Academicism - the art of the "golden mean"

The art of the 19th century as a whole at first glance seems to be well studied. A large amount of scientific literature is devoted to this period. Monographs have been written about almost all major artists. Despite this, quite a few books have recently appeared containing both studies of previously unknown factual material and new interpretations. The 1960s and 1970s in Europe and America were marked by a surge of interest in the culture of the 19th century.

Numerous exhibitions have taken place. Especially attractive was the era of Romanticism with its blurred boundaries and different interpretations of the same artistic attitudes.

The previously rarely exhibited salon academic painting, which occupied in the history of art written in the 20th century, the place assigned to it by the avant-garde - the place of the background, the inert pictorial tradition, with which the new art struggled, came out of oblivion.

The development of interest in the art of the 19th century went, as it were, in reverse: from the turn of the century, modernity - in depth, to the middle of the century. The recently despised art of the salon has come under intense scrutiny from both art historians and the general public. The trend of shifting emphasis from significant phenomena and first names to the background and the general process has continued in recent times.

Huge exhibition “Romantic years. French Painting 1815-1850, which was displayed at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1996, represented Romanticism exclusively in its salon version.

The inclusion of layers of art that were not previously taken into account in the research orbit led to a conceptual revision of the entire artistic culture of the 19th century. Awareness of the need for a new look allowed the German researcher Zeitler back in the 1960s to title the volume devoted to the art of the 19th century, "The Unknown Century". The need to rehabilitate the academic salon art of the nineteenth century was emphasized by many researchers.

Perhaps the main problem of the art of the 19th century is academicism. The term academism is not clearly defined in the art literature and must be used with caution.

The word "academism" often defines two different artistic phenomena - academic classicism of the late 18th - early 19th centuries and academism of the mid-second half of the 19th century.

For example, such a broad interpretation was given to the concept by I.E. Grabar. He saw the beginning of academicism as early as the 18th century in the Baroque era and traced its development to his own time. Both of these directions really have a common basis, which is understood by the word academicism - namely, reliance on the classic tradition.

The academism of the 19th century, however, is a completely independent phenomenon. The end of the 1820s - 1830s can be considered the beginning of the formation of academism. Alexandre Benois was the first to note that historical moment when the stagnant academic classicism of A.I. Ivanova, A.E. Egorova, V.K. Shebuev received a new impetus for development in the form of an injection of romanticism.

According to Benois: “K.P. Bryullov and F.A. The Bruni poured new blood into the depleted, dry academic routine, and thus extended its existence for many years.

The combination of elements of classicism and romanticism in the work of these artists reflected the fact of the emergence of academism as an independent phenomenon of the middle - second half of the 19th century. The revival of academic painting, which "carried on their shoulders two strong and devoted strong men", became possible due to the inclusion of elements of a new artistic system in its structure. Actually, one can talk about academism from the moment when the classicist school began to use the achievements of such an alien direction as romanticism.

Romanticism did not compete with classicism, as in France, but easily united with it in academicism. Romanticism, like no other direction, was quickly adopted and assimilated by the general public as well. "The first-born of democracy, he was the darling of the crowd."

By the 1830s, the romantic worldview and romantic style had become widespread in a slightly reduced form adapted to the tastes of the public. According to A. Benois, "romantic fashion spread in the academic editorial board."

Thus, the essence of 19th century academicism is eclecticism. Academism became the basis that proved able to perceive and process all the changing stylistic trends in art of the 19th century. Eclecticism as a specific property of academicism was noted by I. Grabar: "Thanks to its amazing elasticity, it takes on a wide variety of forms - a real artistic werewolf."

In relation to the art of the mid-19th century, one can speak of academic romanticism, academic classicism and academic realism.

At the same time, a consistent change in these tendencies can also be traced. In the academicism of the 1820s, classical features predominate, in the 1830s-1850s - romantic ones, from the middle of the century realistic tendencies begin to prevail. A.N. Izergina wrote: “The big, perhaps one of the main problems of the entire 19th century, by no means only romanticism, is the problem of the “shadow”, which was cast by all alternating currents in the form of salon-academic art.

In line with academicism, there was an approach to nature, characteristic of A.G. Venetsianov and his school. The classic roots of Venetsianov's work have been noted by many researchers.

MM. Allenov showed how in the Venetian genre the opposition of “simple nature” and “graceful nature” was removed, which is the fundamental principle of the classic way of thinking, however, the Venetian genre does not contradict historical painting as “low” - “high”, but shows “high” in a different , a more natural incarnation."

