Russian painting of the late xix early xx

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Ministry of Culture, Nationalities, Information Policy and Archives

Chuvash Republic

BEI HPE "Chuvash State Institute of Culture and Art"

Faculty of Culture

Department of Humanities and Socio-Economic Disciplines

ESSAY

in the subject of Art History

theme: Painting of the late 19th century, early 20th century.

"Blue Rose", "Jack of Diamonds",

"Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich"

Completed by: 1st year student

ZO SKD Osipova L.B.

Checked by: Grishin V.I.

Cheboksary, 2012

Introduction………………………………………………………… 3

Chapter 1 Painting of the end of the 19th century of the beginning of the 20th century.……………2

Chapter 2 “Blue Rose”………………………………………..9

Chapter 3 "Jack of Diamonds"…..……………………………....13

Chapter 4 “Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich”……………..17

Conclusion…………………………………………………… …

Painting of the late 19th–early 20th century

This time of "eves", 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.

The impressionistic lessons of plein air painting, the composition of "random framing", the wide free pictorial manner - all this is the result of the evolution in the development of pictorial means in all genres of the turn of the century. In search of "beauty and harmony", artists try themselves in a variety of techniques and art forms - from monumental painting and theatrical scenery to book design and arts and crafts.

At the turn of the century, a style developed that affected all the plastic arts, starting primarily with architecture (in which eclecticism dominated for a long time) and ending with graphics, which was called the Art Nouveau style. This phenomenon is not unambiguous, in modernity there is also decadent pretentiousness, pretentiousness, designed mainly for bourgeois tastes, but there is also a desire for unity of style that is significant in itself. Art Nouveau is a new stage in the synthesis of architecture, painting, and decorative arts.

In the visual arts, Art Nouveau has manifested itself: in sculpture - by the fluidity of forms, the special expressiveness of the silhouette, the dynamism of the compositions; in painting - the symbolism of images, addiction to allegories.

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

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, 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 the contemporary art folklore artistic traditions, created by Philip Andreevich Malyavin (1869–1940). His paintings are always expressive, and although these are, as a rule, easel works, they receive a monumental and decorative interpretation under the brush of the artist. “Laughter” (1899, Museum of Modern Art, Venice), “Whirlwind” (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery) is a realistic depiction of peasant girls laughing contagiously loudly or rushing uncontrollably in a round dance, but this realism is different than in the second half of the century.

Mikhail Vasilyevich 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. “The Vision of the Young Bartholomew” (1889–1890, Tretyakov Gallery), “The Bride of Christ” (1887, location unknown), “The Hermit” (1888, Russian Museum; 1888–1889, Tretyakov Gallery), creating images of high spirituality and quiet contemplation. "Youth of St. Sergius", (1892-1897), triptych "Works of St. Sergius" (1896-1897), "Sergius of Radonezh" (1891-1899), "Great tonsure" (1898).

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. ("Winter in Lapland", "Paris. Capuchin Boulevard" 1906, "Paris at night. Italian Boulevard" 1908) and also (Portrait of Chaliapin, 1911, Russian Museum; "Fish, wine and fruits" 1916, State Tretyakov Gallery).

One of the greatest 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.

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.

Serov often writes representatives of the artistic intelligentsia: writers, artists, artists (portraits of K. Korovin, (1891), Levitan, (1893), Yermolova, 1905, Princess Orlova (1910–1911,), "Peter I" (1907,).

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.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856–1910). 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, KMRI; "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 gravitates toward literary subjects, which he interprets abstractly, trying 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 his "Seated Demon". The image of the Demon is the central image of Vrubel's entire work, its main theme. In 1899 he wrote "The Flying Demon", in 1902 - "The Downtrodden Demon".

The tragedy of the artistic worldview is determined in portrait characteristics: mental discord, a breakdown in his self-portraits, alertness, almost fright, but also majestic strength, monumentality - in the portrait of S. Mamontov (1897), confusion, anxiety - in the fabulous image of "The Swan Princess" ( 1900), even in his decorative panels “Spain” (1894) and “Venice” (1893) executed for the mansion of E.D. Dunker, there is no peace and serenity.

“The Swan Princess”, he turns to folklore: to a fairy tale, to an epic, which resulted in the panels “Mikula Selyaninovich”, “Bogatyrs”. Vrubel tries his hand at ceramics, making sculptures in majolica. 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.

Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov (1870–1905) is a direct exponent of pictorial symbolism and one of the first retrospectives in fine arts frontier Russia.

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.

Longing for bygone times made Borisov-Musatov related to the artists of the "World of Art" - an organization that arose in St. Petersburg in 1898 and united masters of the highest artistic culture. Almost all of them participated in this association. famous artists– Benois, Somov, Bakst, E.E. Lansere, Golovin, Dobuzhinsky, Vrubel, Serov, K. Korovin, Levitan, Nesterov, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Bilibin, Sapunov, Sudeikin, Ryabushkin, Roerich, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Malyavin even Larionov and Goncharova.

The leading artist of the "World of Art" was Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939). Somov, as we know him, appeared in the portrait of the artist Martynova (“Lady in Blue”, 1897-1900), in the portrait painting “Echo of the Past Time” (1903).

Somov owns a series of graphic portraits of his contemporaries - the intellectual elite (V. Ivanov, Blok, Kuzmin, Sollogub, Lansere, Dobuzhinsky, etc.), in which he uses one general technique: on a white background - in a certain timeless sphere - he draws a face, a resemblance in which it is achieved not through naturalization, but by bold generalizations and apt selection of characteristic details.

Before anyone else in The World of Art, Somov turned to the themes of the past, to the interpretation of the 18th century. (“Letter”, 1896; “Confidentialities”, 1897) of his works “The Ridiculous Kiss”, 1908, “Walk of the Marquise”, 1909).

The ideological leader of the "World of Art" was Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960) - an unusually versatile talent. Painter, graphic artist and illustrator, theater artist, director, author of ballet librettos, art theorist and historian, musical figure.

A clear composition, grandeur and cold rigor of rhythms, contrasting the grandiosity of monuments of art and the smallness of human figures, among them only staffage (the 1st Versailles series of 1896-1898 called "The Last Walks of Louis XIV"). In the second series of Versailles (1905–1906, The King's Walk).

Nature is perceived by Benois in an associative connection with history (views of Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, executed by him in watercolor technique).

In a series of paintings from the Russian past, commissioned by the Moscow publishing house Knebel (illustrations for the "Royal Hunts"), in scenes of the noble, landowner life of the 18th century. Benois created an intimate image of this era, albeit somewhat theatrical (Parade under Paul I, 1907, Russian Museum).

Benois the illustrator (Pushkin, Hoffman) is a whole page in the history of the book. Illustrations for "The Queen of Spades". The graphic design of The Bronze Horseman (1903,1905,1916,1921–1922) was a masterpiece of book illustration.

As a theater artist, Benois designed the performances of the Russian Seasons, of which the most famous was the ballet Petrushka to the music of Stravinsky, he worked a lot at the Moscow Art Theater, and later on almost all major European stages.

The third in the core of the "World of Art" was Lev Samuilovich Bakst (1866-1924), who became famous as a theater artist. He gravitates towards antiquity, moreover, to the Greek archaic, interpreted symbolically. Narpimer painting "Ancient Horror" - "Terror antiquus" (1908,). Bakst completely devoted himself to theatrical and scenery work. In its design there were performances with Anna Pavlova, ballets by Fokine. The artist made sets and costumes for Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Stravinsky's The Firebird (both 1910), Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, and The Afternoon of a Faun to Debussy's music (both 1912). "Afternoon of a Faun" (both 1912).

From the first generation of “World of Art” the youngest was Evgeniy Evgenievich Lansere (1875–1946), who in his work touched upon all the main problems of book graphics of the early 20th century. (See his illustrations for the book "Legends of the ancient castles of Brittany", for Lermontov, the cover for "Nevsky Prospekt" by Bozheryanov, etc.). Lansere created a number of watercolors and lithographs of St. Petersburg (Kalinkin Bridge, Nikolsky Market, etc.). Architecture occupies a huge place in his historical compositions (“Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo”, 1905, State Tretyakov Gallery). One of Lansere's best creations - 70 drawings and watercolors for L.N. Tolstoy's "Hadji Murad" (1912-1915), which Benois considered "an independent song that fits perfectly into Tolstoy's powerful music." During the Soviet era, Lansere became a prominent muralist.

Chapter 1 Painting of the end of the 19th century of the beginning of the 20th century.……………2

Chapter 2 “Blue Rose”………………………………………..9

Chapter 3 "Jack of Diamonds"…..……………………………....13

Chapter 4 “Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich”……………..17

Conclusion………………………………………………………

Plan

Introduction

1. Spiritual and artistic origins Silver Age

2. The originality of Russian painting of the late XIX - early 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 that 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 the "Russian seasons" of 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 critics. 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 Emperor Alexander III opened 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 at the end of the 19th - early 19th century. XX centuries

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

Give a general description of the art of the late XIX century.-beginning. XX century;

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

Find out the main trends in the visual 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 Artistic Culture of 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 spikes, 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 individual 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 war, 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 Russian avant-garde artists somehow passed through the exhibitions of this association, 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 historians compare his manner of combining bright colors and elasticity of writing with the poetic manner 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 his paintings, the jubilant color scheme create the impression of precious and shining products (“Vasily the Blessed”, “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, which 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 maturation of the national idea remained beyond the horizon, and the feeling of rushing whirlwind 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, "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, fed 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 put 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 the sunlit square, the figure of a dog killed and 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 designed 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 of the 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): the 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.

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 perhaps the first to appreciate him as a theater artist), for the Moscow Art Theater, for the Moscow Private Russian Opera, where his lifelong friendship with Chaliapin began, for the Diaghilev entreprise. Korovin raised theatrical scenery and the significance of the artist in the theater to a new level, he revolutionized the understanding of 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 the 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 on just 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 expressive means 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, Tretyakov Gallery) (Peter in the picture is simply gigantic), which allows 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.

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’s hard to believe right away that the portrait of Verusha Mamontova and The Rape 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 a 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 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 is associated with the beginning of the century, the highest level poetry (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 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.

Literature

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2. Borisova E.A., Sternin G.Yu. Russian modern - . M., 2000.-261s.

3. Vlasova R.I. Konstantin Korovin. Creativity.- L., 1970.-132p.

4. Volkov N.N. Composition in painting.- M., 1977.- 174p.

5. Ilyina T.V. History of arts-M., 2003- 407s.

6. Lapshin V. "Union of Russian Artists" - M., 1971. - 206p.

7. Lapshina N. "World of Art". Essays on history and creative practice. M., 1977.- 186s.

8. Lebedev G.E. Russian book illustration of the 19th century. M., 1952.-160s.

9. Essays on the history of the Russian portrait of the second half of the XIX century / Ed. N.G. Mashkovtseva. M., 1963.

10. Essays on the history of the Russian portrait of the late XIX - early XX century / Ed. N.G. Mashkovtsev and N.I. Sokolova. M., 1964.

11. Russian genre painting XIX - early XX century. Essays. M., 2004 -208s..

12. Sarabyanov D.V. Russian painting of the XIX century. among European schools. M., 1980.

13. Sarabyanov D.V. History of Russian art in the second half of the 19th century. M., 1989.

14. Sternin G.Yu. The artistic life of Russia at the turn of the XIX--XX centuries - M. 1999-68s ...

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16. Fedorov-Davydov A.A. I.I. Levitan. Life and creation. M., 1966.

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Russian art of the late 19th-early 20th century

Introduction

Painting

Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel

"World of Art"

"Union of Russian Artists"

"Jack of Diamonds"

"Youth Union"

Architecture

Sculpture

Bibliography

Introduction

Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries is a complex and controversial period in the development of Russian society. The culture of the turn of the century always contains elements of a transitional era, which includes the traditions of the culture of the past and the innovative tendencies of a new emerging culture. There is a transfer of traditions and not just a transfer, but the emergence of new ones, all this is connected with the turbulent process of searching for new ways of developing culture, corrected by the social development of this time. The turn of the century in Russia is a period of major changes brewing, a change in the state system, a change from the classical culture of the 19th century to the new culture of the 20th century. The search for new ways of developing Russian culture is associated with the assimilation of progressive trends in Western culture. The diversity of directions and schools is a feature of Russian culture at the turn of the century. Western trends are intertwined and complemented by modern ones, filled with specifically Russian content. A feature of the culture of this period is its orientation towards the philosophical understanding of life, the need to build a holistic picture of the world, where art, along with science, plays a huge role. The focus of Russian culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries turned out to be a person who becomes a kind of link in the motley variety of schools and areas of science and art, on the one hand, and a kind of starting point for analyzing all the most diverse cultural artifacts, on the other. Hence the powerful philosophical foundation that underlies Russian culture at the turn of the century.

Highlighting the most important priorities in the development of Russian culture of the late XIX - early XX centuries, one cannot ignore its most important characteristics. The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century in the history of Russian culture is usually called the Russian Renaissance or, in comparison with the golden age of Pushkin, the silver age of Russian culture.

At the turn of the century, a style developed that affected all plastic arts, starting primarily with architecture (in which eclecticism dominated for a long time) and ending with graphics, which was called the Art Nouveau style. This phenomenon is not unambiguous, in modernity there is also decadent pretentiousness, pretentiousness, designed mainly for bourgeois tastes, but there is also a desire for unity of style that is significant in itself. The Art Nouveau style is a new stage in the synthesis of architecture, painting, and decorative arts.

In the visual arts, Art Nouveau showed itself: in sculpture - by the fluidity of forms, the special expressiveness of the silhouette, the dynamism of the compositions; in painting - the symbolism of images, addiction to allegory. symbolism modern avant-garde silver

The Russian symbolists played an important role in the development of the aesthetics of the Silver Age. Symbolism as a phenomenon in literature and art first appeared in France in the last quarter of the 19th century and by the end of the century had spread to most of Europe. But after France, it is in Russia that symbolism is realized as the most large-scale, significant and original phenomenon in culture. Russian symbolism at first had basically the same prerequisites as Western symbolism: "a crisis of a positive worldview and morality." The main principle of the Russian symbolists is the aestheticization of life and the desire for various forms of substitution of aesthetics for logic and morality. First of all, Russian symbolism is characterized by the demarcation with the traditions of the revolutionary-democratic “sixties” and populism, with atheism ideologization, utilitarianism. according to the Russian symbolists, they correspond to the principles of "pure", free art.

