Plan

Introduction

1. Spiritual and artistic origins Silver Age

2. The originality of Russian painting of the end XIX-- beginning XX century

3. Artistic associations and their role in the development of painting

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

We, we rule our way to the sun, like Icarus, We are dressed with a cloak of winds and flames.

(M. Voloshin)

The system of spiritual life, which took shape and produced unusually rich fruits in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is often referred to by the romantic term "Silver Age". In addition to the emotional load, this expression has a certain cultural content and chronological framework. It was actively introduced into scientific use by the critic S.K. Makovsky, poet N.A. Otsup, philosopher N.A. Berdyaev. Sergei Makovsky, son of the artist K.E. Makovsky, already in exile wrote the book "On Parnassus of the Silver Age", which was destined to become the most famous book of memoirs about this time.

Most researchers attribute the period of 20-25 years to the Silver Age at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. and begin it with ordinary, at first glance, cultural events of the early 90s. In 1894, the first "Bryusov" collection of "symbolist" poets was published; M.P. Mussorgsky's opera "Khovanshchina" saw the stage; creative way composer-innovator A.N. Scriabin. In 1898, a fundamentally new creative association "World of Art" was founded in St. Petersburg, and "Russian seasons" by S.P. began in Paris. Diaghilev.

The heyday of the culture of the Silver Age falls on the 10s. XX century, and its end is often associated with the political and social upheavals of 1917-1920. Thus, the broadest chronological framework of the Silver Age: from the mid-90s. 19th century until the mid 20s. XX century., That is, approximately 20-25 years at the turn of the century.

What was the turning point experienced during this period by Russian culture, and with it Russian painting? Why did this period get such a poetic name that involuntarily brings our memory back to the golden age of the Pushkin Renaissance? The answers to these questions still excite the minds of scientists, writers, and art historians. This determined the relevance of the topic of our essay.

The turn of the 19th-20th centuries is a turning point for Russia. Economic ups and downs, lost Russo-Japanese War 1904--1905 and the revolution of 1905-1907, the first World War 1914--1918 and as a consequence of the revolution in February and October 1917, which overthrew the monarchy and the power of the bourgeoisie ... But at the same time, science, literature and art experienced an unprecedented flourishing.

In 1881, the doors of a private art gallery the famous merchant and philanthropist Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov, in 1892 he donated it to Moscow. In 1898 the Russian Museum of the Emperor was opened Alexander III in St. Petersburg. In 1912, on the initiative of the historian Ivan Vladimirovich Tsvetaev (1847-1913), the Museum of Fine Arts (now the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts) began its work in Moscow.

The realistic traditions of the Wanderers in painting, their narrative and edifying tone were a thing of the past. They were replaced by modern style. It is easily recognizable by flexible, flowing lines in architecture, by symbolic and allegorical images in sculpture and painting, by sophisticated fonts and ornaments in graphics.

The purpose of our work is to show, in close connection with the historical and social problems of time, the processes of development of painting late XIX- early XX centuries

To achieve this goal, you must complete the following tasks:

To give general characteristics art of the late 19th century - early. XX century;

Describe the work of prominent representatives of the painting of that time;

Find out the main directions in fine arts of this period of time.

When writing the abstract, the book of Berezova L.G. was used. "History of Russian Culture", where the author considered the main problems of the history of the development of culture from the time of ancient Russia to the present day. The author of this monograph shares the point of view, which is discussed in modern scientific literature. It lies in the fact that culture is seen as the supporting structure of national history.

The next book that was used when working on the essay, "Domestic Art", author Ilyina T.V. This monograph is devoted to the history of fine arts. The author made an attempt to give an objective, truthful picture of the development of Russian art in the late 19th early 20th centuries, to talk about the works of those Russian artists whose names are tragedy historical development our society were plunged into oblivion.

In his article Sternin G.Yu. "Russian art culture the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries" tried to select those works and most clearly characterize one or another direction master artist in order to create, as far as possible, a holistic view of the features of the development of painting in Russian art.

And also in this work, the works of art critics Vlasov R.I., Fedorov-Davydov A.A. and others were used to analyze the work of specific artists.

1. Spiritual and artistic origins of the Silver Age

End of the 19th century became an important point for Russian culture, the moment of the search for a new self-consciousness. From the point of view of socio-political and spiritual development, it seemed that everything was frozen, hiding in Russia. About this time A.A. Block wrote the poignant lines:

In those years distant, deaf

Sleep and darkness reigned in the hearts.

Victorious over Russia

Spread owl wings.

The beginning of renewal lies in the depths of national self-consciousness, where subtle changes were made in the system of values, in ideas about the world and man. What is mature in the depths of culture?

The arrow of time makes, as it were, a deflection, a break, a knot. At the end of the century, this feeling of the “end of the cycle”, the completion of the cultural circle, turned out to be especially strong. The words of the philosopher V.V. Rozanova convey this feeling of anxiety: “And from the point of historical break, ugly corners stick out, piercing thorns, generally unpleasant and painful” Berezovaya L.G. History of Russian culture.-M., 2002 -S.65. The state of spiritual discomfort was felt by the whole culture of the late 19th century.

The cultural trends of the turn of the century are sometimes referred to by art historians with the word “decadence”. Actually, decadence itself was just an artistic symptom of the state of the national soul at the moment of the “turn of the centuries”. His pessimism was not so much a denial of the previous cultural experience as a search for ways to move on to a new cycle. It was necessary to get rid of the exhausted heritage of the outgoing century. Hence the impression of the destructive, destructive nature of Russian decadence.

It might as well be considered a desperate bridging to an unknown future. Decadence preceded the Silver Age not so much in time as in attitude, in art system. Denying the old, he opened the way to the search for the new. First of all, this concerns new accents in the system of life values.

At the end of the XIX century. man for the first time felt the frightening power of science and the power of technology. AT everyday life included a telephone and a sewing machine, a steel pen and ink, matches and kerosene, electric lighting and an engine internal combustion, steam locomotive, radio ... But along with this, dynamite, a machine gun, an airship, an airplane, and poison gases were invented.

Therefore, according to Beregovaya, the power of technology of the coming XX century. made a separate human life too vulnerable and fragile. The response was the special attention of culture to the individual human soul. An aggravated personal beginning came into the national self-consciousness through the novels and philosophical and moral systems of L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, and later A.P. Chekhov. Literature for the first time really paid attention to the inner life of the soul. The themes of family, love, the self-value of human life sounded loudly.

Such a sharp change in the spiritual and moral values ​​of the decadent period meant the beginning of the emancipation of cultural creativity. The Silver Age would never have been able to manifest itself as such a powerful impulse towards a new quality of Russian culture if decadence had been limited to the denial and overthrow of idols. Decadence built a new soul to the same extent that it destroyed it, creating the soil of the Silver Age - a single, inseparable text of culture. Vlasova R.I. Konstantin Korovin. Creativity.- L., 1970.-p.32.

Revival of national artistic traditions. In the self-consciousness of people at the end of the 19th century. interest in the past, first of all, in one's own history, was caught. The feeling of being the heirs of their history began with N.M. Karamzin. But at the end of the century this interest received a developed scientific and material basis.