The Venetian method did not contradict academicism. It is no coincidence that most of Venetsianov's students developed in line with general trends and at the end of the 1830s came to romantic academism, and then to naturalism, like, for example, S. Zaryanko.

In the 1850s, very important for the subsequent development of art, academic painting mastered the methods of realistic depiction of nature, which was reflected in the portraits, in particular, of E. Plushar, S. Zaryanko, N. Tyutryumov.

The absolutization of nature, the rigid fixation of the external appearance of the model, which replaced the idealization that was the basis of the classic school, did not completely supplant it.

Academism combined the imitation of a realistic depiction of nature and its idealization. The academic way of interpreting nature in the mid-19th century can be defined as "idealized naturalism".

Elements of the eclectic style of academism arose in the works of academic painters of the 1820s and especially of the 1830s and 40s, who worked at the intersection of classicism and romanticism - K. Bryullov and F. Bruni, due to the ambiguity of their artistic programs, in the open eclecticism of students and imitators K. Bryullov. However, in the minds of contemporaries, academicism as a style was not read at that time.

Any interpretation offered its own specific version of the interpretation of the image, destroyed the original ambivalence of style and diverted the work into the mainstream of one of the pictorial traditions - classic or romantic, although the eclecticism of this art was felt by contemporaries.

Alfred de Musset, who visited the Salon of 1836, wrote: “At first glance, the Salon presents such a variety, it brings together such different elements that one involuntarily wants to start with a general impression. What strikes you first? We do not see anything homogeneous here - no common idea, no common roots, no schools, no connection between artists - neither in plots, nor in manner. Everyone stands apart."

Critics used many terms - not only "romanticism" and "classicism". In conversations about art, there are words "realism", "naturalism", "academism", replacing "classicism". The French critic Delescluze, considering the current situation, wrote about the amazing "elasticity of the spirit" inherent in this time.

But none of his contemporaries speaks of a combination of different tendencies. Moreover, artists and critics, as a rule, theoretically adhered to the views of any one direction, although their work testified to eclecticism.

Very often, biographers and researchers interpret the views of the artist as a follower of a particular direction. And in accordance with this conviction, they build his image.

For example, in the monograph by E.N. Atsarkina, the image of Bryullov and his creative path are built on playing up the opposition of classicism and romanticism, and Bryullov is presented as an advanced artist, a fighter against obsolete classicism.

While a more dispassionate analysis of the work of artists of the 1830s and 40s allows us to get closer to understanding the essence of academicism in painting. E. Gordon writes: “The art of Bruni is the key to understanding such an important and in many ways still mysterious phenomenon as the academicism of the 19th century. With great care, using this term, erased from use and therefore indefinite, we note as the main property of academicism its ability to "adjust" to the aesthetic ideal of the era, "grow" into styles and trends. This property, inherent in the full extent of Bruni's painting, just gave rise to enrolling him in romance. But the material itself resists such a classification... Should we repeat the mistakes of our contemporaries, attributing some definite idea to Bruni's works, or should we assume "that everyone is right", that the possibility of different interpretations - depending on the attitude of the interpreter - is provided for in the very nature of the phenomenon.

Academism in painting expressed itself most fully in a large genre, in a historical picture. The historical genre has traditionally been considered by the Academy of Arts as the most important. The myth of the priority of the historical picture was so deeply rooted in the minds of the artists of the first half - the middle of the 19th century that the romantics O. Kiprensky and K. Bryullov, whose greatest successes relate to the field of portraiture, constantly experienced dissatisfaction due to the inability to express themselves in the "high genre" .

Artists of the middle-second half of the century do not reflect on this topic. In the new academicism, there was a decrease in ideas about the genre hierarchy, which was finally destroyed in the second half of the century. Most of the artists received the title of academicians for portraits or fashionable plot compositions - F. Moller for "The Kiss", A. Tyranov for "Girl with a Tambourine".

Academism was a clear rational system of rules that worked equally well in portraiture and in the big genre. The tasks of the portrait, of course, are perceived as less global.

In the late 1850s, N.N. Ge, who studied at the Academy, wrote: “It is much easier to make a portrait, nothing is required except execution.” However, the portrait not only dominated quantitatively in the genre structure of the mid-19th century, but also reflected the most important trends of the era. This was the inertia of romanticism. The portrait was the only genre in Russian art in which romantic ideas were consistently embodied. Romantics transferred their high ideas about the human personality to the perception of a particular person.