Another bright, acquired world significance the phenomenon of the Silver Age - the art and aesthetics of the avant-garde. In the space of the already listed areas of aesthetic consciousness, the avant-garde artists were distinguished by an emphatically rebellious character. They perceived the crisis of classical culture, art, religion, sociality, statehood with delight as a natural dying, the destruction of the old, obsolete, irrelevant, and they realized themselves as revolutionaries, destroyers and gravediggers of "all junk" and creators of everything new, in general, a new emerging race. Nietzsche's ideas about the superman, developed by P. Uspensky, were taken literally by many avant-garde artists and tried on, especially by the futurists, for themselves.

Hence the revolt and outrageousness, the desire for everything fundamentally new in the means of artistic expression, in the principles of approach to art, the tendency to expand the boundaries of art until it comes to life, but on completely different principles than those of representatives of theurgical aesthetics. Life for the avant-gardists of the 10s. 20th century - this is, above all, a revolutionary revolt, an anarchist revolt. Absurdity, chaos, anarchy are for the first time comprehended as synonyms of modernity and precisely as creatively positive principles based on the complete denial of the rational principle in art and the cult of the irrational, intuitive, unconscious, meaningless, abstruse, formless, etc. The main directions of the Russian avant-garde were: abstractionism (Vasily Kandinsky), Suprematism (Kazimir Malevich), constructivism (Vladimir Tatlin), Cubofuturism (Cubism, Futurism) (Vladimir Mayakovsky).

Painting

For painters of the turn of the century, other ways of expression are characteristic than those of the Wanderers, other forms of artistic creativity - in images that are contradictory, complicated and reflect 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 "eves", 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.

The impressionistic lessons of plein air painting, the composition of "random framing", the wide free pictorial manner - all this is the result of evolution in the development of pictorial means in all genres of the turn of the century. In search of "beauty and harmony" artists try themselves in a variety of techniques and art forms - from monumental painting and theatrical scenery to book design and arts and crafts.

Genre painting developed in the 1990s, but it developed somewhat differently than in the "classical" Wandering movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, the peasant theme is revealed in a new way. S. A. Korovin (1858-1908) depicts the split in the rural community in the painting “On the World” (1893).

At the turn of the century, a somewhat peculiar path is outlined in the historical theme. So, for example, A.P. 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), “Wedding train in Moscow. XVII century ”(1901) - these are everyday scenes from the life of Moscow in the XVII century. Ryabushkin's stylization is reflected in the flatness of the image, in a special system of plastic and linear rhythm, in the color scheme built on bright major colors, in the general decorative solution. Ryabushkin boldly introduces local colors into the plein-air landscape, for example, in the "Wedding Train ..." - the red color of the carriage, large spots of festive clothes against the background of dark buildings and snow, given, however, in the finest color nuances. The landscape always poetically conveys the beauty of Russian nature.

A new type of painting, in which folklore artistic traditions are mastered in a completely special way and translated into the language of modern art, was created by F. A. Malyavin (1869-1940. His images of “women” and “girls” have a certain symbolic meaning - healthy soil 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,) is a realistic image 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 entire canvas.

M. V. Nesterov (1862-1942) addresses the theme of Ancient Russia, 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 the legendary city of Kitezh. This keen sense of nature, delight in the world, in front of every tree and blade of grass is especially pronounced in one of Nesterov's most famous works of the pre-revolutionary period - "Vision to the youth Bartholomew" (1889-1890,). In the disclosure of the plot of the picture, there are the same stylistic features as those of Ryabushkin, but a deeply lyrical sense of the beauty of nature is invariably expressed, through which the high spirituality of the characters, their enlightenment, their alienation from worldly fuss is conveyed.

M.V. Nesterov did a lot of religious monumental painting. The murals are always dedicated to the ancient Russian theme (for example, in Georgia - to Alexander Nevsky). In the wall paintings of Nesterov, there are many observed real signs, especially in the landscape, portrait features - in the image of saints. In the artist's desire for a flat interpretation of the composition of elegance, ornamentality, refined sophistication of plastic rhythms, an undoubted influence of Art Nouveau manifested itself.

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.

Konstantin Alekseevich Korovin

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. He began to write en plein air early, already in the portrait of a chorus girl in 1883, one can see his independent development of the principles of plein airism, embodied then in a number of portraits made in the estate of S. Mamontov in Abramtsevo (“In the Boat”, portrait of T.S. Lyubatovich, and etc.), in the northern landscapes, executed during the expedition of S. Mamontov to the north (“Winter in Lapland”,). His French landscapes, united by the name "Parisian Lights", are already a completely impressionistic painting, with its highest culture of etude. Sharp, instant impressions of big city life: quiet streets in different time days, objects dissolved in a light-air environment, molded by a dynamic, “trembling”, vibrating stroke, a stream of such strokes that create the illusion of a veil of rain or urban air saturated with thousands of different vapors - features reminiscent of the landscapes of Manet, Pissarro, Monet. Korovin is temperamental, emotional, impulsive, theatrical, hence the bright colors and romantic elation of his landscapes (“Paris. Capuchin Boulevard”, 1906, State Tretyakov Gallery; “Paris at night. Italian Boulevard”, 1908,). Korovin retains the same features of impressionistic etude, painterly maestro, striking artistry in all other genres, primarily in portraiture and still life, but also in decorative panels, in applied art, in theatrical scenery, which he has been engaged in all his life (Portrait of Chaliapin, 1911, Russian Museum; "Fish, wine and fruits" 1916, State Tretyakov Gallery).

Valentin Alexandrovich Serov

One of the greatest artists, an innovator of Russian painting at the turn of the century, was Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (1865-1911). Serov was brought up among prominent figures of Russian musical culture (his father is a famous composer, his mother is a pianist), he studied with Repin and Chistyakov.

A special theme in the work of Serov is the 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”, b. on the map, 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 life in the 18th century. Serov's interest in the 18th century arose under the influence of The World of Art and in connection with the work on the publication of The History of the Grand Duke, Tsar and Imperial Hunting in Russia.

Serov was a deeply thinking artist, constantly looking for new forms of artistic realization of reality. Inspired by Art Nouveau, ideas about flatness and increased decorativeness were reflected not only in historical compositions, but also in his portrait of the dancer Ida Rubinstein, in his sketches for The Rape of Europa and The Odyssey and Navzikai (both 1910, State Tretyakov Gallery, cardboard, tempera). It is significant that Serov at the end of his life turns to the ancient world. In the poetic legend, interpreted by him freely, outside the classical canons, he wants to find harmony, the search for which the artist devoted all his work.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel

The creative path of Mikhail Alexandrovich Vrubel (1856-1910) was more direct, although at the same time unusually 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 non-canonical and expressiveness.

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.

The universalism of talent, boundless imagination, extraordinary passion in the affirmation of noble ideals distinguish Vrubel from many of his contemporaries.

Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov

Viktor Elpidiforovich Borisov-Musatov (1870-1905) is a direct exponent of pictorial symbolism. 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.

His easel works most of all resemble not even decorative panels, but tapestries. The space is solved in an extremely conditional, planar manner, the figures are almost ethereal, like, for example, the girls by the pond in the painting "Pond" (1902, tempera, State Tretyakov Gallery), immersed in dreamy meditation, in deep contemplation. Faded, pale gray shades of color enhance the overall impression of fragile, unearthly beauty and anemic, ghostly, which extends not only to human images, but also to the nature depicted by him. It is no coincidence that Borisov-Musatov called one of his works “Ghosts” (1903, tempera, State Tretyakov Gallery): silent and inactive female figures, marble statues by the stairs, a half-naked tree - a faded range of blue, gray, purple tones enhances the ghostliness of the depicted.

"World of Art"

"World of Art" - an organization that arose in St. Petersburg in 1898 and united the masters of the highest artistic culture, the artistic elite of Russia of those years. "World of Art" has become one of the largest phenomena of Russian artistic culture. Almost all famous artists participated in this association.

The editorial articles of the first issues of the journal clearly articulated the main provisions of the "World of Art" about the autonomy of art, that the problems of modern culture are exclusively problems art form and that the main task of art is to educate the aesthetic tastes of Russian society, primarily through acquaintance with works of world art. We must give them their due: thanks to the World of Art, English and German art was really appreciated in a new way, and most importantly, Russian painting of the 18th century and the architecture of St. Petersburg classicism became a discovery for many. "Miriskusniki" fought for "criticism as an art", proclaiming the ideal of a critic-artist with a high professional culture and erudition. The type of such a critic was embodied by one of the creators of The World of Art, A.N. Benoit.

"Miriskusniki" organized exhibitions. The first was also the only international one that brought together, in addition to Russians, artists from France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Norway, Finland, etc. Both St. Petersburg and Moscow painters and graphic artists took part in it. But the crack between these two schools - St. Petersburg and Moscow - was already evident almost from the first day. In March 1903, the last, fifth exhibition of the World of Art closed, in December 1904 the last issue of the magazine World of Art was published. Most of the artists moved to the “Union of Russian Artists” organized on the basis of the Moscow exhibition “36”, writers - to the magazine “New Way” opened by the Merezhkovsky group, Moscow symbolists united around the magazine “Vesy”, musicians organized “Evenings contemporary music”, Diaghilev completely went into ballet and theater.

In 1910 an attempt was made to breathe life back into the "World of Art" (led by Roerich). Fame came to the “World of Art” but the “World of Arts” essentially no longer existed, although formally the association existed until the early 1920s (1924) - with a complete lack of integrity, on boundless tolerance and flexibility of positions. The second generation of "World of Art" was less busy with the problems of easel painting, their interests lie in graphics, mainly book, and theatrical and decorative arts, in both areas they made a real artistic reform. In the second generation of "World of Art" there were also major individuals (Kustodiev, Sudeikin, Serebryakova, Chekhonin, Grigoriev, Yakovlev, Shukhaev, Mitrokhin, etc.), but there were no innovative artists at all.

The leading artist of the "World of Art" was K. A. Somov (1869-1939). The son of the chief curator of the Hermitage, who graduated from the Academy of Arts and traveled around Europe, Somov received an excellent education. Creative maturity came to him early, but, as the researcher (V.N. Petrov) rightly noted, he always had some duality - the struggle between a powerful realistic instinct and a painfully emotional worldview.

Somov, as we know him, appeared in the portrait of the artist Martynova (“Lady in Blue”, 1897-1900, State Tretyakov Gallery), in the portrait painting “Echo of the Past Time” (1903, on map, aqua., gouache, State Tretyakov Gallery ), where he creates a poetic characterization of the fragile, anemic female beauty of the decadent model, refusing to convey the real everyday signs of modernity. He dresses the models in ancient costumes, gives their appearance the features of secret suffering, sadness and dreaminess, painful brokenness.

Before anyone else in The World of Art, Somov turned to the themes of the past, to the interpretation of the 18th century. ("Letter", 1896; "Confidentialities", 1897), being the forerunner of Benois' Versailles landscapes. He is the first to create an surreal world, woven from the motifs of the nobility, manor and court culture and his own purely subjective artistic sensations, permeated with irony. The historicism of the "World of Art" was an escape from reality. Not the past, but its staging, longing for its irretrievability - this is their main motive. Not true fun, but a game of fun with kisses in the alleys - such is Somov.

The ideological leader of the "World of Art" was A. N. Benois (1870-1960) - an unusually versatile talent. A painter, easel graphic artist and illustrator, theater artist, director, author of ballet librettos, art theorist and historian, musical figure, he was, in the words of A. Bely, the main politician and diplomat of the "World of Art". As an artist, he is related to Somov by stylistic tendencies and addiction to the past (“I am intoxicated with Versailles, this is some kind of illness, love, criminal passion ... I completely moved into the past ...”). In the landscapes of Versailles, Benois merged the historical reconstruction of the 17th century. and contemporary impressions of the artist, his perception of French classicism, French engraving. Hence the clear composition, clear spatiality, the grandeur and cold severity of rhythms, the opposition between the grandeur of monuments of art and the smallness of human figures, which are only staffage among them (the 1st Versailles series of 1896-1898 under the title "The Last Walks of Louis XIV"). In the second Versailles series (1905-1906), the irony, which is also characteristic of the first sheets, is colored with almost tragic notes (“The King’s Walk”, c., gouache, aqua, gold, silver, pen, 1906, State Tretyakov Gallery). The thinking of Benois is the thinking of a theatrical artist par excellence, who knew and felt the theater very well.

Nature is perceived by Benois in an associative connection with history (views of Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, executed by him in watercolor technique).

Benois the illustrator (Pushkin, Hoffman) is a whole page in the history of the book. Unlike Somov, Benois creates a narrative illustration. The plane of the page is not an end in itself for him. A masterpiece of book illustration was the graphic design of The Bronze Horseman (1903,1905,1916,1921-1922, ink and watercolor imitating color woodcut). In a series of illustrations for the great poem, the main character is the architectural landscape of St. Petersburg, now solemnly pathetic, now peaceful, now sinister, against which the figure of Eugene seems even more insignificant. This is how Benois expresses the tragic conflict between destinies Russian statehood and the personal fate of the little man (“And all night long the poor madman, / Wherever he turned his feet, / The Bronze Horseman was everywhere with him / With a heavy stomp galloped”).

As a theater artist, Benois designed the performances of the Russian Seasons, of which the most famous was the ballet Petrushka to music by Stravinsky, he worked a lot at the Moscow Art Theater, and later on almost all major European stages.

