Romanticism(Romanticism) is an ideological and artistic direction that arose in European and American culture of the late 18th century - the first half of the 19th century, as a reaction to the aesthetics of classicism. Initially formed (1790s) in philosophy and poetry in Germany, and later (1820s) spread to England, France and other countries. He predetermined the latest development of art, even those of his directions that opposed him.
The new criteria in art were freedom of expression, increased attention to individual, unique features of a person, naturalness, sincerity and looseness, which replaced the imitation of classical examples of the 18th century. The Romantics rejected the rationalism and practicality of the Enlightenment as mechanistic, impersonal, and artificial. Instead, they prioritized the emotionality of expression, inspiration.
Feeling free from the declining system of aristocratic rule, they sought to express their new views, the truths they had discovered. Their place in society has changed. They found their reader among the growing middle class, ready to emotionally support and even bow before the artist - a genius and a prophet. Restraint and humility were rejected. They were replaced by strong emotions, often reaching extremes.
Young people were especially influenced by Romanticism, who got the opportunity to study and read a lot (which is facilitated by the rapid development of printing). She is inspired by the ideas of individual development and self-improvement, the idealization of personal freedom in the worldview, combined with the rejection of rationalism. Personal development was placed above the standards of a vain and already fading aristocratic society. The romanticism of educated youth changed the class society of Europe, becoming the beginning of the emergence of an educated "middle class" in Europe. And the picture Wanderer above the sea of mist"with good reason can be called a symbol of the period of romanticism in Europe.
Some romantics turned to the mysterious, mysterious, even terrible, folk beliefs, fairy tales. Romanticism was partly associated with democratic, national and revolutionary movements, although the "classical" culture of the French Revolution actually slowed down the arrival of Romanticism in France. At this time, several literary movements arise, the most important of which are Sturm und Drang in Germany, primitivism in France, headed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Gothic novel, interest in the sublime, ballads and old romances (from which actually coined the term "Romanticism"). The source of inspiration for German writers, theorists of the Jena school (the brothers Schlegel, Novalis and others), who declared themselves romantics, was the transcendental philosophy of Kant and Fichte, which put the creative possibilities of the mind at the forefront. These new ideas, thanks to Coleridge, penetrated into England and France, and also determined the development of American transcendentalism.
Thus, Romanticism was born as a literary movement, but had a significant influence on music and less on painting. In the visual arts, Romanticism manifested itself most clearly in painting and graphics, and less so in architecture. In the 18th century, the favorite motifs of artists were mountain landscapes and picturesque ruins. Its main features are the dynamism of the composition, volumetric spatiality, rich color, chiaroscuro (for example, the works of Turner, Géricault and Delacroix). Among other romantic painters, one can name Fuseli, Martin. The work of the Pre-Raphaelites and the neo-Gothic style in architecture can also be seen as a manifestation of Romanticism.
Romanticism is a concept that is difficult to define precisely. In different European literatures, it is interpreted in its own way and is expressed differently in the work of various “romantic” writers. Both in time and in essence, this literary movement is very close to; in many writers of the epoch, these two trends even merge completely. Like sentimentalism, the romantic trend was a protest against pseudoclassicism in all European literatures.
Romanticism as a literary movement
Instead of the ideal of classical poetry - humanism, the personification of everything human, at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries Christian idealism appeared - the desire for everything heavenly and divine, for everything supernatural and wonderful. At the same time, the main goal of human life was no longer the enjoyment of the happiness and joys of earthly life, but the purity of the soul and peace of conscience, the patient endure of all the misfortunes and sufferings of earthly life, the hope for a future life and preparation for this life.
Pseudoclassicism demanded from literature rationality, submission of feeling to reason; he fettered creativity in those literary forms, which were borrowed from the ancients; he obligated writers not to go beyond ancient history And ancient poetics. Pseudoclassics introduced a strict aristocracy content and form, brought exclusively "court" moods.