Thus, academism as an artistic phenomenon that combined the classic, romantic and realistic traditions became the dominant trend in 19th century painting. He showed extraordinary vitality, having existed up to the present day. This tenacity of academism is explained by its eclecticism, its ability to catch changes in artistic taste and adapt to them without breaking with the classicist method.

The dominance of eclectic tastes was more obvious in architecture. The term eclecticism refers to a large period in the history of architecture. In the form of eclecticism, a romantic worldview manifested itself in architecture. With the new architectural direction, the word eclecticism also came into use.

“Our age is eclectic, in everything its characteristic features are a smart choice,” wrote N. Kukolnik, surveying the latest buildings in St. Petersburg. Architectural historians experience difficulties in defining and distinguishing between different periods in the architecture of the second quarter - the middle of the 19th century. “An increasingly close study of the artistic processes in Russian architecture of the second half of the 19th century showed that the fundamental principles of architecture, which entered the special literature under the code name “eclecticism”, originated precisely in the era of romanticism under the undoubted influence of its artistic worldview.

At the same time, the signs of the architecture of the era of romanticism, while remaining rather vague, did not allow us to clearly distinguish it from the subsequent era - the era of eclecticism, which made the periodization of the architecture of the 19th century very conditional, ”says E.A. Borisov.

In recent years, the problem of academicism has attracted more and more attention from researchers around the world. Thanks to numerous exhibitions and new research, a huge amount of factual material that had previously remained in the shadows was studied.

As a result, a problem was posed that seems to be the main one for the art of the 19th century - the problem of academicism as an independent stylistic direction and eclecticism as the style-forming principle of the era.

The attitude towards academic art of the 19th century has changed. However, it has not been possible to develop clear criteria and definitions. The researchers noted that academism remained in a sense a mystery, an elusive artistic phenomenon.

The task of conceptual revision of the art of the 19th century was no less acute for Russian art historians. If Western art history and Russian pre-revolutionary criticism rejected the art of the academic salon from an aesthetic standpoint, then the Soviet one mainly from a social standpoint.

The stylistic aspects of academism in the second quarter of the 19th century have not been studied enough. Already for the critics of the World of Art, who stood on the other side of the line dividing the old and the new, the academic art of the middle - the second half of the 19th century became a symbol of routine. A. Benois, N. Wrangel, A. Efros spoke in the sharpest tone about the “endlessly boring”, in the words of N. Wrangel, academic portrait painters P. Shamshin, I. Makarov, N. Tyutryumov, T. Neff. S.K. was especially hard hit. Zaryanko, the "traitor" of A.G. Venetsianov. Benois wrote “... licked portraits of his last period, reminiscent of enlarged and colored photographs, clearly indicate that he could not resist, lonely, abandoned by everyone, in addition, a dry and limited person from the influence of general bad taste. His whole testament was reduced to some kind of real “photographing” of no matter what, without inner warmth, with completely unnecessary details, with a rude attack on the illusion.

Democratic criticism treated academicism with no less disdain. In many ways, a just negative attitude towards academism not only made it impossible to develop objective assessments, but also created disproportions in our ideas about academic and non-academic art, which in fact constituted a very small part in the 19th century. N.N. Kovalenskaya, in her article on the pre-peredvizhniki everyday genre, analyzed the genre and ideological and thematic structure of Russian painting in the mid-19th century, from which it is clear that socially oriented realistic painting accounted for only a small proportion. At the same time, Kovalenskaya rightly notes that "the new worldview had undoubted points of contact with academicism."

Subsequently, art historians proceeded from a completely opposite picture. Realism in painting had to defend its aesthetic ideals in a constant struggle with academicism. Wandering movement, which was formed in the fight against the Academy, had much in common with academism. N.N. wrote about the common roots of academicism and new realistic art. Kovalenskaya: “But just as the new aesthetics, being the antithesis of the academic one, was simultaneously connected with it dialectically in an objective setting and in apprenticeship, so the new art, despite its revolutionary nature, had a number of successive ties with the Academy that naturally followed from its essence. composition, in the priority of the drawing and in the tendency towards the predominance of man. She also showed some forms of concession of academic genre painting to emerging realism. The idea of ​​a common basis for academicism and realism was expressed in the early 1930s in an article by L.A. Dintses "Realism of the 60-80s" Based on the materials of the exhibition in the Russian Museum.

Speaking about the use of realism by academic painting, Dintses uses the term "academic realism". In 1934 I.V. Ginzburg was the first to formulate the idea that only an analysis of the reborn academism can finally help to understand the most complex relationship between academism and the Wanderers, their interaction and struggle.