A special place in the "World of Art" is occupied by N. K. Roerich (1874-1947). A connoisseur of philosophy and ethnography of the East, an archaeologist-scientist, Roerich received an excellent education, first at home, then at the law and historical-philological faculties of St. Petersburg University, then at the Academy of Arts, in the workshop of Kuindzhi, and in Paris in the studio of F. Cormon. Early he gained the authority of a scientist. He was related to the "World of Art" by the same love for retrospection, only not in the 17th-18th centuries, but in pagan Slavic and Scandinavian antiquity, in Ancient Russia; stylistic tendencies, theatrical decorativeness (“Messenger”, 1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; “The Elders Converge”, 1898, Russian Museum; “Sinister”, 1901, Russian Museum). Roerich was most closely associated with the philosophy and aesthetics of Russian symbolism, but his art did not fit into the framework of the existing trends, because, in accordance with the artist's worldview, it turned, as it were, to all of humanity with an appeal for a friendly union of all peoples. Hence the special epic nature of his paintings.

After 1905, the mood of pantheistic mysticism grew in Roerich's work. Historical themes give way to religious legends (The Heavenly Battle, 1912, Russian Museum). The Russian icon had a huge influence on Roerich: his decorative panel The Battle of Kerzhents (1911) was exhibited during the performance of a fragment of the same title from Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera The Tale of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia in the Paris Russian Seasons.

The "World of Art" was a major aesthetic movement at the turn of the century, which overestimated the entire modern artistic culture, approved new tastes and problems, returned art to the highest professional level- the lost forms of book graphics and theatrical scenery painting, which gained all-European recognition through their efforts, created a new art criticism, promoted Russian art abroad, in fact, even opened some of its stages, like the Russian XVIII century. "Miriskusniki" created a new type historical picture, portrait, landscape with their own stylistic features (distinct stylistic tendencies, the predominance of graphic techniques over picturesque ones, a purely decorative understanding of color, etc.). This determines their significance for Russian art.

The weaknesses of the "World of Art" were primarily reflected in the variegation and inconsistency of the program, proclaiming the model "either Böcklin, then Manet"; in idealistic views on art, affected indifference to the civic tasks of art, in programmatic apathy, in the loss of the social significance of the picture. The intimacy of the "World of Art", its pure aestheticism determined the short historical period of his life in the era of formidable tragic portents of the impending revolution. These were only the first steps on the path of creative searches, and very soon the young ones overtook the World of Art students.

"Union of Russian Artists"

In 1903, one of the largest exhibition associations of the beginning of the century, the Union of Russian Artists, emerged. At first, almost all the prominent figures of the "World of Art" - Benois, Bakst, Somov, entered it, Vrubel, Borisov-Musatov were participants in the first exhibitions. The initiators of the creation of the association were Moscow artists associated with the "World of Art", but weighed down by the programmatic aesthetics of Petersburgers.

National landscape, lovingly painted pictures of peasant Russia - one of the main genres of the artists of the "Union", in which "Russian impressionism" expressed itself in a peculiar way with its predominantly rural rather than urban motifs. So the landscapes of I.E. Grabar (1871-1960), with their lyrical mood, with the finest pictorial nuances reflecting instantaneous changes in true nature, is a kind of parallel on Russian soil to the French impressionistic landscape (“September Snow”, 1903, State Tretyakov Gallery). Grabar's interest in the decomposition of visible color into spectral, pure colors of the palette also makes him related to neo-impressionism, to J. Seurat and P. Signac ("March Snow", 1904, State Tretyakov Gallery). The play of colors in nature, complex coloristic effects become the subject of close study of the "Allies", who create on the canvas a pictorial and plastic figurative world, devoid of narrative and illustrativeness.

With all the interest in the transmission of light and air in the painting of the masters of the "Union", the dissolution of the object in the light-air medium is never observed. The color becomes decorative.

"Allies", in contrast to the Petersburgers - the graphic artists of the "World of Art" - are mostly painters with a heightened decorative sense of color. An excellent example of this is the paintings of F.A. Malyavin.

On the whole, The Allies gravitated not only towards plein-air studies, but also towards monumental pictorial forms. By 1910, the time of the split and the secondary formation of the "World of Art", at the exhibitions of the "Union" one could see an intimate landscape (Vinogradov, Yuon, etc.), painting close to French divisionism (Grabar, early Larionov) or close to symbolism ( P. Kuznetsov, Sudeikin); they were also attended by the artists of Diaghilev's "World of Art" - Benois, Somov, Bakst.

The "Union of Russian Artists", with its solid realistic foundations, which played a significant role in the domestic fine arts, had a certain impact on the formation of the Soviet school of painting, having existed until 1923.

In 1907, in Moscow, the Golden Fleece magazine organized the only exhibition of artists following Borisov-Musatov, called the Blue Rose. P. Kuznetsov became the leading artist of the Blue Rose. The “Blue Bears” are closest to symbolism, which was expressed primarily in their “language”: unsteadiness of mood, vague, untranslatable musicality of associations, refinement of color relationships. The aesthetic platform of the participants of the exhibition also affected in subsequent years, and the name of this exhibition became a household name for a whole trend in art in the second half of the 900s. The entire activity of the "Blue Rose" also bears the strongest imprint of the influence of the Art Nouveau style (plane-decorative stylization of forms, whimsical linear rhythms).

The works of P. V. Kuznetsov (1878-1968) reflect the basic principles of the Blue Bears. Kuznetsov created a decorative panel-picture in which he sought to abstract from everyday concreteness, to show the unity of man and nature, the stability of the eternal cycle of life and nature, the birth of the human soul in this harmony. Hence the desire for monumental forms of painting, dreamy-contemplative, purified from everything instantaneous, universal, timeless notes, a constant desire to convey the spirituality of matter. The figure is only a sign expressing the concept; color serves to convey feelings; rhythm - in order to introduce into a certain world of sensations (as in icon painting - a symbol of love, tenderness, sorrow, etc.). Hence the reception of a uniform distribution of light over the entire surface of the canvas as one of the foundations of Kuznetsov's decorative effect. Serov said that P. Kuznetsov's nature "breathes". This is perfectly expressed in his Kyrgyz (Steppe) and Bukhara suites, in Central Asian landscapes. Kuznetsov studied the techniques of ancient Russian icon painting, the early Italian Renaissance. This appeal to the classical traditions of world art in search of its own great style, as rightly noted by researchers, was of fundamental importance in a period when any traditions were often denied altogether.

The exoticism of the East - Iran, Egypt, Turkey - is realized in the landscapes of M. S. Saryan (1880-1972). The East was a natural theme for the Armenian artist. Saryan creates in his painting a world full of bright decorativeness, more passionate, more earthly than that of Kuznetsov, and the pictorial solution is always built on contrasting color relationships, without nuances, in sharp shadow comparison (“Date Palm, Egypt”, 1911, maps. , tempera, GTG).

The images of Saryan are monumental due to the generalization of forms, large colorful planes, the general lapidarity of the language - this is, as a rule, a generalized image of Egypt, whether, Persia, native Armenia, while maintaining vital naturalness, as if painted from nature. Saryan's decorative canvases are always cheerful, they correspond to his idea of creativity: “... a work of art is the very result of happiness, that is, creative work. Consequently, it should ignite the flame of creative burning in the viewer, contribute to the identification of his natural desire for happiness and freedom.

"Jack of Diamonds"

The extreme simplification of the form, the direct connection with the art of signage is especially noticeable in M.F. Larionov (1881-1964), one of the founders of the "Jack of Diamonds", but already in 1911 broke with him. Larionov paints landscapes, portraits, still lifes, works as a theater artist of the Diaghilev entreprise, then turns to genre painting, his theme is the life of a provincial street, soldiers' barracks. The forms are flat, grotesque, as if deliberately stylized as a child's drawing, popular print or signboard. In 1913, Larionov published his book "Luchism" - in fact, the first of the manifestos of abstract art, the true creators of which in Russia were V. Kandinsky and K. Malevich.

Artist N.S. Goncharova (1881-1962), Larionov's wife, developed the same tendencies in her genre paintings, mostly on a peasant theme. In the years under review, in her work, more decorative and colorful than the art of Larionov, monumental inner strength and conciseness, keenly felt passion for primitivism. Describing the work of Goncharova and Larionov, the term "neo-primitivism" is often used.

M.Z. Chagall (1887-1985) created fantasies transformed from the boring impressions of small-town Vitebsk life and interpreted in a naive-poetic and grotesque-symbolic spirit. With surreal space, bright colorfulness, deliberate primitivization of form, Chagall turns out to be close to both Western expressionism and primitive folk art (“I and the Village”, 1911, Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; “Over Vitebsk”, 1914, coll. Zak. Toronto; "Wedding", 1918, State Tretyakov Gallery).

"Youth Union"

The Union of Youth is a St. Petersburg organization formed almost simultaneously with the Jack of Diamonds (1909). The leading role in it was played by L. Zheverzheev. Just like the "valetovtsy", members of the "Union of Youth" published theoretical collections. Until the collapse of the association in 1917. The "Union of Youth" did not have a specific program, professing symbolism, and cubism, and futurism, and "non-objectivity", but each of the artists had his own creative face.

The art of the pre-revolutionary years in Russia is marked by the extraordinary complexity and inconsistency of artistic quests, hence the successive groupings with their own program settings and stylistic sympathies. But along with the experimenters in the field of abstract forms in the Russian art of that time, the “World of Art” and “Goluborozites”, “allies”, “knaves of diamonds” continued to work at the same time, there was also a powerful stream of neoclassical current, an example of which can be the work of an active member of the “Mir art" in his "second generation" Z. E. Serebryakova (1884-1967). In her poetic genre canvases with their laconic drawing, palpably sensual plastic modeling, and balance of composition, Serebryakova comes from the high national traditions of Russian art, primarily Venetsianov and even further - ancient Russian art (“Peasants”, 1914, Russian Museum; “Harvest”, 1915 , Odessa Art Museum; "Whitening of the canvas", 1917, State Tretyakov Gallery).

Finally, the work of K. S. Petrov-Vodkin (1878-1939), an artist-thinker who later became the most prominent master of art of the Soviet period, is a brilliant evidence of the vitality of national traditions, the great ancient Russian painting. In the famous painting Bathing the Red Horse (1912, Fri), the artist resorted to a figurative metaphor. As it was correctly noted, the young man on a bright red horse evokes associations with the popular image of George the Victorious (“Saint Egor”), and the generalized silhouette, rhythmic, compact composition, the saturation of sounds in full force contrasting color spots, flatness in the interpretation of forms bring to mind the old Russian icon. A harmoniously enlightened image is created by Petrov-Vodkin in the monumental painting “Girls on the Volga” (1915, State Tretyakov Gallery), in which he also feels his orientation towards the traditions of Russian art, leading the master to a true nationality.

Architecture

The era of highly developed industrial capitalism caused significant changes in architecture, primarily in the architecture of the city. There are new types of architectural structures: factories, stations, shops, banks, with the advent of cinema - cinemas. The revolution was made by new Construction Materials: reinforced concrete and metal structures, which made it possible to block gigantic spaces, make huge showcases, and create a bizarre pattern of bindings.

In the last decade of the 19th century, it became clear to architects that in using the historical styles of the past, architecture had reached a dead end; according to the researchers, it was already necessary, according to the researchers, not to “rearrange” historical styles, but to creatively comprehend the new that was accumulating in the environment of a rapidly growing capitalist city. . The last years of the 19th - early 20th centuries are the time of the dominance of modernity in Russia, which was formed in the West primarily in Belgian, South German and Austrian architecture, a phenomenon in general cosmopolitan (although here Russian modernity differs from Western European, because it is a mixture with historical neo-renaissance, neo-baroque, neo-rococo, etc.).

A striking example of Art Nouveau in Russia was the work of F.O. Shekhtel (1859--1926). Profitable houses, mansions, buildings of trading companies and stations - in all genres Shekhtel left his handwriting. The asymmetry of the building is effective for him, the organic increase in volumes, the different nature of the facades, the use of balconies, porches, bay windows, sandriks above the windows, the introduction of a stylized image of lilies or irises into the architectural decor, the use of stained-glass windows with the same ornament motif, different textures of materials in interior design. A bizarre pattern, built on the twists of lines, extends to all parts of the building: the mosaic frieze, beloved by Art Nouveau, or a belt of glazed ceramic tiles in faded decadent colors, stained-glass window bindings, a fence pattern, balcony lattices; on the composition of the stairs, even on the furniture, etc. Capricious curvilinear outlines dominate everything. In Art Nouveau, one can trace a certain evolution, two stages of development: the first is decorative, with a special passion for ornament, decorative sculpture and picturesqueness (ceramics, mosaics, stained glass), the second is more constructive, rationalistic.

Art Nouveau is well represented in Moscow. During this period, railway stations, hotels, banks, mansions of the wealthy bourgeoisie, tenement houses were built here. The Ryabushinsky mansion at the Nikitsky Gates in Moscow (1900-1902, architect F.O. Shekhtel) is a typical example of Russian Art Nouveau.

Appeal to the traditions of ancient Russian architecture, but through the techniques of modernity, not copying the naturalistic details of medieval Russian architecture, which was characteristic of the "Russian style" of the middle of the 19th century, but freely varying it, trying to convey the very spirit of Ancient Russia, gave rise to the so-called neo-Russian style of the beginning 20th century (sometimes called neo-romanticism). Its difference from Art Nouveau itself is primarily in disguise, and not in revealing, which is typical for Art Nouveau, the internal structure of the building and utilitarian purpose behind intricately complex ornamentation (Shekhtel - Yaroslavsky Station in Moscow, 1903-1904; A.V. Shchusev - Kazansky station in Moscow, 1913-1926; V. M. Vasnetsov - the old building of the Tretyakov Gallery, 1900-1905). Both Vasnetsov and Shchusev, each in their own way (and the second under the very great influence of the first), were imbued with the beauty of ancient Russian architecture, especially Novgorod, Pskov and early Moscow, appreciated its national identity and creatively interpreted its forms.

