Western European culture of the 19th century. What is naturalism in art? What is naturalism in painting

10.07.2019

Naturalism

A transformation specific to the end of the 19th century is taking place with the realistic tradition - the degeneration of realism into naturalism.

Supporters of this direction proceeded from the idea of ​​the complete predestination of fate, will, the spiritual world of a person by the social environment, way of life, heredity, physiology. In the 80s of the XIX century. naturalism becomes an influential trend in French literature. The most prominent representative and theorist of this movement is Emile Zola (1840-1902). In his main work - the twenty-volume series of novels "Rougon-Macquart" Zola painted a wide panorama of French society, embracing in it the life of all segments of the country's population. In his best novels, The Belly of Paris, The Trap, Germinal, Money, Defeat, the writer depicted social contradictions with great realistic force. However, the idea of ​​the laws of society as biological laws limited his realism.

Other famous representatives of naturalism in literature were: the French brothers Edmond (1822-1896) and Jules (1830-1876) Goncourt, the Germans Arno Holz (1863-1929), Gerhart Hauptmann (1862-1946), the Belgian Camille Lemonnier ( 1844--1919).

In the novels of the Goncourt brothers ("Germinie Lacerte", "Rene Mauprin"), the life of different strata of society is shown both by realistic and naturalistic methods. In 1879, after the death of his brother, Edmond Goncourt wrote the novel "The Zemgano Brothers". According to the will of Edmond Goncourt, the Goncourt Academy was founded (1903), which annually awards a prize for the best novel of the year in France.

Arno Holtz is a theorist of naturalism. He published a collection of poems "The Book of Time", as well as, together with I. Shlaf, a collection of short stories "Papa Gamley" and a drama "The Zelike Family".

The founder of German naturalism G. Hauptmann, author of the dramas "Before Sunrise", "Rosa Bernd", "Before Sunset", the comedy "Beaver Fur Coat", in which social criticism is adjacent to the absolutization of biological laws, symbolism (the fairy tale-drama "The Drowned Bell "). Later, mystical tendencies appeared in his work. He is the author of the drama "The Weavers" about the Polish uprising of the Silesian weavers. Nobel Prize Winner 1912

The naturalistic trend in art was heterogeneous. Along with realistic, democratic features, tendencies of decadence often dominated, with its characteristic hopelessness, immorality, and low spirits.

Impressionism

Under the influence of the representatives of critical realism painting (Courbet, Daumier), a new trend in art appeared - impressionism (from the French impression - impression). The aesthetic attitudes of this direction were characterized by the desire to combine cognitive tasks with the search for new forms of expression of the unique subjective world of the artist, to convey their fleeting perceptions, to capture the real world in all its variability and mobility. Its history is relatively short - only 12 years (from the first exhibition of paintings in 1874 to the eighth in 1886).

Impressionism is represented in the work of such artists as Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and others, who united to fight for the renewal of art against official academicism in artistic creation. After the eighth exhibition was held in 1886, these groups broke up, having exhausted the possibilities of development within the framework of a single direction in painting.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) - the leading representative of impressionism, the author of landscapes thin in color, filled with light and air. In the series of canvases "Haystacks", "Rouen Cathedral" he sought to capture the fleeting, instantaneous states of the light and air environment at different times of the day. From the name of Monet's landscape "Impression. The Rising Sun" came the name of the direction - impressionism. In a later period, features of decorativeism appeared in the work of C. Monet.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) - a representative of impressionism, the author of light, clean-colored landscapes ("Plowed Land"). His paintings are characterized by a soft restrained gamut. In the late period of creativity, he turned to the image of the city - Rouen, Paris ("Montmartre Boulevard", "Opera Passage in Paris"). In the second half of the 80s. was influenced by neo-impressionism. He also worked as a scheduler.

The creative style of Edgar Degas (1834--1917) is characterized by impeccably accurate observation, the strictest drawing, sparkling, exquisitely beautiful coloring. He became famous for his freely asymmetrical angular composition, knowledge of facial expressions, postures and gestures of people of different professions, accurate psychological characteristics: "Blue Dancers", "Star", "Toilet", "Ironers", "Dancers' Rest". Degas is an excellent master of the portrait. Under the influence of E. Manet, he moved to the everyday genre, depicting the Parisian street crowd, restaurants, horse races, ballet dancers, laundresses, and the rudeness of smug bourgeois. If the works of Manet are bright and cheerful, then in Degas they are colored with sadness and pessimism.