At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. the Russian icon "left" the circle of objects of worship and began to be regarded as an object of art. The trustee of the Tretyakov Gallery transferred to Moscow, I.S. Ostroukhov. Ostroukhov managed to see the whole world under a layer of later “renovations” and soot ancient Russian painting. The fact is that the drying oil, which was covered with icons for shine, after 80-100 years darkened so much that a new image was written on the icon. As a result, in the 19th century in Russia, all icons dating earlier than the 18th century were firmly hidden with several layers of paint.

In the 900s the restorers managed to clear the first icons. The brightness of the colors of the ancient masters shocked connoisseurs of art. In 1904, A. Rublev's "Trinity" was discovered from under several layers of later records, which had been hidden from connoisseurs for at least three hundred years. All culture of the XVIII-XIX centuries. developed almost without knowledge of its own Old Russian heritage. The icon and the whole experience of the Russian art school became one of the important sources of the new culture of the Silver Age.

At the end of the 19th century, a serious study of Russian antiquity began. A six-volume collection of drawings of Russian weapons, costume, church utensils was published - "Antiquities of the Russian state." This edition was used in the Stroganov School, which trained artists, masters of the Faberge firm, and many painters. Scientific publications were published in Moscow: "History of Russian ornament", "History of Russian costume" and others. The Armory in the Kremlin has become an open museum. The first scientific and restoration work was undertaken in the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, in the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, in the Ipatiev Monastery in Kostroma. The study of the history of provincial estates began, and local history museums began to work in the provinces.

Based on the understanding of the old artistic traditions in Russia, a new one began to form. art style- modern turf. The initial characteristic of the new style was retrospectivism, that is, the understanding of the culture of past centuries by modern man. Symbolism in the intellectual spheres of culture and Art Nouveau in the artistic fields had a common worldview basis, the same views on the tasks of creativity and a common interest in past cultural experience. Like symbolism, Art Nouveau was common to all European culture. The term "modern" itself came from the name of the magazine "Contemporary Art" then published in Brussels. The term "new art" also appeared on its pages.

Art Nouveau and symbolism of the Silver Age were formed as a complex synthetic style, even rather a fusion of various styles with a fundamental openness to the cultural heritage of all times and peoples. It wasn't just a connection, c. sensory experience of the cultural history of mankind from the point of view of modern man. In this respect, for all its retrospectivism, Art Nouveau was a truly innovative style.

The refined modernity of the beginning of the Silver Age was supplanted by new trends: constructivism, cubism, etc. The art of the avant-garde defiantly opposed the search for “meanings and symbols” with constructive clarity of lines and volumes, pragmatism of color solutions. The second period of the Silver Age of Russian culture is connected with the avant-garde. Its formation, among other things, was influenced by political and social events in Russia and Europe: revolutions, world and civil wars, emigration, persecution, oblivion. The Russian avant-garde matured in an atmosphere of increasing catastrophic expectations in pre-war and pre-revolutionary society; it absorbed the horror of war and the romance of revolution. These circumstances determined the initial characteristic of the Russian avant-garde - its reckless striving for the future.

"Great Utopia" of the Russian avant-garde. The avant-garde movement began in 1910 with the infamous Jack of Diamonds exhibition. Avant-garde poets, the Burliuk brothers, helped organize the exhibition, and one of the “rebels” of the Moscow School of Painting, M.F. Larionov. It featured works by Russian artists similar to European Cubists. Having united, the artists organized joint exhibitions until 1917. The core of the “Knaves of Diamonds” was P.P. Konchalovsky, I.I. Mashkov, A.V. Lentulov, A.V. Kuprin, R.R. Falk. But all the Russian avant-garde artists went through the exhibitions of this association in one way or another, with the exception, perhaps, of one - Petersburger P.N. Filonov.

At the same time, in the report from the exhibition, A.N. Benois first used the term "avant-garde". She really struck not only the audience, but also the artists, because against the backdrop of extravagant “jacks of diamonds”, the artists of the “World of Art” looked like conservative academics. Presented works by P.P. Konchalovsky, I.I. Mashkova, R.R. Falka, N.S. Goncharova and others were excited by thought and feeling, they gave a different image of the world. The paintings accentuated the greedy, material feeling of the world: the intensity of color, the density and negligence of the stroke, the exaggerated volume of objects. The artists were very different, but they were united by one principle - unbridled innovation. This principle formed a new artistic direction.

A follower of Cezanne, Pyotr Konchalovsky bizarrely combined living and inanimate matter in his paintings. His "Portrait of Yakulov" is a mixture of a bright, almost lively interior and a motionless sitting man, similar to an idol. Some art critics compare his manner of combining bright colors and elasticity of writing with the poetic style of V.V. Mayakovsky. Dense vigorous greenery in the paintings of R.R. Falk from his "Crimean Series" and the demonstrative materiality of "Blue Plums" by I.I. Mashkov show the special love of the early avant-garde for the objective world, which reached the point of admiring and enjoying it. Art historians note a special "Mashkov's ringing" from metal utensils in the artist's paintings.

In the works of the most interesting artist "Jack of Diamonds" A.V. Lentulova avant-garde goes to the brink of non-objective art. Parisian friends called him a futurist. The "faceted" space invented by him in the paintings, the jubilant colors give the impression of precious and shining products ("Vasily Blazhenny", "Moscow" - 1913). |

The "rebellion" of the avant-gardists against the "academicism" of modernity caused them to move towards the use of the traditions of the folk primitive, special attention to the "style of the sign", folk popular print, street action. The biggest rebels in "The Tree of Diamonds" by M.V. Larionov and his wife N.S. Goncharova strove for even greater innovation - going beyond the limits of the subject image in painting. The framework of the "knaves of diamonds" for them became cramped. In 1912-1914. they organized several scandalous exhibitions with characteristic names: "Donkey's Tail", "Target", etc.

Participants of these exhibitions, first of all, themselves; M.V. Larionov and N.S. Goncharov, emphasized the primitive.; The paradox of avant-gardism was that in striving for; novelty, artists used traditional elements from their native culture: Gorodets painting, the brightness of Maidan wooden utensils, Khokhloma and Palekh lines, icons, folk, popular prints, city signs, advertising. Due to the attraction to the primordial and natural folk art M.V. Larionova, N.S. Goncharova and their friends were sometimes called "Russian purists" (purism is the idea of ​​moral purity).

The search for a new style, however, gave different results. N.S. Goncharova considered the entry of oriental motifs into Russian culture very important and she herself worked in this direction. She coined the name of her style: "all-ness" and claimed that she could write the same subject in any style she wanted. Indeed, her paintings are surprisingly diverse. With his legendary diligence at the exhibition in 1913. she showed 773 paintings. Among them were the primitivist "Women with a rake", and a subtle retrospection of ancient Russian art "Icon motifs", and the mysterious "Spanish flu", and the constructivist "Airplane over the train". M.I. Tsvetaeva defined the artist with the words “gift and labor”. Goncharova designed the famous Diaghilev production of Stravinsky's The Golden Cockerel.

M.V. Larionov is known as the inventor of "rayonism", a style that was the exit of avant-garde art beyond the bounds of the material world. The artist called his style “the self-development of the linear rhythm of things. His "radiant" landscapes are truly original and belong to a new version of avant-garde art - non-objective art or abstractionism. M. Larionov enthusiastically designed scandalous collections of the same avant-gardists in poetry - his friends, the futurist poets Krucheny, Burliuk.

