The article will consider such an ambiguous cultural phenomenon like modernism. The main attention is paid to the various styles of modernism, in particular, its manifestation in Russian culture and especially literature, as well as those characteristic features that unite all these numerous styles.

What is modernism?

Let's figure it out. Before answering the question of what brings together different currents of modernism, it is worth defining this phenomenon. Modernism is a very general designation used for the culture of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. However, on chronological framework This phenomenon, there are different points of view, some researchers believe that modernism is a phenomenon exclusively of the 20th century. This term comes from the Italian word modernismo, which translates as " modern trend”, or, if you look deeper - from the Latin modernus - “modern”.

Characteristic features of modernism

The period of modernism not only in art (although in this area it manifested itself, perhaps, most clearly), but also in philosophy and science, is determined by a sharp break with previous concepts and experience, is characterized by a desire to refute outdated principles and establish relevant ones, the emergence of new expressive artistic forms that differed in generality and schematicity. Sometimes the search for forms of expression of a subjective view of reality was an end in itself to the detriment of ideological value and aesthetics of the work. All these features of modernism caused its negative perception in bourgeois society. These currents called into question his values. Bourgeois moods were reflected primarily in realism, and modernism and realism are directly opposite currents. The denial of the traditions of culture, from antiquity to realism, is usually referred to as avant-garde (from the French "vanguard"), but this concept dates back to the 20th century. However, the relationship between the concepts of modernism and avant-garde is still unclear, they are perceived either as interchangeable, or as completely opposite.

The culture of modernism

Modernism, in essence, was the expression of all the internal inconsistencies and contradictions that exist in bourgeois society. This happened both under the influence of the development of science and technology, and under the influence of world socio-political catastrophes. Conflicts and discord in society, of course, had an impact on the change in the psychology of people at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the emergence of technical innovations and communication tools.

Cultural and social stratification led to the emergence of two subcultures - elite and mass, the division into which is present in society to this day. In the same period, the concept of kitsch, closely associated with mass culture, arose.

Without touching so far on art and literature, one can speak of modernism in philosophy, where it comes into contact mainly with the so-called philosophy of life, as well as existentialism.

The so-called decline of Europe is reflected in the culture of modernism, but the essence of this trend is not only in the depiction of the cultural and spiritual crisis, but also in the constant search for ways out of it. And if we talk about what brings together different currents of modernism, then this is, first of all, that they all provide numerous and varied options for exiting.

Modernism in art

To designate modernism in art, the term "modern" is usually used. It begins to change qualitatively: if earlier the authors depicted mostly copied reality, then from the end of the nineteenth century on canvases they convey their own view of this reality, their emotions and feelings towards it, thereby trying to depict the real reality hiding behind the outer shell.

Since the end of the 19th century, a huge variety of styles have emerged, for the general designation of which the term "modernism" is used. Such a sharp emergence of new stylistic trends may be due to the fact that life during this period begins to change extremely quickly, everything is constantly changing, and along with the development of science, social relationships, politics, various styles in art and architecture arise, disappear and change. The ideas of "art for art's sake", "art for itself" arise, and at the same time art becomes a means for dissecting the surrounding reality and overcoming its contradictions.

Among the most significant and notable are Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Futurism, Dadaism, Surrealism and abstract art. All these genres are characterized by a break with the depiction of objective reality, an extremely subjective view, elitism, and the rejection of artistic heritage previous eras - classicism and realism. The latter does not always mean only a complete break with the former. artistic experience, but also the desire to express aesthetic ideals in a better way.

New styles arose in different time periods and in different countries, often with artists working in modernist styles. What brings together different currents of modernism, if they were so different from each other? In fact, they often had nothing in common except following anti-realist tendencies and striving to express their vision of the world.

The year of the emergence of the so-called Salon des Misérables - 1863 - is often cited as the lower bar for the time of the appearance of modernism. The works of artists who were not approved by the jury members of the Paris Salon were exhibited there - and it was the main focus of European art of that time. The appearance of this salon is associated with the names of famous impressionists, therefore, this style is conditionally considered the first manifestation of modernism in painting. Modernism began to disappear closer to the middle of the twentieth century, when postmodernism began to appear.

Modernism in literature

As a trend in literature, modernism takes shape on the eve of the First World War and reaches its peak in the 20s of the 20th century. Just like in art, modernism is an international trend represented by various schools - expressionism, Dadaism, surrealism, etc.

Three writers, D. Joyce, F. Kafka and M. Proust, are considered the founders of the modernist trend in literature, who developed new methods of working with the word. The philosopher F. Nietzsche, the concepts of Z. Freud and C. Jung had a strong influence on the literature of modernism.

The literature of modernism consists of numerous diverse groupings, united by the desire not to describe the surrounding reality, but to express themselves, which ultimately helped to direct the focus of public attention to the individuality of each person and had a significant impact on changing the psychology of society.

Russian modernism

An interesting phenomenon is modernism in Russia. Here it was presented primarily in the literature and has a number of features. In particular, like all modernist movements, he had an interest in the ancient mythological images, but in the Russian version of modernism this was reflected especially brightly, a clear reference point to mythology and folklore appeared in it. Russian modernism was inherent in that part of the intelligentsia that was most Europeanized. In the same way as Western modernism, modernism in Russia was to a certain extent permeated with decadent moods, which in particular concerns one of the largest currents - symbolism. And modernism throughout the world was represented by adherents of the coming spiritual revolution.

Modernism in Russian literature

Perhaps Russian modernism is best represented in the literature of the 20th century. Among the main currents, it is worth recalling acmeism, futurism and symbolism. All these currents carry characteristics modernism - the search for new ways of depicting reality and the rejection of traditional art.