Art Nouveau was developed not only in Moscow, but also in St. Petersburg, where it developed under the undoubted influence of the Scandinavian, so-called "northern modern": P.Yu. Suzor in 1902-1904 builds the building of the Singer company on Nevsky Prospekt (now the Book House). The terrestrial sphere on the roof of the building was supposed to symbolize the international nature of the company's activities. The façade was clad with precious stones (granite, labradorite), bronze, and mosaics. But the traditions of monumental St. Petersburg classicism influenced St. Petersburg modernism. This served as an impetus for the emergence of another branch of modernity - neoclassicism of the 20th century. In the mansion of A.A. Polovtsov on Kamenny Island in St. Petersburg (1911-1913) architect I.A. Fomin (1872-1936) fully affected the features of this style: the façade (central volume and side wings) was resolved in the Ionic order, and the interiors of the mansion in a reduced and more modest form, as it were, repeat the enfilade of the hall of the Tauride Palace, but the huge windows of the semi-rotunda of the winter garden , stylized drawing of architectural details clearly define the time of the beginning of the century. The works of a purely St. Petersburg architectural school of the beginning of the century - tenement houses - at the beginning of Kamennoostrovsky (No. 1-3) Avenue, Count M.P. Tolstoy on the Fontanka (No. 10-12), buildings b. The Azov-Don Bank on Bolshaya Morskaya and the Astoria Hotel belong to the architect F.I. Lidval (1870-1945), one of the most prominent masters of St. Petersburg Art Nouveau.

Art Nouveau was one of the most significant styles that completed the 19th century and opened the next. All modern achievements of architecture were used in it. Modern is not only a certain constructive system. Since the reign of classicism, modern is perhaps the most consistent style in terms of its holistic approach, the ensemble solution of the interior. Art Nouveau as a style captured the art of furniture, utensils, fabrics, carpets, stained-glass windows, ceramics, glass, mosaics, it is recognized everywhere for its drawn contours and lines, its special color range of faded, pastel colors, and its favorite pattern of lilies and irises.

Sculpture

Russian sculpture at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. and the first pre-revolutionary years is represented by several major names. First of all, this is P.P. Trubetskoy (1866-1938). His early Russian works (portrait of Levitan, image of Tolstoy on horseback, both - 1899, bronze) give a complete picture of Trubetskoy's impressionistic method: the form is, as it were, all permeated with light and air, dynamic, designed for viewing from all points of view and from different angles creates a multifaceted characterization of the image. The most remarkable work of P. Trubetskoy in Russia was a bronze monument Alexander III, installed in 1909 in St. Petersburg, on Znamenskaya Square. Here Trubetskoy leaves his impressionistic style. Researchers have repeatedly noted that Trubetskoy’s image of the emperor is resolved, as it were, in contrast to Falconet’s, and next to the Bronze Horseman, this is an almost satirical image of autocracy. It seems to us that this contrast has a different meaning; not Russia, “raised on its hind legs”, like a ship launched into European waters, but Russia of peace, stability and strength is symbolized by this rider sitting heavily on a heavy horse.

Impressionism in a peculiar, very individual creative refraction found expression in the works of A. S. Golubkina (1864-1927). In the images of Golubkina, especially women's, there is a lot of high moral purity, deep democracy. These are most often images of ordinary poor people: exhausted women or sickly "children of the dungeon".

The most interesting thing in the work of Golubkina is her portraits, always dramatic, which is generally characteristic of the work of this master, and unusually diverse (portrait of V.F. Ern (wood, 1913, State Tretyakov Gallery) or a bust of Andrei Bely (gypsum, 1907, State Tretyakov Gallery)) .

In the work of Trubetskoy and Golubkina, for all their differences, there is something in common: features that make them related not only to impressionism, but also to the rhythm of fluid lines and forms of modernity.

Impressionism, which captured the sculpture of the beginning of the century, little affected the work of S. T. Konenkov (1874-1971). The marble “Nike” (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery) with clearly portrait (moreover, Slavic) features of a round face with dimples on the cheeks portends the works that Konenkov performed after a trip to Greece in 1912. Images of Greek pagan mythology are intertwined with Slavic mythology. Konenkov begins to work in wood, draws a lot from Russian folklore, Russian fairy tales. Hence his "Stribog" (tree, 1910, State Tretyakov Gallery), "Velikosil" (tree, private, coll.), images of beggars and old people ("Old Man-Polyevichok", 1910).

In the revival of wooden sculpture, Konenkov's great merit. Love for the Russian epic, for the Russian fairy tale coincided in time with the "discovery" of ancient Russian icon painting, ancient Russian wooden sculpture, with an interest in ancient Russian architecture. Unlike Golubkina, Konenkov lacks drama, mental breakdown. His images are full of popular optimism.

In the portrait, Konenkov was one of the first to pose the problem of color at the beginning of the century. His coloring of stone or wood is always very delicate, taking into account the characteristics of the material and the characteristics of the plastic solution.

Of the monumental works of the beginning of the century, it is necessary to note the monument to N.V. Gogol N.A. Andreeva (1873-1932), opened in Moscow in 1909. This is Gogol recent years life, terminally ill. Unusually expressive are his sad profile with a sharp ("Gogol") nose, a thin figure wrapped in an overcoat; In the lapidary language of sculpture, Andreev conveyed the tragedy of a great creative personality. In a bas-relief frieze on a pedestal in multi-figure compositions, Gogol's immortal heroes are depicted in a completely different way, with humor or even satirically.

A. T. Matveev (1878-1960). He overcame the impressionistic influence of his teacher in his early works - in the nude (the main theme of those years. Strict architectonics, laconism of stable generalized forms, a state of enlightenment, peace, harmony distinguish Matveev, directly contrasting his work with sculptural impressionism.

As the researchers rightly noted, the master's works are designed for long-term, thoughtful perception, they require an inner mood, "silence" and then they open up most fully and deeply. They have the musicality of plastic forms, great artistic taste and poetry. All these qualities are inherent in the gravestone of V.E. Borisov-Musatov in Tarusa (1910, granite). In the figure of a sleeping boy, it is difficult to see the line between sleep and non-existence, and this is done in the best traditions of memorial sculpture of the 18th century. Kozlovsky and Martos, with her wise calm acceptance of death, which in turn leads us even further, to archaic antique steles with scenes of "funeral treats". This tombstone is the pinnacle in the work of Matveev of the pre-revolutionary period, who still had to work fruitfully and become one of the famous Soviet sculptors. In the pre-October period, a number of talented young masters appeared in Russian sculpture (S.D. Merkurov, V.I. Mukhina, I.D. Shadr, etc.), who in the 1910s were just starting their creative activity. They worked in different directions, but retained the realistic traditions that they brought to the new art, playing an important role in its formation and development.

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Painting of the late 19th - early 20th century in Russia

In 1894, the largest representatives of the Wanderers: Repin, Makovsky, Shishkin, Kuindzhi became part of the academic professorship. The accusatory line of Russian painting is noticeably decreasing, and the search for the ideals of harmony is increasingly going on. Beauty that is endangered in the bourgeois world.

In search of a new language, artists often turn to fabulous, mythological subjects.

Artists formulate new task. Not to denounce, but to maintain a sense of beauty, to teach beauty. Bring beauty even to the everyday world: to everyday life, to architecture, and everyday objects.

Exhibitions are constant, a lot of magazines and almanacs are published, various artistic groups arise and disappear.

Along with easel painting arts and crafts, book graphics, and theatrical scenery are actively developing. A type of universal artist appears. He can paint a picture, create a decorative panel, a vignette for a book, fashion a sculpture, compose a theatrical costume.

Such is M. A. Vrubel, artists of the “World of Arts” association. Artists are grouped in Abramtsevo around S. I. Mamontov. The development of theatrical-decorative and decorative-applied arts is cultivated there. Artists of the Abramtsevo circle are attracted by woodcarving, embroidery, popular prints, and toys. Folk crafts are being revived.

Genre painting of the 90s

In the 1990s, genre painting lost its leading positions. Artists are no longer attracted by generalized, monumental images of the Russian peasant, nature, but by the changes that are taking place in Russian life.

S. A. Korovin (1858 –1908)

The themes of the stratification of the village, the enmity of the kulaks and the poor, the split in the community.

"On the World" 1893 State Tretyakov Gallery

With amazing psychological authenticity, the scene of a dispute between a completely ruined, desperate poor man and a self-satisfied kulak, who knows that the law and the power of money are on his side, is conveyed. There is no ideal community that was so valued in the 60s. The peasant world rejects the poor, no one will come to his aid. The author finds new means for the image. The scene is presented as if from above, we suddenly find ourselves in a close circle of people. Large figures, their tangible physicality make us point blank at the cruel drama that is being played out in one of the villages.

A. E. Arkhipov (1862 - 1930)

This artist brought the achievements of impressionistic painting into the genre: a scene accidentally snatched from everyday life, color relationships, plein air painting.

"Washerwomen" 1901 State Tretyakov Gallery

Before us is like a sketch of an instantly captured scene. Not specific events are depicted, but the unbearable working conditions of laundresses. Their work is presented as stupefying and habitual. The feeling of a damp basement, a slippery floor, piles of dirty laundry, hot steam rising from a hot tub to a cold window is masterfully conveyed. Like a slippery brush stroke, we are immersed in the stagnant dampness of moist air.

S. I. Ivanov (1864 - 1910)

This artist greatly expanded the themes of the genre.

"On the road. Death of a Settler, 1889, State Tretyakov Gallery

Before us is the tragic finale of the nomadic life of a peasant family, who went in search of a better life. The accuracy of poses and details is striking. But the main thing is unsaid. The tragedy is such that the artist does not undertake to retell all its consequences directly. He paints the noon solstice, the numbness of nature and people, a monotonous scorched plain. Shafts of wagons raised up are a symbol of a stopped movement. Everything creates a feeling of complete hopelessness for those who have lost hope.

"Execution" 1905

One of the best works about revolutionary events. On the left are clouds of powder shots. The background is a dark array of soldiers' ranks. On the right is a fragment of a crowd with banners. Desert area flooded with sun. The authenticity of the pose of the dead and the wounded, most likely to the side, dog, leaning in the run, strikes with authenticity. The shadows of the houses are a mourning border, the illuminated sections of the side walls are light wedges, as if pointing to the killers lurking in the shadows.

N. A. Kasatkin (1859 - 1930)

This artist revealed for the first time the theme of the labor of the working class entering the arena of history.

“Coal miners. Change" 1895 State Tretyakov Gallery

The atmosphere of a gloomy room with wooden farms going up and a crowd of miners huddled below. Everything inspires a gloomy solemnity. The faces of many miners in the crowd look aloof and hostile towards the viewer. A miner is walking straight at us with an ominous gleam in the whites of his eyes on his sooty face. He is perceived as a truce filled with hatred on behalf of the working masses towards the enemy. The essentially mundane scene of the shift change at the mine cage is endowed with such force and significance that it conveys the growing anger among the working class.

A. P. Ryabushkin (1861 - 1904)

The combination of history and household genre leads to the birth of a historical and everyday picture in the works of this artist. His best paintings are "Moscow women of the 17th century in church "1899," Wedding train in Moscow of the 17th century "1901

Before us are scenes of everyday life, only in the distant past. Therefore, the paintings are devoid of monumentality. The story is turned not by the dramatic side, as was the case with Surikov or Repin, but with the aesthetic side. The artist admires the life of the past, he enjoys the color of Moscow life in the 17th century. The age was not chosen by chance. It was in the 17th century that Russian patterning and polychromy reached extraordinary spectacular power. Ryabushkin was imbued with the spirit of the motley Russian Middle Ages.

In later paintings, features of the grotesque, satire appear.

M. V. Nesterov (1862 - 1942)

A student of Perov, who began in the spirit of the Wanderers, this artist enters Russian painting with a painting "Hermit", in which he finds his theme: monastic, church Russia, monasticism. No realities of a certain time. Nesterov creates an ideal picture of the merging of man with the natural world outside the framework of civilization. Hence the heroes - monks, Sergius of Radonezh, hermits. His program picture - "Vision to the youth Bartholomew" 1890 State Tretyakov Gallery represents the moment when the truth is revealed to the future Sergius of Radonezh, and the boy’s soul is filled with extraordinary tenderness before every blade of grass, dry leaf, and at the same time with sensitive alertness. A spiritual upheaval is taking place. All this is revealed in a soulful autumn landscape. The Russian world is turning into a kind of "earthly paradise".

Russian impressionist. K Korovin (1861 - 1939)

Like Levitan, he studied at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Savrasov and Polenov. in the picture "Landscape in winter" 1894 he acts as a successor to Savrasov. Before us is a gray winter day, the courtyard of a village hut and a horse harnessed to a sleigh at the wattle fence. But Korovin's main task here is not a mood landscape, but a purely pictorial one: to paint gray and black on white. With the exception of soft golden wood and a freshly planed sleigh, there are no pure colors in the picture. Remarkable shades of ash-gray, bluish-purple. After a trip to France and acquaintance with the painting of the Impressionists, Korovin turns to the theme of the big city.

"Paris Lights" 1911 GTG

The theme is city life. Before us is a fragment of his life, hence the fragmentation of the composition. At the same time, the observation point is unusual - sharply from above, the stroke is dynamic, the contours, as if blurred by rain, tremble in the street air. But the Russian temperament is manifested in the increased intensity of color, the spontaneity of the brushstroke, and emotionality.

Principal innovator V. A. Serov (1865 - 1911)

A student of Repin, heir to the realistic tradition of Russian painting, he made a major revolution in the artistic quest of the era. Serov moved from critical realism to poetic realism, to the embodiment of beauty and harmony by the realistic method.

"Girl with Peaches" 1887 State Tretyakov Gallery

Youth - the spring of life - is the theme of this wonderful picture. It is beautiful both in life and in Serov's painting. Before us is the daughter of Savva Ivanovich Mamontov - Vera Mamontova. It seems that she just ran into the house and sat down at the table. This feeling of a mobile, dynamic life is akin to an impressionistic style. The whole painting of the picture seems to be permeated with a bright, joyful feeling of accepting life. Such is the landscape outside the window, and the interior - the image of the room, and the still life - peaches on the table, and the girl's face - everything breathes with light. One feels an impressionistic brushstroke, a masterful transmission of the light-air environment, an abundance of fragmentary depicted objects. In order for the heroine to be in the center, Serov creates an almost square format of the picture. To convey harmony - an abundance of round objects: peaches on the table, a round plate on the wall. All this is in tune with the round oval of the girl's face. The picture became a fundamentally new work in Russian painting of the late 19th century.