The meaning and fate of the Russian avant-garde. Exhibitions of the "Donkey's Tail" and the search for M.V. Larionov and P.S. Goncharova meant the development of the Russian avant-garde according to the “fan” principle, that is, the creation of many variants of innovation. Already in the 10s. in the extraordinary variety of avant-garde trends, three predominant directions of innovative searches have been outlined. None of them was completed, so we will denote them conditionally.

1. The expressionist direction of the avant-garde emphasized the special brightness of the impression, expression and decorativeness artistic language. The most indicative painting is a very "joyful" artist - M.Z. Chagall.

2. The path to non-objectivity through cubism - the maximum identification of the volume of the object, its material structure. K. S. Malevich wrote in this manner.

3. Revealing the linear construction of the world, technization artistic images. The constructivist creativity of V.V. Kandinsky, V.E. Tatlin. The Russian avant-garde made up a separate and glorious page in European painting. The direction that rejected past experience retained the same passion of feelings, love for

Expressionism - (from lat. Ehrgezzu - expression) - an artistic direction that focuses on strong feelings, a contrasting vision of the world, the ultimate expressiveness of the artistic language with rich colors and dreaminess that distinguish Russian culture as a whole.

This "Russianness" comes through even in the most "European" avant-garde artist Wassily Kandinsky, who can be called both a Russian and a German artist. Kandinsky led the Blue Rider association in Germany, worked a lot abroad. The peak of his work came in 1913-1914, when he wrote several books on the theory of new painting ("Steps. Text of the Artist"). One's own path to non-objectivity is expressed by the formula: "encrypt the objective environment, and then break with it." He does so. His works "Boats" and "Lake" are encrypted, hardly guessed natural environment, and his numerous “Compositions” and “Im Provisions” are already freedom from it.

The non-objectivity in the development of painting reflected the growing chaos in individual and national self-identification. The ripening of the national idea remained beyond the horizon, and the feeling of the rushing whirlwind of time, the confusion of objects, feelings, ideas, the premonition of a catastrophe - in the present being.

We see this strange at first glance mixture of objectivity and unreality of the world in naive pictures M.Z. Shaga-la, in the hard energy K.S. Malevich. It was not accidental that P.N. Filonov with the ideas of one of the most mysterious Russian philosophers N.F. Fedorov (great people, great earth, fate, fate). V.V. Kandinsky was engaged in Indian philosophy, was interested in the ideas of E. Blavatsky. Abstract artists were fond of the whole range of folk art: Russian toys, African masks and cults, sculptures of Easter Island.

A noticeable influence on the Russian avant-garde of the 10-20s. turned out to be a passion for the technical capabilities of mankind and revolutionary romanticism in anticipation of a new world. It was an image of the coming 20th century. with its machine psychology, linear plasticity of industrialism. At the exhibition with the mathematical name "0.10" Malevich exhibited the "Black Square" that amazed everyone.

Of course, there was also a moment of scandal here - after all, according to the bohemian "rules of the game" one could declare oneself only through shock. But it is no coincidence that one of its "squares" decorates the grave of the famous innovator. Malevich took a step towards the complete "illogism" of art. In his "Manifesto" of 1915. he explains his discovery.

Commenting on his “Black Square”, Malevich stated that “when the habit of consciousness to see an image in pictures disappears ... only then will we see a purely pictorial work. In his opinion, only "cowardice and weakness" human consciousness bind us all - "from the savage to the academician" - to the objective world.

So, Russian painting, in its passion to reach the last “brick”, to the last atom in the knowledge of being, has reached the bottom. After all, the “Black Square” by K.S. Malevich is the bottom, the finale of self-knowledge. Black color is not a color at all, it is the grave of all colors and at the same time the possibility of their rebirth from under the black surface. The new culture was supposed to know the world to the end, destroying all the conventions and myths of consciousness. Full exposure of the soul - for the acceptance of a new soul of the future. The pathetic futuristic aspiration of Malevich made his artistic experiment immortal. An experiment in the semantic recoding of the world, a romantic impulse into the future, nourished not only painting. This was the general trend of Russian culture on the eve of the terrible events of the national breakup of 1917-1920.

Its own "black square" appeared in other areas of the culture of this time. In the summer of 1913, a congress of futurists took place, at which a new theater "Budetlyanin" was created. Even in its name one can hear aspiration to the future. The physical image of the "black square" appeared on the stage of the theater in the production of the avant-garde opera "Victory over the Sun", which glorified the victory of machines over the elements of nature.

The Russian avant-garde was unlucky in art history literature. He seemed either an ugly dwarf or a frightening giant in Russian painting. Whatever the aesthetic impression on each of us may be produced by the amazing paintings of artists of this direction, they were scandalously avant-garde for their contemporaries, and for us they are the history of Russian culture at one of the most difficult turns of its development. It was about them that A.N. prophetically wrote in 1912. Benois that "current scarecrows" will eventually "become classics." And from this point of view, the avant-garde is a form of national self-consciousness (self-identification) in the face of the new century.

Key Concepts

Avant-gardism is a conventional name for all the latest, experimental views and trends in art, which place the search for the new above all else. Avant-garde is a term attached to the innovative movement of the 1910s-1920s. (futurism, cubism, cubo-futurism, primitivism, suprematism, constructivism, abstractionism, etc.).

Art Nouveau - an artistic style in Europe and Russia at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. Art Nouveau consists of several stylistic trends, which were based on the desire to generalize and rethink the aesthetic experience of mankind. For this reason, Art Nouveau often arose as a retrospection of some former cultural tradition (neo-Gothic, neo-Russian style, neo-classic, etc.).

Urbanism - (from Latin - urban) - the process of concentrating the population, industry and culture in major cities; inherent in a large city. Accompanied by the emergence of urban mass culture.

2. The originality of Russian painting of the late XIX - early XX century

With the crisis of the populist movement, in the 90s, "the analytical method of nineteenth-century realism." Lapshina N. "World of Art". Essays on history and creative practice. M., 1977.- P.86. , as it is called in domestic science, is becoming obsolete. Many of the Wanderers experienced a creative decline, went into the "small world" Turchin V. S. The era of romanticism in Russia. M., 1981.-S.90 entertaining genre painting. The traditions of Perov were preserved most of all in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture thanks to the teaching activities of such artists as S.V. Ivanov, K.A. Korovin, V.A. Serov and others.

