“The gift of historical insight is one of the rarest phenomena in the world, although almost everyone feels our mysterious mystical connection with the dead, with the disappeared. To delve into the past, to live for some time in the interests of these dead is a great pleasure for everyone ... However, resurrecting the past, depicting it with all the sharpness and certainty of reality is the lot of very few. This requires more than just knowledge.”
1. Anton Losenko "Vladimir and Rogneda", 1770
The founder of Russian historical genre painting is usually called Anton Losenko (1737-1773), an artist who studied in France and Italy, the first pensioner of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. The canvas "Vladimir and Rogneda" for the first time presented Russian antiquity expressively and succinctly. Thanks to the works of Anton Losenko, scenes from ancient Russian history began to be considered in the academy as no less legitimate than plots from ancient and biblical history.
“I introduced Vladimir like this: when, after the victory and the capture of the city of Polotsk, he entered Rogneda and sees her for the first time, why the plot of the picture can be called Vladimir’s first date with Rogneda, in which Vladimir is presented as the winner, and proud Rogneda as a prisoner. Vladimir on Rogneda married against her will, but when he married her, it must be that he loved her, which is why I presented him as a lover who, seeing his bride dishonored and deprived of everything, had to caress her and apologize to her. her, and not as others conclude that he himself dishonored her and then married her, which seems very unnatural to me, but if that was the case, then my picture represents as soon as the very first date.
Anton Losenko
2. Grigory Ugryumov "The election of Mikhail Feodorovich Romanov to the kingdom on March 14, 1613" No later than 1800.
Historical painters often turned to the events of national history, which played a significant role in the development of the state. Among them is the election of Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov to the throne at the Zemsky Sobor in the Kremlin, which marked the beginning of a new dynasty. The young king is depicted as an angel-like youth who perceives his election as a heavy burden placed on him by fate. With a gesture, he seems to be trying to isolate himself from the Divine will, to which, raising his hand up, the clergyman points to him. The young man does not even look at the kneeling man, who holds out to him the scepter and Monomakh's cap lying on the pillow. The whole scene is theatrical. The main characters are elevated and brightly lit. Their gestures are deliberately expressive. People filling the cathedral and stretching out their hands in a plea to take a high rank and put an end to the turmoil in the state look like extras, emphasizing and reinforcing the importance of the main characters.
3. Vasily Sazonov "Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field", 1824
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org In the first decades of its existence (late 18th - early 19th centuries), the Academy of Arts paid a lot of attention to the Russian line in historical painting.
The program for academicians, for which Vasily Kondratievich Sazonov received small silver and gold medals (1811), was called "Tsar John Vasilyevich gives the water brought to him by soldiers in a helmet to a simple warrior who is melting from thirst, whom he himself drinks."
No less patriotic sounded was the program “Loyalty to God and the Sovereign of Russian citizens who, being shot in Moscow in 1812, went to death with a firm and noble spirit, not agreeing to fulfill Napoleon’s command,” for which V. Sazonov received in 1813 a large a gold medal and the right to a pensioner's trip abroad, postponed until 1818 due to military events in Europe. The trip of V.K. Sazonov was successful: he brought copies from Italy paintings by Caravaggio and Titian. For them and his original work "Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo field" the painter was awarded the title of academician in 1830.
4. Nikolai Ge "Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof", 1871
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "I felt everywhere and in everything the influence and trace of Peter's reform. The feeling was so strong that I involuntarily became interested in Peter and, under the influence of this passion, conceived my painting "Peter I and Tsarevich Alexei"" .
Nikolai Ge "Now it is difficult to imagine the interrogation scene otherwise than on Ge's canvas. "... Anyone who saw these two simple, not at all spectacularly placed figures, wrote Saltykov-Shchedrin, witnessed one of those amazing dramas that have never The artist again chooses for the picture the moment when everything has already been decided in the relationship between father and son. "Peter stares at the pitiful, helpless figure of his son. The look of Alexei's lowered eyes betrays stubbornness and the hope of turning everything back. The blood-red tablecloth with a clear pattern falls to the floor, forever separating father and son. The personal drama in Ge's painting is also a historical drama" .
Vladimir Sklyarenko, art critic
5. Ilya Repin "Cossacks write a letter to the Turkish Sultan", 1880-1891
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org According to legend, the letter was written in 1676 by the ataman Ivan Sirko “with all the kosh of Zaporozhye” in response to the Sultan’s ultimatum Ottoman Empire Mehmed (Mohammed) IV. The original letter has not been preserved, but in the 1870s, an amateur ethnographer from Yekaterinoslav Yakov Novitsky found a copy made in the 18th century. He gave it to the famous historian Dmitry Yavornitsky, who once read it as a curiosity to his guests, among whom was, in particular, Ilya Repin. The artist became interested in the plot and in 1880 began the first series of sketches.
"I worked on the overall harmony of the picture. What a job it is! You need every spot, color, line - to express together general mood plot and would be consistent and would characterize every subject in the picture. I had to sacrifice a lot and change a lot both in colors and in personalities… Sometimes I just work until I drop… I get very tired.”
Ilya Repin
6. Vasily Surikov "Morning archery execution", 1881
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "Dostoevsky said that there is nothing more fantastic than reality. This is especially confirmed by Surikov's paintings. His execution of archers among the frowning Red Square, with the ominous silhouette of St. Basil the Blessed behind, with miserable candles flickering in the morning mist, with a procession crippled people, trudging under the formidable gaze of the Antichrist the Tsar, brilliantly conveys all the supernatural horror of the beginning Peter's tragedy.