Symbolism

As a trend in literature, symbolism appeared at the end of the 19th century in France. Poetry becomes individual, it consolidates instant impressions, strives to become as sensual and expressive as possible.

According to the symbolists, external and internal reality cannot be known in a rational way, therefore, the artist-creator, through the use of symbolism, is able to cognize secret meanings peace. Symbolism in Russia arose quite suddenly, and as its starting point, they usually note “On the Causes of the Decline and New Trends in Modern Russian Literature” - an article by the poet D. Merezhkovsky. He, Z. Gippius, V. Bryusov and others were one of the representatives of the senior symbolists, in whose work the themes of the uniqueness of the path of the creator, the imperfection of the world, were mainly raised. The next generation of Symbolists - the Young Symbolists - uses the themes of transforming the world with the help of beauty, combining life and art, among the representatives were Blok, Andrei Bely, V. Ivanov, this generation of poets can be called utopians. Thanks to the representatives of symbolism, the word in poetry received many additional semantic shades, the language became more figurative and flexible.

Acmeism

This phenomenon arose as a counterbalance to symbolism, based on ideas about the clarity and clarity of the view of reality and its corresponding image. The word, in their opinion, should not be ambiguous, it should have its original meaning, the style should be concise, restrained and expressive, the structure of the work should be strict and refined. The beginning of the existence of acmeism is associated with the emergence of the "Workshop of poets", whose leaders were the poets Gumilyov and Gorodetsky. In this current there is a roll call with literary traditions Golden Age of Russian Poetry. Other representatives of modernism include A. Akhmatova, O. Mandelstam, M. Kuzmin.

Futurism

Representatives of this most avant-garde of the trends sought to create art that would radically change the surrounding reality. They were distinguished not only by the use of experimental forms of creativity, bold poetic structure and language, but often by the fact that they committed outrageous acts and led an unusual lifestyle. Futurism was divided into several subgroups: ego-futurism, cubo-futurism, "Centrifuge" and included such famous poets as V. Mayakovsky, V. Khlebnikov, D. Burliuk and many others. The time of appearance of this modernist (and even more, avant-garde) trend is considered to be 1910, when the first collection of futuristic poetry "The Judges' Garden" was published.

Modernism in Russian painting

Modernism significantly manifested itself not only in Russian literature, but also in painting. Among the representatives of modernism in this art form, it is worth remembering first of all M. Vrubel, I. Bilibin, A. Benois, V. Vasnetsov - the list is endless, especially if you remember other artists who in one way or another turned to modernity in different time periods . Their work at the same time showed similarities with those searches that were taking place in Europe around the same time, but also differed markedly from them. They are characterized by a certain conditional decorativeness, clear and sculptural faces and figures of characters in the foreground, ornamentality and scale planes of colors. All these characteristics give paintings great expressiveness and tragedy. The main themes addressed by the artists were the themes of death, sorrow, sleep, legend, erotica. In addition, a certain value of the symbolism of colors and lines appeared in painting.

Common in Modernist Directions

So, in the finale, we can say that the different currents of modernism are brought together by the fact that they all oppose themselves to realism and the values ​​that realism reflected. Modernist works, regardless of the direction in art, were a kind of experiment, a really new, unexpected and unusual phenomenon in the culture of the late nineteenth century, constantly in search. Modernism and its stylistic currents strove to become a style, unlike other styles that arose naturally and organically in world culture, in essence, regardless of the desire of the creators. Perhaps the reason for such a short existence of this movement was that it put too much emphasis on individualism.

These consonant styles of painting are often confused with each other. So that a novice artist and any other person interested in art can freely navigate in directions, as well as be able to distinguish them from each other, our art school invites you to familiarize yourself with this article, as well as visit the fascinating master classes "Oil Painting". Together we will be able not only to consider different styles of painting with their features, but also independently realize our potential in various trends using special artistic techniques.

Viktor Vasnetsov. After the battle of Igor Svyatoslavovich with the Polovtsians. 1848-1926.

So, let's start with Art Nouveau, which today remains popular and in demand in the world due to its original aesthetics.

MODERN

Modern in painting, these are plots filled with images characteristic of symbolism. Their complex rhythm combined in a linear composition with original decorative elements.

The first and main feature of this style is the specific smoothness of forms. We see elongated figures growing in height, with clear outlines on a monochrome surface. Looking at the works of famous modern artists, it is worth taking a closer look, and you will notice that they do not have the usual effect of depth. The images look flat, like wall art.

Initially, when Art Nouveau in painting was just gaining momentum, its representatives used exotic plant motifs, whimsical ornaments and patterns. Not infrequently, in their interweaving, female figures or mystical creatures. This is a symbol, some kind of allegory for main theme pictures, such as love, sin, death or war. It is important to note that the style language was formed long years, in many ways not without the ideas of the symbolists from France and Russia. It has a different name in every country. This is for you and Art Nouveau, and Jugendstil, and Secession.

Art Nouveau in painting is represented by the works of such cult personalities as P. Gauguin and P. Bonnard, G. Klimt and E. Munch, M. Vrubel and V. Vasnetsov.

Paul Gauguin. Two Tahitian women

Mikhail Vrubel. Six-winged Seraphim. 1904.

Do not confuse modernist painters and modernist painters.

MODERNISM

Modernism- this is a certain combination of different styles, which are based on the individuality of the author's view, on the freedom of his thoughts and inner emotions. In general, modernism in painting positions itself as a separate major movement that has abandoned the usual classical traditions. The artists crossed out their historical experience. They tried to find a new beginning in art, to renew the perception and understanding of painting in society.

