look up at Freedom, to see and feel with all his heart that beauty for which he is dying. This figure brings an acutely dramatic beginning to the sound of Delacroix's canvas. If the images of Gavroche, Liberty, the student, the worker - almost symbols, the embodiment of the inexorable will of the 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, descends to the foot of the barricade, covered with the bodies of the glorious dead soldiers. Death is presented by the artist in all the nakedness and evidence of the fact. We see the blue faces of the dead, their naked bodies: the struggle is merciless, and death is just as inevitable a companion of the rebels as the beautiful inspirer Freedom.

But not exactly the same! From the terrible sight at the lower edge of the picture, we again raise our eyes and see a beautiful young 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 terrible.

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 only part of an endless avalanche of people. The artist gives, as it were, a fragment of the group: the frame of the picture cuts off the figures from the left, right, and bottom.

Usually color in the works of Delacroix acquires an emotional sound, plays a dominant role in creating a dramatic effect. The colors, sometimes raging, sometimes fading, muffled, create a tense atmosphere. In Liberty at the Barricades, Delacroix departs from this principle. Very accurately, unmistakably choosing paint, applying it with wide strokes, the artist conveys the atmosphere of the battle.

But the range of colors is restrained. Delacroix focuses on the relief modeling of the form. This was required by the figurative solution of the picture. After all, 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, represents a symbol cast into a completed form. Therefore, color not only emotionally affects the feelings of the viewer, but carries a symbolic load. Here and there, a solemn triad of red, blue, white flashes in the brown-gray space - the colors of the banner of the French Revolution of 1789. The repeated repetition of these colors supports the powerful chord of the tricolor flag flying over the barricades.

Delacroix's painting "Freedom on the Barricades" is a complex, grandiose work in its scope. Here the authenticity 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 “Liberty at the Barricades” consolidated the victory of romanticism in French painting. In the 30s, two more historical paintings: "Battle of Poitiers" And "The Assassination of the Bishop of Liege".

In 1822 the artist visited North Africa, Morocco, Algeria. The trip made an indelible impression on him. In the 50s, paintings appeared in his work, inspired by memories of this journey: ”Hunting for lions”, “Moroccan saddling a horse” and others. Bright contrasting color creates a romantic sound to these paintings. In them, the technique of a wide stroke appears.

Delacroix, as a romantic, recorded the state of his soul not only in the language of pictorial images, but also in literary form of his thoughts. He well described the process of the creative work of the romantic artist, his experiments in color, 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 progress in the field of sculpture (Rud and his Marseillaise relief), landscape painting (Camille Corot with his light-air images of the nature of France).

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

If Gericault's fantasies focused on the transmission of 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 look far from any stylistic framework, especially since the artist very often had to follow the laws of the performance material (when, for example, he made 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), the murals of the "House of the Deaf" and the Church of San Antonio de la Florida in Madrid (1798). Serious illness in 1792. led to complete deafness of the artist. The art of the master after suffering a physical and spiritual trauma becomes more concentrated, thoughtful, internally dynamic. The outer world, closed due to deafness, activated Goya's inner spiritual life.

In etchings “Caprichos” Goya achieves exceptional strength in the transfer of instantaneous reactions, impetuous feelings. Black-and-white performance, thanks to the bold combination of large spots, the absence of linearity characteristic of graphics, acquires all the properties of a painting.

Murals of the Church of St. Anthony in Madrid Goya creates, it seems, in one breath. The temperament of the stroke, the laconism of the composition, the expressiveness of the characteristics of the characters, whose type is taken by Goya directly from the crowd, are amazing. The artist depicts the miracle of Anthony of Florida, who made the murdered man resurrect and speak, who named the murderer and thereby saved the innocently condemned from execution. The dynamism of the brightly reacting crowd is conveyed by Goya both in gestures and in the facial expressions of the depicted faces. In the compositional scheme of the distribution of paintings in the space of the church, the painter follows Tiepolo, but the reaction that he evokes in the viewer is not baroque, but purely romantic, affecting the feeling of each viewer, calling him to turn to himself.