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), together with C. Monet and A. Sisley, created the core of the impressionist movement. During this period, Renoir worked to develop a lively, colorful art style with "feathery brushwork" (known as Renoir's iridescent style); creates many sensual nudes ("Bathers"). In the 80s, he gravitated more and more towards the classical clarity of images in his work. Most of all, Renoir loved to write children's and youthful images and peaceful scenes of Parisian life ("Umbrellas", "Moulin de la Galette", "J. Samary"). His work is characterized by light and transparent landscapes, portraits, glorifying the sensual beauty and joy of being. But Renoir owns the following idea.

For forty years I have been on my way to discovering that black is the queen of all colors.

Closely connected with impressionism and the work of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). He worked in Paris, where he painted cabaret dancers and singers and prostitutes in his own particular style, characterized by bright colors, bold composition and brilliant technique. His lithographic posters enjoyed great success.

Impressionism can also be viewed much more broadly - as a style in which there is no clearly defined form, the subject is captured in fragmentary strokes that instantly capture every moment, revealing, however, a hidden unity and connection. In this broader sense, impressionism manifested itself not only in painting, but also in other forms of art, in particular, in sculpture.

Thus, the great French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was a contemporary and colleague of the Impressionists. His dramatic, passionate, heroically sublime art glorifies the beauty and nobility of a person, it is permeated with an emotional impulse (the Kiss group, The Thinker, etc.). It is characterized by the courage of realistic searches, the vitality of images, and energetic pictorial modeling. Sculpture has a fluid form, acquires a kind of unfinished character, which makes his work related to impressionism and at the same time makes it possible to create the impression of the painful birth of forms from spontaneous amorphous matter. The sculptor combined these qualities with the drama of the idea, the desire for philosophical reflection ("The Bronze Age", "Citizens of Calais"). The artist Claude Monet called him "the great of the greats". Rodin owns the words:

Sculpture is the art of indentations and bulges.

In the 19th century created by such famous sculptors as Francois Rude (1784-1855) - the creator of the Marseillaise bas-relief on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, depicting the figure of Liberty leading the revolutionaries; animalist Bari; master of realistic sculptural portrait of Dolu.

But only Rodin introduced something new into the plastic art of modeling, expanded its range and enriched the language. The portrait busts of Rodin are characterized by the sharpness and integrity of the transfer of the character of the depicted person, his inner world ("J. Dolu", "A. Rochefort"). Rodin's work was innovative, fruitful, it gave impetus to the artistic searches of many masters of European sculpture of the 20th century.

The influence of impressionism can be traced in the work of many writers, artists, composers representing various creative methods, in particular, the Goncourt brothers, K. Hamsun, R.M. Rilke, E. Zola, Guy de Maupassant, M. Ravel, K. Debussy and others.

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) - the founder of musical impressionism. He embodied fleeting impressions in music, the subtlest shades of human emotions and natural phenomena. Contemporaries considered the prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun to be a kind of manifesto of musical impressionism. Here the unsteadiness of moods, refinement, sophistication, whimsical melody, color harmony manifested itself. One of Debussy's most significant works is the opera "Pelléas et Mélisande" based on the drama by M. Maeterlinck. The composer creates the essence of an obscure, symbolically hazy poetic text. Debussy's largest symphonic work is the three symphonic sketches "The Sea". In subsequent years, neoclassical features appeared in Debussy's writings.

The French composer and pianist Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) continued and developed Debussy's searches in the field of impressionistic music.

His works are characterized by sensuality, exotic harmony and magnificent orchestral effects (ballet "Daphnis and Chloe", bolero for orchestra).