The most famous modernist movements include such styles as avant-garde, primitivism, cubism, surrealism, futurism, expressionism and abstract art. Each of them pursues its own goal, based on an original philosophical idea or thought.

avant-garde originated in the mail of modernism in Europe in 1905-1930. The goal of this trend is the acquisition of freedom by means of artistic techniques. The works of avant-garde artists are distinguished by defiant, frank ideas and scenes.

Kazimir Malevich. Suprematism.

Primitivism in painting, it is a deliberate distortion of images, by means of simplification. In a manner given style imitates the primary, primitive stages in the development of painting. The childish interpretation of human nature, outlined in small details, made this style popular among self-taught artists. However, naive, light art without a clear framework and classical techniques seriously influenced the work of venerable creators. Primitivism in painting, in forms and images, is by no means connected with the primitiveness of the content of the picture. Some randomly thrown little things in the plots can tell about the very important internal emotions of the hero on the canvas.

Niko Pirosmani. Actress Margarita. 1909.

Cubism is based on a shift in the forms of images, their deformation and decomposition into geometric elements. The concept of paintings began to dominate artistic value. It was this trend that determined the development of art for the coming decades.

L. Popova. Portrait of a philosopher. 1915.

Surrealism in painting arose as a result literary works dedicated to the formation of human consciousness. The idea of ​​the existence of the mind and soul outside the real world, the study of the unconscious, as well as the phenomenon of sleep and absurd phenomena, gave the artists new topics for work. main meaning of this style is the removal from the usual conscious creativity. Surrealism in painting is images and plots taken from the depths of one's own subconscious. Therefore, the pictures of this plan are full of bizarre hallucinations.

Salvador Dali. The Persistence of Memory. 1931.

Like surrealism, futurism in painting takes his ideas from literature. Destroying stereotypes and demonstrating an urban future - that's main idea this style. The rapid movement into the future, the desire to get rid of old norms, to break out of the remnants of past centuries and get into a more organized and consistent world, is evident in every work of artists of this trend. Futurism in the painting of Russian authors is somewhat different from the paintings of European followers of this trend. Mainly by merging with the principles of cubism.

Umberto Boccioni. States of Mind II: Those Who Are Gone. 1911.

Expressionism in painting it is a protest against the world. This is an internal acute perception of the environment, the alienation of a person, his spiritual collapse. The style arose on the eve of the war, so it is not surprising that the canvases are saturated with deformation, special coloring and sharp dissonances. Expressionism in painting is nothing more than the transfer of a specific emotion, the drama of understanding one's experiences.

Edward Moon. Scream. 1893.

Abstractionism in painting - a complete rejection of the actual transmission of images is aimed at creating peculiar associations for the viewer, by combining different geometric shapes specific shades. Abstractionism in painting is aimed at the harmony of the composition, because any subject under different angle can have different shapes and shades. This trend is the last stage of the manifestation of modernism, the so-called non-figurative art.

Theo van Doesburg. Counter composition V. 1924

POSTMODERNISM

Already from the name it is clear that postmodernism has replaced modernism, incomprehensible wide circles and fell under the arm of skeptical critics. It has unique typological features. First, postmodernism in painting is the presence finished form. Artists borrow images from classical traditions, but give them a new interpretation, their own exclusive context. It is not uncommon for postmodernists to combine forms from different styles, ironically over the world, and thus justifying their secondary nature.

Next important difference is the absence of any rules. This current does not dictate criteria for self-expression to the author. The creator has the right to choose any form and manner of performing his work. Note that this freedom has become the basis for fresh creative ideas and art trends. It is postmodernism in painting that is a prerequisite for the emergence of art installations and performances. This trend does not have clear features in technology, and today it is the largest and most popular on the world stage.

Paul Salvator Goldengreen. The Painter Prince.

The art school "Oil Painting" actively assists novice artists and amateurs in finding their own style.

The concept of modernism. Currents of modernism, their characteristics

Disappointment in the reality of life and the artistic realistic way of reproducing it led to interest in the latest philosophical theories and the emergence of new artistic movements, called decadent, avant-garde and modernist. The French word "decadence" means decline, "avant-garde" - advanced protection, and "modern" - modern, most. These terms began to denote qualitatively new phenomena in the literary process, which stood at the forefront, avant-garde positions and were associated with decline and crisis. public opinion and culture, with the joking of positive ideals, turning in these searches to God and faith, to the mystical and irrational.

Modernism- the general name of the areas of art and literature late XIX- early XX century., Reflected the crisis of bourgeois culture and characterized the break with the traditions of realism and the aesthetics of the past. Modernism arose in France at the end of the 19th century. (Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud) and spread to Europe, Russia, Ukraine. Modernists believed that one should not look for any kind of logic, rational thought in a work of art. Therefore, the art of modernism was predominantly irrational in nature.

Protesting against outdated ideas and forms, modernists were looking for new ways and means of artistic reflection of reality, found new artistic forms, and strove for a radical renewal of literature. In this regard, modernism has become a real artistic revolution and could be proud of such epoch-making discoveries in literature as an internal monologue and images of the human psyche in the form of a “stream of consciousness”, the discovery of distant associations, the theory of polyphony, the universalization of a specific artistic technique and its transformation into a general one. aesthetic principle, enrichment artistic creativity through the discovery of the hidden content of life phenomena, the discovery of the unreal and the unknown.

Modernism is a social rebellion, and not just a revolution in the field of art form, because it caused speeches against the cruelties of social reality and the absurdity of the world, against the oppression of man, defending his right to be a free person. Modernism protested against crude materialism, against spiritual degeneration and poverty, stupid self-satisfied satiety. However, protesting against realism, modernism did not exclude all its achievements, but also used them, developed and enriched them in its search for new ways in art.