Alexander benoit artist, critic
7. Vasily Perov “Nikita Pustosvyat. Dispute about Faith", 1881
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org Vasily Perov chose the theme of religious schism XVII century, which arose as a result of the church reforms of Patriarch Nikon. Nikita Pustosvyat (real name - Dobrynin Nikita Konstantinovich; the nickname "Pustosvyat" was given by supporters of the official church), a Suzdal priest, one of the ideologists of the schism. The Church Council of 1666–1667 condemned him and defrocked him. In 1682, the schismatics took advantage of the uprising of the archers in Moscow and put forward a demand that the church return to the "old faith". The Kremlin hosted a "debate on faith", where Nikita Pustosvyat was the main speaker.
In the center is Nikita himself, next to him is the monk Sergius with a petition, on the floor is Athanasius, Archbishop of Kholmogory, on whose cheek Nikita “impressed the cross”. In the depths - the leader of the archers, Prince I. A. Khovansky. In anger, Princess Sophia got up from the throne, irritated by the audacity of the schismatics. The next day, Nikita and his supporters were beheaded on charges of inciting the people.
"An artist must be a poet, a dreamer, and most importantly, a vigilant worker ... Whoever wants to be an artist must become a complete fanatic - a person who lives and feeds on one art and only art."
Vasily Perov
8. Konstantin Makovsky "Boyar wedding feast in the XVII century", 1883
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "Konstantin Makovsky, however, will remain, if not artistically, then at least historically enough interesting example. In it ... the high-society side of Russian life and the high-society tastes of the 70s and 80s were reflected.
Confusion of Russian public opinion in the assessment works of art affected as brightly as possible in the fact that K. Makovsky for a long time was a general darling.
Particularly curious is the sincere and noisy enthusiasm for him in our progressive press, which proclaimed the Boyar Feast and the Bride's Choice as the first-class examples of the latest painting.
Alexandre Benois, artist, critic
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "Once in Moscow, in 1881, one evening, I listened to new thing Rimsky-Korsakov "Revenge". She made an indelible impression on me. These sounds took possession of me, and I thought whether it was possible to embody in painting the mood that was created in me under the influence of this music. I remembered Tsar Ivan."
"I wrote - in volleys, suffered, worried, again and again corrected what had already been written, hid it with painful disappointment in my abilities, again extracted it and again went on the attack. I felt scared for minutes. I turned away from this picture, hid it. She made the same impression. But something drove me to this picture, and I again worked on it. "
Ilya Repin
10. Vasily Surikov "Boyar Morozova", 1887
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "Surikov has now created such a picture, which, in my opinion, is the first of all our paintings on the plots of Russian history. Above and beyond this picture is our art, which takes the task of depicting old Russian history, hasn't gone yet."
Vladimir Stasov, critic
"... The technical side of Surikov's paintings is not only satisfactory, but downright beautiful, since it fully conveys the author's intentions, and that, in essence, all ... shortcomings, rather, even advantages, not shortcomings. This again feels his connection with the genius Owing to the lack of perspective depth in Morozovaya, Surikov was able to emphasize the typical and in this case symbolic crampedness of Moscow streets, the somewhat provincial character of the whole scene, which contrasts so monstrously with the enthusiastic scream main character. This picture was called, thinking of condemning it with this, a carpet, but really this work, amazing in its harmony of colorful and bright colors, deserves to be called a beautiful carpet by its very tone, already by its very colorful music, which takes you to ancient, still original and beautiful Rus' " .
Alexandre Benois, artist, critic
11. Vasily Vereshchagin "Napoleon on the Borodino Heights", 1897
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "Before Vereshchagin, everything battle paintings, which could only be seen in our palaces, at exhibitions, in essence, they depicted chic parades and maneuvers ... The very nature that surrounded these scenes was combed and smoothed in a way that in reality this could not be even on the quietest and most calm days , and at the same time, all such paintings and pictures were always executed in that sweet manner that was brought to us during the time of Nicholas the First ...
Everyone was so accustomed to portraying the war exclusively in the form of an entertaining, smoothed and pink holiday, some kind of fun with adventures, that it never occurred to anyone that in reality it did not look like that. Tolstoy in his "Sevastopol" and in "War and Peace" destroyed these illusions, and Vereshchagin then repeated in painting what Tolstoy had done in literature. When ... the Russian public saw the paintings of Vereshchagin, who suddenly so simply, cynically exposed the war and showed it as a dirty, disgusting, gloomy and colossal villainy, that the public screamed in every way and began to hate and love such a daredevil with all its might.
© Photo: ru.wikipedia.org "The midnight guests are floating. light stripe stretches gently sloping coast of the Gulf of Finland. The water seemed to be saturated with the blue of a clear spring sky; the wind ripples along it, driving off dull purple stripes and circles. A flock of seagulls landed on the waves, carelessly swayed on them, and only under the very keel of the front boat flashed their wings - something unfamiliar, unprecedented, aroused their peaceful life. A new stream makes its way through stagnant water, it runs into centuries-old Slavic life, passes through forests and swamps, rolls over a wide field, raises the Slavic clans - they will see rare, unfamiliar guests, they marvel at their strictly military, at their overseas custom. The rooks go in a long row! Bright coloring burns in the sun. The bow sides famously wrapped up, culminating in a high, slender nose.
Nicholas Roerich
14. Valentin Serov "Peter I", 1907
© Photo: www.wikipaintings.org The painting was commissioned by the publisher and bookseller Iosif Nikolaevich Knebel for reproduction in the series “ school pictures» on Russian history.
“Scary, convulsively, like an automaton, Peter walks ... He looks like the Deity of Rock, almost like death; the wind hums at his temples and presses into his chest, into his eyes. The experienced, hardened “chicks” from which he washed and the last raid of lordly sybaritism, whom he turned into batmen and messengers.Looking at this work, you feel that ... a formidable, terrible god, savior and punisher, a genius with such a gigantic inner strength that the whole world and even the elements had to obey him.