Sentimentalism set against all these features of pseudoclassicism the poetry of free feeling, admiration for its free sensitive heart, before its “beautiful soul”, and nature, artless and simple. But if the sentimentalists undermined the significance of false classicism, they did not begin a conscious struggle against this trend. This honor belonged to the "romantics"; they put forward great energy, a broader literary program and, most importantly, an attempt to create a new theory of poetic creativity against the false classics. One of the first points of this theory was the denial of the 18th century, its rational “enlightenment” philosophy, and the forms of its life. (See Aesthetics of Romanticism, Stages in the development of Romanticism.)
Such a protest against the rules of outdated morality and social forms of life was reflected in the passion for works in which the main characters were protesting heroes - Prometheus, Faust, then "robbers", as enemies of outdated forms of social life ... With the light hand of Schiller, even a whole " robbery literature. The writers were interested in the images of "ideological" criminals, fallen people, but retaining the high feelings of a person (such was, for example, the romanticism of Victor Hugo). Of course, this literature no longer recognized didacticism and aristocracy - it was democratic was far from edifying and, according to the manner of writing, approached naturalism, accurate reproduction of reality, without choice and idealization.
Such is one current of romanticism created by the group protesting romantics. But there was another group peaceful individualists, which freedom of feeling did not lead to social struggle. These are peaceful enthusiasts of sensitivity, limited by the walls of their hearts, lulling themselves into quiet delights and tears by analyzing their sensations. They, pietists and mystics can fit in with any church-religious reaction, get along with the political one, because they have moved away from the public into the world of their tiny "I", into solitude, into nature, broadcasting about the goodness of the Creator. They recognize only "internal freedom", "educate virtue". They have a "beautiful soul" - schöne Seele of German poets, Rousseau's belle âme, Karamzin's "soul"...
Romantics of this second type are almost indistinguishable from "sentimentalists". They love their "sensitive" heart, they know only tender, sad "love", pure, sublime "friendship" - they willingly shed tears; "sweet melancholy" is their favorite mood. They love sad nature, foggy or evening landscapes, the gentle glow of the moon. They dream willingly in cemeteries and near graves; they like sad music. They are interested in everything "fantastic" up to "visions". Following carefully the whimsical shades of the various moods of their hearts, they take on the image of complex and obscure, "vague" feelings - they try to express the "inexpressible" in the language of poetry, to find a new style for new moods unknown to pseudo-classics.
This is precisely the content of their poetry and was expressed in that vague and one-sided definition of “romanticism” that Belinsky made: “this is a desire, aspiration, impulse, feeling, sigh, groan, complaint about unfulfilled hopes that had no name, sadness for the lost happiness, which God knows what consisted of. This is a world alien to any reality, inhabited by shadows and ghosts. It is a bleak, slow-moving… present that mourns the past and sees no future in front of it; finally, it is love that feeds on sadness and which without sadness would not have anything to support its existence.
The formation and development of romanticism in the artistic culture of Russia in the first third of the 19th century was influenced by the following factors: the war of 1812, the Decembrist movement, the ideas of the Great French bourgeois revolution. A feature of Russian romanticism is the development and deepening of the tasks of the Russian Enlightenment in the art of romanticism in Russia, and this is the main difference between Russian romanticism and Western European, which was established in the struggle against enlightenment ideology. V.G. Belinsky gave a very accurate description of Russian romanticism: "Romanticism is a desire, aspiration, impulse, feeling, sigh, groan, complaint about unfulfilled hopes that had no name, sadness for lost happiness, which God knows what it consisted of" .
Romanticism in Russian literature is distinguished by a variety of currents: elegiac ( V.A. Zhukovsky), revolutionary ( K.F. Ryleev, V.K. Kuchelbecker), philosophical ( Baratynsky, Batyushkov), their interpenetration and conditionality of definitions.
Creativity is synthetic A.S. Pushkin, which already in this period of time is distinguished by the ripening of realistic principles in it. The world of Pushkin's heroes differs from the romantic heroes of Zhukovsky, Ryleev, and Byron in their folk originality and vivid figurative language.