Common features modernism:

o special attention to the inner world of the individual;

o invited self-values ​​of man and art;

o preference for creative intuition;

o understanding of literature as higher knowledge, is able to penetrate into the innermost niches of the depth of the existence of the individual and spiritualize the world;

o search for new means in art (metal-language, symbolism, myth-making, etc.);

o the desire to discover new ideas that transform the world according to the laws of beauty and art. Such extreme, radical modernist movements as Dadaism or Futurism received

Name avant-garde(from French avant - forward, garde - watchman, forward detachment) - a direction in the artistic culture of the 20th century, which consisted in the rejection of existing norms and traditions, the transformation of new artistic means for an end in itself; displaying crisis, painful phenomena in life and culture in a perverted form. Rebelliousness is inherent in avant-garde.

Avant-garde trends and currents (futurism, dadaism, surrealism, "new novel", "drama of the absurd", "stream of consciousness" etc.) enriched and diversified literary process, leaving world literature many masterpieces of artistic creativity. They also significantly influenced writers who did not abandon the artistic principles of realism: a complex interweaving of realism, symbolism, neo-romanticism and the “stream of consciousness” arose. Realists also used the ideas of Z. Freud in their works, conducted formalistic searches in the field of artistic form, widely used the “stream of consciousness”, internal monologue, combined different time layers in one work.

Modernism as artistic direction was an internally heterogeneous conglomeration of artistic phenomena, which were based on common philosophical, philosophical and artistic principles. At the end of the XIX century. arose impressionism, symbolism and aestheticism. At the beginning of the XX century. expressionism, futurism, cubism were added to them, and during and after the First World War - Dadaism, surrealism, the “stream of consciousness” school, and literature, which included anti-novel, theater of the absurd.

Impressionism(from the French. "Impression") originated in the second half of the XIX century., And flourished in the XX century. It arose as a reaction to salon art and naturalism, first in painting (C. Monet, E. Manet, A. Renoir, E. Degas), from where it spread to other arts (A. Rodin in sculpture, M. Ravel, C. Debussy, I. Stravinsky in music) and literature. Here the Goncourt brothers and Paul Verlaine became the founders of impressionism. Expressed manifestations of impressionism were in the work of Guy de Maupassant and Marcel Proust, Knut Hamsun, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Yu. Tuwim belonged to the impressionists.

Protesting against excessive dependence on real life, against copying reality, the impressionists described their impressions of what they saw - visual and sensual, which were changeable, like the world itself, as well as shades of impressions and colors, their representations and associations were often fantastic and always sub " The work of an impressionist is not an objective picture of the world, but a system of complex subjective impressions about it, brightly colored by the creative individuality of the artist.The impressionists are especially vulnerable to the sensual beauty of the world; they perfectly reproduced nature, its beauty, the diversity and variability of life, the unity of nature with human soul.

The most among the decadent trends of the late XIX - early XX century. became symbolism. The symbol was used as a means of expressing the incomprehensible essence of life phenomena and secret or even mystical personal ideas, creative insights, irrational insights of the artist. Symbols were considered the most perfect embodiment of ideas. Images-symbols reproduced the mysterious and irrational essence human soul and her life, the majestic progress of the inevitable fate, depicted the afterlife, the metaphysical world of "otherness", alluded to the mystical essence of the phenomena of life.

For the Symbolists, poetry, like music, was highest form knowledge of secrets - search and discovery of "otherness". The symbol gave rise to numerous associations, captivated by its ambiguity, deep hidden meaning which is difficult or even impossible to understand. The Symbolists attached great importance to the inner sound, melody and rhythm of words, the euphony and melodiousness of the language, the emotional excitement that gripped the reader due to the rhythm and melody of the verse, and the play of various associations. Started symbolism French poets Paul Verlaine, Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud. Having "conquered" France, symbolism quickly spread throughout Europe. In its various countries, symbolism was represented by Gabriel d'Anunzio (Italy), Rilke and Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Austria), Stefan George (Germany), Oscar Wilde (England), Emil Verhaern and Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium), Gen-God Ibsen (Norway), Stanislav Przybyshevsky (Poland).

Aestheticism originated in the last decade of the 19th century. in England. He gave rise to the cult of refined beauty. The creators of aestheticism believed that realism was doomed to complete collapse, that social problems do not at all concern real art, and put forward the slogans "art for art's sake", "beauty for the sake of beauty itself". The most prominent representative of English aestheticism was Oscar Wilde.

Expressionism(from fr. "Expressiveness, expression") was also founded in the 19th century. This avant-garde trend received its full sound and weight in the first quarter of the 20th century. and became a significant contribution to the development of world literature. The Expressionists were closely connected with reality - it was she who shaped them and deeply moved them. They condemned the ugly phenomena of life, the cruelty of the world, protested against war and bloodshed, were full of philanthropy, affirmed positive ideals.

But the vision of the world by the expressionists was peculiar: the world seemed to them a chaotic system, which was led by incomprehensible forces, incomprehensible, unknowable, mysterious, and there was no escape from them. The only true was only the inner world of man and artist, their feelings and thoughts. It was he who should have been the focus of the writer. And it should be reproduced clearly, vividly, using grandiose conditional images, with broken proportions, overly intense, with the most clear intonations, that is, depicted using expressive images using paradoxical grotesque and in a fantastic perspective. Or not the most outstanding expressionist, Johannes Becher, considered the poetic image of "tension, open mouth in ecstasy" characteristic of expressionism. So, in the works of expressionists there is a lot of satire, grotesque, a lot of horrors, excessive cruelty, generalizations and subjective assessments of reality. Expressionism appeared first in painting (E. Munch, W. Van Gogh, P. Gauguin. P. Cezanne and others) and in music (Richard Strauss), to soon move into literature. G. Trakl and F. Kafka in Austria belong to the most expressionists; I. Becher and A. Frans in Germany; L. Andreev in Russia.