Alexandre Benois, artist, critic
15. Vasily Efanov " Unforgettable meeting. Leaders of the Party and Government at the Presidium of the All-Union Conference of Wives of Business Executives and Engineering and Technical Workers of Heavy Industry in the Kremlin, 1936-1937
© Photo: www.school.edu.ru The idea of the picture was suggested to Efanov by the people's commissar of heavy industry Grigory Ordzhonikidze, who is depicted in the picture among other leaders. In this work, Efanov for the first time combines popular in socialist realism elements group portrait and a historical picture, composing the composition as a theatrical stage climax with characteristic "staged" details - the rhythm of applauding hands, a flower that fell on the chairman's papers, an unstable tilted chair.
Name: History of Russian painting - XVIII century.
The rapid development of Russia during the Petrine era partly makes it related to Western Europe of the Renaissance. The art of portraiture began to develop rapidly; by the middle of the century, thanks to the general rise in culture, Russian fine arts become professional. After Peter, still lifes and desudeportes became a popular subject of painting. Classicism became the symbol of Catherine's reign in art. Developing history painting, and the art of portraiture ceases to be elitist. At the end of the century, the emergence of the everyday genre and the separation of the landscape into a separate direction take place.
Name: The history of Russian painting - the first half of the XIX century.
Name: The history of Russian painting - the first half of the 19th century.
For the fine arts, the first decades of the 19th century are the beginning of a golden age. It was at this time Russian artists reached the highest skill, which allowed them to stand on a par with the best masters of European art. The works collected in this volume reflect the rise of classicism, the spread of romanticism and the birth of realism in all aspects of Russian painting.
Download and read History of Russian painting - The first half of the 19th century - Mayorova N., Skokov G.
Name: The History of Russian Painting - The Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The alignment of forces went into oblivion artistic life Russia in the second half of the 19th century: on the one hand, the routine art of the Academy of Arts, on the other, the Wanderers.
At the end of the 19th century, young artists began to look for their own paths in painting. At the same time, the Abramtsevo circle was formed, which put forward new tasks that were not inherent in the program of the Partnership. And then - in the 1900s - for the first time in Russian artistic life, an abundance of various associations arose: they all came out with their programs, manifestos, platforms.
HISTORY OF RUSSIAN ART
PAINTING
The history of Russian painting is sharply divided into two major periods. In the first period, which lasted until the 18th century, Russian painting always retained a strictly religious character and concentrated almost exclusively on icon painting, which is distinguished by its extreme artistic undevelopment. In the second period, Russian painting loses its exclusively religious character, becomes secular, moves gradually forward in its development and assimilates almost the degree of perfection that Western European painting reached by the end of the 19th century.
The history of ancient Russian painting begins with the era of the adoption of Christianity by Russia, from the end of the 10th century, when the first samples of pictorial art were transferred to us from Byzantium. The Byzantine character was predominantly carried by art in Rus' from the 11th century to the 15th century. Icon painters, masters of musiy affairs, were at first immigrants from Greece, Greeks and Slavs kindred to us, and a few students from Russians. In the XI century, we meet the name of the first Russian icon painter - the Monk Alympius of the Caves, who studied with Greek masters. But the samples brought by the masters from Byzantium were neither numerous nor of high artistic value, since Byzantine art itself began to noticeably decline from the 11th century. When reproduced, these samples in Rus' were still subject to damage and distortion. The small population of Rus', scattered over vast expanses separated by forests and swamps, slowly perceiving the beginnings of political and religious enlightenment, was distinguished by extreme poverty and slowness in aesthetic development. The best people were busy with the hard work of creating public life among the scattered masses, converting them to Christianity and, naturally, could give little time to mental leisure and art, when life required more difficult and important work.
As a result, with the predominance of religious interests, only religious art could appear, and brought from Byzantium church art could spread only geographically, without improving and not always remaining at the degree of perfection of images.
Blooming time Byzantine art in Rus' was in the XI and XII centuries. Kyiv frescoes and mosaics serve as its monuments. Then this art falls when relations with Byzantium become difficult and the era of Tatar pogroms begins.
Church art after the ruin of Kyiv finds shelter in Vladimir, Suzdal, Rostov, Pskov and Novgorod. Less affected by the invasions, Novgorod is now becoming an artistic center in Rus', where not only the rudiments of the Byzantine style are preserved, but also attempts are made to cultivate, to some extent, independent church art. Relations with the Germans, enlivening social life, give here movement in the field of mental, handicraft and art. But western influence, undoubtedly reflected in Novgorod art, could not drown out the main Byzantine art, since it was not systematic and constant, and since the products were brought to Novgorod by visiting artists from places that did not have a developed artistic life.
Art Centers in Kyiv, Rostov, Suzdal, Vladimir, with their short-lived historical role, did not have time to develop something independent. Novgorod and Pskov lost their independence by the middle of the 16th century, precisely when it seemed possible, on the basis of Byzantine traditions, to begin the development of their own independent art. Until the 16th century, Moscow, occupied with political work, had neither the time nor the means to artistic development: the best paintings in the XV and XVI centuries produced in it by Pskov and Novgorod icon painters. Therefore, Moscow in the 16th century had to not continue, but almost begin artistic activity in Rus', and art in the 16th century in Moscow was no better than what we find in the mosaics and frescoes of Kyiv, Vladimir and Novgorod.