Ilyina T.V. believes that in this difficult period for the country, for the painters of the turn of the century, other ways of expression, other forms of artistic creativity became characteristic - in contradictory, complicated images and reflecting modernity without illustrativeness and narrative. Artists painfully seek harmony and beauty in a world that is fundamentally alien to both harmony and beauty. That is why many saw their mission in cultivating a sense of beauty. This time of “kanunov”, the expectation of changes in public life, gave rise to many trends, associations, groupings, a clash of different worldviews and tastes. But it also gave rise to the universalism of a whole generation of artists who came forward after the "classical" Wanderers. It is enough to name only the names of V.A. Serov and M.A. Vrubel. Sarabyanov D.V. History of Russian art in the second half of the 19th century. M., 1989.- P.100

Art historians note that genre painting developed in the 90s, but it developed somewhat differently. Thus, the peasant theme is revealed in a new way. The split in the rural community is emphatically accusatory portrayed by Sergei Alekseevich Korovin (1858--1908) in the painting "On the World" (1893, State Tretyakov Gallery). Abram Efimovich Arkhipov (1862-1930) was able to show the hopelessness of existence in hard, exhausting work in the painting "Washerwomen" (1901, State Tretyakov Gallery). He achieved this in to a large extent thanks to new pictorial discoveries, a new understanding of the possibilities of color and light, Ibid., p.101..

inconsistency; “subtext”, a well-found expressive detail make even more tragic the picture of Sergei Vasilievich Ivanov (1864-1910) “On the road. Death of a Settler" (1889, State Tretyakov Gallery). Shafts sticking out, as if raised in a cry, dramatize the action much more than the dead man depicted in the foreground or the woman howling over him. Ivanov owns one of the works dedicated to the revolution of 1905 - "Execution". The impressionistic technique of “partial composition”, as if accidentally snatched from the frame, is preserved here too: only a line of houses, a line of soldiers, a group of demonstrators are outlined, and in the foreground, in a square illuminated by the sun, the figure of a dead dog running from the shots. Ivanov is characterized by sharp light and shade contrasts, an expressive contour of objects, and a well-known flatness of the image. His tongue is lapidary.

In the 90s of the XIX century. an artist enters art, who makes the worker the protagonist of his works. In 1894, a painting by N.A. Kasatkina (1859--1930) "Miner" (TG), in 1895 - "Coal miners. Change",. S. V. Ivanov. "On the road",. "Death of a Settler." 1889 1TG 237

At the turn of the century, a slightly different path of development than that of Surikov is outlined in the historical theme. So, for example, Andrei Petrovich Ryabushkin (1861--1904) works more in the historical genre than in the purely historical genre. “Russian Women of the 17th Century in the Church” (1899, State Tretyakov Gallery), “Wedding Train in Moscow. XVII century” (1901, State Tretyakov Gallery), “They are coming. (The people of Moscow during the entry of a foreign embassy into Moscow at the end of the 17th century) ”(1901, Russian Museum),“ Moscow Street of the 17th century on a holiday ”(1895, Russian Museum), etc. - these are everyday scenes from the life of Moscow in the 17th century centuries. Ryabushkin was especially attracted to this century, with its gingerbread elegance, polychrome, patterned. The artist aesthetically admires the bygone world of the 17th century, which leads to a subtle stylization, far from the monumentalism of Surikov and his assessments of historical events.

Apollinary Mikhailovich Vasnetsov (1856-1933) pays even more attention to the landscape in his historical compositions. His favorite subject is also the 17th century, but not everyday scenes, but the architecture of Moscow. (“Street in Kitay-gorod. Beginning of the 17th century”, 1900, Russian Museum). Painting “Moscow at the end of the 17th century. At Dawn at the Resurrection Gates (1900, State Tretyakov Gallery) may have been inspired by the introduction to Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina, for which Vasnetsov had sketched the scenery shortly before.

A new type of painting, in which folklore artistic traditions were mastered in a completely special way and translated into the language of modern art, was created by Philip Andreevich Malyavin (1869--1940), who in his youth was engaged in icon painting in the Athos Monastery, and then studied at the Academy of Arts under Repin . His images of "women" and "girls" have a certain symbolic meaning - a healthy soil of Russia. His paintings are always expressive, and although these are, as a rule, easel works, they receive a monumental and decorative interpretation under the artist's brush. “Laughter” (1899, Museum of Modern Art, Venice), “Whirlwind” (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery) is a realistic depiction of peasant girls, contagiously laughing loudly or rushing uncontrollably in a round dance, but this realism is different than in the second half of the century . The painting is sweeping, sketchy, with a textured stroke, the forms are generalized, there is no spatial depth, the figures, as a rule, are located in the foreground and fill the entire canvas. Lebedev G.E. Russian book illustration of the 19th century. M., 1952.-S.60.

Malyavin combined in his painting expressive decorativeism with realistic fidelity to nature.

Mikhail Vasilievich Nesterov (1862-1942) addresses the theme of Ancient Russia, like a number of masters before him, but the image of Russia appears in the artist’s paintings as a kind of ideal, almost enchanted world, in harmony with nature, but disappeared forever like a legendary city Kitezh. This acute feeling of nature, the delight in front of the world, in front of every tree and blade of grass is especially pronounced in one of the most famous works Nesterov pre-revolutionary period-- "Vision to the youth Bartholomew" (1889--1890, State Tretyakov Gallery).

Before turning to the image of Sergius of Radonezh, Nesterov had already expressed interest in the theme of Ancient Russia with such works as "The Bride of Christ" (1887, location unknown), "The Hermit Nick" (1888, Russian Museum; 1888--1889, State Tretyakov Gallery), creating images of high spirituality and quiet contemplation. He dedicated several more works to Sergius of Radonezh himself (“Youth of St. Sergius”, 1892-1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; triptych “Works of St. Sergius”, 1896-1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; “Sergius of Radonezh”, 1891-1899, Russian Museum) .

In the artist's desire for a flat interpretation of the composition, elegance, ornamentality, refined sophistication of plastic rhythms, the undoubted influence of Art Nouveau manifested itself.

Stylization, in general, so characteristic of this time, to a large extent touched Nesterov's easel works. This can be seen in one of the best canvases dedicated to women's fate - "Great tonsure" (1898, Russian Museum): deliberately flat figures of nuns, "chernitsa" and "belitsa", generalized silhouettes, as if slowed down ritual rhythm of light and dark spots - figures and a landscape with its light birches and almost black firs. And as always with Nesterov, the landscape plays one of the main roles. The landscape genre itself develops at the end of the 19th century also in a new way. Levitan, in fact, completed the search for the Wanderers in the landscape. A new word at the turn of the century was to be said by K.A. Korovin, V.A. Serov and M.A. Vrubel.

Already in the early landscapes of Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin (1861-1939) purely pictorial problems are solved - to write gray on white, black on white, gray on gray. A “conceptual” landscape (M.M. Allenov’s term), such as Savrasovsky or Levitanovsky, does not interest him.

For the brilliant colorist Korovin, the world appears as a "riot of colors." Generously gifted by nature, Korovin was engaged in both portraiture and still life, but it would not be a mistake to say that landscape remained his favorite genre. He brought into art the strong realistic traditions of his teachers from the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture - Savrasov and Polenov, but he has a different view of the world, he sets other tasks.

Korovin's generous gift for painting brilliantly manifested itself in theatrical and decorative painting. As a theater painter, he worked for the Abramtsevo Theater (and Mamontov was almost the first to rate him as theater artist), for the Moscow Art Theater, for the Moscow Private Russian Opera, where he began his lifelong friendship with Chaliapin, for the Diaghilev entreprise. Korovin raised theatrical scenery and the significance of the artist in the theater to a new level, he made a whole revolution in understanding the role of the artist in the theater and had a great influence on his contemporaries with his colorful, "spectacular" scenery, revealing the very essence of a musical performance.