Imagism(from fr. "Image") - a trend that led to the emergence of Russian imagism. It appeared in England on the eve of the First World War and lasted until the mid-1920s. In Russia, for the first time, the Imagists declared themselves in 1919. The image of the Imagists and the Imagists proclaimed the end in itself of creativity. "A poem is not an organism, but a wave of images, one image can be extracted from it, ten more can be inserted," theorist of Russian imagism V. Shershenevich claimed. So, the representatives of this movement considered the poem to be a "catalogue of the image", an exquisite interweaving of metaphors, metonyms, epithets, comparisons and other tropes - a kind of capricious accumulation of colors, shades, images, rhythms and melodies. The content of the Imagists was relegated to the background: it "eats the way." Of course, Imagism could not, even if it wanted to, completely neglect the content. The work of S. Yesenin is the best confirmation of this idea. Representatives of Imagism in England and the USA are T.S. Eliot, R. Aldington, E. Pound, E. Lowell and others.

The concept of avant-garde. Avant-garde trends in world literature

Futurism(from Lat. "Future") arose in 1909, in Italy, its ancestor was F. Marinetti. From there it spread throughout Europe, receiving the name of cubism in France (M. Jacob, B. Cendrars), its futurism and cubo-futurism in Russia (I. Severyanin, take fur, V. Khlebnikov, V. Makhnovsky and others), avant-garde in Poland (Yu. Przybos and others). Ukrainian futurism, founded by M. Semenko, later called "pan-futurism".

Futurists proclaimed that they created the art of the future, which was in tune with the rhythms new era"skyscraper-machine-automobile" culture, and urged to discard the traditions of the old culture, which they called disparagingly "spittoon". Futurists sang hymns technical progress, the city, cars, motors, propellers, "mechanical" beauty, noted the need to create a new man, worthy of his time technology, a man of a new mentality. They rejected tradition realistic literature, her language, poetic technique. Introducing their own language, new words and phrases, the futurists even reached the point of absurdity: time invented words without any meaning.

The French cubists and Russian cubo-futurists were closely associated with the painters-mi-cubists, who tried to shock, amaze the townsfolk with the sharpness of colors and unusual content: they decomposed the depicted into the simplest geometric elements - cubes (hence the name), squares, rectangles, lines, cylinders, circles, etc. Having proclaimed the cult of form, the Cubists relegated content to the background, elevated it to form. Writers puzzled the layman not only "in a language that no one had yet heard," but also by moving away from euphony towards cacophony, dissonances, and the accumulation of consonants that were difficult to pronounce.

Surrealism from fr. "sur" - over, that is, over-realism), which arose in France in the 1920s. Its founder and chief theorist was French writer Andre Breton, who called for "destroying the contradictions that exist to this day between dream and reality." He stated that the only area where a person can fully express himself is subconscious acts: sleep, delirium, etc., and demanded "automatic writing" from surrealist writers, that is, at the level of the subconscious.

School "stream of consciousness"- this is a means of depicting the human psyche directly, "from the inside", as a complex and current process, deepening into the inner world. Such works were characterized by the use of memories, internal monologues, associations, digressions and other artistic techniques. Representatives: D. Joyce, M. Proust, V. Wulff and others.

IN "drama of the absurd" reality was portrayed through the prism of pessimism. A dead end, a constant premonition of collapse, isolation from the real world are the characteristic features of the work. The behavior, the speech of the characters is illogical, the plot is destroyed. Creators - S. Beckett, E. Ionesco.

Questions for self-control

1. How literature is on the verge XIX-XX centuries is closely connected with all the vicissitudes of its time?

2. Name the most visible factors literary development in the first half of the 20th century.

3. Give a general description of modernist literature.

4. What currents and trends are avant-garde? Give them a general description.

from the French moderne - new, modern), a movement in literature and art of the 20th century. The stages of literary history preceding modernism - decadentism and avant-gardism - are sometimes considered as the early stages of modernism. Modernism unites various trends and ideas, but the belief that modern man is cut off from the society in which he lives, from the world around him, he is closed, lonely, constantly feels his helplessness and the absurdity of his existence remains common to all its representatives. For example, in the novel by J.-P. Sartre "Nausea" main character Roquentin suddenly feels the unpleasantness, the disgust of all the things around him, they seem to cease to be themselves, turning into a softened, disgusting mass in the perception of the hero.

Modernist writers are busy searching for harmony in this world, which suppresses a person with its absurdity. Each of them offers a different path. For example, the cycle of M. Proust's novels, united under the general title "In Search of Lost Time", is dedicated to the writer's memories of his childhood, described to the smallest detail, with numerous branches, clarifications and inserted stories - childhood is presented as lost in adult life a world of harmonious relationships with the world and oneself. Another possible path- image modern life as manifestations of general patterns human being. In J. Joyce's novel "Ulysses", the protagonist, an ordinary resident of Dublin, is at the same time the legendary king and traveler Odysseus, and his wife is Penelope. So modern problems and collisions are superimposed on the mythological archetypes of consciousness. Harmony can also be found in crisis situations, when a person, having forgotten about the absurd rules and institutions of society that bind him, becomes himself again, - this is how A. Camus solves the problem in the story “The Outsider”, showing a person on the day when he commits an unreasonable murder, and then when he is sentenced to death. The hero of the novel by V. Wolfe "To the Lighthouse" finds the lost harmony with the world in family life, but after this life is lost forever: his wife died, the children parted. In search of harmony, many writers sound nostalgic notes, regret about its loss. But sometimes an attempt to find harmony led to completely unexpected results - the novel by D. H. Lawrence "Lady Chatterley's Lover" became scandalous, in which the author tried to show the simplicity and harmony of the relationship between a man and a woman.