A new stage in the development of romanticism in Russia begins after the Decembrist uprising. plays a special role in Russian romantic poetry. M.Yu.Lermontov- the direct heir of Pushkin and the Decembrists, a poet of his generation, "awakened by cannon shots on Senate Square" (A.I. Herzen). His lyrics are distinguished by a rebellious, rebellious character. His works are characterized by the hero's sharply critical view of modernity, longing for the ideal and "ardent defense of human rights to freedom" (VG Belinsky).
Russian romantic prose of the 19th century is presented V.F. Odoevsky, whose historical and fantastic novels are full of interest in the history, past of Russia, filled with miraculous, mysterious, folklore motifs. Fantastic stories A.Pogorelsky("The Black Hen", "Lafert's Poppy Seed") - a combination of realism and fantasy, humor and lofty feelings, which are based on literary developments of Russian folk tales and folklore.
Western European and Russian romanticism interpenetrated each other and were mutually enriched in this process. The development of literary translation and the significance of Zhukovsky's activities as a translator and popularizer of masterpieces of European literature become especially significant at this time.
Romanticism in Russian Fine Art.
The main feature of romanticism in Russian painting is the combination of romanticism with realistic quests. There is a special interest in the spiritual world of man. The works of the Russian artist differ in psychologism and national originality O.A. Kiprensky: , . External calmness and internal tension of the images reveal a deep emotional excitement, the power of feelings. Warm, sonorous colors distinguish portraits created in the first two decades of the century. - the high spirituality of the image of the poet, the will, energy, subtle transmission of deeply hidden feelings of bitterness, mental pain imprinted in it. Female images (,) are distinguished by tenderness and poetry.
Realistic features appear in romantic works V.A. Tropinina(,). - a different, original interpretation of the poet, minister of music.
The traditions of classicism and the features of romanticism are in contact in the works K.P. Bryullova. The romantic pathos of the picture is clearly felt, the opposition in it of a sense of catastrophe, tragic hopelessness and selflessness, the spiritual beauty of people at the moment of mortal danger. In this canvas, the connection between the idea of the painting and Russian reality at the beginning of the 19th century runs like a red thread. As a means of artistic expression, one can note the boldness of the color scheme, the contrasts of color and light, light reflexes. Bryullov's works of the Italian period, female images (,), male portraits (,) are distinguished by beauty and expressiveness.
Special mention should be made of the role of the self-portrait in the work of Russian romantic artists. It appears as a history of the spiritual life of society in the first half of the 19th century, showing the personality of a contemporary who reflected the world of deep human feelings and passions (self-portraits). Disappointment, loneliness of the hero, discord with society, portend the appearance of a "hero of our time" in Kiprensky's self-portraits (1822-1832). Doom, hopelessness, deep fatigue of "superfluous people" is felt in Bryullov's self-portrait (1848). And at the same time tragic sound, poetic subtlety of the image. The picturesque language of romantic artists is full of intense contrasts of light and shade, sonorous colors as a means of characterizing the characters.
Romanticism in Russian music.
The national rise of Russian self-consciousness had a special influence on the formation of professional musical art at the beginning of the 19th century.
Creativity of the great Russian composer M.I. Glinka- the beginning of a new era in the development of musical art. Glinka was a true singer of the Russian people.
In the works of Glinka, one can feel the indissoluble connection between music and folk soil, the artistic rethinking of folk images. In the work of Glinka, there is a connection with world musical culture, which we can hear in the reworkings of melodies from Italy, Spain, France, the East ("Jota of Aragon", "Tarantella").
The composer's ballads and romances based on poems by Russian poets are filled with romanticism. Their artistic perfection, complete and harmonious fusion of music and text, visibility, picturesqueness of musical images, emotional elation, passion and subtle lyricism make Glinka's romances unsurpassed examples of musical creativity ("Night review", "Doubt", "I remember a wonderful moment", " Waltz Fantasy").