Without an analysis of academicism, it is impossible to understand an earlier period: the 1830s-50s. In order to compile an objective picture of Russian art, it is necessary to take into account the proportion of the distribution of artistic forces that really existed in the middle - second half of the 19th century. Until recently, in our art history there was a generally recognized concept of the development of Russian realism in the 19th century with well-established assessments of individual phenomena and their correlation.

Some of the concepts that make up the essence of academism were given a qualitative assessment. Academicism was reproached with the features that made up its essence, for example, its eclecticism. The literature of the last decades on Russian academic art is not numerous. The works of A.G. Vereshchagina and M.M. Rakova devoted to historical academic painting. However, in these works, the view of the art of the 19th century according to the genre scheme is preserved, so that academic painting is identified with the historical picture par excellence.

In the book on historical painting of the 1860s, A.G. Vereshchagina, without defining the essence of academism, notes its main features: “However, the contradictions between classicism and romanticism were not antagonistic. This is noticeable in the work of Bryullov, Bruni and many others who went through the classicist school of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. It was then that a tangle of contradictions began in their work, which each of them will unravel all his life, in a difficult search for realistic imagery, not immediately and not without difficulty breaking the threads that connect with the traditions of classicism.

However, she believes that academic historical painting is still fundamentally opposed to realism and does not reveal the eclectic nature of academicism. In the early 1980s, monographs by A.G. Vereshchagina about F.A. Bruni and E.F. Petinova about P.V. Basin.

Opening the forgotten pages of the history of art, they also make a significant step in the study of the most important problem of art in the 19th century - academism. The dissertation and articles of E.S. Gordon, in which the development of academic painting is presented as the evolution of an independent stylistic direction of the middle - second half of the 19th century, designated by the concept of academicism.

She made an attempt to more clearly define this concept, as a result of which an important idea was expressed that the property of academism to elude the definition of the researcher is an expression of its main quality, which consists in implanting all advanced pictorial trends, faking them, using them to gain popularity. . Precise formulations concerning the essence of academism are contained in a small but very capacious review by E. Gordon on books about Fedor Bruni and Petr Basin.

Unfortunately, in the last decade, the attempt to understand the nature of academism has not moved forward. And although the attitude towards academicism has clearly changed, which was indirectly reflected in the views on various phenomena, this change has not found a place in the scientific literature.

Academism, neither Western nor Russian, unlike Europe, has not aroused interest in our art history. In European histories of art, in our presentation, it is simply omitted. In particular, in the book by N. Kalitina about the French portrait of the 19th century, there is no salon academic portrait.

HELL. Chegodaev, who studied the art of France in the 19th century and devoted a large article to the French salon, treated him with a prejudice characteristic of all domestic art history of that time. But, despite the negative attitude towards "the boundless swampy lowlands of the artistic life of the then France", he still recognizes the presence in the salon academism of "a harmonious system of aesthetic ideas, traditions and principles."

Academism of the 1830-50s can be called "middle art" by analogy with the French art of the "golden mean". This art is characterized by a number of stylistic components. Its middleness consists in eclecticism, a position between various, and mutually exclusive, stylistic tendencies.

The French term "le juste milieu" - "golden mean" (in English "the middle of the road") was introduced into the history of art by the French researcher Leon Rosenthal.

Most of the artists between 1820-1860, kept between obsolete classicism and rebellious romanticism, were grouped by him under the conditional name "le juste milieu". These artists did not form a group with consistent principles, there were no leaders among them. The most famous masters were Paul Delaroche, Horace Vernet, but mostly they included numerous less significant figures.

The only thing that was common between them was eclecticism - the position between different stylistic trends, as well as the desire to be understandable and in demand by the public.

The term had political analogies. Louis Philippe declared his intentions to stick to the "golden mean", relying on moderation and laws, to balance between the claims of the parties. In these words, the political principle of the middle classes was formulated - a compromise between radical monarchism and left-wing republican views. The principle of compromise prevailed in art as well.

In a review of the Salon of 1831, the main principles of the “golden mean” school were characterized as follows: “a conscientious drawing, but not reaching the Jansenism practiced by Ingres; effect, but on condition that not everything is sacrificed to it; color, but as close as possible to nature and not using strange tones that always turn the real into the fantastic; poetry that doesn't necessarily need hell, graves, dreams and ugliness as its ideal."

In relation to the Russian situation, all this is "too much." But if we discard this "French" redundancy, and leave only the essence of the matter, it will be clear that the same words can be used to characterize Russian painting of the Bryullov direction - early academicism, which is primarily felt as "the art of the middle path."