Another group of motives characteristic of modernism is not the search for harmony in the world (perhaps it is unattainable in principle), but the portrayal of it as absurd as it is, and even more absurd. Within the framework of modernism, the literature of the absurd develops, and especially the dramaturgy of the absurd. Its main representatives are E. Ionesco and S. Beckett. In the plays of E. Ionesco, the characters conduct completely meaningless dialogues, perform inexplicable acts; for example, the heroes of the play “The Bald Singer” are extremely surprised that a person ties a shoelace, opens the door unnecessarily, but does not open it in response to the doorbell, etc. The heroes of S. Beckett find themselves in absurd situations; for example, the entire play "Waiting for Godot" is based on a group of people waiting for a man named Godot who never comes. In Russian literature, the apex manifestations of literature and the theater of the absurd were the works of the "Oberiuites", primarily D. I. Kharms. allegorical image senselessness of life of a modern person is presented in the stories and novels of F. Kafka “The Castle” and “The Trial”, which are similar in genre to parables: for example, the plot of the story “The Metamorphosis” is the transformation of an official, an ordinary employee into a disgusting insect. Elements of modernism are evident in the work of A.P. Platonov in the 1930s. ("Chevengur", "Pit"), in later works A. A. Akhmatova (“Enuma Elish. Prologue, or Dream within a Dream”).

The philosophical premises of modernism are connected with existentialism and Freudianism. Writers J.-P. Sartre and A. Camus are, along with M. Heidegger, major existentialist philosophers. The main idea of ​​existentialism, reflected in modernism, is the abandonment of a person in the world, his loneliness and the heavy burden of responsibility for his existence. Freudianism influenced modernism by discovering the sphere of the subconscious and the unconscious in man: people's actions do not always have a rational explanation, on the contrary, they are mostly irrational. The origins of modernism should also be seen in the philosophical systems of F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson, E. Husserl. T. Mann ("Doctor Faustus"), G. Hesse ("The Glass Bead Game") argued with the modernist concepts of man.

Modernism has brought a lot of new things not only to the content of literature, but also to the set of techniques that it has. His discovery is the “stream of consciousness” (for the first time in J. Joyce’s novel “Ulysses”, in the chapter “Penelope”), the combination of momentary perception and memory (the technique on which W. Wolfe’s novel “To the Lighthouse” is based - the hero looks at his house and remembers how it was before the death of his wife, when the whole family was still together). Modernism has significantly expanded the spatio-temporal boundaries artwork: if earlier the narrative, as a rule, was limited to one, maximum two plans, now there is a montage of several plans, their complex combination, overlay, intersection. An unprecedented development was received by the hero's internal monologue, the presentation of his thoughts, experiences, which became so significant in the work that the author and the author's point of view in modernism receded into the background.

In late modernism, anti-genres became popular: anti-novel, anti-drama - works whose task is to negate all stereotypes of the novel or drama, deny techniques, ways of depicting, etc.

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Modernism is an aesthetic concept that took shape in the 1910s and developed especially intensively in the interwar twenty years. Some researchers associate the emergence of modernism with the work of the French "damned poets" of the 1870s (P. Verlaine, A. Rimbaud) or even with the publication of C. Baudelaire's book "Flowers of Evil" (1857). However, a more accepted point of view is that modernism was formed as a result of a revision of the philosophical foundations and creative principles of the artistic culture of the 19th century, which took place over several decades, until the First World War. This revision is evidenced by the history of such schools and trends in European culture as impressionism, symbolism, new drama, cubism, imagism, futurism and a number of other less significant ones. Despite all, sometimes sharp, differences in programs and manifestos, these schools are united by the perception of their era as a time of irreversible historical changes, accompanied by the collapse of beliefs and spiritual values ​​that their predecessors lived by. The conviction that arose on this basis in the need for a radical renewal of the artistic language of classical realism gave the main impetus to the formation of modernism as an aesthetic doctrine.

Modernism is being formed in the context of the approaching socio-historical crisis on an unprecedented scale, the apogee of which was World War. This atmosphere reinforces the sense of groundlessness of the liberal-humanistic frame of mind and beliefs in a steady social progress that lived in the 19th century. The bankruptcy of the positivist world outlook that prevailed at that time is becoming more and more obvious. New concepts in the natural sciences and in the humanities lead to significant change pictures of the world, directly responding in the art of modernism, the philosophical setting of which is the movement “a realibus ad realiora” (“from the real to the realest”). The principle of comprehending the hidden meaning behind the empiricism of phenomena and things corresponded to the spirit of this culture, artistic ideas which are close to those philosophical teachings and scientific doctrines of the period of the formation of modernism, where the search for the “most real” leads to a radical revision of positivist principles and provisions based only on the study of the “real”. Of particular importance for the creativity of the followers of modernism were the concept of the "stream of consciousness", experimentally developed and then theoretically substantiated in the "Principles of Psychology" (1890) by the American philosopher W. James, the doctrine of intuition and the interpretation of life processes by analogy with the processes of consciousness, proposed in the works French thinker A. Bergson ("Immediate Data of Consciousness", 1889; "Creative Evolution", 1907), the doctrine of psychoanalysis created by the Austrian psychologist S. Freud ("I and It", 1923). The theory of archetypes (images expressing the collective unconscious), which was developed by K. Jung, a Swiss follower (and then antagonist) of Freud, had a wide impact on the literature and art of modernism. Objectively, some features artistic vision modernism (in particular, the interpretation of time and space) have commonality with the theory of relativity (1915) by A. Einstein.