Most of all, this goal is achieved in the painting of the Conto del Sordo (“House of the Deaf”), in which Goya lived from 1819. The walls of the rooms are covered with fifteen compositions of a fantastic and allegorical nature. Perceiving them requires deep empathy. Images arise as some kind of visions of cities, women, men, etc. The color, flashing, pulls out one figure, then another. Painting as a whole is dark, it is dominated by white, yellow, pinkish-red spots, flashes of disturbing feelings. The etchings of the series "Disparantes" .

Goya spent the last 4 years in France. It is unlikely that he knew that Delacroix did not part 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 on Manet would have, and how in the 80s of the XIX century. V. Stasov will invite Russian artists to study his "Disasters of War"

But we, given this, know what a huge impact this “styleless” art of a bold realist and 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. Shelley became the banner of this movement far beyond the "foggy Albion". In France, in the magazine criticism of the time of 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 Romantic interest in the Middle Ages spawned a large historical literature. The recognized master of which is V. 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 books. His talent sought to embrace and express the world in a holistic unity. His most famous works are illustrations for the biblical "Book of Job", "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, "Paradise Lost" by Milton. He populates his compositions with titanic figures of heroes, which correspond to their surroundings of an unreal enlightened or phantasmagoric world. A sense of rebellious pride or harmony, difficult to create from dissonances, overwhelms his illustrations.

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

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

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

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

Romantically elevated landscapes are created by William Turner (1775-1851). He liked to depict thunderstorms, downpours, 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 the technique of watercolors and applied oil paint in a very thin layer and painted directly on the ground, achieving iridescent overflows. An example is the picture “Rain, steam and speed”(1844). But even the well-known critic of that time, Thackeray, could not correctly understand, perhaps, the most innovative picture both in design and execution. “Rain is indicated by stains of dirty putty,” he wrote, “spattered onto the canvas with a palette knife, sunlight with a dull shimmer breaks through very thick lumps of dirty yellow chrome. Shadows are conveyed by cold shades of scarlet kraplak and cinnabar spots of muted tones. And although the fire in the locomotive furnace seems red, I do not presume to assert that it is not painted with cabalt or pea color. Another critic found in Turner's coloring the color of "scrambled eggs and spinach." The colors of the late Turner generally seemed completely unthinkable and fantastic to contemporaries. It took more than a century to see in them the grain of real observations. But as in other cases, it was here. A curious account of an eyewitness, or rather, a witness to the birth of “Rain, steam and speed”, has been preserved. A certain Mrs. Simone was riding in a compartment of the Western Express with an elderly gentleman sitting across from her. He asked permission to open the window, stuck his head out into the pouring rain, and remained in that position for quite some time. When he finally closed the window. Water dripped from him in streams, but he closed his eyes blissfully 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. Also got wet. But I got an unforgettable impression. Imagine her surprise when, a year later, at an exhibition in London, she saw Rain, Steam and Speed. Someone behind her remarked critically, “Extremely typical of Turner, right. No one has ever seen such a mixture of absurdities.” And she, unable to restrain herself, said: "I saw."

Perhaps this is the first image of a train in painting. the point of view is taken from somewhere above, which made it possible to give a wide panoramic coverage. The Western Express flies over 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 middle of the 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 it was French artists who should have developed further his search for color from the light. But that's not the case at all. Essentially, Turner's influence on the Impressionists goes back to Paul Signac's From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, published in 1899, 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 colors, they studied his work, they analyzed his technique. At first they were amazed at his portrayal of snow and ice, shocked at the way he was able to convey a sense of the whiteness of snow, which they themselves could not, with large patches of silvery white laid flat with broad strokes of the brush. They saw that this impression had not been achieved with whitewash alone. And a mass of multi-color strokes. Inflicted one next to the other, which produced this impression, if you look at them from afar.

During these years, Signac was looking everywhere for confirmation of his theory of pointillism. But in none of Turner's paintings that French artists could see in the National Gallery in 1871, there is a technique of pointillism described by Signac, nor are there "broad spots of whitewash". In fact, Turner's influence on the French was not stronger in 1870 -e, and in the 1890s.

Turner was studied most carefully by Paul Signac - 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: beautiful 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 really unfinished "underpaintings", trying to discover in him the predecessor of impressionism.

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

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

The constable painted large oil sketches on the open air with a subtle observation 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 Hempstead Hills”, OK. 1834; "Hay cart" 1821; “Detham Valley”, ca. 1828) achieved this with the help of writing techniques. He painted with moving strokes, sometimes thick and rough, sometimes smoother and more transparent. The Impressionists would come to this only at the end of the century. The innovative painting of Constable influenced the works of Delacroix, as well as the entire development of the French landscape.