Glinka is also a realist, the founder of the Russian musical symphony school ("Kamarinskaya"), which manifested the best features of Russian realistic music, combined with the bright features of the romantic worldview: powerful passion, rebellious spirit, free flight of fantasy, strength and brightness of musical color.
The lofty ideals of Russian art appear before us in Glinka's operas. In the heroic-patriotic opera "Ivan Susanin" (the original title of this opera is "A Life for the Tsar") the composer strives to show typical features, to convey the way of thinking and feeling of the people. An innovation was the appearance on the opera stage as the main tragic hero of the Kostroma peasant. Glinka shows his typicality and individuality, while relying on a folk song in his musical description. The musical images of other heroes of the opera (Antonina, her fiancé, the Poles) are interesting. The introduction of Polish folk melodies (polonaise, mazurka) gives a peculiar flavor to certain scenes of the opera. Among the fragments of the opera that we recommend for listening are the tragic aria of I. Susanin and the solemn, jubilant, anthem sounding of the final chorus "Glory". The opera "Ruslan and Lyudmila" is a solemn hymn to light, goodness, beauty, an epic-epic interpretation of Pushkin's youthful poem. In musical dramaturgy, we will hear the principle of pictorial comparisons, the contrast inherent in the nature of Russian fairy tales and folk epic. The musical characteristics of the characters are fabulously bright. The music of the East in the opera is organically combined with the Russian, Slavic musical line.
When starting to analyze a romantic work, one must remember that the main method of the Romantics is antithesis (opposition), and works of literature, music and painting of romanticism are built on this method. In literature, these are images of the main characters that are opposite in their characteristics; in music, these are contrasting intonations, themes, their struggle and interaction; in painting - also contrasting colors, "talking background", the struggle of light and darkness.
The formation of a culture of romanticism. Aesthetics of Romanticism
Romanticism is an artistic direction in the spiritual and artistic culture that arose in Europe at the endXVIII– beginningXIXcenturies Romanticism was embodied in literature: Byron, Hugo, Hoffmann, Poe; music: Chopin, Wagner; in painting, in theatrical activity, in garden and park art. Under the term "romanticism" in XIX century, modern art was understood, which replaced classicism. The socio-historical reason for the emergence of romanticism was the events of the French Revolution. History in this period was not subject to reason. The new world order, disappointment in the ideals of the revolution formed the basis for the emergence of romanticism. On the other hand, the revolution involved the entire people in the creative process and was reflected in the soul of each person in its own way. The involvement of man in the movement of time, the co-creation of man and history was significant for the romantics. The main merit of the Great French Revolution, which became one of the prerequisites for the emergence of romanticism, is that it brought to the fore the problem of unlimited freedom of the individual and his creative possibilities. Perception of personality as a creative substance.
The romantic type of consciousness is open to dialogue - it requires an interlocutor and accomplice of lonely walks, communication with nature, with one's own nature. It is synthetic, because this artistic consciousness is fed by various sources of design and enrichment, development. Romantics need dynamics, they care about the process, not its completeness. Hence the interest in fragments, in genre experiments. The author appears to be central in the literary process to romantics. Romanticism is associated with the release of the word from pre-prepared and certain forms, filling it with many meanings. The word becomes an object - an intermediary in the convergence of the truth of life and the truth of literature. XIXcentury - a cultural and historical era that reflected profound changes in the history of society and ideas about human nature, stimulated by the French Revolution. This is an age exclusively aimed at the development of human individuality. Humanistic aspirations of writers XIXcenturies relied on the great achievements of the Enlightenment, the discoveries of the Romantics, the greatest achievements of the natural sciences, without which it is impossible to imagine a new art. XIXthe century is filled with incredible energy and an unpredictable play of circumstances that a person has to face in conditions of social instability, in conditions of active redistribution of spheres of spiritual activity and an increase in the social significance of art, especially literature.