"Girl illuminated by the sun" 1888

To move away from the impressionistic manner, Serov condenses the colors into dense masses. Here again the feeling of the light-air environment.

In the 90s, Serov created a number of portraits of writers, artists, artists: Chaliapin, Gorky, Yermolova. All his heroes are the rulers of the thoughts of their time. In Serov, they appear not as workers of thought, but as "heralds of the truths of the ages." These are geniuses in a halo of exclusivity.

Gorky in the portrait is given in a complex helical spread, his face is illuminated by thought, an attentively disturbing interest in an invisible interlocutor is visible.

Yermolova is detached from everything everyday, worldly, appears in a heroic perspective, the look of a prophetess, her face is molded softly, illuminated by an inner light. The format of the picture - the vertical emphasizes the regal harmony of the figure of the great actress. The color - black on gray, the linear contour, the silence, the detached-ideal structure of the image seem to take it out of reality. Hence the feeling. What we have before us is not an oil painting.

Chaliapin is already drawn with charcoal on canvas. Since then, Serov prefers pure tempera on a matte background.

All portraits appear before us, as if on a pedestal in front of an invisible crowd of thousands. The portraits date back to 1905.

All techniques are taken as if from a front portrait: procession, posing, but the personalities are clearly proportionate to this.

Another version of the ceremonial portrait of Serov is the creation of the character of the person being portrayed through his surroundings.

"Portrait of Countess Orlova" 1911, Russian Museum

The pretentious pose, the play of sharp angular lines of the silhouette, "refinement" and "chic" are clearly inherent in this woman, a true heroine of the 10s. The interior is clearly uninhabited: rare, expensive things, as if for show. And Orlova herself clearly demonstrates herself: she is wearing furs, a pearl necklace, a hyperbolically huge hat. As if the heroine is also an expensive thing. Orlova is a fashionable lady in the Art Nouveau style, also painted in the Art Nouveau style. But you can not stay in this position for a long time. Hence the feeling of a masquerade performance.

Serov's historical compositions.

Series "royal hunt" pleasure walks of Elizabeth and Catherine the Great, hunting amusements of young Peter II. Hence the most significant of the historical paintings - contrasting fun -

"Peter the Great" 1907 State Tretyakov Gallery

The scale of the era of crises and changes is conveyed. The composition of the painting is about the motif of the procession, "the steps of history." The generalized image of will and determination is akin to the era of the first Russian revolution, when this canvas was created. Here the search for a generalized form is already palpable. Such a path led Serov from a purely realistic manner to the primary sources of being - to a myth. This is how a wonderful antique cycle of the artist is born: "Odysseus and Nausicaa" and "Abduction Europe".

"The Abduction of Europe" 1910 State Tretyakov Gallery

The painting was designed as a decorative panel and was the result of Serov's trip to Greece. This is not a specific corner of nature, but a generalized picture of all its forces. The rising wave closes the horizon - hence the feeling of the infinity of the world. The waves draw a regular parabola, the body of the bull is a diagonal, the figure of Europe is exactly in the center. Diverging waves form the semantic center of the picture - the face of Europe. Her face reproduces the mask of archaic bark seen by Serov on the Acropolis. A man of the 20th century turned to the past, saw a charming picture of antiquity, but in the center of it is a mysterious archaic mask. Serov became one of the most beloved teachers of the Moscow School.

Departure from realistic tendencies

M. A. Vrubel (1856 - 1910)

His works can always be recognized by their subjective passion, by the dramatic expression of forms.

The son of a military lawyer from Omsk, he began to study drawing early, but entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. After his graduation in 1880 - the Academy of Arts. I took lessons from Repin.

1884 Vrubel received an invitation to come to Kyiv to paint the St. Cyril's Church of the 12th century. There he created several compositions, among which the central one is the image of the Mother of God. He gave her the features of the woman he loved. This work gave him a sense of monumentality.

Then a trip to Italy, acquaintance with Venice. Returning to Kyiv, Vrubel found himself in the center of the search for a great national style. He decided to find his own language. Vrubel developed his own unique style. The dominance of plastic-sculptural three-dimensional drawing. Crushing the surface of the form into sharp, sharp edges. Color is perceived as colored light (stained glass type)

In 1889, Vrubel lived in Abramtsevo, where he became interested in majolica (a type of ceramics). He made tiled fireplaces with mermaids, heroes, figures of Sadko, Berendey and other heroes.

The result of the search in Kyiv was the painting "Demon".

"Demon" (sitting) 1890, State Tretyakov Gallery

The magazine "Golden Fleece" announced a contest on the theme "Devil". Vrubel was looking for a solution to the image of a proud challenge to the world, the character literally pursued the artist. Vrubel's "Demon" is symbolic and large-scale like a church fresco. There is a clear departure from realism here. The world has been fantastically transformed. A look at the Demon through the prism of culture. The body of the Demon is sculpted and resembles the work of Michelangelo. In the color scheme, the influence of the Venetian school is clearly noticeable. Some "mosaic" of painting resembles the mosaic of Kyiv churches. The light seems to come from within. This is the stained glass effect. The very interest in the eternal image of the Demon is not accidental. Vrubel prefers the characters of "eternal themes": Demon, Faust, Carmen, antiquity.

"Demon defeated" 1902

Let's compare it with the previous work. The demon on this canvas is spread out in a gorge. This is not a powerful athlete, but a sharply deformed in proportions, painfully fragile creature.

On the face is a grimace of offended pride, the opera-beautiful face resembles the collective type of a decadent poet.

Self portraits and portraits.

Their theme is the world as a frightening riddle.

"Portrait of S. I. Mamontov" 1897 GT G

A reddish background, a gloomy chord of colors, a tomb stele with the figure of a mourner protrudes from the background. The Russian "Lorenzo the Magnificent" seems to be playing a scene with ghosts. On his face is mental confusion, almost fear. It seems that Vrubel predicts the fate of the “powerful ones” in Russia in the 20th century.

In the works of Vrubel, the cult of the night is clearly felt.

"Lilac", "By Night", "Pan", "The Swan Princess". In all these works, cold color prevails, flashes of red are rare. Vrubel's interest in folklore, antiquity, mythology, fairy-tale material, literary plots was in line with the search for a new language. Viktor Vasnetsov, Surikov, Serov followed a similar path.

The desire to bring beauty into everyday life led Vrubel to create not only easel carinas, but also decorative panels.

In 1896, two panels by Vrubel were exhibited at a fair in Nizhny Novgorod. : "Mikula Selyaninovich" on the themes of Russian epics and "Princess Dream" based on the work of Edmond Rostand. A copy of this work adorned the pediment of the Metropol Hotel.

Even earlier, Vrubel created a panel Spain, Venice. The last panel is interestingly solved. "Venice" Vrubel - this is what anyone knows about this city: the Bridge of Sighs, a magnificent baroque cartouche over the eaves of the palazzo, the luxury of exotic outfits, everything has the atmosphere of Italian carnivals . "Spain"- a tavern, a fragile woman with a flower, two men at a distance, she turned her back to them. This is the beginning of the intrigue unleashed in Merime's short stories. ("Carmen")

In all the work of Vrubel one can feel common task- to embrace the world of beauty with your creative imagination, to create a new attitude to the world through the revision of all eras and cultures.

In 1902, Vrubel fell ill with a mental illness, since then, everything that he painted, he invariably destroyed. These were portraits of doctors, orderlies, his hospital bed, the view from the hospital window, corners of rooms, a sofa, a carafe and a glass of water. Shortly before his death, the vision failed the master.

V. Borisov-Musatov (1870 - 1905)

At the heart of his style is impressionism with its attention to the light and air environment, the elusive shades of states.

He was born in Saratov, a local teacher convinced his parents to send the boy to Moscow. He studied at the Moscow School, and then at the Academy in St. Petersburg. In the late 90s, Borisov-Musatov visited Paris. But the theme of Borisov-Musatov is a purely Russian retrospection: longing for lost beauty, elegiac poetry of empty "noble nests", parks, reservoirs. His world is outside of concrete historical reality, and in this way it resembles the world of ghosts. Heroes are dressed in camisoles, wigs, crinolines. Favorite technique - pastel and tempera.

"Pond" 1902

This is the most significant work of the artist. The canvas resembles a decorative panel or tapestry. The horizon line is unusually high, and the plane of the earth with the mirror of the reservoir turns out to be almost parallel to the plane of the canvas. The blue sky with white clouds is only reflected in the water mirror. The water surface is so calm that it seems there is no movement in the world, time is frozen, and nothing is happening. The heroines of the artist are in the same state of fascination. The girl, sitting on a dais, looks somewhere into the distance and is immersed in a dreamy oblivion. Another figure with lowered, as if in a dream, eyelids, slides along the edge of the reservoir.

Over the pale lilac (dream color) dress is a white lace cape. The girls do not see each other, but they are connected by musical rhythm: rounded contours, the consonance of soft iridescent colorful tones. The inner unity of what is outwardly divided - main topic Borisov-Musatov. The smooth rhythm of the vibrating stroke unites all objects on the artist's canvases. In his paintings there is nothing mystical, brought from outside, specific literary associations. An elegiac sadness dominates, as if spilled in nature and uniting the heroes of the paintings with the eternal world of nature.

"Ghosts" (1903)

Ribbons of fog creeping along the ground are akin to the winding paths of an old park. The statues come to life on the steps of a classicist mansion. And the building under the dome is, as it were, organically mobile, fluid. In this case, no mysticism. This is how the eye sees at dusk.

Only in 1906, after the death of the artist, S. Diaghilev showed 50 of his works, giving him a posthumous apotheosis.

With the crisis of the populist movement in the 1990s, the "analytical method of nineteenth-century realism," as it is called in Russian science, is becoming obsolete. Many of the Wanderers experienced a creative decline, went into the “small-scale” of an entertaining genre picture. 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.

Complex life processes determined the variety of forms of artistic life of these years. All types of art - painting, theatre, music, architecture - stood for the renewal of the artistic language, for high professionalism.

For painters of the turn of the century, other ways of expression are characteristic than among the Wanderers, other forms of artistic creativity - in images that are contradictory, complicated and reflect 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 "eves", 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.

An important role in the popularization of Russian art, especially of the 18th century, as well as Western European art, in attracting Western European masters to exhibitions, was played by the artists of the World of Art association. "Miriskusniki", who gathered the best artistic forces in St. Petersburg, published their own magazine, by their very existence contributed to the consolidation of artistic forces in Moscow, the creation of the "Union of Russian Artists".

The impressionistic lessons of plein air painting, the composition of "random framing", the wide free pictorial manner - all this is the result of the evolution in the development of pictorial means in all genres of the turn of the century. In search of "beauty and harmony", the artists try themselves in a variety of techniques and art forms - from monumental painting and theatrical scenery to book design and arts and crafts.

The emergence of Art Nouveau did not mean that the ideas of wandering died by the end of the century. Genre painting developed in the 1990s, but it developed somewhat differently than in the “classical” Wandering movement of the 1970s and 1980s. Thus, the peasant theme is revealed in a new way. The split in the rural community is emphasized accusatoryly 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 vitality of existence in hard, exhausting work in the painting “Washerwomen” (1901, State Tretyakov Gallery). He achieved this to a large extent thanks to new pictorial discoveries, to a new understanding of the possibilities of color and light.

Reticence, “subtext”, a well-found expressive detail make even more tragic the painting by Sergei Vasilyevich 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 dog killed and running from 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".

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), "Moskovskaya 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. 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. Ryabushkin's stylization is reflected in the flatness of the image, in a special system of plastic and linear rhythm, in the color scheme built on bright major colors, in the general decorative solution. Ryabushkin boldly introduces local colors into the plein-air landscape, for example, in The Wedding Train... - the red color of the wagon, large spots of festive clothes against the background of dark buildings and snow, given, however, in the finest color nuances. The landscape always poetically conveys the beauty of Russian nature. True, sometimes Ryabushkin is also characterized by an ironic attitude in depicting some aspects of everyday life, as, for example, in the painting “Tea Drinking” (cardboard, gouache, tempera, 1903, Russian Museum). In frontally seated static figures with saucers in their hands, measuredness, boredom, drowsiness are read, we also feel the oppressive power of petty-bourgeois life, the limitations of these people.

A.M. Vasnetsov taught in the landscape class of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (1901–1918). As a theoretician, he outlined his views in the book Art. The experience of analyzing the concepts that define the art of painting ”(Moscow, 1908), in which he advocated realistic traditions in art. Vasnetsov was also the founder of the Union of Russian Artists.

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 - healthy soil 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 laughing contagiously 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.

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

Mikhail Vasilyevich 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 the legendary city of Kitezh . This keen sense of nature, delight in the world, in front of every tree and blade of grass is especially pronounced in one of Nesterov's most famous works of the pre-revolutionary period - "The Vision of the Young Bartholomew" (1889-1890, State Tretyakov Gallery). In the disclosure of the plot of the picture, there are the same stylistic features as those of Ryabushkin, but a deeply lyrical sense of the beauty of nature is invariably expressed, through which the high spirituality of the characters, their enlightenment, their alienation from worldly fuss is conveyed.

Before turning to the image of Sergius of Radonezh, Nesterov had already expressed his interest in the theme of Ancient Russia with such works as "The Bride of Christ" (1887, location unknown), "The Hermit" (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, State Russian Museum).