Realism and naturalism in painting

French critics called the word realism the direction in painting that Courbet chose (-) in opposition not only to the idealistic direction, but also to any other direction that chose subjects for paintings not from the surrounding modern society and, moreover, almost exclusively - working, working class. If in literature the word “naturalism” has acquired the meaning as an expression of low R., then in painting the difference between R. and naturalism is not so definite, one of the critics of Courbet (Castagnari) recognized the legitimacy of the new direction and called it naturalism, especially since the then newly composed word R. seemed to many - not in the spirit of the French language. Directions in painting are determined not only by the kind of subjects chosen for paintings, but also by the way they are performed in relation to real objects of nature, which the image is included in every picture, no matter what kind it is assigned to (see Painting). Everyday painting, although it represents the image of scenes of real life, but easily admits an anecdotal element, so it is generally not identified with the real direction without special reservations. In any case, everyday painting (genre) is the ancestor of R. Everyday painting, as it was previously understood, revived and even blossomed in Holland in the 17th century. at a time when painting of religious and mythological subjects dominated in Italy and France, and in Flanders itself there were artists who painted on subjects of non-ordinary life. Never and nowhere in the course of the last four centuries could an exclusively one direction in painting be retained, and sometimes artists appeared whose works were extremely versatile; such was, for example, Rubens. In choosing real themes for paintings, the Dutch went beyond everyday painting, since they began and reached a high degree of a simple everyday landscape with peasant figures and domestic animals. The Dutch developed, in addition, plots of inanimate nature, such as: flowers, fruits, slaughtered game, etc. (see); Snyders depicted fish and butcher shops on huge canvases, and his paintings were in demand and fame. The famous Murillo, the depicter of Madonnas, visions of saints, etc., did not disdain the image of an unscrupulous boy or a beggar asking for alms. Velasquez, who painted saints, portraits (very real), also depicted gamblers and revelers from the common people. In Italy, at the end of the 16th century, Caravaggio declared himself a champion of realism, depicting scenes in which the characters were soldiers, gamblers, revelers, often drunk and robber-like. Although he also painted religious pictures, his entire artistic activity was an energetic protest against the dominant trend, which was too far removed from reality, not only in terms of plots, but also in their execution. Every artist, of course, had to depict objects with a more or less complete reminder of the corresponding reality, but this is especially clear in portraiture. However, similarity is not the only merit of a portrait: it also requires a higher-order reality - vitality, and, moreover, a characteristic, but not rough, trivial, low. Naturalism Courbet did not allow such restrictions: he loved the sharp and rough, not only invented, but existing in reality. Famous P. J. Proudhon ( Proudhon ), who devoted half of his book Art to interpreting the meaning of Courbet (in Russian - Kurochkin's translation), considers Courbet an idealist in R. On the other hand, in terms of Courbet's technique, he does not meet all the latest requirements, as she did after him (Manet, 1832 -83) success in depicting natural objects illuminated in the open air (plein air, from the French "plein air"); Impressionism also contributed to the technique of painting, insisting on the generalization of tones and the reduction of detail. The combination of realism in content with R. in execution, as it is now understood, is found only among the latest painters, such as, for example. the French Bastien Lepage (a very relaxed Courbet) and Rafaelli, who, like Courbet, depict ordinary and mostly working life. Their canvases also depict people in life size, although such sizes of paintings are caused less by the requirements of subjects than by a protest against the exceptional sizes of paintings of historical content. - The change of direction in painting seems to be a law that is in relation to changes in the course of social ideas, but in general, differences in the personalities of artists and in the beliefs of certain parts of society lead to the coexistence of many aesthetic currents. The history of painting of the last four or five centuries is full of examples of R.; to the above-mentioned Velasquez, Caravaggio and others, one can add Zurbaran, Rubens, van Dyck, realists in execution. Rubens did not even look for beauty, depicting only strong, healthy bodies. However, R. was temporarily suppressed by idealization, which even turned into conventionality and mannerisms. The classical landscape, founded by Poussin and Lorrain in the 17th century, took deeper roots in France and expressed itself in the form of ennoblement of nature both there and partly in Holland - than the real landscape, which, however, had such high representatives in Holland as Veinants, Ruisdael, Gobbema. In France in the XVIII century. all kinds of painting finally received the imprint of mannerisms with a complete removal from nature. In the form of a reaction, by the time of the great revolution in France, the classicism of David arose with the dominance of form - at least the correct one - over color. Coming in the twenties of our century, the romanticism of Delacroix, with the predominance of color over form, rejected the classical plots from the mythology and history of the Greeks and Romans and took a step towards realism in terms of color. This step was preceded, however, by the revival of the real landscape in England (Constable), which served to the benefit of Delacroix himself, and in the thirties of the XIX century, a group of landscape painters in France (Rousseau, Caba ( Cabat), Dupre, etc.) completely revived the real landscape with an inner content or mood. In England as far back as the last century, Wilkie raised everyday painting to a considerable height, but in France, everyday painting was lost in the 18th century in the mannerisms of Lancret, Pater, and mainly Boucher. R. independently revived in the XIX century; from 1848 Millais ( Millet) devoted all his energies exclusively to the depiction of the life of the working people and mainly to the depiction of his work. Millet was already a convinced realist, but softer than Courbet. This latter had more detractors than connoisseurs in France, but its sharp protest constituted a useful transitional period and left traces both in French and Belgian schools. Alfred Steven, in contrast to Courbet, depicted the salons, visits, boudoirs of modern Parisians, and although he also treats them as a realist, there is no question of ugliness. Of the following, one can name Bonvin (washerwomen, seamstresses) and Ribot (Théodule) - a realist in images not only of zucchini, but also of religious scenes. Bastien Lepage, Lhermitte and Raffaelli are realists to varying degrees; in a picturesque sense, they are more real than Courbet, as they took advantage of the lessons of plein air and impressionism, although not all of them to a reasonable extent. In Belgium in 1850-70. the influence of Courbet also dominated; Charles de Gru ( de Groux) depicted scenes of illness, death and poverty, attics and cellars; Louis Dubois is perhaps the most powerful of the Belgian realists. The influence of French landscape painters on Belgian ones began already in the thirties, but the Belgians at first worshiped the majestic motifs of foreign nature; only in the fifties, Kindermans was the first to return to the image of simple domestic nature, Fourmois reminded Hobbem, Theodore Baron painted winters and melancholic autumn, Klais - calm sea, Lamans - moonlit nights, Verstreter, Kurtens - all these are realists and colorists. Despite the fact that Belgian painting, according to Muter, is not an expressor of subtle sensations.