But it was in the 16th century, due to the expansion of needs, that the number of masters increased significantly, and icon painting from the Greeks and their immediate students, monks and clergy, passed into the hands of lay people, villagers and townspeople, and became a craft. In order to protect church art from damage, Stoglav gave icon painting under the direct supervision and supervision of church authorities, and since art did not advance either in Rus', or in Byzantium, or on Athos, he prescribed, instead independent work, copying the best ancient Greek samples. Thus, in the 16th century, when art came into its own independent rights in Western Europe, and in the works of Raphael, Albrecht Durer, Holbein, Michelangelo and other masters, based on a thorough study of antiques and nature, it reached high degree development, - art in Rus' was removed from nature by the prescription of copying. The prohibition of independence, subjection to monastic supervision - art was deprived of freedom and acquired a purely ecclesiastical, without any admixture of secular elements, character.
Russian icon painting gained (with respect to religion) in the inviolable preservation of Christian traditions, but lost a lot in relation to art. The artist turned into a copyist-artisan. The more iconography became part of the needs of the Russian people, the more it became national, the more the size of the icons was reduced, the more they approached the miniature. Colossal frescoes and mosaics of the majestic Byzantine style have now been replaced by intricately painted icons of small size with dozens and hundreds of small figures. Such a reduction in size was a necessary consequence of the spread of Christianity in the remote regions of Rus'. Small wooden churches, small chambers and chapels of wealthy houses, where they liked to assemble a whole church iconostasis on one small wall, needed small icons. And the samples themselves, from which Russian icon painters copied, could not be large in size, since they were transferred first from Greece, and then from the centers of ancient Russian life to the remote outskirts.
All this forced to reduce the size and accustomed the eye to miniature writing, which became dominant in Russian icon painting of the 16th and 17th centuries. This miniature letter, which concealed flaws in drawing, grouping, and expression, was convenient for Russian icon painting, which was limited in artistic means, and very suitable for the visual expression of religious ideas and theological teachings. Such multifaceted icons as “I Believe”, explaining prayer in faces, replaced letters for the illiterate, taught like a book and fully corresponded to the religious direction of the needs of a Russian person, who, in the absence of almost any aesthetic development, he was looking for in the icon not artistic pleasure, but religious edification, benefit for the soul.
Until the 15th century, there was only one school in Rus' - Greek, or Korsun. She was supported by visiting Greek masters who painted icons, however, only a little better, technically, than their Russian students. Russian miniatures of the 15th century differ little from late Greek ones, but they sometimes testify to some familiarity with Romanesque style, indicating Western influence. This influence found its way through Novgorod and Lithuania and intensified from the 15th century. From the time of the fall of Constantinople and the spread of Western printed books with engravings and polytypes in Rus' in the 16th century, the Korsun school of icon painting began to change. In Novgorod and Pskov, under the influence of the West, a school is being created, somewhat different from the conservative school of St. Sergius of Radonezh, from which came the famous icon painter Andrei Rublev. In the 16th century, the Stroganov school originated from Ustyug, in which miniature painting flourished, distinguished by the greatest artistry.
Moscow was able to form its own icon-painting schools not earlier than the 17th century. As the center of the Russian land, she recruited craftsmen from different cities and monasteries to her royal school. All these schools, with complete restraint of personal arbitrariness, were determined not personal character masters, and by chance - more or less large size icons, their more or less careful finishing, etc.
The icon was intended for prayer and, like prayer, should not be changed by personal arbitrariness. Therefore, the Russian schools of icon painting differed not in direction, but in handicraft techniques known to icon painters under the name "poshibov". Various styles do not violate the uniformity of the general Byzantine style. The fantasy of the Russian icon painter, who knew neither stories, nor novels, nor spiritual dramas, limited by the Prologue and the holy calendar, - which had such a powerful effect on creativity Western artist, - kept for centuries in a certain circle of monotonously repeating icon-painting plots of the Bible and the lives of saints. Our icon painters, with reverent fear, did not dare to change the images bequeathed by antiquity and strictly followed what the “originals” indicated, where they were collected, in a carefully thought-out system, all the information necessary for an icon painter, both technical and theological.
Striving exclusively for the expression of religious ideas, renouncing reality, the Russian icon painter did not consider it necessary to resort to the study of nature. Brought up in an ascetic direction, he avoids nudity, everything too gentle, relaxing. Not studying nature, not being familiar with ancient world, the Russian icon painter did not use the help of sculpture, which helped Western painting a lot and which did not exist in ancient Rus'. And those plastic elements that entered our iconography according to legend from Byzantine art, such as placing figures on a monochrome background, like bas-reliefs, piling up images of different times on one plane, contributed, with the underdevelopment of Russian art, only to the rooting of bad taste and mistakes. . As a result of all this, Russian icon painting was notable for its incorrect drawing, incorrect perspective, lack of color and chiaroscuro.
This undeveloped, artistically crude art, however, has a price and great importance in the field of religion. In the works of Russian icon painting, we see how weak, inexperienced in technical means art boldly strives to achieve lofty goals, to express a wealth of ideas.
For all the clumsiness of many figures, with obvious mistakes against nature, the images breathe with genuine nobility of character, which they were told by the icon painter, imbued with a consciousness of the holiness of the persons depicted by him. These saints are the artistic ideals in which the Russian nard expressed his concepts of human dignity and to which he, together with prayer, turned as models and leaders of his life. Male figures are more varied and better developed than female figures, which are less common and monotonous. Of the male figures, the best faces are strict, senile or mature, the characters are fully developed, faces with a beard, with sharp outlines. Less successful figures are youthful and children's.