M.V. Nesterov did a lot of religious monumental painting: together with V.M. Vasnetsov painted the Kyiv Vladimir Cathedral, independently - the monastery in Abastuman (Georgia) and the Marfo-Mariinsky monastery in Moscow. The murals are always dedicated to the ancient Russian theme (for example, in Georgia - to Alexander Nevsky). In the wall paintings of Nesterov, there are many observed real signs, especially in the landscape, portrait features - in the image of saints. In the artist's desire for a flat interpretation of the composition of elegance, ornamentality, refined sophistication of plastic rhythms, an 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 - "The Great Tongue" (1898, Russian Museum): the deliberately flat figures of nuns, "chernitsa" and "belitsa", generalized silhouettes, as if a slow ritual rhythm of light and dark spots - figures and landscape with its light birches and almost black firs. And as always with Nesterov, the landscape plays one of the main roles. “I love the Russian landscape,” the artist wrote, “against its background, somehow it’s better, you feel more clearly both the meaning of Russian life and the Russian soul.”

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 (the term of M.M. Allenov), 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. He began to paint plein air early, already in the portrait of a chorus girl in 1883, one can see his independent development of the principles of plein airism, embodied then in a number of portraits made in the estate of S. Mamontov in Abramtsevo (“In the Boat”, State Tretyakov Gallery; portrait of T. S. Lyubatovich, State Russian Museum, etc.), in the northern landscapes, executed during the expedition of S. Mamontov to the north (“Winter in Lapland”, State Tretyakov Gallery). His French landscapes, united by the name "Parisian Lights", are already a completely impressionistic painting, with its highest culture of etude. Sharp, instant impressions of the life of a big city: quiet streets at different times of the day, objects dissolved in a light-air environment, molded by a dynamic, “trembling”, vibrating brushstroke, a stream of such brushstrokes that create the illusion of a veil of rain or city air saturated with thousands of different vapors, - features reminiscent of the landscapes of Manet, Pissarro, Monet. Korovin is temperamental, emotional, impulsive, theatrical, hence the bright colors and romantic elation of his landscapes (“Paris. Capuchin Boulevard”, 1906, Tretyakov Gallery; “Paris at night. Italian Boulevard.” 1908, Tretyakov Gallery). Korovin retains the same features of impressionistic etude, painterly maestro, striking artistry in all other genres, primarily in portraiture and still life, but also in decorative panels, in applied art, in theatrical scenery, which he has been engaged in all his life (Portrait of Chaliapin, 1911, Russian Museum; "Fish, wine and fruits" 1916, State Tretyakov Gallery).

One of the greatest 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) represent 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 Abramtsevo circle. In Abramtsevo, the two portraits mentioned were painted, from which the glory of Serov, who entered art with his own, bright and poetic view of the world, began. Vera Mamontova sits in a calm pose at the table, peaches are scattered on a white tablecloth in front of her. She herself and all the objects are presented in the most complex light and air environment. Sun glare falls on the tablecloth, clothes, wall plate, knife. The depicted girl sitting at the table is in organic unity with all this material world, in harmony with it, full of vital trembling, inner movement. To an even greater extent, the principles of plein air painting were reflected in the portrait of the artist's cousin Masha Simanovich, painted right in the open air. The colors here are given in a complex interaction with each other, they perfectly convey the atmosphere of a summer day, color reflections that create the illusion of sun rays gliding through the foliage. Serov moves away from the critical realism of his teacher Repin to "poetic realism" (D.V. Sarabyanov's term). 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.

Serov often paints 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 figure of Yermolova resembles an ancient column, or rather, a classical statue, 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 such a great master that, choosing a different model, in the same genre of formal portrait, in fact, with the same expressive means, he was able to create an image of a completely different character. Thus, in the portrait of Princess Orlova (1910–1911, Russian Museum), some details are exaggerated (a huge hat, a too long back, a sharp knee angle), an accentuated 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, Tretyakov Gallery) (Peter in the picture is simply gigantic), which allows 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.

It is hard to believe at once 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 Aleksandrovich Vrubel (1856–1910) was more direct, although at the same time unusually 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 non-canonical 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, KMRI; "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, knows her perfectly, but creates his own fantasy world, little like 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 in no way seeks to fix a direct impression of reality. He gravitates toward literary subjects, which he interprets abstractly, trying 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 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, its main theme. In 1899 he wrote "The Flying Demon", in 1902 - "The Downtrodden Demon". 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 escape from a reality devoid of harmony into an unreal world of dreams, but plunged into the rough reality of the earth. This tragedy of the artistic worldview also determines the portrait characteristics of Vrubel: mental 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 the fabulous image of "Princess -Swan" (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."

The already mentioned industrialist and philanthropist Savva Mamontov played a very important role in Vrubel's life. Abramtsevo connected Vrubel with Rimsky-Korsakov, under the influence of whose work the artist writes his Swan Princess, performs the sculptures Volkhova, Mizgir, etc. In Abramtsevo, he did a lot of monumental and easel painting, he turns to folklore: to a fairy tale, to an epic, the result of which were the panels “Mikula Selyaninovich”, “Heroes”. Vrubel tries his hand at ceramics, making sculptures in majolica. He is interested in pagan Russia and Greece, the Middle East and India - all the cultures of mankind, artistic techniques which he seeks to attain. And each time the impressions he gleaned, he turned into deeply symbolic images, reflecting all the originality of his worldview.

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.

The universalism of talent, boundless imagination, extraordinary passion in the affirmation of noble ideals distinguish Vrubel from many of his contemporaries.

Vrubel's work brighter 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 wondrous pathetic symphony, that is, the fullest 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.

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 and the state that have long ceased to be a cultural force.” The beginning of the century is associated with the rise of Russian philosophical and religious thought, the highest level of poetry (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), Old 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 fine art. art 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.

His easel works most of all resemble not even decorative panels, but tapestries. The space is solved in an extremely conditional, planar manner, the figures are almost ethereal, like, for example, the girls by the pond in the painting "Pond" (1902, tempera, State Tretyakov Gallery), immersed in dreamy meditation, in deep contemplation. Faded, pale gray shades of color enhance the overall impression of fragile, unearthly beauty and anemic, ghostly, which extends not only to human images, but also to the nature depicted by him. It is no coincidence that Borisov-Musatov called one of his works "Ghosts" (1903, tempera, State Tretyakov Gallery): silent and inactive female figures, marble statues by the stairs, a half-naked tree - a faded range of blue, gray, purple tones enhances the ghostliness of the depicted.

This longing for bygone times made Borisov-Musatov related to the artists of the "World of Art" - an organization that arose in St. Petersburg in 1898 and united the masters of the highest artistic culture, the artistic elite of Russia of those years. (“The World of Art”, by the way, did not understand the art of Borisov-Musatov and recognized it only at the end of the artist’s life.) The beginning of the “World of Art” was laid by evenings in the house of A. Benois dedicated to art, literature and music. The people who gathered there were united by their love for beauty and the belief that it can only be found in art, since reality is ugly. Having also arisen as a reaction to the pettiness of the late Wandering movement, its edifying and illustrative nature, the World of Art soon turned into one of the major phenomena of Russian artistic culture. Almost all famous artists participated in this association - Benois, Somov, Bakst, E.E. Lansere, Golovin, Dobuzhinsky, Vrubel, Serov, K. Korovin, Levitan, Nesterov, Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Bilibin, Sapunov, Sudeikin, Ryabushkin, Roerich, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Malyavin, even Larionov and Goncharova. Of great importance for the formation of this association was the personality of Diaghilev, a patron and organizer of exhibitions, and later - the impresario of Russian ballet and opera tours abroad (Russian Seasons, which introduced Europe to the work of Chaliapin, Pavlova, Karsavina, Fokine, Nijinsky and others and revealed the world an example of the highest culture of form various arts: music, dance, painting, scenography). At the initial stage of the formation of the "World of Art", Diaghilev arranged an exhibition of English and German watercolors in St. Petersburg in 1897, then an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in 1898. Under his editorship from 1899 to 1904, a magazine was published under the same name, consisting of two departments: artistic and literary (the latter is of a religious and philosophical plan, D. Filosofov, D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius collaborated in it until the opening of his journal New Way in 1902. Then the religious and philosophical direction in the journal Mir Art" gave way to the theory of aesthetics, and the magazine in this part became a platform for other symbolists, headed by A. Bely and V. Bryusov).

In the editorial articles of the first issues of the journal, the main provisions of the "World of Art" about the autonomy of art, that the problems of modern culture are exclusively problems of artistic form, and that the main task of art is to educate the aesthetic tastes of Russian society, primarily through acquaintance with the works world art. We must give them their due: thanks to the World of Art, English and German art was really appreciated in a new way, and most importantly, Russian painting of the 18th century and the architecture of St. Petersburg classicism became a discovery for many. "Miriskusniki" fought for "criticism as an art", proclaiming the ideal of a critic-artist with a high professional culture and erudition. The type of such a critic was embodied by one of the creators of The World of Art, A.N. Benoit. "Miriskusniki" organized exhibitions. The first was also the only international one that brought together, in addition to Russians, artists from France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Norway, Finland, etc. Both St. Petersburg and Moscow painters and graphic artists took part in it. But the crack between these two schools - St. Petersburg and Moscow - was outlined almost from the first day. In March 1903, the last, fifth exhibition of the World of Art closed, in December 1904 the last issue of the magazine World of Art was published. Most of the artists moved to the “Union of Russian Artists” organized on the basis of the Moscow exhibition “36”, writers - to the New Way magazine opened by Merezhkovsky’s group, Moscow symbolists united around the “Vesy” magazine, musicians organized “Evenings of Contemporary Music”, Diaghilev went entirely into ballet and theater. His last significant work in the visual arts was a grandiose historical exhibition of Russian painting from iconography to the present in the Paris Autumn Salon of 1906, then exhibited in Berlin and Venice (1906-1907). In the section of modern painting, the main place was occupied by "World of Art". This was the first act of pan-European recognition of the "World of Art", as well as the discovery of Russian painting of the 18th - early 20th centuries. in general for Western criticism and a real triumph of Russian art.

In 1910 an attempt was made to breathe life back into the "World of Art" (led by Roerich). In the environment of painters at this time there is a delimitation. Benois and his supporters break with the Union of Russian Artists, Muscovites, and leave this organization, but they understand that the secondary association called the World of Art has nothing to do with the first. Benois sadly states that "not reconciliation under the banner of beauty has now become a slogan in all spheres of life, but a fierce struggle." Glory came to the "World of Art" artists, but the "World of Arts", in fact, no longer existed, although formally the association existed until the early 1920s (1924) - with a complete lack of integrity, on unlimited tolerance and flexibility of positions, reconciling artists from Rylov to Tatlin, from Grabar to Chagall. How can one not remember the Impressionists here? The community that was once born in Gleyre's workshop, in the "Salon of the Rejected", at the tables of the Guerbois cafe and which was to have a huge impact on all European painting, also fell apart on the threshold of its recognition. The second generation of "World of Art" is less busy with the problems of easel painting, their interests lie in graphics, mainly books, and theatrical and decorative arts, in both areas they made a real artistic reform. In the second generation of "World of Art" there were also major individuals (Kustodiev, Sudeikin, Serebryakova, Chekhonin, Grigoriev, Yakovlev, Shukhaev, Mitrokhin, etc.), but there were no innovative artists at all, because since the 1910s, the "World of Art" has overwhelmed epigonism wave. Therefore, when characterizing the World of Art, we will focus mainly on the first stage of the existence of this association and its core - Benois, Somov, Bakst.

The leading artist of the "World of Art" was Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939). The son of the chief curator of the Hermitage, who graduated from the Academy of Arts and traveled around Europe, Somov received an excellent education. Creative maturity came to him early, but, as correctly noted by the researcher (V.N. Petrov), he always had a certain duality - the struggle between a powerful realistic instinct and a painfully emotional worldview.

Somov, as we know him, appeared in the portrait of the artist Martynova (“Lady in Blue”, 1897–1900, State Tretyakov Gallery), in the portrait painting “Echo of the Past Time” (1903, b. on the map, aqua., gouache, State Tretyakov Gallery ), where he creates a poetic characterization of the fragile, anemic female beauty of the decadent model, refusing to convey the real everyday signs of modernity. He dresses the models in ancient costumes, gives their appearance the features of secret suffering, sadness and dreaminess, painful brokenness.

Other works by Somov are pastoral and gallant festivities (“The Ridiculous Kiss”, 1908, Russian Museum; “Marquise's Walk”, 1909, Russian Museum), full of caustic irony, spiritual emptiness, even hopelessness. Love scenes from the 18th – early 19th centuries. are always given with a touch of eroticism. The latter was especially manifested in his porcelain figurines, dedicated to one theme - the illusory pursuit of pleasure.

Somov worked a lot as a graphic artist, he designed S. Diaghilev's monograph on D. Levitsky, A. Benois's essay on Tsarskoe Selo. The book, as a single organism with its rhythmic and stylistic unity, was raised by him to an extraordinary height. Somov is not an illustrator, he “illustrates not a text, but an era, using a literary device as a springboard,” wrote A.A. Sidorov, and this is very true.

The ideological leader of the "World of Art" was Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960) - an unusually versatile talent. A painter, easel graphic artist and illustrator, theater artist, director, author of ballet librettos, art theorist and historian, musical figure, he was, in the words of A. Bely, the main politician and diplomat of the "World of Art". Coming from the highest stratum of the St. Petersburg artistic intelligentsia (composers and conductors, architects and painters), he first studied at the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. As an artist, he is related to Somov by stylistic tendencies and addiction to the past (“I am intoxicated with Versailles, this is some kind of illness, love, criminal passion ... I completely moved into the past ...”). In the landscapes of Versailles, Benois merged the historical reconstruction of the 17th century. and contemporary impressions of the artist, his perception of French classicism, French engraving. Hence the clear composition, clear spatiality, the grandeur and cold severity of rhythms, the opposition between the grandiosity of monuments of art and the smallness of human figures, which are only staffage among them (the 1st Versailles series of 1896-1898 under the title "The Last Walks of Louis XIV"). In the second Versailles series (1905–1906), the irony, which is also characteristic of the first sheets, is colored with almost tragic notes (“The King’s Walk”, c., gouache, aqua, gold, silver, pen, 1906, State Tretyakov Gallery). The thinking of Benois is the thinking of a theatrical artist par excellence, who knew and felt the theater very well.