According to Sternin G.Yu., one of the largest artists, an innovator of Russian painting at the turn of the century, was Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov (1865--1911). His "Girl with Peaches" (portrait of Verusha Mamontova, 1887, State Tretyakov Gallery) and "Girl Illuminated by the Sun" (portrait of Masha Simanovich, 1888, State Tretyakov Gallery) are a whole stage in Russian painting. Serov was brought up among prominent figures of Russian musical culture (his father is a famous composer, his mother is a pianist), studied with Repin and Chistyakov, studied the best museum collections in Europe and, upon returning from abroad, entered the environment of the Abramtsevo circle.

The images of Vera Mamontova and Masha Simanovich are imbued with a sense of the joy of life, a bright feeling of being, a bright victorious youth. This was achieved by “light” impressionistic painting, for which the “principle of chance” is so characteristic, a sculpted form with a dynamic, free brushstroke that creates the impression of a complex light-air environment. But unlike the Impressionists, Serov never dissolves an object in this environment so that it dematerializes, his composition never loses stability, the masses are always in balance. And most importantly, it does not lose the integral generalized characteristics of the model. Russian genre painting of the 19th - early 20th century. Essays. M., 2004 -p.28.

Serov often writes representatives of the artistic intelligentsia: writers, artists, artists (portraits of K. Korovin, 1891, State Tretyakov Gallery; Levitan, 1893, State Tretyakov Gallery; Yermolova, 1905, State Tretyakov Gallery). All of them are different, he interprets all of them deeply individually, but the light of intellectual exclusivity and inspired creative life shines on all of them. The antique column, or rather, the classical statue, is reminiscent of the figure of Yermolova, which is further enhanced by the vertical format of the canvas. But the main thing remains the face - beautiful, proud, detached from everything petty and vain. The coloring is decided only on a combination of two colors: black and gray, but in a variety of shades. This truth of the image, created not by narrative, but by purely pictorial means, corresponded to the very personality of Yermolova, who, with her restrained, but deeply penetrating play, shook the youth in the turbulent years of the early 20th century.

Yermolova front door portrait. But Serov is Great master that, by choosing a different model, in the same genre of a formal portrait, in fact, with the same means of expression ah was able to create an image of a completely different character. So, in the portrait of Princess Orlova (1910-1911, "RMS") exaggeration of some details (huge hat, too long back, sharp corner knee), emphasized attention to the luxury of the interior, transmitted only fragmentarily, like a snatched frame (part of a chair, paintings, table corner), allow the master to create an almost grotesque image of an arrogant aristocrat. But the same grotesqueness in his famous “Peter I” (1907, State Tretyakov Gallery) (Peter in the picture is simply gigantic), allowing Serov to depict the impetuous movement of the tsar and the courtiers absurdly rushing after him, leads to an image that is not ironic, as in the portrait of Orlova, but symbolic, conveying the meaning of an entire era. The artist admires the originality of his hero.

Portrait, landscape, still life, domestic, historical painting; oil, gouache, tempera, charcoal - it is difficult to find both pictorial and graphic genres in which Serov would not work, and materials that he would not use.

A special theme in the work of Serov is peasant. In his peasant genre there is no itinerant social sharpness, but there is a sense of the beauty and harmony of peasant life, admiration for the healthy beauty of the Russian people (“In the village. A woman with a horse”, pastel, 1898, State Tretyakov Gallery). Winter landscapes are especially exquisite with their silver-pearl range of colors. Serov interpreted the historical theme in his own way:

The "royal hunts" with pleasure walks of Elizabeth and Catherine II were conveyed by the artist of the new time, ironic, but also invariably admiring the beauty of the life of the 18th century. Interest in XVIII century arose from Serov under the influence of the "World of Art" and in connection with the work on the publication of the "History of the Grand Duke, Royal and Imperial Hunting in Russia."

It is hard to believe right away that the portrait of Verusha Mamontova and The Abduction of Europe were painted by the same master, Serov is so versatile in his evolution from the impressionistic authenticity of portraits and landscapes of the 80s and 90s to Art Nouveau in historical motifs and compositions from ancient mythology.

The creative path of Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910) was more direct, although at the same time extremely complex. Before the Academy of Arts (1880), Vrubel graduated from the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. In 1884, he went to Kyiv to supervise the restoration of frescoes in St. Cyril's Church and created several monumental compositions himself. He makes watercolor sketches of the murals of the Vladimir Cathedral. The sketches were not transferred to the walls, as the customer was frightened by their uncanonicity and expressiveness.

In the 90s, when the artist settled in Moscow, Vrubel's style of writing, full of mystery and almost demonic power, was formed, which cannot be confused with any other. He sculpts the shape like a mosaic, from sharp "faceted" pieces of different colors, as if glowing from the inside ("Girl against the backdrop of a Persian carpet", 1886, MRI; "Fortuneteller", 1895, State Tretyakov Gallery). Color combinations do not reflect the reality of the color relationship, but have a symbolic meaning. Nature has no power over Vrubel. He knows her, owns her perfectly, but creates his own fantasy world, which bears little resemblance to reality. In this sense, Vrubel is antithetical to the Impressionists (about whom it is not accidentally said that they are the same as naturalists in literature), because he does not in any way strive to fix a direct impression of reality. He gravitates toward literary subjects, which he interprets abstractly, striving to create eternal images of great spiritual power. So, having taken up illustrations for The Demon, he soon departs from the principle of direct illustration (“Dance of Tamara”, “Do not cry, child, do not cry in vain”, “Tamara in the coffin”, etc.) and already in the same 1890 creates of his "Seated Demon" - a work, in fact, plotless, but the image is eternal, like the images of Mephistopheles, Faust, Don Juan. The image of the Demon is the central image of Vrubel's entire work, his main theme. In 1899, he wrote "The Demon Flying", in 1902 - "The Demon Downtrodden". Vrubel's demon is, first of all, a suffering creature. Suffering prevails over evil in it, and this is the peculiarity of the national Russian interpretation of the image. Contemporaries, as rightly noted, saw in his "Demons" a symbol of the fate of an intellectual - a romantic, trying to rebelliously break out of reality devoid of harmony into an unreal world of dreams, but plunged into the rough reality of the earthly. This tragedy of the artistic worldview also determines the portrait characteristics of Vrubel: spiritual discord, breakdown in his self-portraits, alertness, almost fright, but also majestic strength, monumentality - in the portrait of S. Mamontov (1897, State Tretyakov Gallery), confusion, anxiety --in a fabulous image of "The Swan Princess" (1900, State Tretyakov Gallery), even in his decorative panels "Spain" (1894, State Tretyakov Gallery) and "Venice" (1893, Russian Museum) executed for E.D. Dunker, there is no peace and serenity. Vrubel himself formulated his task - "to awaken the soul with majestic images from the little things of everyday life" Fedorov-Davydov A.A. I.I. Levitan. Life and creation. M., 1966.- P.56 .

Vrubel created his most mature paintings and graphic works at the turn of the century - in the genre of landscape, portrait, book illustration. In the organization and decorative-planar interpretation of the canvas or sheet, in the combination of the real and the fantastic, in the commitment to ornamental, rhythmically complex solutions in his works of this period, the features of modernity are increasingly asserting themselves.

Like K. Korovin, Vrubel worked a lot in the theater. His best scenery was performed for Rimsky-Korsakov's operas The Snow Maiden, Sadko, The Tale of Tsar Saltan and others on the stage of the Moscow Private Opera, that is, for those works that gave him the opportunity to "communicate" with Russian folklore, fairy tale, legend.