Thanks to the centuries-old church leadership, Russian icon painting has sacredly preserved ancient Christian traditions, the fidelity of icon-painting types and the desire to ideally reproduce plots, without obscuring them by introducing unnecessary trifles from reality. The strict faces of selfless ascetics, the absence of any tenderness and temptations of female beauty fully correspond and contribute to the reverent mood of the worshiper. This is the originality and originality of Russian painting.
But the fidelity of types, the clarity of traditional subjects, and pious expression can only be fully achieved when the artist has the main means for expressing this - knowledge of nature. Russian icon painters did not know her, and this was the weak side of Russian icon painting.
In the middle of the 17th century, Russian icon painting itself realized its weak side and found a determined desire for improvement. Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich was not satisfied with Russian icon painters, but called in masters from the West to decorate his palace chambers, brought up on completely different artistic principles, who knew how to paint landscapes, perspectives and portraits from life in a completely different from icon painting - a pictorial style. Best Representative Russian icon painting XVII century, the royal icon painter Simon Ushakov, sought to transfer this technique and color of life, improved in the West, into icon painting, to merge it with Byzantine tradition.
This new style of icon painting is known as Fryazhsky. The Stroganov and Tsarskaya schools passed into it. Russian masters greedily rushed to foreign engravings, began to remake them in their own way, and apparently began to improve in technique and taste: the color became richer, more colorful, the brush - bolder. From the school of Ushakov, who, in addition to icons, designed and mythological subjects, skilful engravers came out, who in numerous copies began to spread among the Russians a new, more elegant style. So, along with spiritual painting - icon painting, secular painting became, which began to install a more elegant taste brought from the West, brought up by the study of nature and antiques.
From this time, from late XVII century, the second period of the history of Russian painting begins, the interest of which focuses mainly on the formation and gradual development of Russian art. secular life. The first firm beginnings for the inculcation of this secular painting were laid by Peter, who resolutely set the task of assimilating Western art by the Russian people themselves through travel abroad and through their school.
But neither the talented Russians who had studied in Italy and Holland, the Nikitin brothers, Zakharov, Matveev, nor the foreign artists discharged, nor the drawing and engraving class opened at the Academy of Sciences under Catherine I, according to the project of Peter, could bear good fruit, since the soil for The growth of a new, secular art was not prepared. A society that did not have an aesthetic development, did not understand artistic needs, was alien to the implanted European art and limited its demand to the more familiar portrait and miniature. More useful were the engravers educated at the meager funds of the Academy of Sciences, who, with numerous copies of famous paintings, introduced society to works of fine taste, contributing to the awakening of interest in secular art.
In the reign of Elizabeth, the desire for luxury and comfort, encouraged by the extraordinary splendor of the Court, developed in the upper classes and gave rise to new aesthetic needs.
Following the fashion brought from the West, the nobles began, along with portraits, to order plafonds and paintings from classical mythology to decorate their chambers. Compositions in the French style have become a favorite and necessary addition to any celebration. Due to the lack of Russians, and sometimes due to a preference for everything foreign, all this was carried out by registered foreigners. Of these, only Giuseppe Valeriani, after his 14 years of activity, left several talented Russian students who advanced in the reign of Catherine II. The rest remained a colony, artificially adjacent to the Court and the aristocracy, and did little to establish Western art in Russia.
A decisive step towards strengthening this art was taken in 1757, when, according to the project of I. Shuvalov, a separate independent "three the noblest arts"Academy of Arts, where they were invited from the then legislator in the field of art, France, famous artists, some members of the Paris Academy, who laid the foundation for the proper teaching of art.
Well placed under the leadership of Kokorinov and Losenko, the Academy under Catherine II received a more solid device. According to the project of Betsky, she started a closed educational school with the aim of preparing artistically developed students for the Academy from early childhood. For the same purpose of instilling taste in artists, the Academy adopted the custom of sending the best students abroad for improvement. It is clear that this Academy, which was supposed to carefully instill and protect art in Russia, created according to the French model, brought to life not by the needs of society, but by the desire of government power, lived for a long time by imitation and did not have a national soil. The artists produced by her continued to work for a long time on orders from the Court and nobles. The main types of painting in this era were historical and conditional heroic landscape painting in the style of Poussins and Claude Lorrain. But, among the colorless imitation of French models, already at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries, some features can be noticed in the Russian school of painting.
In the historical paintings of Kozlov, Sokolov, Akimov and Ugryumov, the correct drawing inherited from Losenko is firmly preserved. In the landscapes of Semyon Shchedrin, Alekseev, Martynov, Matveev, the first weak attempts to transfer the surrounding Russian reality to the picture, but in the coloring of the usual conventionality. The tactile striving for truthfulness is found in best portrait painters the same time - Levitsky, Rokotov, Antropov, Borovikovsky and Kiprensky.
Until the middle of the 19th century, the main trend of Russian painting still came from a Western European source. As before, they tried to imitate either the French, or the Italians and mainly the Bolognese. This is how Russian Poussins, Caracci, Rafaeli, Guido-Reni appeared. The paintings of Egorov, Shebuev, Andrey Ivanov, distinguished by classically strict drawing, antique forms, deep deliberation, stately composition and even masterful execution, showed that these artists received a good formal education and mastered the dominant style. But these same paintings showed coldness, far-fetchedness, lack of freshness of creativity and independence. The reason for the latter shortcomings lay both in the dominant style and in the organization of academic education aimed at formal development and imitation. Added to this was the special position of art among Russian society.
Under Alexander I and at the beginning of the reign of Nicholas I, only the Court and the aristocracy supported and patronized Russian painting. This support and patronage forced the painters to adjust to the tastes of the patrons. Embellished portraits, cold images for churches, historical paintings, allegorical plafonds, panegyric battle paintings - that was what Russian artists were busy creating, industriously creating their cold, formal and unidentified eclectic paintings with a conditional dry pattern. The first attempts to make a breach in this dry art, to enliven the drawing by copying living nature without memorized techniques - these first steps towards independence - were made by Varnek, Basin, Bruni.