Nature is perceived by Benois in an associative connection with history (views of Pavlovsk, Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, executed by him in watercolor technique).

In a series of paintings from the Russian past, commissioned by the Moscow publishing house Knebel (illustrations for the "Royal Hunts"), in scenes of the noble, landowner life of the 18th century. Benois created an intimate image of this era, although somewhat theatrical (Parade under Paul I, 1907, State Russian Museum).

Benois the illustrator (Pushkin, Hoffman) is a whole page in the history of the book. Unlike Somov, Benois creates a narrative illustration. The plane of the page is not an end in itself for him. The illustrations for The Queen of Spades were rather complete independent works, not so much the “art of the book”, as A.A. Sidorov, how much "art in the book." A masterpiece of book illustration was the graphic design of The Bronze Horseman (1903,1905,1916,1921–1922, ink and watercolor imitating colored woodcuts). In a series of illustrations for the great poem, the main character is the architectural landscape of St. Petersburg, now solemnly pathetic, now peaceful, now sinister, against which the figure of Eugene seems even more insignificant. This is how Benois expresses the tragic conflict between the fate of Russian statehood and the personal fate of a little man (“And all night long the poor madman, / Wherever he turned his feet, / The Bronze Horseman was everywhere with him / With a heavy stomp galloped”).

The activity of Benois, an art critic and art historian who, together with Grabar, updated the methods, techniques and themes of Russian art history, is a whole stage in the history of art criticism (see "The History of Painting of the 19th Century" by R. Muther - the volume "Russian Painting", 1901- 1902; "Russian School of Painting", edition of 1904; "Tsarskoe Selo in the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna", 1910; articles in the magazines "World of Art" and "Old Years", "Art Treasures of Russia", etc.).

The third in the core of the "World of Art" was Lev Samuilovich Bakst (1866-1924), who became famous as a theater artist and was the first among the "World of Art" to gain fame in Europe. He came to the "World of Art" from the Academy of Arts, then professed the Art Nouveau style, joined the leftist trends in European painting. At the first exhibitions of the World of Art, he exhibited a number of pictorial and graphic portraits (Benoit, Bely, Somov, Rozanov, Gippius, Diaghilev), where nature, coming in a stream of living states, was transformed into a kind of ideal representation of a contemporary person. Bakst created the brand of the magazine "World of Art", which became the emblem of Diaghilev's "Russian Seasons" in Paris. Bakst's graphics lack 18th-century motifs. and estate themes. He gravitates towards antiquity, moreover, to the Greek archaic, interpreted symbolically. Special success the symbolists used his painting "Ancient Horror" - "Terror antiquus" (tempera, 1908, Russian Museum). Terrible stormy sky, lightning illuminating the depths of the sea and ancient city, - and over all this universal catastrophe dominates the archaic bark with a mysterious frozen smile. Soon Bakst completely devoted himself to theatrical and scenery work, and his scenery and costumes for the ballets of the Diaghilev entreprise, performed with extraordinary brilliance, virtuoso, artistically, brought him worldwide fame. In its design there were performances with Anna Pavlova, ballets by Fokine. The artist made sets and costumes for Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, Stravinsky's The Firebird (both 1910), Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, and The Afternoon of a Faun to Debussy's music (both 1912).

From the first generation of “World of Art” the youngest was Evgeniy Evgenievich Lansere (1875–1946), who in his work touched upon all the main problems of book graphics of the early 20th century. (See his illustrations for the book "Legends of the ancient castles of Brittany", for Lermontov, the cover for "Nevsky Prospekt" by Bozheryanov, etc.). Lansere created a number of watercolors and lithographs of St. Petersburg (Kalinkin Bridge, Nikolsky Market, etc.). Architecture occupies a huge place in his historical compositions (“Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoye Selo”, 1905, State Tretyakov Gallery). We can say that in the work of Serov, Benois, Lansere, a new type of historical painting was created - it is devoid of a plot, but at the same time it perfectly recreates the appearance of the era, evokes many historical, literary and aesthetic associations. One of Lansere's best creations - 70 drawings and watercolors for L.N. Tolstoy's "Hadji Murad" (1912-1915), which Benois considered "an independent song that fits perfectly into Tolstoy's powerful music." During the Soviet era, Lansere became a prominent muralist.

The graphics of Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875–1957) represent not so much Petersburg of the Pushkin era or the 18th century, but a modern city, which he was able to convey with almost tragic expressiveness (“The Old House”, 1905, watercolor, State Tretyakov Gallery), as well as a person - inhabitant of such cities (“The Man with Glasses”, 1905–1906, pastel, State Tretyakov Gallery: a lonely man, against the backdrop of dull houses, a sad man whose head resembles a skull). The urbanism of the future inspired Dobuzhinsky with panic fear. He also worked extensively in illustration, where his series of ink drawings for Dostoevsky's White Nights (1922) can be considered the most remarkable. Dobuzhinsky also worked in the theater, designed for Nemirovich-Danchenko Nikolai Stavrogin (a staging of Dostoevsky's Demons), Turgenev's plays A Month in the Country and The Freeloader.

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) occupies a special place in the World of Art. A connoisseur of philosophy and ethnography of the East, an archaeologist-scientist, Roerich received an excellent education, first at home, then at the law and historical-philological faculties of St. Petersburg University, then at the Academy of Arts, in the workshop of Kuindzhi, and in Paris in the studio of F. Cormon. Early he gained the authority of a scientist. He was related to the "World of Art" by the same love for retrospection, only not of the 17th-18th centuries, but of pagan Slavic and Scandinavian antiquity, to Ancient Russia; stylistic tendencies, theatrical decorativeness (“Messenger”, 1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; “The Elders Converge”, 1898, Russian Museum; “Sinister”, 1901, Russian Museum). Roerich was most closely associated with the philosophy and aesthetics of Russian symbolism, but his art did not fit into the framework of the existing trends, because, in accordance with the artist's worldview, it turned, as it were, to all of humanity with an appeal for a friendly union of all peoples. Hence the special epic nature of his paintings.

In the second generation of the "World of Art" one of the most gifted artists was Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927), a student of Repin, who helped him in his work on the "State Council". Kustodiev is also characterized by stylization, but this is a stylization of the popular popular print. Hence the bright festive “Fairs”, “Shrovetide”, “Balagany”, hence his paintings from the petty-bourgeois and merchant life, conveyed with slight irony, but not without admiring these red-cheeked, half-asleep beauties behind a samovar and with saucers in plump fingers (“Merchant”, 1915, Russian Museum; "The Merchant for Tea", 1918, Russian Museum).

A.Ya. Golovin is one of the greatest theater artists of the first quarter of the 20th century; I. Ya. Bilibin, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva and others.

The "World of Art" was a major aesthetic movement at the turn of the century, which reassessed the entire modern artistic culture, approved new tastes and problems, returned to art - at the highest professional level - the lost forms of book graphics and theatrical and decorative painting, which gained all-European recognition through their efforts, created new art criticism, which promoted Russian art abroad, in fact, even opened some of its stages, like the Russian XVIII century. The "World of Art" created a new type of historical painting, portrait, landscape with its own stylistic features (distinct stylistic tendencies, the predominance of graphic techniques over pictorial ones, a purely decorative understanding of color, etc.). This determines their significance for Russian art.

For some "World of Art", however, the first Russian revolution was a real revolution in their worldview. The mobility and accessibility of graphics caused her special activity in these years of revolutionary turmoil. A huge number of satirical magazines arose (380 titles were counted from 1905 to 1917). The Sting magazine stood out for its revolutionary-democratic orientation, but the largest artistic forces were grouped around the Bogey and its Infernal Mail supplement. The rejection of autocracy united liberal-minded artists of various trends. In one of the issues of the Zhupel, Bilibin places a caricature "Donkey in 1/20 life size": in a frame with attributes of power and glory, where the image of the king was usually placed, a donkey is drawn. Lansere in 1906 prints the cartoon "Feast": the tsarist generals in a gloomy feast listen not to singing, but to screaming soldiers standing at attention. Dobuzhinsky in the picture "October Idyll" remains true to the theme modern city, only ominous signs of events burst into this city: a window broken by a bullet, a lying doll, glasses and a blood stain on the wall and on the pavement. Kustodiev made a number of caricatures of the tsar and his generals and portraits of the tsarist ministers - Witte, Ignatiev, Dubasov, etc., exceptional in their sharpness and malicious irony, which he studied so well while helping Repin in his work on the "State Council". Suffice it to say that Witte under his hand appears as a staggering clown with a red banner in one hand and the royal flag in the other.

But the most expressive in the revolutionary graphics of those years should be recognized as the drawings of V.A. Serov. His position was quite definite during the revolution of 1905. The revolution brought to life a whole series of Serov's caricatures: “1905. After the Pacification” (Nicholas II, with a racket under his arm, distributes St. George's crosses to the suppressors); "Harvest" (rifles are laid in sheaves on the field). The most famous composition in this series is “Soldiers, brave kids! Where is your glory? (1905, Russian Museum). Serov's civic position, his skill, observation and wise laconism as a draftsman were fully manifested here. Serov depicts the beginning of the Cossacks' attack on the demonstrators on January 9, 1905. In the background, the demonstrators are given in a general mass; in front, at the very edge of the sheet, there are large individual figures of Cossacks, and between the first and the background, in the center, an officer calling them to attack on horseback, with a saber drawn. The name, as it were, contains all the bitter irony of the situation: the Russian soldiers took up arms against their people. So it was and so this tragic event was seen not only by Serov from the window of his workshop, but also (let us say figuratively) from the depths of the liberal consciousness of the Russian intelligentsia as a whole. Russian artists who sympathized with the revolution of 1905 did not know what cataclysms of national history they were on the verge of. Taking the side of the revolution, they preferred, relatively speaking, a terrorist bomber (from the heirs of nihilists-raznochintsy, "with their skills in political struggle and ideological indoctrination of broad sections of society, ”according to the correct definition of one historian) policeman, standing in the protection of order. They did not know that the "red wheel" of the revolution would sweep away not only the autocracy they hated, but the whole way of Russian life, the whole Russian culture, which they served and which was dear to them.

In 1903, as already mentioned, one of the largest exhibition associations of the beginning of the century, the Union of Russian Artists, arose. At first, almost all the prominent figures of the "World of Art" entered it - Benois, Bakst, Somov, Dobuzhinsky, Serov, Vrubel, Borisov-Musatov were participants in the first exhibitions. The initiators of the creation of the association were Moscow artists associated with the "World of Art", but weighed down by the programmatic aesthetics of Petersburgers. The face of the "Union" was determined mainly by Moscow painters of the Itinerant direction, students of the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, Savrasov's heirs, students of Serov and K. Korovin. Many exhibited at the same time in traveling exhibitions. The exhibitors of the "Union" were artists of different worldviews: S. Ivanov, M. Nesterov, A. Arkhipov, the Korovin brothers, L. Pasternak. Organizational affairs were in charge of A.M. Vasnetsov, S.A. Vinogradov, V.V. Binders. Pillars of the Wanderers V.M. Vasnetsov, Surikov, Polenov were its members. K. Korovin was considered the leader of the "Union".

The national landscape, lovingly painted pictures of peasant Russia, is one of the main genres of the artists of the "Union", in which "Russian impressionism" expressed itself in a peculiar way with its predominantly rural rather than urban motifs. So the landscapes of I.E. Grabar (1871–1960), with their lyrical mood, with the finest pictorial nuances reflecting instantaneous changes in true nature, is a kind of parallel on Russian soil to the French impressionistic landscape (“September Snow”, 1903, State Tretyakov Gallery). In his automonograph, Grabar recalls this plein-air landscape: “The spectacle of snow with bright yellow foliage was so unexpected and at the same time so beautiful that I immediately settled down on the terrace and painted ... a picture in three days.” Grabar's interest in the decomposition of visible color into spectral, pure colors of the palette also makes him related to neo-impressionism, to J. Seurat and P. Signac ("March Snow", 1904, State Tretyakov Gallery). The play of colors in nature, complex coloristic effects become the subject of close study of the "Allies", who create on the canvas a pictorial and plastic figurative world, devoid of narrative and illustrativeness.

The "Allies", unlike the Petersburgers - the graphic artists of the "World of Art" - are mostly painters with a heightened decorative sense of color. An excellent example of this is the paintings of F.A. Malyavin.

Among the participants of the "Union" there were artists who were close to the "World of Art" by the very theme of creativity. So, K.F. Yuon (1875-1958) was attracted by the appearance of ancient Russian cities, the panorama of old Moscow. But Yuon is far from aesthetically admiring the motives of the past, the ghostly architectural landscape. These are not Versailles parks and Tsarskoye Selo baroque, but the architecture of old Moscow in its spring or winter guise. Pictures of nature are full of life, they feel a natural impression, from which the artist was primarily repelled (March Sun, 1915, State Tretyakov Gallery; Trinity Lavra in Winter, 1910, Russian Museum). The subtle changing states of nature are depicted in the landscapes of another member of the Soyuz and at the same time a member of the Association traveling exhibitions- S.Yu. Zhukovsky (1873-1944): the bottomlessness of the sky, changing its color, the slow movement of water, the sparkling of snow under the moon ("Moonlight Night", 1899, State Tretyakov Gallery; "Dam", 1909, State Russian Museum). Often he also has the motif of an abandoned estate.

In the painting by the painter of the St. Petersburg school, a loyal member of the "Union of Russian Artists" A.A. Rylov (1870-1939), "Green Noise" (1904), the master managed to convey, as it were, the very breath of a fresh wind, under which trees sway and sails swell. There are some joyful and disturbing forebodings in it. The romantic traditions of his teacher Kuindzhi also affected here.

On the whole, The Allies gravitated not only towards plein-air studies, but also towards monumental pictorial forms. By 1910, the time of the split and the secondary formation of the "World of Art", at the exhibitions of the "Union" one could see an intimate landscape (Vinogradov, Petrovichev, Yuon, etc.), painting close to French divisionism (Grabar, early Larionov) or close symbolism (P. Kuznetsov, Sapunov, Sudeikin); they were also attended by the artists of Diaghilev's "World of Art" - Benois, Somov, Bakst, Lansere, Dobuzhinsky.