The universalism of talent, boundless imagination, and extraordinary passion for affirming noble ideals distinguish Vrubel from many of his contemporaries.

Vrubel's work more clearly than others reflected the contradictions and painful throwings of the milestone era. On the day of Vrubel's funeral, Benois said: “Vrubel's life, as it will now go down in history, is a marvelous pathetic symphony, that is, the most complete form of artistic existence. Future generations ... will look back on the last decades of the 19th century as on the "Vrubel era" ... It was in it that our time was expressed in the most beautiful and saddest thing that it was capable of ” 7 .

With Vrubel, we are entering a new century, the era of the “Silver Age”, the last period of the culture of St. Petersburg Russia, which is out of touch both with the “ideology of revolutionism” (P. Sapronov) and “with autocracy that has long ceased to be a cultural force and the state." The rise of Russian philosophical and religious thought, the highest level of poetry is associated with the beginning of the century (suffice it to name Blok, Bely, Annensky, Gumilyov, Georgy Ivanov, Mandelstam, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Sologub); drama and musical theater, ballet; the “discovery” of Russian art of the 18th century (Rokotov, Levitsky, Borovikovsky), ancient Russian icon painting; the finest professionalism of painting and graphics from the very beginning of the century. But the "Silver Age" was powerless in the face of the impending tragic events in Russia, which was heading towards a revolutionary catastrophe, continuing to stay in the "ivory tower" and in the poetics of symbolism.

If Vrubel's work can be correlated with the general direction of symbolism in art and literature, although, like any great artist, he destroyed the boundaries of the direction, then Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905) is a direct exponent of pictorial symbolism and one of the first retrospectivists in the fine arts of frontier Russia. Critics of the time even called him "the dreamer of retrospectivism." Having died on the eve of the first Russian revolution, Borisov-Musatov turned out to be completely deaf to the new moods that were rapidly breaking into life. His works are an elegiac sadness for the old empty "noble nests" and dying "cherry orchards", for beautiful women, spiritualized, almost unearthly, dressed in some kind of timeless costumes that do not carry external signs of place and time.

3. Art associations and their role in the development of painting

"WORLD OF ART"

The artistic association "World of Art" announced itself by issuing a magazine of the same name at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The publication of the first issue of the magazine "World of Art" in St. Petersburg at the end of 1898 was the result of ten years of communication between a group of painters and graphic artists headed by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960).

The main goal of artistic creativity was declared to be beauty, and beauty in the subjective understanding of each master. Such an attitude to the tasks of art gave the artist absolute freedom in choosing themes, images and means of expression, which was quite new and unusual for Russia.

The World of Art opened for the Russian public many interesting and previously unknown phenomena of Western culture, in particular Finnish and Scandinavian painting, English Pre-Raphaelite artists and graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley.

A distinctive feature of the artists of the "World of Art" was the versatility. They were engaged in painting, and the design of theatrical productions, and arts and crafts. However, the most important place in their heritage belongs to graphics.

The best works of Benois are graphic; among them, the illustrations for A. S. Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" (1905-1922) are especially interesting. Petersburg became the main “hero” of the whole cycle: its streets, canals, architectural masterpieces appear either in the cold severity of thin lines, or in a dramatic contrast of bright and dark spots. At the climax of the tragedy, when Eugenie is running from the formidable giant galloping behind him - the monument to Peter, the master paints the city with dark, gloomy colors.

The work of Benois is close to the romantic idea of ​​opposing a lonely suffering hero and the world, indifferent to him and thus killing him.

The design of theatrical performances is the brightest page in the work of Lev Samuilovich Bakst (real name Rosenberg; 1866-1924). His most interesting works are associated with opera and ballet productions of the Russian Seasons in Paris 1907-1914. - a kind of festival of Russian art, organized by Dyagi-lev. Bakst made sketches of scenery and costumes for the opera "Salo-meya" by R. Strauss, the suite "Scheherazade" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, the ballet "Afternoon of a Faun" to the music of C. Debussy and other performances. Especially remarkable are the sketches of costumes, which have become independent graphic works. The artist modeled the costume, focusing on the system of movements of the dancer, through lines and color, he sought to reveal the pattern of the dance and the nature of the music. In his sketches, the sharpness of vision of the image, a deep understanding of the nature of ballet movements and amazing grace are striking.

One of the main themes for many masters of the "World of Art" was the appeal to the past, longing for the lost ideal world. Favorite era was the XVIII century, and above all the Rococo period. Artists not only tried to resurrect this time in their work - they drew the attention of the public to the true art of the 18th century, in fact, rediscovering the work of French painters Antoine Watteau and Honore Fragonard and their compatriots Fyodor Rokotov and Dmitry Levitsky .

The images of the “gallant age” are associated with the works of Benois, in which the palaces and parks of Versailles are presented as a beautiful and harmonious world, but abandoned by people. Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875---1946) preferred to depict pictures of Russian life in the 18th century.

With particular expressiveness, rococo motifs appeared in the works of Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869--1939). He joined the history of art early (the artist's father was the curator of the Hermitage collections). After graduating from the Academy of Arts, the young master became a great connoisseur of old painting. Somov brilliantly imitated her technique in his paintings. The main genre of his work could be called variations on the theme of the "gallant scene". Indeed, on the canvases of the artist, the characters of Watteau seem to come to life again - ladies in magnificent dresses and wigs, actors of the comedy of masks. They flirt, flirt, sing serenades in the alleys of the park, surrounded by the caressing glow of sunset light.

Somov managed to express his nostalgic admiration for the past especially subtly through female images. The famous work "Lady in Blue" (1897-1900) is a portrait of a contemporary of the master artist E. M. Martynova. She is dressed in the old fashion and is depicted against the backdrop of a poetic landscape park. The manner of painting brilliantly imitates the Biedermeier style. But the obvious morbidity of the heroine's appearance (Martynova soon died of tuberculosis) evokes a feeling of acute longing, and the idyllic softness of the landscape seems unreal, existing only in the artist's imagination.

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957) focused his attention mainly on the urban landscape. His St. Petersburg, unlike Benois' St. Petersburg, is devoid of a romantic halo. The artist chooses the most unattractive, "gray" views, showing the city as a huge mechanism that kills the human soul.

The composition of the painting “The Man with Glasses” (“Portrait of K. A. Syunnerberg”, 1905-1906) is based on the opposition of the hero and the city, which is visible through a wide window. At first glance, the motley row of houses and the figure of a man with a face immersed in shadow seem isolated from each other. But there is a deep inner connection between these two planes. Behind the brightness of colors is the "mechanical" dullness of city houses. The hero is detached, immersed in himself, in his face there is nothing but fatigue and emptiness.

UNION OF RUSSIAN ARTISTS

The Union of Russian Artists is an association that arose in 1903 in Moscow. Its core was Konstantin Yuon, Abram Arkhipov. Igor Grabar, Arkady Rylov. The World of Art played an important role in the emergence of the Union, although the Moscow masters in many ways sought to oppose themselves to the Petersburgers. They were far from symbolism and related ideas. Their style combined the realistic traditions of the Wanderers and the experience of impressionism in the transmission of air and light. Being somewhat influenced by the work of Konstantin Korovin, who often participated in exhibitions of the Union, these artists gravitated towards landscape and genre painting.