The definition of "middle art" can raise many objections, firstly, because of the lack of precedents and, secondly, because it is really inaccurate.

In a conversation about the portrait genre, accusations of inaccuracy can be avoided by using the expressions "fashion portrait painter" or "secular portrait painter"; these words are more neutral, but apply only to a portrait and, ultimately, do not reflect the essence of the matter. The development of a more accurate conceptual apparatus is possible only in the process of mastering this material. It remains to be hoped that in the future art historians will either find some other more accurate words, or get used to the existing ones, as happened with the “primitive” and its conceptual apparatus, the lack of development of which now almost causes no complaints.

Now we can only talk about an approximate definition of the main historical, sociological and aesthetic parameters of this phenomenon. In justification, it can be noted that, for example, in French, artistic terms do not require semantic specificity, in particular, the mentioned expression “le juste milieu” is incomprehensible without comments.

Even more strangely, the French designate the salon academic painting of the second half of the 19th century - “la peinture pompiers” - the painting of firefighters (the helmets of ancient Greek heroes in the paintings of academicians were associated with the helmets of firefighters). Moreover, the word pompier received a new meaning - vulgar, banal.

Almost all phenomena of the 19th century require clarification of concepts. The art of the 20th century called into question all the values ​​of the previous century. This is one of the reasons why most of the concepts of 19th century art do not have clear definitions. Neither "academism" nor "realism" has precise definitions; "middle" and even "salon" art is difficult to isolate. Romanticism and Biedermeier do not have clearly defined categories and temporal boundaries.

The boundaries of both phenomena are indefinite, blurred, as well as their style is indefinite. Eclecticism and historicism in the architecture of the 19th century have only recently received more or less clear definitions. And the point is not only insufficient attention to the culture of the middle of the 19th century by its researchers, but also the complexity of this outwardly prosperous, conformal, “bourgeois” time.

The eclecticism of the culture of the 19th century, the blurring of boundaries, stylistic uncertainty, the ambiguity of artistic programs, gives the culture of the 19th century the ability to elude the definitions of researchers and makes it, according to many, difficult to comprehend.

Another important issue is the ratio of "middle" art and Biedermeier. Already in the concepts themselves there is an analogy.

"Biedermann" (a decent person), which gave the name to the period in German art, and the "average" or "private person" in Russia are essentially one and the same.

Initially, Biedermeier meant the lifestyle of the petty bourgeoisie in Germany and Austria. Having calmed down after the political storms and upheavals of the Napoleonic wars, Europe longed for peace, a calm and orderly life. “The burghers, cultivating their way of life, sought to build their ideas about life, their taste into a kind of law, to extend their rules to all spheres of life. The time has come for the empire of a private individual.”

Over the past ten years, the qualitative assessment of this period in European art has changed. There have been numerous exhibitions of Biedermeier art in major European museums. In 1997, a new exhibition of 19th-century art opened in the Vienna Belvedere, with the Biedermeier taking center stage. Biedermeier has become almost the main category that unites the art of the second third of the 19th century. Under the concept of Biedermeier, more and more broad and versatile phenomena fall.

In recent years, the concept of Biedermeier has been extended to many phenomena that are not directly related to art. Biedermeier is primarily understood as a “lifestyle”, which includes not only the interior, applied art, but also the urban environment, public life, the relationship of the “private person” with public institutions, but also the wider worldview of the “average”, “private” person in new living environment.

Romantics, opposing their "I" to the world around them, won the right to personal artistic taste. In the Biedermeier the right to personal inclinations and personal taste was given to the most ordinary "private person", the layman. No matter how ridiculous, ordinary, “petty-bourgeois”, “philistine” the preferences of Mr. Biedermeier may seem at first, no matter how the German poets who gave birth to him mocked them, there was a great sense in their attention to this gentleman. Not only an exceptional romantic person had a unique inner world, but every "average" person. The characteristics of the Biedermeier are dominated by its external features: the researchers note the intimacy, intimacy of this art, its focus on a solitary private life, on what reflected the existence of “a modest Biedermeier who, content with his little room, a tiny garden, life in a place forgotten by God, managed to find in the fate of the unprestigious profession of a modest teacher, the innocent joys of earthly existence”38. And this figurative impression, expressed in the name of the direction, almost overlaps its complex stylistic structure. Biedermeier refers to a fairly wide range of phenomena. In some books on German art, it is more about the art of the Biedermeier period in general. For example, P.F. Schmidt includes here some Nazarenes and "pure" romantics.