But only the talented Karl Bryullov succeeded in making a breach and inhaling life. With his colossal, widely painted, spectacular painting "The Last Day of Pompeii", he immediately broke the monotonous, boring monotony, cold calmness of classicism, introduced a sense of color and made a call for attempts at independent creativity. Bryullov introduced an interest in art into society, vitality and romanticism into art. His watercolors and especially his portraits were the harbingers of realism. Realism also paved the way for the deep, serious A. Ivanov, who gave most of his life to create "The Appearance of Christ to the People" in order to embody an event with a possible reality, and Sylvester Shchedrin, who in his landscapes abandoned the conventions of Poussin, and an energetic follower of Shchedrin - Lebedev.
In the second quarter XIX century, the number of artists increased significantly, interest in painting increased markedly and from a narrow sphere, court and aristocratic, began to spread more widely in society. Art exhibitions began to attract more visitors. Amateurs began to appear in society, who willingly bought paintings by domestic artists and even made galleries out of them. The need for art education developed so much that society itself began to help the Academy. A number of private drawing and painting schools arose in the provinces; art class, in St. Petersburg - a society for the encouragement of artists, which has done a lot to support art and spread education and art. The circle of amateurs, which founded the art class in 1833, soon expanded into the Society of Art Lovers, under which in 1843 the art class turned into a school of painting and sculpture (later architecture), which produced a number of gifted artists. Emperor Nicholas I actively supported and patronized Russian painting. In 1825, in the Hermitage, open to the public, among other schools, a department of Russian painting appeared, although not rich in the number of paintings, but Nicholas I acquired many paintings by Russian artists for his palace. All this accelerated the emergence of Russian national art.
For a long time, under the main official current of art, a living stream of realism and nationality made its way, gradually expanding. The rise of the national spirit, the development of self-consciousness, which began with the time of Alexander I, the maturity of art, the liberation from imitation, in which the first period of the existence of each art always passes, manifested itself in the fact that painters began to make attempts to depict their immediate reality, to get closer to the people. The main pioneer of nationality and realism, after Orlovsky, who made the first brisk but shallow attempts in this direction, was not a former member of the Academy of the Venetsians, who at the beginning of the 19th century boldly turned to the low kind of painting at that time - to the genre, the image peasant life. Not aiming to express deep thoughts, Venetsianov looked for beauty in surrounding reality and was content with a simple rendering of nature. This conscientious transmission of nature was necessary and of great importance, since it brought up the ability to see and understand reality as it is, without embellishment, and thus paved the way for a national-real direction.
Venetsianov had many students, but few followed in his footsteps. These latter, not distinguished by strong talent, could not move genre painting forward, especially at the time when K. Bryullov thundered. The historical painters of the Bryullov period—Basin, Shamshin, Nef, Moller, Flavitsky—were busy with cold, showy, melodramatic, masterfully painted paintings. Sauerweid, Kotzebue, Villewald painted panegyric battle paintings. But, along with embellished portraits, truthful portraits of Bryullov, Tyranov, Zaryanko began to appear at exhibitions from the late 1830s; along with views of Constantinople and pictures from Italian life - pictures from Russian life. The genres of Sternberg, Chernyshev, Sokolov, designed to flaunt victory over technical difficulties, showed an understanding of Russian life. After Fedotov's talented and humorous genre paintings, by the 1960s the genre had won attention for itself: Timm, Andr. Popov, Trutovsky act with paintings from thoughtful Russian reality. This is a new direction in further development walked past the Academy, which kept away from this movement. It firmly formed the view that the connection between art and life is blasphemy, that drawing, technique, eternal universal ideals constitute the only task of the artist.
With the accession to the throne of Alexander II, the emerging real-national trend was widely developed. This was facilitated by the rise of public consciousness, the complete freedom of art, which is now not constrained by government leadership, and a change in the organization of art education at the Academy. Instead of the students of the Betsky school, which was killing independence, the Academy was filled with young people from different parts of Rus', who stood close to life, imbued with national identity, more conscious and artistically educated, more independent.
They couldn't come to terms with convention classical programs Academy and, among 13, with Kramskoy at the head, left the Academy in 1863. In 1872 they formed the "association of traveling exhibitions", which became the main center of the Russian national school. Almost all the outstanding talents of the 70s and 80s adjoined him. Exhibitions, traveling annually around the most significant cities of Russia, contributed to the development of art education and interest among Russian society.
The growth and expansion of artistic understanding and needs is reflected in the emergence of many art societies, schools, a number of private galleries (the Tretyakov Gallery) and museums not only in the capitals, but also in the provinces, in the introduction to school education in drawing, in the collection of the art congress in Moscow in 1894 year.
All this, in connection with the appearance of a number of brilliant works by Russian artists, shows that art took root on Russian soil and became national. New Russian national art differed sharply in that it clearly and strongly reflected the main currents of Russian social life. This is most clearly seen in the field of genre. After the first galaxy of genre painters of the 1950s who depicted merry scenes, genre painters with a socially tendentious direction appeared in the 60s.
Painting and, especially, the genre considered themselves called to act in an educational way, to fight, to preach, to denounce. by the most major representative this literary direction in painting was Perov, behind him stood Pukirev, Korzukhin, Pryanishnikov, Savitsky, Zhuravlev, Myasoedov, Yaroshenko, partly M. Klodt. This constellation followed accusatory literature, applying a drawing well learned in the old school to express ideas. The literary direction was reflected in the predominance of the idea, content, the weakening of purely pictorial elements - plasticity and color.