The most interesting landscape painter was Konstantin Fedorovich Yuon (1875-1958). Best of all, he succeeded in lyrical winter landscapes (“March Sun”, 1915; “Winter Sun”, 1916), in which he subtly conveyed the play of light on melted snow, the gentle blueness of the sky. And in the views of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra (the best of them was painted in 1910), the contrast of white snow and bright-colored buildings, human figures acquires a purely decorative beauty, bringing these works closer to Art Nouveau.

Curious searches marked the work of Igor Emmanuilovich Grabar (1871-1960). His soft and poetic in mood landscape "February Blue" (1904) testifies to the artist's acquaintance not only with impressionism, but also with later trends in French painting. The trunks and branches of birch trees, immersed in the radiance of the cold winter sun, are painted in short strokes and resemble the pointillist technique. The same manner is visible in the excellent still-life painting “The Untidy Table” (1907), in which, thanks to a system of reflexes (color highlights), all objects are masterfully combined into a coloristic whole.

The landscapes of Arkady Alexandrovich Rylov (1870-1939), a student of A. I. Kuindzhi, are very emotional. In the painting “Green Noise” (1904), the foliage, swaying under a gust of wind, is written in juicy sweeping strokes, and the panorama going into the distance seems as bright as the foreground, which creates a sense of decorativeness.

The artist Abram Efimovich Arkhipov (1862--1930) studied with the famous Wanderers - V. G. Perov and V. D. Polenov. His genre paintings are characterized by both realistic content and a sharp social orientation. However, they are attracted not so much by this. how many chi-hundred picturesque virtues. Such is the picture of "Washerwomen" (the end of the 90s of the 19th century). Her composition, which includes only a small part of the room, is built quite in the spirit of the early works of Edgar Degas on the same theme. The swirling steam dissolves the contours of figures and outlines of faces, and the color combination of muted gray, yellow, brown and lilac tones is surprisingly rich in shades.

The work of the masters of the Union of Russian Artists, with all the charm and high technical level, was distinguished by a rather strong conservatism. Strong realistic roots have never allowed painters to go into the search for new forms and means of expression. Perhaps that is why many members of the Union of Russian Artists fit perfectly into the picture of the development of the official art of the Soviet period, making up, however, the most worthy part of it.

"BLUE ROSE"

In March 1907, at the initiative of the patron, collector and amateur artist Nikolai Pavlovich Ryabushinsky (1877-1951), an exhibition of a group of painters called "Blue Rose" was opened in Moscow. Its main participants - Pavel Kuznetsov, Sergei Sudeikin, Nikolai Sapunov, Martiros Saryan and others - were graduates of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. At the beginning of the XX century. they were united by a deep passion for the ideas of symbolism. Some of them collaborated in the Moscow Symbolist magazines Libra and Golden Fleece. But the strongest was the influence of V. E. Borisov-Musatov. It was on the basis of his pictorial style that the young symbolist artists determined the main task of their work: immersion in the world of the most subtle, elusive feelings, hidden and complex inner feelings that cannot be explained in words.

Unlike other art groups, for which the first joint exhibition became the beginning of the path, for the Moscow Symbolists it turned out to be the end: soon after that, the community began to disintegrate. However, the style of the "Blue Rose" largely determined the further work of each of them.

Among the sixteen exhibitors, Pavel Varfolomeevich Kuznetsov (1878-1968) is undoubtedly of particular interest. Until the beginning of the 10s. 20th century the artist's work was close to the manner of his teacher Borisov-Musatov and the French symbolists of the Nabis group. The landscapes of Kuznetsov in 1904-1905, for example, "Fountain", "Morning", are designed in cold colors: gray-blue, pale lilac. The outlines of objects are vague, the image of space tends to be decorative. The master paid great attention to the peculiar transmission of light, giving the landscape a feeling of softness and at the same time a feeling of piercing sadness. In the works of Kuznetsov of the 10s, especially in the so-called "Eastern Series", the unique creative style of the mature master is already clearly visible. The painting “Mirage in the Steppe” (1912) at first glance is extremely simple in content: the steppe, lonely tents, slowly walking or talking people who do not notice the magnificent radiance that filled the sky. The picture is again solved in cold colors, and bright spots (tents, human figures) only emphasize the absolute dominance of the gray-blue range. The gentle glow of a mirage is the main thing that attracts in the picture: it is he who seems to be a true reality, and people and their homes are perceived as a mirage.

A remarkable page in the history of Moscow symbolism is the early work of the Armenian painter Martiros Sergeevich Saryan (1880-1972). He could perfectly demonstrate the subtlety of sensations and symbolist understatement, as, for example, in the work "Lake of the Fairies" (1906), which is built on the game of cold tones typical of the "Blue Rose". However, the true element of the artist is the world of the East with its temperament and burning brightness of the palette. In such pictures as “Street. Noon. Constantinople "(1910)," Date Palm "(1911), the artist paints the form with rich colors and energetic strokes.

In the works of Nikolai Nikolaevich Sapunov (1880--1912), elements of symbolism and primitivism are intertwined. His canvas "Carousel" (1908), it would seem, is a typical primitivist "fair-rock picture". However, light short strokes, complex combinations of pure (i.e., not mixed on the palette) paints make one recall the refined manner of the French masters. And this turns the farcical scene into a symbolic "vision".

The images of bygone eras were of considerable importance for Sapunov, which brings him closer to the St. Petersburg masters of the World of Art. Such is the picture "Ball" (1910). resurrecting in memory the scene of the provincial ball of Pushkin's times.

Much stronger nostalgic moods are felt in the work of Sergei Yuryevich Sudeikin (1882-1946). The action of the artist’s paintings, in particular the work “In the Park” (1907), usually takes place in English parks, among dense foliage and light arbors lost in it. Couples in love secluded in boats and in the alleys of the park seem to dissolve in a gentle airy haze, their tiny figures become an organic part of nature. Diffused gloomy light gives these "scenes of the times of sentimentalism" a sense of dreaminess and an acute longing for the unrealizable.

The exhibition "Blue Rose" did not lead to the creation of a strong artistic association of Moscow Symbolists. But its name later turned into a metaphor that defines the main features of their style: intimacy, craving for reflection

So, at the turn of the century, many artistic associations arose in Russia: “The World of Art”. The Union of Russian Artists and others brought together under one roof painters inspired by the idea of ​​reviving folk culture.

Conclusion

The emergence of a new model of painting at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, which is called the Silver Age, was due to profound shifts in the national attitude and values ​​of spiritual life. The crisis of consciousness manifested itself in decadence, in an effort to get away from the stereotypes and dogmas of the age of enlightenment. The change in the foundations of national culture proceeded along three lines. First, there was a transition from a rationalistic picture of the world to attempts to understand the world in its inseparable integrity through the combination of knowledge, faith and feelings. Secondly, elements of secular religious philosophy were formed as a new worldview of culture. Thirdly, culture took off the burden of "teaching" and activated the prophetic and creative role of artistic creativity.

Changes in worldview foundations at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. combined with creative searches in the field of artistic language. The most full-fledged result of the changes was expressed in the formation of the aesthetic system of symbolism, which became the impetus for the renewal of all spheres of culture.