The art of Constable, as well as many aspects of Gericault's work, marked the emergence of a realistic trend 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, individual, unlike anyone else, but sincere and therefore close to all sensual vision of the world. The instantaneity of the image in painting, as Gelacroix said, and not its consistency in literary performance, determined the focus of artists on the most complex transmission of movement, for the sake of which new formal and coloristic solutions were found. Romanticism left a legacy of the second half of the XIX century. all these problems and artistic individuality liberated from the rules of academism. The symbol, which among the Romantics was supposed to express the essential combination 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 ​​art synthesis found expression in the ideology and practice of romanticism. Romanticism in music took shape 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 (turning to synthetic genres, primarily opera, song, instrumental miniatures and musical programming). The appeal to the inner world of a person, characteristic of romanticism, was expressed in the cult of the subjective, the craving for the emotionally intense, which determined the primacy of music and lyrics in romanticism.

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

Musical romanticism manifested itself in many different branches associated with different national cultures and with different social movements. So, for example, the intimate, lyrical style of the German romantics and the "oratorical" civil pathos, characteristic of the work of French composers, differ significantly. 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 contemporaries in Germany, Austria or France, in particular, the tendency to preserve the classical traditions.

Nevertheless, all of them are marked by some general artistic principles that allow us to speak of a single romantic structure of thought.

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

By the beginning of the 19th century, fundamental studies of folklore, history, ancient literature appeared, medieval legends, gothic art, and the culture of the Renaissance that had been forgotten were resurrected. It was at this time that many national schools of a special type developed in the composer's work of Europe, which were destined to significantly expand the boundaries of common European culture. Russian, which soon took, if not the first, then one of the first places in world cultural creativity (Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, "Kuchkists", Tchaikovsky), Polish (Chopin, Moniuszko), Czech (Sour Cream, Dvorak), Hungarian (List), then Norwegian (Grieg), Spanish (Pedrel), Finnish (Sibelius), English (Elgar) - all of them, merging into the general mainstream of the composer's creativity in Europe, 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 the work allows you to instantly recognize by ear belonging to a particular national school.

Composers involve in the common European musical language the intonational turns of the old, mainly peasant folklore of their countries. They, as it were, cleansed the Russian folk song from the lacquered opera, they introduced into the cosmopolitan intonation system of the 18th century song turns of folk-everyday genres. The most striking phenomenon in the music of romanticism, which is especially vividly 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 value of the lyrical beginning in their music, in strength and perfection in conveying the depths of the inner world of a person, 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 thread through the work of all romantic composers.

A huge place is given in musical works of small and large forms to the image of nature, closely and inextricably intertwined with the theme of lyrical confession. Like the images of love, the image of nature personifies the state of mind of the hero, so often colored by a sense 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 for romantics was the search for a wonderful, sparkling with the richness of colors of the world, opposed to gray everyday life. It was during these years that literature was enriched with fairy tales, ballads of Russian writers. Among the composers of the romantic school, fabulous, fantastic images acquire a national unique 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 wrong 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 work 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 (the violinist Paganini, the singer A. Nurri, and others).

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

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

At the same time, Liszt played a big role in the development of world musical art. After Liszt, “everything became possible for the pianoforte.” The characteristic features of his music are improvisation, romantic elation of feelings, expressive melody. Liszt is valued as a composer, performer, musical figure. Major works of the composer: opera “ Don Sancho or the castle of love”(1825), 13 symphonic poems” Tasso ”, ” Prometheus ”, “Hamlet” and others, works for orchestra, 2 concertos for piano and orchestra, 75 romances, choirs and other equally well-known works.

One of the first manifestations of romanticism in music was creativity Franz Schubert(1797-1828). Schubert entered the history of music as the largest of the founders of musical romanticism and the creator of a number of new genres: romantic symphony, piano miniature, lyric-romantic song (romance). Most important 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 essential features of his talent is most evident - the amazing variety, beauty, charm of melodies. The best songs of the early period are “ Margarita at the spinning wheel ”(1814) , “forest king". Both songs are written to the words of Goethe. In the first of them, the abandoned girl remembers her beloved. She is lonely and deeply suffering, her song is sad. A simple and sincere 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 riding 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 has its own melodic language. Schubert's songs "Trout", "Barcarolle", "Morning Serenade" are no less famous and beloved. Written in later years, these songs are remarkable for their surprisingly simple and expressive melody and fresh colors.