When the excitement passed and the feelings subsided, the painting began to lose its instructive tone. The tendentious direction began to recede into the background, and a new generation of genre painters appeared, in which the pictorial plastic instincts of form and color, the desire not to convey an idea, but to convey a mood, began to speak very strongly. Such are Arkhipov, Baksheev, Bogdanov-Belsky, Kasatkin, Pasternak, Tvorozhnikov, and others. The followers of this trend sometimes strive for mood and color even to the detriment of the idea and drawing.
At the crossroads between the one and the other generation are the most prominent genre painters: a subtle, versatile observer and a lively painter, Volkov. The newest generation of battle painters - Samokish, Kivshenko, Kovalevsky - are mainly occupied with the everyday side of military life, its types.
Religious painting also followed the same path of real genre and trend, later adopting a national trend later than other types of painting. The extreme expression of the literary trend in the field of religious painting was Ge's painting "The Last Supper".
The beginning of the history of Russian painting is considered to be the era of the adoption of Christianity - the end of the 10th century. With the ideology of Christianity in Rus', the traditions of Byzantine pictorial art spread, which will remain dominant until the 15th century. Musiy images (musiy - made on a dyeing tree) are first made by visiting masters from Greece, who train talented Russian youths. One of them is the Monk Alympius of the Caves, the first Russian icon painter.
The strict supervision of church authorities, allowing only the copying of Greek models and suppressing any attempts to deviate from the canon, slows down the development of pictorial art for a long time. Until the 15th century, there was only one school of painting - Korsun (Greek). But in the 15th century, the situation changed due to the spread of European ones, decorated with polytypes and engravings. This period includes the work of Andrei Rublev, a representative of the Byzantine school, the author of the murals of the Moscow Annunciation Cathedral, the cathedrals of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, etc.
In the 17th century, the backwardness of the Russian icon-painting school became obvious even to the church authorities. Sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich invites Western masters who are able to paint from life to paint the palace chambers - such a skill was absolutely absent in the domestic school. Simon Ushakov, the royal icon painter, is trying to combine Byzantine and European techniques and creates a new icon painting style - Fryazhsky.
XVII century. The beginning of the development of secular painting
Since the 17th century, Rus' began to develop and secular painting, especially decisively - during the reign of Peter the Great. In Italy and Holland, Matveev, Zakharov, the Nikitin brothers are studying the Western style of writing, engraving and drawing classes are opened at the Academy of Sciences.
Fashion, the desire for luxury became the reason for the high demand for painting during the time of Elizabeth Petrovna. But the works of foreign artists are in demand - Russian painters are far behind in skill.
In 1757, the Academy of Arts was founded in St. Petersburg with 5 departments: painting, sculpture and sculpture, engraving, medal art (making coins and medals), and architecture. People of all classes and even women were accepted into it (with the consent of the father or husband) - such was the need for domestic talents. However, the French teaching leadership for a long time determined the main types of painting - historical and heroic landscape in the style of Poussins and Claude Lorrain, which caused the monotony and high conventionality of images.
But development, albeit slowly, goes on. In portraits best artists At that time, Levitsky, Borovikovsky, Rokotov, Kiprensky, the truthfulness of nature became more and more distinct. D. G. Levitsky becomes the most fashionable portrait painter of the times of Catherine II. His ceremonial, very beautiful works are in great demand in the aristocratic environment, a characteristic example of Levitsky's manner is a full-length portrait of Catherine II. Orest Kiprensky is ranked among the best Russian portrait painters. His best works are the portrait of Thordvalsen, the paintings "Sibyl Tiburtinskaya", "Girl with Fruits", etc.
For a very long time, until the first half of the 19th century, Russian painting remained predominantly imitative. The painters copied the techniques and subjects of the French, Italian (Bologna) masters. The reason was an academic education and a secular request, which, like the church authorities, instilled ideas of imitation.
The first artists who took a step towards independence and liveliness of the image were Basin, Warnek, Bruni. However, a fundamental break from the tradition of classicism is made by Karl Bryullov, who wrote The Last Day of Pompeii. Bryullov managed to arouse interest in living art in society, and his romantic manner of writing became a harbinger of Russian realism.
XIX century. The formation of national painting
The second half of the 19th century is characterized by the constant growth of love and simple interest in art. There are many exhibitions. Wealthy connoisseurs appear, buying up canvases and forming private galleries. There are private drawing schools.
In 1825 in open access The Hermitage organizes a department of Russian painting. The break with imitative academicism is expressed in the appeal to everyday and peasant life, the plots of simple reality. And although in the paintings of Venetsianov it is rather a search for beauty than, they are of great importance for the formation of the Russian realistic school.
In 1863, a group of artists led by Kramskoy, condemning the policy of the Academy of Arts, left its composition, and in 1872 they formed the "association of traveling exhibitions", in the future - the center of the national Russian school of painting. Over time, the most talented and original artists adjoin them.
During these years, the Tretyakov Gallery appeared, many museums not only in both capitals, but also in provincial towns. The dominant direction is becoming socially tendentious, designed to portray, influencing, fighting, denouncing and preaching. The ideas of literature and social thought inspired the paintings of Perov, Pukirev, Pryanishnikov, Korzukhin, Savitsky, Myasoedov, Klodt.
Time for a change
The end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century is the time of revolutionary changes and the expectation of the revival of Russia. During this period, the famous “Bogatyrs” by Vasnetsov and “Cossacks” by Repin, “Suvorov’s Crossing the Alps” by Surikov appeared. The paintings express the patriotic ideas of national greatness and the innermost thought of its revival.