The same point of view is shared by D.V. Sarabyanov: “In Germany, if the Biedermeier does not cover everything, then at least it comes into contact with all the main phenomena and trends in art of the 1920s and 1940s. Biedermeier researchers find in it a complex genre structure. Here are portraits, and everyday paintings, and historical genre, and landscapes, and urban views, and military scenes, and all sorts of animalistic experiments related to the military theme. Not to mention the fact that fairly strong links between the Biedermeier masters and the Nazarenes are revealed, and in turn, some Nazarenes turn out to be "almost" Biedermeier masters. As you can see, the German painting of three decades has one of the main problems is that general concept, which is united by the Biedermeier category. Being basically early, not self-realized academicism, Biedermeier does not form its own specific style, but combines different things in the post-romantic art of Germany and Austria.

Academicism- a direction in painting that appeared in the 17th century. Academism was formed as a result of the development of classical art, classicism. Academism is a painting based on the traditions of ancient art and art, but more advanced, systematized, with a well-developed technique of execution, special rules for constructing a composition. Academicism is characterized by an idealized nature, pomposity and high technical skill. In the public understanding, academism is a realistic painting of high quality and impeccable execution, with some features of classicism, which evokes a feeling of high aesthetic pleasure. Pictures of academicians are often very accurate and meticulously worked out. Academism is closely associated with salon art, which is characterized by careful study, impeccable compliance with all the canons of academism and classicism, virtuoso performance, but distinguished by a superficial design.

Thanks to special techniques, secrets of composition, combination of colors, symbolic elements, and so on, the works of academicians most clearly and fully express this or that scene. In the 19th century, academism began to include elements of romanticism and realism. The most famous academic artists were: Karl Bryullov, Alexander Ivanov, many artists of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, Jean Ingres, Alexander Cabanel, William Bouguereau, Paul Delaroche, Jean Gerome, Konstantin Makovsky, Henryk Semiradsky and many others. Academism is developing today, but is no longer so common. If earlier academism claimed to be one of the leading and dominant trends in the visual arts for the reason that it is most understandable to the mass audience, then modern academism no longer occupies the role that the academic art of the greatest artists of the past occupied. Modern academic artists are: Ilya Glazunov, Alexander Shilov, Nikolai Anokhin, Sergei Smirnov, Ilya Kaverznev, Nikolai Tretyakov and others.

Horsewoman - Karl Bryullov

Cleopatra - Alexander Cabanel

Copper Serpent - Fedor Bruni

Thumbs down - Jean Gerome

Semicircle - Paul Delaroche

The Birth of Venus - William Bouguereau

Man has admired the perfection and harmony of the world around him for centuries. He strove to see and capture on the canvas all the beauty and uniqueness of life's moments. Many artists, trying to convey harmonious color combinations of the visible world on canvas, came to the conclusion about the existence of certain pictorial principles and laws in depicting form, space, lighting material, color harmony observed in nature on the plane of the canvas.

Exploring the pictorial experience of the great masters of the past and present, the Russian artist and teacher Nikolai Petrovich Krymov most simply and accessiblely outlined in his theory the basic laws and principles of realistic painting. For example: “The grass on a gray day is as green as the grass in a shady place on a sunny day. The shadow on the roof from the chimney on a sunny day is the same roof, only not illuminated by the sun, such as it happens on a cloudy day. And this law, of course, was known to all the great masters.

Realistic painting Krymov calls the art of "transmitting real life on the canvas." About the originality of the artistic language in painting, Krymov says that: "Real originality is the result of a sincere desire to tell the truth."

“In the art of painting, nature or the expressiveness of nature must be conveyed in truthful relationships in terms of light and color. To do this, you need to study nature, look at the expressiveness of everything that surrounds us. ..Vrubel is a realist. He took all the colors and tones for his fantastic scenes from life, faithfully observing nature. But he transferred tones from inanimate objects (stump, stone) to animate objects - Demon, Pan. So you can work only when you have mastered the art of painting well.

The basic pictorial principles in realistic art are the laws of color and tone. On their inseparable interaction, Krymov builds his entire pictorial theory. “There are two main concepts in realistic painting: color and tone. Do not confuse them The concept of color includes the concept of warm and cold. In the concept of tone - the concept of light and dark. … In spatial material easel painting, color and tone are inseparable. There is no isolated color. A color taken incorrectly in tone is no longer a color, but simply paint, and it cannot convey the material volume in space. Color appears in combinations, in pictorial relationships. Color is the soul of painting, its beauty and expressiveness... Volume and space are conveyed by tone. In painting, as in music: everything must be coordinated and harmonious, as in a good orchestra.