Schubert also wrote two cycles of songs - “ beautiful miller"(1823), and" winter path”(1872) - to the words of the German poet Wilhelm Müller. In each of them, the songs are united by one plot. The songs of the cycle “The Beautiful Miller’s Woman” tells about a young boy. Following the course 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 cycle “Winter Way” is completely different. A poor young man is rejected by a rich bride. In desperation, he leaves his native city and goes to roam the world. His companions are the wind, a blizzard, an ominously cawing crow.

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

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

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

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

One of the largest French composers of the second half of the 19th century Georges Bizet, the 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 accuracy and clarity of thought, novelty and freshness of expressive means, completeness and elegance of form. Bizet is characterized by the sharpness of psychological analysis in comprehending human feelings and actions, which is characteristic of the work of the great compatriots of the composer - the writers Balzac, Flaubert, Maupassant. The central place in the work of Bizet, diverse in genres, belongs to the opera. The composer's operatic art arose on national soil and was nurtured by the traditions of the French opera house. Bizet considered the first task in his work to overcome the genre restrictions existing in French opera, which hinder its development. The “big” opera seems to him a dead genre, the lyrical opera irritates with its tearfulness and petty-bourgeois narrow-mindedness, the comic deserves attention more than others. For the first time in Bizet's opera, juicy and lively domestic and mass scenes appear, anticipating life and vivid scenes.

Bizet's music for Alphonse Daudet's drama “Arlesian” is known mainly for two concert suites made up of her best numbers. Bizet used some authentic Provençal melodies : “March of the Three Kings” And "Dance of frisky horses".

Bizet's opera Carmen” is a musical drama that unfolds before the audience with convincing truthfulness and with captivating artistic power the story of love and death of its heroes: the soldier Jose and the gypsy Carmen. Opera Carmen was created on the basis of the traditions of French musical theater, but at the same time it also 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 - a realistic musical drama.

In the history of the opera house of the 19th century, the opera Carmen occupies one of the first places. Since 1876, her triumphal procession began on the stages of the opera houses of Vienna, Brussels, and London.

The manifestation of a personal relationship to the environment was expressed by poets and musicians, first of all, in immediacy, emotional “openness” and passion of expression, in an effort to convince the listener with the help of the incessant 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 an antithesis of "grand" and comic opera, but it could not pass by their conquests and achievements in the field of operatic dramaturgy 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 theme. The heroes of the lyrical opera are endowed with the features of ordinary people, devoid of exclusivity and some hyperbolization, characteristic of a romantic opera. The most significant artist in the field of lyric opera was Charles Gounod.

Among the rather numerous operatic heritage of Gounod, the opera “ Faust" occupies a special and, one might say, exceptional place. Her 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 in essence the first among the operas of the new direction, about which Tchaikovsky wrote: “It is impossible to deny that Faust was written, if not with genius, then with extraordinary skill and without significant identity.” In the image of Faust, the sharp inconsistency and “bifurcation” of his consciousness, the eternal dissatisfaction caused by the desire to know the world, are smoothed out. Gounod could not 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 lyrical opera: an emotionally direct and vividly individual transfer of the inner world of the opera characters. The deep philosophical meaning of Goethe's Faust, which sought to reveal the historical and social destinies of all mankind on the example of the conflict of the main characters, was embodied by Gounod in the form of a humane lyrical drama of Marguerite 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. In his work, they found a vivid embodiment of the features of revolutionary pathos and heroics. Berlioz was familiar with M. Glinka, whose music he highly appreciated. 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 the opera “ Benvenuto Cillini ”(1838), “ Trojans ”,”Beatrice and Benedict(based on Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing, 1862); 23 vocal and 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 operatic art. 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 music flows in a continuous stream, merging together all the dramatic links. Rejecting 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), “Gold of the Rhine”(1869) and etc.; choirs, piano pieces, romances.