Romanticism abstracted from the world of reality and created its own, in which there are other laws, other feelings, words, other desires and concepts. The romantic seeks to get away from everyday life and returns to it, discovering the unusual, always having with him an eternally alluring image of endless striving for the ideal. Interest in the individual consciousness of the artist and the development of his abilities is combined with the universal inability of many romantic heroes to consider themselves as full members of an organized social society. Often they are presented as lonely figures cut off from the materialistic, selfish and hypocritical world. Sometimes they are outlawed or fight for their own happiness in the most unusual, often illegal ways (robbers, corsairs, giaurs).
The free independent thinking of romantics is realized in an endless chain of self-discoveries. Self-consciousness and self-knowledge become both the task and the goal of art.
Romanticism as a cultural phenomenon is tied to an era, although it can leave future generations with some of its constants in the appearance of individuals, its psychological characteristics: interesting pallor, a tendency to walk alone, love for a beautiful landscape and detachment from the ordinary, yearning for unrealizable ideals and irrevocably lost past, melancholy and high moral sense, susceptibility to the suffering of others.
Basic principles of the poetics of romanticism.
1. The artist seeks not to recreate life, but to recreate it in accordance with his ideals.
2. The romantic dual world is comprehended in the mind of the artist as a discord between the ideal and reality, the proper and the real. The basis of the dual world is the rejection of reality. The dual world of romantics is very close to a dialogue with nature, the universe, a silent dialogue, often carried out in the imagination, but always with physical movement or its imitation. The rapprochement of the world of human feelings with the world of nature helped the romantic hero to feel himself a part of a large universe, to feel free and significant. A romantic is always a traveler, he is a citizen of the world, for whom the whole planet is the focus of thought, mystery, the process of creation.
3. The word in romanticism is a line of demarcation between the world of creative imagination and the real world, it warns of a possible invasion of reality and suspension of the flight of fantasy. The word, created by the creative energy and enthusiasm of the author, conveys his warmth and energy to the reader, inviting him to empathy, joint action.
4. The concept of personality: man is a small universe. The hero is always an exceptional person who has looked into the abyss of his own consciousness.
5. The basis of the modern personality is passion. From this comes the study of human passions by the romantics, the understanding of human individuality, which led to the discovery of the subjective person.
6. Artists reject all normativity in art.
7. Nationality: each nation creates its own special world image, which is determined by culture, habits. Romantics addressed the issues of national typology of cultures.
8. Romantics often turned to myths: antiquity, the Middle Ages, folklore. In addition, they create their own myths. The symbolism, metaphor, emblematics of the romantic artistic consciousness at first glance are simple and natural, but they are full of secret meaning, they are ambiguous, for example, the romantic images of a rose, a nightingale, wind and clouds. They can take on a different meaning if they are placed in a different context: it is a foreign context that helps a romantic work to live according to the laws of a living being.
9. Romantic vision is designed to mix genres, but different than in previous eras. The nature of their manifestation in culture as a whole is changing. Such are odes and ballads, essays and novels. The mixing of genres, both poetic and prose, is important in emancipating consciousness and freeing it from conventions, from obligatory normative methods and rules. Romantics created new literary genres: the historical novel, the fantastic story.
10. It is far from accidental that the idea of a synthesis of the arts appears precisely in romanticism. On the one hand, this was how the specific task of ensuring the maximum liveliness and naturalness of the artistic impression, the completeness of the reflection of life was solved. On the other hand, it served a global purpose: art developed as a combination of different types, genres, schools, just as society seemed to be a collection of isolated individuals. The synthesis of arts is a prototype of overcoming the fragmentation of the human "I", the fragmentation of human society.
It was during the period of romanticism that a deep breakthrough in artistic consciousness occurred, due to the victory of individuality, the desire for the synthesis of various spheres of spiritual activity, the emerging international specialization of mental intellectual work.