But not only the appeal to the great pages of history is characteristic of the time big changes. The younger Wanderers - S. Korovin, S. Ivanov, N. Kasatkin and others - turn to deaf life, creating sharply social, revolutionary in their truthfulness canvases.
Treasury of Russian painting:
history of the Russian Museum
One can thoroughly know the expositions of the Hermitage, one can perfectly orient oneself in Tretyakov Gallery, you can be ready at any time to give your friends an impromptu tour of the Pushkin Museum, but still do not consider yourself an expert on Russian art.
And all why? Because without the Russian Museum in this case nowhere! Today we recall the history of the museum, which houses one of the most large collections Russian painting in the world.
Art lover Alexander III
On April 13, 1895, Emperor Nicholas II issued a decree according to which the "Russian Museum named after Emperor Alexander III" was to be established in St. Petersburg. And the museum was officially opened only on March 8, 1898. But the idea of creating a museum came to Alexander III's mind long before that.
In young age future emperor Alexander III was fond of art and even studied painting himself with Professor Tikhobrazov. A little later, his wife, Maria Fedorovna, shared his passion, and the two of them continued their studies under the strict guidance of Academician Bogolyubov.
Decree on the establishment of the Russian Museum
published by Nicholas II
Having assumed power, the emperor realized that it was impossible to combine government and painting, and therefore abandoned his art. But he did not lose his love for art, and squandered significant sums from the treasury on the purchase of works of art that were no longer placed either in Gatchina, or in the Winter Palace, or in the Anichkov Palace.
It was then that Alexander decided to create a state museum in which the paintings of Russian painters could be stored, and which would correspond to the prestige of the country, raised the patriotic mood and all that. It is believed that for the first time the emperor expressed the idea after the 17th exhibition of the Association of the Wanderers in 1889, where he acquired Repin's painting "Nicholas of Myra saves three innocently convicted from death."
Ilya Repin "Nicholas of Mirlikiy Saves Three Innocently Convicted from Death"
Special status of the Russian Museum
By 1895, they managed to create a project for the construction of the building of the Museum of Russian Art at the Academy of Arts and even finish the estimate, but on October 21, 1894, Alexander III died, and it seemed that the museum would never become a reality. But Nicholas II got down to business. He decided to give the Mikhailovsky Palace bought to the treasury for the needs of the museum.
Repin's painting inspired
Alexander III to create a museum
The regulations on the museum in 1897 emphasized its special status. Special rules for creating a collection were fixed, for example, works by contemporary artists had to be in the museum at the Academy of Arts for 5 years first, and only then, at the choice of the manager, they could be placed in the Russian Museum.
Art objects placed in the museum were supposed to remain there forever - that is, they could not be taken away or transferred to any other place. The manager was appointed by the highest personal decree and must necessarily belong to the Imperial House.
Manager of the Russian Museum
should have belonged to the Imperial House
Mikhailovsky Palace
With the world on a thread - collection to the museum
At first, the museum's collection consisted of collected by Alexander III paintings that were transferred from the Academy of Arts, the Hermitage, for example, the famous painting by Karl Bryullov “The Last Day of Pompeii”. Winter, Gatchina and Alexander Palaces. Part of the collection was purchased from private collections.
As Nicholas II decided, in the future the collection was to be replenished at the expense of the treasury, which even introduced a separate paragraph for the museum, and thanks to possible donations.
Surprisingly, there were many of them, the size of the collection grew rapidly and almost doubled compared to the original 1.5 thousand works and 5000 exhibits from the Museum of Christian Antiquities. The “color of the nation” was enrolled in the first staff of the museum - the most prominent scientists, art critics and historians, for example, A.P. Benois, P.A. Bryullov, M.P. Botkin, N.N. Punin and others.
Museum life in the 20th century
Thanks to the State Museum Fund, which worked in the first years after the October Revolution, the museum's collection grew rapidly after 1917. Large gaps in the collection were filled in, for example, some trends in Russian painting were not presented at the museum for some time, and the collection of some was extremely scarce.
In 1922, the museum's exposition was built for the first time according to the scientific and historical principle, which brought the museum to a qualitatively new level. But the building of the Mikhailovsky Palace alone was not enough for the expanded collection, and gradually the museum began to "conquer the territory."
In the 30s, occupied until then by tenants Benois Corps Rossi's wing in the Mikhailovsky Palace was vacated and moved to the Russian Museum, and a little later the ethnographic department "moved out" from the parental nest of the Russian Museum, which became the State Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR. In the 40s, the Benois building and the Mikhailovsky Palace were even connected by a special passage.
Benois Wing on the Griboyedov Canal
Where to go and what to see?
IN early XXI centuries, the Summer Garden with a collection of marble sculptures(yes, yes, in summer garden now there are only copies!), as well as the Summer Palace of Peter I, the Coffee and Tea Houses located in it. The house of Peter I on Petrovskaya Embankment, which also belongs to the Russian Museum, was first built of logs, but after a while it was covered with stone, and a little later with a brick cover.
Serov Valentin Alexandrovich.
"Portrait of Ida Rubinstein"
Among the most famous works of art stored in the Russian Museum, one can name the icons of Andrei Rublev and Simon Ushakov, the canvases of Bryullov "Italian Noon" and "The Last Day of Pompeii", Aivazovsky's "The Ninth Wave" and "Wave", "Barge Haulers on the Volga" by Repin, "Vityaz on crossroads” by Vanetsov, “Suvorov Crossing the Alps” by Surikov, “Portrait of Ida Rubinstein” and “The Abduction of Europe” by Serov, “Portrait of F.I. Chaliapin” by Kustodiev.
But this is only a small part of those beautiful paintings by Russian painters that are stored in the Russian Museum.