The years between the two revolutions are characterized by the intensity of creative searches, sometimes directly excluding each other. In 1907, in Moscow, the Golden Fleece magazine organized the only exhibition of artists following Borisov-Musatov, called the Blue Rose. P. Kuznetsov became the leading artist of the Blue Rose. M. Saryan, N. Sapunov, S. Sudeikin, K. Petrov-Vodkin, A. Fonvizin, sculptor A. Matveev grouped around him during the years of study. The “Blue Bears” are closest to symbolism, which was expressed primarily in their “language”: unsteadiness of mood, vague, untranslatable musicality of associations, refinement of color relationships. In Russian art, symbolism was most likely formed in literature; in the very first years of the new century, such names as A. Blok, A. Bely, V. Ivanov, S. Solovyov already sounded. Separate elements of "pictorial symbolism" also appeared in the work of Vrubel, as already mentioned, Borisov-Musatov, Roerich, Chiurlionis. In the painting of Kuznetsov and his associates there were many points of contact with the poetics of Balmont, Bryusov, Bely, only they were attached to symbolism through the operas of Wagner, the dramas of Ibsen, Hauptmann and Maeterlinck. The exhibition "Blue Rose" was a kind of synthesis: symbolist poets performed at it, modern music was performed. The aesthetic platform of the participants of the exhibition also affected in subsequent years, and the name of this exhibition became a household name for a whole trend in art in the second half of the 900s. The entire activity of the "Blue Rose" also bears the strongest imprint of the influence of the Art Nouveau style (plane-decorative stylization of forms, whimsical linear rhythms).

The works of Pavel Varfolomeevich Kuznetsov (1878–1968) reflect the basic principles of the Blue Bears. His work embodies the neo-romantic concept of "beautiful clarity" (an expression of the poet M. Kuzmin). Kuznetsov created a decorative panel-picture in which he sought to abstract from everyday concreteness, to show the unity of man and nature, the stability of the eternal cycle of life and nature, the birth of the human soul in this harmony. Hence the desire for monumental forms of painting, dreamy-contemplative, purified from everything instantaneous, universal, timeless notes, a constant desire to convey the spirituality of matter. A figure is only a sign expressing a concept; color serves to convey feelings; rhythm - in order to introduce into a certain world of sensations (as in icon painting - a symbol of love, tenderness, sorrow, etc.). Hence the reception of a uniform distribution of light over the entire surface of the canvas as one of the foundations of Kuznetsov's decorative effect. Serov said that P. Kuznetsov's nature "breathes". This is perfectly expressed in his Kyrgyz (Steppe) and Bukhara suites, in Central Asian landscapes. (“Sleeping in the sheepfold” of 1911, as the researcher of Kuznetsov’s work A. Rusakova writes, is an image of a dreamy steppe world, peace, harmony. The depicted woman is not a specific person, but a Kyrgyz woman in general, a sign of the Mongolian race.) High sky, boundless desert, gentle hills, tents, flocks of sheep create an image of a patriarchal idyll. The eternal, unattainable dream of harmony, of the fusion of man with nature, which at all times worried artists (Mirage in the Steppe, 1912, State Tretyakov Gallery). Kuznetsov studied the techniques of ancient Russian icon painting, the early Italian Renaissance. This appeal to the classical traditions of world art in search of its own great style, as rightly noted by researchers, was of fundamental importance in a period when any traditions were often denied altogether.

The exoticism of the East - Iran, Egypt, Turkey - is embodied in the landscapes of Martiros Sergeevich Saryan (1880-1972). The East was a natural theme for the Armenian artist. Saryan creates in his painting a world full of bright decorativeness, more passionate, more earthly than that of Kuznetsov, and the pictorial solution is always built on contrasting color relationships, without nuances, in sharp shadow comparison (“Date Palm, Egypt”, 1911, maps. , tempera, GTG). Note that the oriental works of Saryan with their color contrasts appear before the works of Matisse, created by him after traveling to Algeria and Morocco.

The images of Saryan are monumental due to the generalization of forms, large colorful planes, the general lapidarity of the language - this, as a rule, is a generalized image of Egypt, whether, Persia, native Armenia, while maintaining vital naturalness, as if written from life. Saryan's decorative canvases are always cheerful, they correspond to his idea of creativity: “... a work of art is the very result of happiness, that is, creative work. Consequently, it should ignite the flame of creative burning in the viewer, contribute to the identification of his natural desire for happiness and freedom.

Kuznetsov and Saryan created a poetic image of a colorful and rich world in different ways, one based on the traditions of ancient Russian icon art, the other on ancient Armenian miniatures. During the Blue Rose period, they were also united by an interest in Oriental motifs and symbolic tendencies. An impressionistic perception of reality was not characteristic of the Blue Rose artists.

The "Goluborozites" worked hard and fruitfully in the theater, where they came into close contact with the dramaturgy of symbolism. N.N. Sapunov (1880–1912) and S.Yu. Sudeikin (1882-1946) designed the dramas of M. Maeterlinck, one Sapunov - G. Ibsen and Blok's "Balaganchik". Sapunov also transferred this theatrical fantasy, the lubok stylization of the fair into his easel works, sharply decorative still lifes with paper flowers in exquisite porcelain vases (“Peonies”, 1908, tempera, State Tretyakov Gallery), into grotesque genre scenes in which reality is mixed with phantasmagoria (“Masquerade”, 1907, State Tretyakov Gallery).

In 1910, a number of young artists - P. Konchalovsky, I. Mashkov, A. Lentulov, R. Falk, A. Kuprin, M. Larionov, N. Goncharova and others - united in the Jack of Diamonds organization, which had its own charter, arranged exhibitions and published its own collections of articles. The “Jack of Diamonds” actually existed until 1917. As post-impressionism, primarily Cezanne, was a “reaction to impressionism”, so the “Jack of Diamonds” opposed the vagueness, untranslatability, the subtlest nuances of the symbolic language of the “Blue Rose” and the aesthetic stylism of the “World of Art” . The “Knave of Diamonds”, carried away by the materiality, “thingness” of the world, professed a clear construction of the picture, emphasized objectivity of the form, intensity, fullness of color. It is no coincidence that the still life becomes a favorite genre of the “Valetovites”, just as the landscape becomes a favorite genre of the members of the Union of Russian Artists. Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov (1881–1944) in his still lifes (“Blue Plums”, 1910, State Tretyakov Gallery; “Still Life with Camellia”, 1913, State Tretyakov Gallery) fully expresses the program of this association, as Pyotr Petrovich Konchalovsky (1876–1956) - in portraits (portrait of G. Yakulov, 1910, Russian Museum; "Matador Manuel Hart", 1910, State Tretyakov Gallery). The subtlety in conveying the change of moods, the psychologism of the characteristics, the understatement of the states, the dematerialization of the painting of the "Blue Bearers", their romantic poetry are rejected by the "Valetovites". They are opposed by the almost spontaneous festivity of colors, the expression of the contour drawing, the juicy pasty broad manner of writing, which convey an optimistic vision of the world, creating an almost farcical, square mood. Konchalovsky and Mashkov in their portraits give a vivid, but one-dimensional characterization, sharpening one feature almost to the point of grotesque; in still lifes, they emphasize the plane of the canvas, the rhythm of color spots (“Agave”, 1916, State Tretyakov Gallery, - Konchalovsky; portrait of a lady with a pheasant, 1911, Russian Museum, - Mashkov). The "Knave of Diamonds" allow such simplifications in the interpretation of the form, which are akin to a popular popular print, a folk toy, painting tiles, a signboard. The craving for primitivism (from the Latin primitivus - primitive, initial) manifested itself in various artists who imitated the simplified forms of art of the so-called primitive eras - primitive tribes and nationalities - in search of gaining immediacy and integrity of artistic perception. The “Jack of Diamonds” drew its perceptions from Cezanne (hence sometimes the name “Russian Cezanneism”), or rather, from the decorative version of Cezanneism - Fauvism, even more - from Cubism, even from Futurism; from cubism the “shift” of forms, from futurism - dynamics, various modifications of the form, as in the painting “Ringing. Belfry of Ivan the Great” (1915, State Tretyakov Gallery) by A.V. Lentulov (1884–1943). Lentulov created a very expressive image, built on the motif of old architecture, the harmony of which is broken by the nervous, sharp perception of modern man, due to industrial rhythms.

P.P. portraits Falk (1886–1958), who remained faithful to cubism in understanding and interpreting form (it is not for nothing that they speak of Falk's “lyrical cubism”), developed in subtle color-plastic harmonies that convey a certain state of the model.

In the still lifes and landscapes of A. V. Kuprin (1880–1960), sometimes an epic note appears, there is a tendency to generalization (“Still Life with a Pumpkin, a Vase and Tassels”, 1917, State Tretyakov Gallery, rightly called by researchers “a poem glorifying the painter’s tools”) . Kuprin's decorative beginning is combined with an analytical insight into nature.

The extreme simplification of the form, the direct connection with the art of signage is especially noticeable in M.F. Larionov (1881-1964), one of the founders of the "Jack of Diamonds", but already in 1911 broke with him and organized new exhibitions: "Donkey's Tail" and "Target". Larionov paints landscapes, portraits, still lifes, works as a theater artist of the Diaghilev entreprise, then turns to genre painting, his theme is the life of a provincial street, soldiers' barracks. The forms are flat, grotesque, as if deliberately stylized as a child's drawing, popular print or signboard. In 1913, Larionov published his book "Luchism" - in fact, the first of the manifestos of abstract art, the true creators of which in Russia were V. Kandinsky and K. Malevich.

Artist N.S. Goncharova (1881–1962), Larionov's wife, developed the same tendencies in her genre paintings, mostly on a peasant theme. In the years under review, in her work, more decorative and colorful than the art of Larionov, monumental in its inner strength and laconicism, a passion for primitivism is keenly felt. Describing the work of Goncharova and Larionov, the term "neo-primitivism" is often used. During these years, A. Shevchenko, V. Chekrygin, K. Malevich, V. Tatlin, M. Chagall are close to them in terms of artistic worldview, the search for an expressive language. Each of these artists (the only exception is Chekrygin, who died very early) soon found his own creative path.

M.Z. Chagall (1887–1985) created fantasies transformed from the boring impressions of small-town Vitebsk life and interpreted in a naive-poetic and grotesque-symbolic spirit. With surreal space, bright colorfulness, deliberate primitivization of form, Chagall turns out to be close to both Western expressionism and primitive folk art (“I and the Village”, 1911, Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; “Over Vitebsk”, 1914, coll. Zak. Toronto; "Wedding", 1918, State Tretyakov Gallery).

Many of the masters named above, close to the Jack of Diamonds, were members of the St. Petersburg organization Union of Youth, which was formed almost simultaneously with the Jack of Diamonds (1909). In addition to Chagall, P. Filonov, K. Malevich, V. Tatlin, Yu. Annenkov, N. Altman, D. Burliuk, A. Exter and others exhibited in the Soyuz. L. Zheverzheev played the leading role in it. Just like the "valetovtsy", members of the "Union of Youth" published theoretical collections. Until the collapse of the association in 1917. The "Union of Youth" did not have a specific program, professing symbolism, and cubism, and futurism, and "non-objectivity", but each of the artists had his own creative face.

The most difficult to characterize P.N. Filonov (1883–1941). D. Sarabyanov correctly defined Filonov's work as "lonely and unique." In this sense, he rightly puts the artist on a par with A. Ivanov, N. Ge, V. Surikov, M. Vrubel. Nevertheless, the figure of Filonov, his appearance in Russian artistic culture 10s of XX century. natural. With his focus on “a kind of self-developing movement of forms” (D. Sarabyanov), Filonov is closest to futurism, but he is far from it with the problems of his work. Rather, it is closer not to the picturesque, but to the poetic futurism of Khlebnikov with his search for the original meaning of the word. “Often starting to paint a picture from any one edge, transferring his creative charge to the forms, Filonov gives them life, and then, as if not by the will of the artist, but by their own movement, they develop, change, renew, grow. This self-development of forms by Filonov is truly amazing” (D. Sarabyanov).

The art of the pre-revolutionary years in Russia is marked by the extraordinary complexity and inconsistency of artistic quests, hence the successive groupings with their own program settings and stylistic sympathies. But along with the experimenters in the field of abstract forms in the Russian art of that time, the "World of Art" and "Goluborozites", "allies", "knaves of diamonds" continued to work at the same time, there was also a powerful stream of neoclassical currents, an example of which can be the work of an active member of the "Mir art” in his “second generation” Z.E. Serebryakova (1884–1967). In her poetic genre paintings with their laconic drawing, palpably sensual plastic modeling, and balance of composition, Serebryakova proceeds from the high national traditions of Russian art, primarily Venetsianov and even further from ancient Russian art (“Peasants”, 1914, Russian Museum; “Harvest”, 1915 , Odessa Art Museum; "Whitening of the canvas", 1917, State Tretyakov Gallery).

Finally, brilliant evidence of the vitality of national traditions, the great ancient Russian painting is the work of Kuzma Sergeevich Petrov-Vodkin (1878–1939), an artist-thinker who later became the most prominent master of art of the Soviet period. In the famous painting Bathing the Red Horse (1912, Fri), the artist resorted to a figurative metaphor. As it was correctly noted, the young man on a bright red horse evokes associations with the popular image of St. George the Victorious (“Saint Yegory”), and the generalized silhouette, rhythmic, compact composition, the saturation of contrasting color spots that sound in full force, and the flatness in the interpretation of forms lead in memory of an ancient Russian icon. A harmoniously enlightened image is created by Petrov-Vodkin in the monumental painting “Girls on the Volga” (1915, State Tretyakov Gallery), in which he also feels his orientation towards the traditions of Russian art, leading the master to a true nationality.

Russian painting of the late xix early xx

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