Romanticism contrasted the utilitarianism and materiality of the emerging bourgeois society with a break with everyday reality, a retreat into a world of dreams and fantasies, and the idealization of the past. Romanticism is a world in which melancholy, irrationality, and eccentricity reign. Its traces appeared in the European mind as early asXVIIcentury, but were regarded by doctors as a sign of mental disorder. But romanticism opposes rationalism, not humanism. On the contrary, he creates a new humanism, offering to consider a person in all his manifestations.
Romanticism is an ideological and artistic trend in the culture of the late 18th - 1st half of the 19th centuries. Romanticism arose as a response to the disappointment that prevailed in Europe in the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789-1794, the Enlightenment and bourgeois values. So what is romanticism, and what are its signs?
The main features of romanticism
In contrast to classicism, which asserted the inviolability of state foundations and the service of public interests, the new direction expressed the desire for personal freedom, independence from society. Romanticism brought a lot of new things to all spheres of artistic activity.
Works of a lyrical orientation made it possible to reflect the emotions of a person. A strong personality becomes a new hero, experiencing a discrepancy between internal aspirations and the requirements of society. Nature also acts as an independent character. Her image (often with elements of mysticism) helps to convey the state of a person.
Appeal to national history, folk epics became the basis of a new theme. There are works that highlight the heroic past, depicting heroes sacrificing their lives for the sake of lofty goals. Legends and traditions made it possible to escape from the ordinary into the world of fantasy and symbols.
Romanticism in literature
Romanticism arose in Germany, in the literary and philosophical circles of the Jena school (the Schlegel brothers and others). Outstanding representatives of the direction are F. Schelling, the brothers Grimm, Hoffmann, G. Heine.
In England, new ideas were adopted by W. Scott, J. Keats, Shelley, and W. Blake. The most prominent representative of romanticism was J. Byron. His work had a great influence on the spread of the direction, including in Russia. The popularity of his "Journey of Childe Harold" led to the emergence of the phenomenon of "Byronism" (Pechorin in "A Hero of Our Time" by M. Lermontov).
French romantics - Chateaubriand, V. Hugo, P. Merimet, George Sand, Polish - A. Mickiewicz, American - F. Cooper, G. Longfellow, etc.
Russian romantic writers
In Russia, romanticism was developed after the Patriotic War of 1812 due to Alexander I's refusal to liberalize public life, the beginning of the reaction, forgetting the merits before the patronymic of a whole galaxy of heroes. This was the impetus for the emergence of works depicting strong characters, violent passions, conflicts. During this significant period for Russian culture, literature appeared using new artistic means. So what is romanticism in literature? This is the greatest development of such genres as ballad, elegy, lyric-epic poem, historical novel.
Features of romanticism are manifested in the work of V. Zhukovsky and are developed by Baratynsky, Ryleev, Kuchelbeker, Pushkin ("Eugene Onegin"), Tyutchev. And the works of Lermontov, the "Russian Byron", are considered the pinnacle of Russian romanticism.
Romanticism in music and painting
What is romanticism in music? This is a reflection of the world of emotional experiences, the pursuit of ideals through fabulous and historical images. Hence the development of such genres as symphonic poem, opera, ballet, song genre (ballad, romance).
Leading romantic composers - F. Mendelssohn, G. Berlioz, R. Schumann, F. Chopin, I. Brahms, A. Dvorak, R. Wagner and others. In Russia - M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Balakirev, A. Borodin, M. Mussorgsky, N. Rimsky-Korsakov, P. Tchaikovsky, S. Rachmaninov. In music, romanticism lasted until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Romantic painting is characterized by dynamic composition, a sense of movement, rich color. In France, these are Gericault, Delacroix, David; in Germany - Runge, Koch, Biedermeier style. In England - Turner, Constable, pre-Raphaelites Rossetti, Morris, Burne-Jones. In Russian painting - K. Bryullov, O. Kiprensky, Aivazovsky.
From this article, you learned what romanticism is, the definition of this concept and its main features.