Despite the absence of a program document that formulated the main premises and aesthetic aspirations of modernism, the development of this trend in the artistic culture of the West and Russia reveals the stability of its inherent features, which make it possible to speak of a certain artistic system (in a number of works, another term is preferred - the artistic method). Modernism is always with more or less consistency abandons the principle of representation, i.e. images of reality in the system of connections really inherent in it, which are recreated under the sign of authenticity and lifelikeness, and invariably opposes this principle with the emphasized conventionality of the picture, built on the idea of ​​artistic deformation, alogism, play with meanings: this emphasizes the impossibility of final, indisputable truths about the world and man. fact of life is perceived by the art of modernism not as a given, but necessarily as a problem. The state of “epistemological uncertainty” dominates, and that completeness and authenticity of the reconstruction of the world in all the richness of its connections, which was the main one, is recognized as unrealizable. creative task for the artistic culture of the 19th century, which developed within the boundaries of the aesthetics of classical realism. Modernism is characterized by a predilection for depicting reality as chaos and absurdity; personality is most often described in the context of its alienation from society, the laws of which it perceives as incomprehensible, illogical and irrational. The situation of alienation that a person encounters both in public and private life, constantly convinced of the impossibility of real mutual understanding and dialogue with others, gives rise to a complex of “unhappy consciousness”, recreated in many of the most significant works of modernism, starting with the work of F. Kafka.

This situation provokes as a radical revolt against the tragic - in view of its ontological nonsense - " human lot"(a common problematic of the literature of existentialism), and philosophical reflection, the result of which is the image of reality as an ever-repeating cycle, when again and again it turns out that a person, lost in the" crowd of lonely ", has hopelessly lost the sense of meaningfulness and purposefulness of his existence (the novels of J. .Joyce). Aware of his own lack of integrity, the hero of modernist literature thinks especially hard about the problems of self-identity and comes to the conclusion that a built, complete, internally organic image of himself has become impossible for him. The fragmentation, fragmentation of spiritual and emotional experience can be felt by him elegiac, with a touch of drama ("subjective epic" by M. Proust, prose by V. Nabokov american period), but sometimes it acquires in modernism a tragic farce interpretation with a predominance of elements of “black humor” (the theater of the absurd by E. Ionesco and S. Beckett, novels by J. Bart and T. Pynchon).

The parody of some of the most rooted philosophical and artistic beliefs that distinguished the era of classical realism is an important element of many works of modernism, starting from the earliest ones (drama and prose by A. Jarry), and is an integral part of the creative program of such schools belonging to the history of modernism as Dadaism and surrealism. However, for major representatives modernism characteristic is the desire to rely on the phenomena of the artistic culture of the 19th century rethought by them, which, in their interpretation, predetermined by the creative principles of the interpreters themselves, turn out to be taken out of the framework of realistic aesthetics (this is how A. Bely reads N.V. Gogol, who had a strong influence on his prose, and Proust similarly learns the lessons of G. Flaubert, important for him, who adopts primarily, if not exclusively, the idea of ​​a work free from any kind of ideology and didactics). In a dialogue with the tradition of modernism, he pays special attention to the literature of romanticism, in which he discovers some motives and artistic ideas that have been widely developed in his own practice - the power of alienation, the vanished integrity of life experience, the "romantic irony" that is born on this soil.

early modernism

Early modernism is distinguished by the desire to build and artistically substantiate own concept of human experience“in our time” (so titled the first book of E. Hemingway, who was close to modernism in his youth). This concept, which requires overcoming the obsolete, in the opinion of the adherents of modernism, principle of “mimetic referentiality” (i.e., the conscious correlation of a work of art with the range of phenomena of objective reality that are recognized as the most significant for its understanding), is intended to express a new self-awareness of literature, which is not concerned with the problems of reliable recreating reality, but from angles and levels of perception of life experience. However, it is also recognized that this experience has a certain kind of spiritual content (“the metaphysics of reality”), and sometimes writers belonging to modernism even find in this experience, like T.S. Eliot, a certain transcendental meaning. But as modernism develops, this issue begins to play a less significant role, giving way to self-valuable experiments with artistic language which are becoming more and more formalistic (the French “new novel”, which heralded the program of combating the “heresy of representation”), and sometimes even destructive (the late S. Beckett, who came to the idea of ​​“literature of silence”, i.e. to the rejection of creativity , replaced by empty pages as a gesture of rejection of the world). The American researcher of modernism and the subsequent stage of "postmodernity" I. Hassan writes that at this stage, in contrast to " classical period"modernism, everything becomes possible in literature, including the "ritual destruction of language", and "metaphysics", "transcendence", "teleological" inherent in artistic practice modernism, if, without ignoring the fundamental differences between them, we talk about Joyce, Eliot or E. Pound. All of them, as well as English writers, adjoining the Bloomsbury group that had formed in the 1910s, headed by V. Wolfe, played important role in the development of the most significant provisions of the literary program of modernism, which assumed new principles for constructing the artistic universe (mythologism, the emphasized subjectivity of individual perception and experience of reality, the plurality of appearances and the difficulty of self-identification of the hero, obligatory and lengthy references to "cultural memory", present directly in the text of the works, and often even constructing this text). For the writers who belonged to this circle (and subsequently for the aesthetics of modernism as a whole), the philosophical ideas J. Moore, whose work "Principles of Ethics" (1903) proved the impossibility of distinguishing between the criteria of good and evil on the basis of the doctrines of social evolution or natural, generally accepted norms, as well as the provisions of the neo-Hegelian F. G. Bradley, set forth in the treatise "Appearance and Reality" ( 1893). This work criticized the concept of self-sufficiency of empirical knowledge of reality and declared unreliable or, in any case, incomplete any knowledge about it, ignoring the specifics of the refractions of reality in individual perception.