The dominant and fundamental law in painting is the theory of tone. Krymov, having studied the centuries-old experience of the best masters of realistic depiction of reality, concludes that “in realistic painting, tone plays the main, defining role. All the great realists of the past wrote in tone. Of the best Russian artists, I will name Repin, Levitan, Serov, Vrubel, Korovin, Arkhipov. Here you can still crush a great many names - the titans of the Renaissance, Rubens, Rembrandt, Velasquez, the Barbizons and the best representatives of the impressionist trend Monet, Degas, Sisley, Renoir.

“The right tone frees the artist from working out details, gives depth to the picture, places objects in space. Only such a work can be called picturesque, in which the general tone and the correct relations between the tones of individual objects and parts of the picture are captured, found.

We are talking about the difference in tone, when the shades of the same paint differ from each other in their intensity or their luminosity, if the colors are different, but their luminosity is the same, then their tones are the same. If the picture is painted with different colors,

But in one aperture. It can be said that the picture is written in one tone ... An error in tone gives the wrong color. Without the right tone, it is impossible to truthfully convey the general state of nature, space, material. Some changes in color may not affect these three basic elements of a realistic picture ... Color is easier to see. Only the eye of a person gifted in painting can subtly see the difference in tones, which means that such a person has more data to become an artist. So, a musician, gifted with a fine ear, hears a difference of less than a semitone.

The laws of the uniqueness of color, color harmony in a painting, are based on the general tone of the picture. “In a picture, just like in music, there is always a certain tonality. This is the law." “One artist writes bluer everything he sees, another - red, the third - gray, but with the fidelity of the general tone, they are all painters.”

“The general tone is that degree of darkness, that luminosity of colors, to which the whole picture is subordinated. The general tone of a gray day is one, and the general tone of a sunny day is another. In the room, the general tone is again different, and it also changes depending on the lighting outside. Hence the variety of tones, the variety of scales in the paintings of great artists. Take Repin's painting "The Procession". What a sun in it, how strong and sonorous it is. Take the small painting "The Arrest of the Propaganda". How dark she is. There are torn sheets of paper. Which turn white on the floor, are written not with whitewash, but with “ink”, but it turned out white.

How to paint a picture so that it turns out to be picturesque? It is necessary to write, taking the relationship, one subject to another.

Somehow they gave me one Dutchman to restore. The sky was blue-blue. It used to be customary to say that Raphael painted with some special colors, brighter, that in general the Italians painted the blue sky with such wonderful blue colors that they don’t do now. And wat I try to close up the hole with blue paint - not at all, it doesn’t work. It turns out very light and blue. Then I started to darken and came to umber mixed with green paint. Everything else with the Dutchman was reddish, reddish, and the clouds were reddish, and against this background the umbrous sky seemed terribly blue. So the old masters didn’t have any special colors.”

In the transfer of the materiality of the visible world, realistic painting is again based on color-tonal relationships. Unlike naturalistic painting.

“Painting is the transmission in tone (plus color) of visible material.

A real painter does not at all try to make iron in the picture, but thanks to the harmony of tones, and the finding of a common tone, thanks to the fact that each tone falls exactly in its place, the result is a correct image of the material.

The artist takes the tone, smears the face, the dress, but it turns out that the dress is silk, and the face is bodily. Because he correctly hit the overall tone, and the color, and the overall harmony of colors. Then it comes out according to Delacroix: "Give me dirt, and I will write the sun"

“Naturalists do not see the tone, they do not engage in tonal tasks. The ideal of naturalism is as follows: take a still life, put it in a frame and hang it like a picture.

“All artists have noticed that the closer they take the shades of objects to nature, the better the material from which the object is made is conveyed. And vice versa, if these shades are not observed, the material of the transmitted objects disappears. Snow is made, if you write winter, with lime, silk with wool, the body with rubber, boots with iron, etc.

Not the finishing of small details, but the right tone decides the material of the objects.

The fidelity of the general tone and the fidelity of the relationship between individual objects in the picture allows the artist to accurately convey the general state of nature without excessive detail, correctly arrange objects in space, convincingly convey their material, that is, convey true life on the canvas.

Literature:

Nikolai Petrovich Krymov is an artist and teacher. Articles, memories. M.: Image. Art, 1989

Similar information.

Academicism(fr. academisme) - a trend in European painting of the 17th-19th centuries. Academic painting arose during the development of art academies in Europe. The stylistic basis of academic painting at the beginning of the 19th century was classicism, in the second half of the 19th century - eclecticism.