The article reproduced material from

The Musée d'Orsay in Paris has at least 16 paintings by Russian artists. Among them, I noted two magnificent Russian landscapes - these are paintings by Abram Arkhipov and Alexander Borisov.

Recently there was an opportunity to once again visit the famous Musee d'Orsay - one of the world's largest collections of European paintings from the period 1850-1910. The basis of the collection is the masterpieces of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, so my route through the numerous halls of this huge museum was predetermined and, given the limited time, led the shortest way to the favorite landscapes of Monet, Gauguin, Manet, Van Gogh, Sisley, Renoir, Cezanne and Pizarro and other recognized masters these areas of art.

Russian naturalists

Only by chance brought me to a small side room number 58 on the ground floor, which bore the not very clear name of Naturalisme.

Now I know that “...Naturalism (from Latin nаtura - “nature”) is a late stage in the development of French realistic painting, which fell on the 1870s. Naturalists were former academic artists who sought to capture modern reality as accurately as possible, photographically, in particular, the daily life of the peasantry and the working class. Before the appearance of the term "impressionism", its representatives were classified as naturalists. As the Impressionists gained more and more recognition, interest in naturalism faded away. The tasks of dispassionate fixation of reality, which the artists of this direction set themselves, were successfully carried out by photography ... "

And then, unexpectedly for myself, I saw there two small portraits by Russian "naturalists" who were well known to me.

  • Ilia Efimofich Repine – Le Grand – Duc Mikhail Alexandrowitch
Ilya Repin - Le Grand Duc Michel-1904
  • Valentin Alexandrovitch Serov

Valentin Serov - Madame Lwoff - 1895

These pictures did not make much of an impression on me. What is the special "naturalism" of these paintings, I also did not quite understand. But I was still happy for the Russians - after all, they exhibit in Orsay!

  • Nikolai Nikolaevitch Gay

Nikolai Ge - Crucifixion (Le calvaire) - 1892

Here I completely agree with the theme of the hall - Ge conveys the “naturalism” of the painful death to the fullest!

I was about to move on to my favorite impressionists, when I suddenly saw smoldering coals in the dimly lit part of the hall. It turned out to be a small landscape, which immediately attracted attention with its unusual colors. It seems that the picture was hung on purpose in the darkest corner of the hall so that the winter Russian sunset would contrast with its coal-red color.

The name of the artist and the title of the painting did not tell me anything at first:

  • Abram Efimovitch Arkhipov

Abram Arkhipov - Coucher de soleil sur un paysage -1902

LANDSCAPE ABRAM ARKHIPOV

I did not immediately realize that this was the same Arkhipov, whose paintings I saw in the Tretyakov Gallery. There he is remembered for a series of characteristic portraits of chubby peasant women in bright red sundresses and scenes of patriarchal village life. But I didn't expect his favorite carmine reds and intense pinks to have such a stunning effect in a northern landscape.

So I rediscovered Abram Efimovich Arkhipov (1862-1930), but now as an amazing Russian landscape painter. It's amazing that for this you had to go to Paris, get to Orsay and accidentally go to the hall number 58 Naturalisme!