At the turn of the century, Russian painting overcame national boundaries and became a world-class phenomenon. She used all the richness of the world and her own cultural traditions for the formation of the domestic version of modernity.

The important sources of the formation of the spiritual basis of the Silver Age were the culture of the provinces and small towns. Art Nouveau, symbolism and avant-garde played the role of a kind of "motor" that gave acceleration to the spiritual development of the nation, literally "pushing" it into the new 20th century.

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In the history of our country, the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries is saturated with enormous socio-historical content. It was a time when, according to the definition of V. I. Lenin, a "storm" began, "the movement of the masses themselves" - a new, proletarian stage freedom movement, marked by three revolutions, the last of which, the Great October Socialist Revolution, opened a new era in the history of Russia and in the history of all mankind. But the path that led to the October Revolution was a vague one.
The end of the 19th and the first years of the 20th century were, on the one hand, a time of violent political reaction, the suppression of all free thought; on the other hand, this is the time of the beginning of the organized struggle of the working class, the spread of Marxism in Russia, the time when Lenin laid the foundations of the Marxist revolutionary workers' party.
It was during these years that a new social upsurge began, which was under the sign of the preparation of the first Russian revolution.
The first onslaught of the popular storm was approaching. The center of the world revolutionary movement moved to Russia.
The strengthening of the liberation movement was reflected in all areas of public life. Russian democratic culture, inspired by noble liberation and patriotic ideas, also received further development. Science, literature and art achieved new brilliant successes.
In the 1890s, the largest masters who had begun their journey in the previous period continued to work - Repin, Surikov, Shishkin, Vasnetsov, Antokolsky and others.
Progressive artists, loyal to their people, closely connected with its life, they did not stand aside from the general upsurge. New progressive social ideals found a lively response in their work and allowed them to enrich the treasury of Russian culture with new remarkable works.
Continuing the best democratic traditions of the national school of art, these outstanding masters developed them further in accordance with the new requirements of the time. They sensitively perceived and through the means of their art reflected the newly emerging social problems associated with the awakening of popular forces, put forward new themes and images, and introduced new content into their works.
Thus, already in the 1990s, our art was enriched by a number of works marked by fundamentally new features. These are canvases of a monumental, heroic style, in which typical images of folk heroes are embodied with great power and national patriotic ideas are expressed - pride in the Russian land and the Russian people, its glorious past and its great historical role. Such are the "Bogatyrs" (1881 - 1898) by V. Vasnetsov and the "Cossacks" (1878-1891) by Repin, "The Conquest of Siberia" (1895) and "Suvorov's Crossing the Alps" (1899) by Surikov; these paintings are imbued with the artists' conviction that history is created not by individuals, but by the masses of the people, that it is the people who are the hero and performer of historical feats. V.V. Vereshchagin also talks about the feat of the people in a large series of historical canvases on the theme Patriotic War 1812 (1889-1900), where Napoleon and his army are opposed by the Russian people, who have risen to fight for their national independence. One of the paintings in the series, called "Don't block, let me come..." (1895), depicts an ambush of partisan peasants, those simple and obscure patriots, whose hands dealt a mortal blow to foreign invaders.
All these works are united by one feeling, one idea that underlies them - the idea of ​​glorifying the motherland, the people. The many-sided mass of the people appears in them no longer oppressed and downtrodden: it is the very element of the people, which has risen to great deeds and, full of heroic power and moral strength, decides the fate of its homeland.
These paintings are joined by the monumental Siberian and Ural landscapes of A. Vasnetsov, creating a majestic image of Russian nature, and some later works by I. Shishkin (“Ship Grove”, 1898), the statue “Ermak” by M. Antokolsky (1891) and others.
It is clear that only in a country where a people’s revolution was brewing, where, testifying to the awakening of the masses of the people to the struggle, the “great people’s sea, agitated to the very depths,” was seething, could the theme of the people be so posed in art and get such a solution. Sensitively capturing these distant peals of the approaching revolutionary storm, progressive Russian artists experienced ever greater confidence in the strength of the people and drew their social optimism from this confidence, which gave a completely new color to their creative worldview. Democrats in their convictions, closely connected with the people, keen observers of life, these masters of Russian art deeply felt the pulse of modernity, and if they themselves sometimes did not realize the connection between the content of their works and this modernity, it nevertheless received reflection in the canvases on historical theme, and even - in a certain sense - in landscapes. It was a premonition of some big changes, the very expectation of a great thunderstorm, which was expressed by A.P. Chekhov in the words of one of his characters: “The time has come, a mass is approaching all of us, a healthy one is preparing, violent storm, which is coming, is already close and will soon blow away laziness, indifference, prejudice to work, rotten boredom from our society ... "
A more direct and immediate reflection of the new stage of social struggle was found in the work of another group of artists who turned to scenes from the life of the proletariat and the poorest peasantry; it was their brushes that owned the first pictures of class battles in the city and countryside on the outskirts of the first Russian revolution, they reflected the events of 1905 in their works.
Continuing the tradition of the Wanderers, artists from the so-called younger generation of the Wanderers - S. Korovin, S. Ivanov, A. Arkhipov, N. Kasatkin and others - truthfully covered the life of the Russian village at the time preceding the 1905 revolution. Deep knowledge of people's life, spiritual compassion for the disasters and hardships of the rural poor helped them create works full of great: life's truth and sharp social resonance.
So, in the painting by S. Korovin “On the World” (1893), for the first time in our painting, an acute conflict is shown, typical for the Russian village of that time: at a rural gathering, a poor peasant, a former serf, ruined by reforms, vainly tries to achieve a fair solution to the case in his benefit; the landowner, whom no one dares to contradict, mockingly laughs at him ...
S. Ivanov dedicated his first paintings to the peasant settlers. With harsh truthfulness, he depicts the terrible fate of the poor, whom hunger drives away from their beggarly allotments and makes them wander around the country in search of a piece of bread. The desperate situation of the settlers, the death of the settlers in the steppe, the prisoners in prison, the fugitive convicts - these are the plots of his paintings. But soon S. Ivanov begins to see something else - the beginning of revolutionary ferment, more and more embracing the lower strata of the people. The artist depicts a populist agitator secretly distributing illegal literature to the peasants; sketches student unrest at Moscow University. He also owns the first images in Russian painting of a peasant revolt (“Riot in the Village”, 1889) and the class struggle of the proletariat: “The flight of the director from the factory during the strike” (late 1880s) and “Strike” (1903). Naturally, S. Ivanov later turned out to be among those artists who, on the memorable days of 1905, captured the events of the first Russian revolution.
A. E. Arkhipov, an excellent painter, masterfully mastered the manner of wide, juicy, colorful writing, and worked in the traditions of the Wanderers-life writers. Arkhipov, in his paintings from the life of the poorest peasantry, interpreted this topic with great penetration and warmth (“On the Volga”, 1888-1889; “On the Oka River”, 1889; “The Ice Has Passed”,
1894-1895). The joyless lot of working women - such is the content of the painting "Dayworkers at the iron foundry" (1895-1896). Arkhipov's painting "Washerwomen" (late 1890s), once seen, is hard to forget, with such impressive power he depicts the images of women workers, exhausted by overwork in the slums of a capitalist city. The voice of protest of the artist-democrat sounds clearly here.