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

Author of landscape romantic symphonies (“Scottish”, “Italian”), program concert overtures, a popular violin concerto, cycles of pieces for pianoforte “Song without Words”; the operas Camacho's Marriage. He wrote music for the dramatic play Antigone (1841), Oedipus in Colon (1845) by Sophocles, Atalia by Racine (1845), Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1843) and others; oratorios "Paul" (1836), "Elijah" (1846); 2 concertos for piano and 2 for violin.

IN Italian musical culture a special place belongs to Giuseppe Verdi - an outstanding composer, conductor, 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 denounced evil in his operas. Characteristic features of Verdi's work: folk music, dramatic temperament, melodic brightness, understanding of the laws of the scene.

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

Young Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) aspired to 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, the image of Grieg as a Norwegian composer emerges more clearly. In the subtle lyrical "Poetic Pictures" (1863), national features still timidly break through. The rhythmic figure is often found in Norwegian folk music; it became characteristic of many of Grieg's melodies.

Grieg's work is vast and multifaceted. Grieg wrote works of various genres. Piano Concerto and Ballades, three sonatas for violin and piano and a sonata for cello and piano, the quartet testifies to Grieg's constant craving for large form. At the same time, the composer's interest in instrumental miniatures remained unchanged. To the same extent as the pianoforte, the composer was attracted by the chamber vocal miniature - a romance, a song. Do not be the main one with Grieg, the field of symphonic creativity is marked by such masterpieces as the suites “ Per Gounod ”, “From the days of Holberg". One of the characteristic types of Grieg's work 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 brightly original. The individuality of the composer's style is most of all determined by his deep connection with Norwegian folk music. Grieg widely uses genre features, intonation structure, rhythmic formulas of folk song and dance melodies.

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

7. CONCLUSION

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

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

Romanticism as a method and direction in artistic culture was a complex and controversial phenomenon. In every country he had a bright national expression. Romantics occupied various 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 his own ideal. But with all the many faces 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 creative initiative of the artist.

They discovered the principle of historicism (enlighteners judged the past anti-historically for them there was "reasonable" and "unreasonable"). We saw human characters in the past, shaped by their time. Interest in the national past gave rise to a mass of historical works.

Interest in a strong personality who opposes himself to the whole world around him and relies only on himself.

Attention to the inner world of man.

Romanticism was widely developed both in the countries of Western Europe and in Russia. However, romanticism in Russia differed from Western European in favor of a different historical setting and a different cultural tradition. The real reason for the emergence of romanticism in Russia was the Patriotic War of 1812, in which all the power of popular initiative was manifested.

Features of Russian romanticism:

Romanticism did not oppose 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 intertwining with it.

Romanticism in Russia manifested itself in different ways in different types of art. In architecture, it was not read at all. In painting, it dried up by the middle of the 19th century. He showed up only partially in music. Perhaps only in literature romanticism manifested itself consistently.

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

Romantics open the world of the human soul, individual, unlike anyone else, but sincere and therefore close to all sensual vision of the world. The instantaneity of the image in painting, as Delacroix said, and not its consistency in literary performance, determined the focus of artists on the most complex transmission of movement, for the sake of which new formal and coloristic solutions were found. Romanticism left a legacy of the second half of the XIX century. all these problems and artistic individuality liberated from the rules of academism. The symbol, which among the Romantics was supposed to express the essential combination 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 personal subjective vision of the artist takes the form of a law. Impressionism will completely destroy the barrier between the artist and nature, declaring art an impression. Romantics speak of the artist's fantasy, "the voice of his feelings", which allows him to stop work when the master considers it necessary, and not as required by academic standards of completeness.

Romanticism left a whole era in the world artistic culture, its representatives were: in Russian literature Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov and others; in the fine arts E. Delacroix, T. Gericault, F. Runge, J. Constable, W. Turner, O. Kiprensky, A. Venetsianov, A. Orlorsky, V. Tropinin and others; in the music of 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 art forms more or less equalized in their significance and produced magnificent works of art, although the romantics gave priority to music in the ladder of arts.

Romanticism as a worldview existed in Russia in its first wave from the end of the 18th century until 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, expressive devices entered the art of different styles, directions, creative associations. Romantic worldview or worldview turned out to be one of the most lively, tenacious, fruitful.

Romanticism as a general attitude, characteristic mainly of young people, as a desire for an ideal and creative freedom, is still constantly living in world art.

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