Academism grew up following the external forms of classical art. Followers characterized this style as a reflection on the art form of the ancient antiquity and the Renaissance.

Academism helped the layout of objects in art education, replenished the traditions of ancient art, in which the image of nature was idealized, while compensating for the norm of beauty.

Representatives of academicism include Jean Ingres, Alexander Cabanel, William Bouguereau in France and Fyodor Bruni, Alexander Ivanov, Karl Bryullov in Russia.

Russian academism of the first half of the 19th century is characterized by sublime themes, high metaphorical style, versatility, multi-figures and pomposity. Biblical scenes, salon landscapes and ceremonial portraits were popular. Despite the limited subject matter of the paintings, the works of the academicians were distinguished by their high technical skill.

Karl Bryullov, observing academic canons in composition and painting technique, expanded the plot variations of his work beyond the limits of canonical academism. In the course of its development in the second half of the 19th century, Russian academic painting included elements of the romantic and realistic traditions. Academism as a method is present in the work of most members of the "Wanderers" association. Later on, Russian academic painting was characterized by historicism, traditionalism and elements of realism.

The concept of academism has now gained additional meaning and has come to be used to describe the work of artists who have a systematic education in the field of visual arts and classical skills in creating works of high technical level. The term "academicism" now often refers to the description of the construction of composition and performance technique, and not to the plot of a work of art.

In recent years, interest in academic painting of the 19th century and its development in the 20th century has increased in Western Europe and the United States. Modern interpretations of academicism are present in the work of such Russian artists as Ilya Glazunov, Alexander Shilov, Nikolai Anokhin, Sergei Smirnov, Ilya Kaverznev and Nikolai Tretyakov.

Academic artists:

• Jean Ingres
• Paul Delaroche
• Alexander Cabanel
• William Bouguereau
• Jean Gerome
• Jules Bastien-Lepage
• Hans Makart
• Mark Glair
• Fedor Bruni
• Karl Bryullov
• Alexander Ivanov
• Timofey Neff
• Konstantin Makovsky
• Henryk Semiradsky

Classes in the direction of "Academic painting" - a set of lessons for the study of classical methods of painting and drawing. In fact, these are drawing lessons for adults from scratch. The course program examines in detail the key points in drawing and painting - chiaroscuro, linear and aerial perspective, the basic principles of drawing a portrait, the basics of plastic anatomy, the basics of creating a picture (as an independent work). Also in the classroom in the direction of " academic painting» You will learn how to work with pencil, charcoal, sanguine, take watercolor lessons, learn how to draw with acrylic and oil paints.

drawings of students of the studio

The system of lessons is built on the principle of a general education system in classical art universities, adjusted for modern realities and a short time of study - 6-8 months (the minimum course in an art school is 4 years, in a university - 5 years).

drawings of students of the studio

Such a course is suitable for a person who wants to seriously devote himself to the fine arts or to prepare for exams in art universities (KISI, KNUTD, NAOMA, LNAM, Boychuk KDIDPMD). These universities have courses for applicants that promise you a guaranteed admission. It is assumed that teachers teach the relevant disciplines in these universities and can best prepare the applicant for the requirements of their university. However, the disadvantage of these courses is the large number of applicants with varying degrees of training, which greatly complicates teaching. Also, courses at art institutes do not have a specific teaching system aimed at teaching a person “from scratch”.

The only real opportunity to learn from such courses is through the example of your peer. But, in fact, this is impossible if the key points in the basic knowledge of artistic literacy are missed. Usually, at such courses, the teacher does not bother to repeat the school truths, assuming that the applicant already has a secondary art education and the courses only need to “refresh” skills.

At the drawing courses in Kyiv from "Artstatus" work is carried out in a small group of 3-4 people. This allows an individual approach to each student. Our teachers, unlike the teachers of most art courses, are practicing artists and can help in solving the difficulties that have arisen, explaining what is called “on the fingers”.

Similar programs for academic painting”, the study of techniques and techniques in drawing is available in many private studios. But before starting classes, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the drawings of teachers - as a rule, they are either too “creative” and “modern”, or the teacher drew for the last time at an art institute (this can be seen from the plots of the paintings - the works are educational tasks). By the way, do not forget to also familiarize yourself with the diploma and teaching experience of the teacher.

student work

If you make a choice in favor of "Artstatus", we will help you to thoroughly study the basics of painting and help you realize your talent. Let's learn and work together!