Eliot gave the necessary meaningful accuracy to the concept of modernism. The feeling of the crisis of ideas and the exhaustion of artistic possibilities, embodied in the art of classical realism, in Eliot and artists close to him in terms of views (P. Valeri, G. Benn) developed into a certainty that a certain era in culture ended, marked by the dominance of the humanistic doctrine. New system philosophical and aesthetic ideas, in which the search for pictorial forms authentic for the 20th century is carried out (i.e., the principle of "modern vision" is implemented, which is normative for modernism), is formed by writers of this orientation under the sign of a comprehensive criticism of humanism, which is opposed by an apology for transpersonal creativity, opposed to the cult of the "reciting personality", which is not given to comprehend the higher meanings of being. Conveying the confusion of the individual, who, along with the collapse of humanism, has lost its spiritual supports, authentically recreating the “unhappy consciousness”, in which there is a “continuous amalgamation of heterogeneous experience”, creativity, according to Eliot, becomes a counteraction to despair, a way out of a dead end, familiarization with the world of enduring moral and cultural values. The "main plot" of the works of modernism, focused on the principle of "transpersonal creativity", is determined by the desire behind the recreated chaos of "catastrophic" reality to discover the presence cultural tradition and the activity of spiritual principles, which give meaning and teleology to being. Poetics, authentic for this "plot", most often represents an alloy of tragedy, parody, lyricism, conceptual and visual associations, sharply specific for each major artist (it turned out to be especially organic in one of program works modernism - Eliot's poem " barren land", 1922). This poetics is characterized by the widespread use of myth or mythological reminiscences (they emphasize the stability, "eternity" of the main collisions, appearing through the seeming nonsense of the "real"), as well as the idea of ​​a stream of consciousness, which replaced the previous idea of ​​psychological stability and uniformity of the individual's reactions to external world.

A new system of image methods and artistic moves in literature of modernism is affirmed along with a new understanding of man when the most significant is everything personal, not typical, going beyond the limits of social determinism (in this respect, the experience of D.H. Lawrence was of particular importance). Introspection, marked by a particularly interested attention to the subconscious, as well as to archetype images, becomes a way to penetrate into the innermost human motives, approaching the truth about both the nature of man and the nature of his connections with the universe. The "fabric of ideas" in the art of modernism acquires a much more significant significance than attempts to recreate the "fabric of reality" in a life-like appearance. Artistic convention in its most diverse manifestations dominates this literature, committed to an emphatically subjective image of the world - often with pronounced elements of play, irony and travesty. Sometimes (for example, in surrealism), the parodic principle is combined with a clearly expressed ideological trend: art is perceived as a powerful means of destroying stereotypes and phobias of logical, flat rationalistic thinking.

With the passage of time, in the art of modernism, the inherent perception of modernity. Like epochs when ties between people weaken and alienation becomes all-encompassing, making the individual powerless in the face of the absurdity that has reigned in public life. This situation is accompanied by the growth in the literature of modernism of aspirations for hermeticity, the actual empty content of creativity, which widely affected both poetry (the American school of objectivism), and dramaturgy (the theater of the absurd, especially at a late stage of development), and prose. Joyce's journey from The Dubliners (1914), a book that embodied some of the main aesthetic ideas of modernism, but at the same time created a plastic image of a certain society, to Finnegans Wake (1939), completely enclosed by a sphere of experimentation with composition, point of view and language , can be seen as an example of the evolution typical of modernism in general.

For many years considered in Western aesthetics to be incorrect for describing the artistic process, the term modernism took hold in the 1980s not only in works on the history of literature and art, but also in historical writings, where the concept of “modernist consciousness” is becoming more and more accepted, which determines the nature of an entire era, the boundaries of which stretch from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to the last third of the 20th, when the “postmodern time” comes into its own. However, the view of modernism as a phenomenon that is essential for the aesthetics and history of artistic culture in the world remains more accepted. newest stage development. The universality of modernism as the only aesthetic system that embodied the “spirit of modernity” is problematic, and the ability to objectively recreate a picture of the movement of literature and art in the 20th century, based on the priority of modernism as an aesthetics and direction, seems only purely hypothetical even to the most convinced adherents of the doctrine associated with modernism all the new features of the artistic culture of the last century. In reality, modernism existed as an aesthetic concept and as a direction in a number of other concepts and trends, interacting with them, often taking on a complex and even dramatic character. This is evidenced by the legacy of many major artists 20th century (V. Nabokov, A. Camus, W. Faulkner, G. Hesse, O. Huxley, G. Garcia Marquez, S. Prokofiev, F. Fellini and others), in different periods of their creative life closely connected with the circle of ideas and beliefs of modernism, but in general they do not belong to it, although one can note the undoubted affinity to the art of modernism as the problematics that remained predominant among them, as well as a number of aesthetic means used by them. At the same time, the myth of the all-encompassing and overwhelming impact of modernism on modern artistic culture refuted by the work of some of its most significant representatives, who have maintained a firm commitment to the tradition associated with classical realism or with romanticism (I. Bunin, V. Khodasevich, A. Platonov, J. Steinbeck, P. Lagerkvist, G. Green).

modernism came from French moderne, which means - the latest