Later, when I looked at the landscapes of the French Impressionists, I could not get rid of the mental comparison of their works with the winter landscape of Arkhipov. As a result, he put this picture for himself on a par with the world masterpieces of impressionism.

In Moscow, he carefully studied the work of Abram Arkhipov. Here are some of the landscape works of this magnificent Russian artist:


Arkhipov Abram - Village in the North
Arkhipov Abram-Morning in the village
Arkhipov Abram - On the White Sea-1900
Abram Arkhipov - Northern village -1910
Arkhipov Abram - North Sea -1910
Arkhipov Abram-Zima. Backyard
Arkhipov Abram - On the Oka. Etude -1890
Arkhipov Abram - The way back - 1896
Arkhipov Abram -On the White Sea -1912
Arkhipov Abram - The ice has passed

And yet the best work of Arkhipov, in my opinion, hangs in Orsay. It is a pity that not in the Tretyakov Gallery!

LANDSCAPE ALEXANDER BORISOV

There was one more painting from Russia that struck me and is remembered for being different from everything exhibited in Orsay (unfortunately, I don’t remember in which room I saw it):

  • Alexandre Sergejewitch Borisoff

But about this artist, read a separate post.

RUSSIAN ARTISTS AT THE ORSEUS MUSEUM

I decided to find out which other Russian artists are represented in Orsay. I checked the catalog of the museum - it turned out that I had not noticed 12 more paintings. Here are the names of the artists and the titles of the paintings in the original French transcription:

  • Konstantin Egorovitch Makovsky
  • Constant Korovine
  • Constant Korovine - Boulevard des Italiens
  • Marie Bashkirtseff
  • Kirill Vikentievich Lemokh
  • Vasily Maximovitch Maximov
  • Filip Andreevich Maliavine
  • Filip Andreevich Maliavine
  • Nikolai Gustavovitch Schilder - L'impératrice Maria Federovna
  • Leonid Pasternak
  • Leonid Pasternak — Ludwig Metzl
  • Constantin Kouznetsov - Vue de Paris, Trocadero

On the right are close friends and people who support the artist. In the foreground, on the table, is the poet Baudelaire, fascinated by reading. Not far from him, on a stool, sat the writer Chanfleurie. A little further is a group of five people, including the philosopher Proudhon and the philanthropist Bruyat. Behind the artist stands a nude...

Naturalism in painting Gustave Courbet (abstract, term paper, diploma, control)

On the right are close friends and people who support the artist. In the foreground, on the table, is the poet Baudelaire, fascinated by reading. Not far from him, on a stool, sat the writer Chanfleurie. A little further is a group of five people, including the philosopher Proudhon and the philanthropist Bruyat. Behind the artist stands a naked model - a symbol of life-affirming creative energy, on the left are social allegories: a group of poor people, a pensive peasant woman, a little boy in tattered clothes and a hunting dog. The picture is designed in warm brownish-yellow tones. It is rightfully considered one of the best works of Courbet. Colleagues of the artist called this work a real artistic feat, as they considered it very personal, and, therefore, violating academic principles that forbade elevating the personal to the level of a historical epic. Thus, it can be concluded that starting from 1847, Courbet moved away from romanticism, which, in her opinion, was becoming more and more academic. The artist learns a lot from the classics and romantics, and carefully analyzes not only their undoubted successes, but also unfortunate mistakes, and in the end decides, as he himself put it, "to raise the flag of realistic art." The art of realism Courbet contrasts, first of all, with the classical school and academism. The artist often repeats: "Realism is the negation of the ideal." He also rejects romanticism with its cult of the imagination, considering the "Funeral in Oriana" as a funeral and romanticism itself, and arguing that of all the creative heritage left to the world by this trend in painting, it is worth preserving only the paintings of De Lacroix and Géricault. Emphasizing his loyalty to realism, Courbet burns all bridges behind him. Meanwhile, he was a universal artist, which allowed him to go beyond the limits of exclusively realism, in which he initially concluded himself. In 1855, Kona Courbet manages to organize his first independent exhibition, he shows even greater resourcefulness. On the one hand, he called his pavilion "Realism", thus excluding any discrepancies in the paintings presented in it, and on the other hand, he publishes a kind of manifesto in the exhibition catalog, where we urge the public to forget as an unfortunate misunderstanding the fact that he, Gustave Courbet, once then the label of "realist artist" was stuck. “The name 'realist' was imposed on me in exactly the same way as in the 1830s the name 'romantic' is imposed on artists. Such definitions never expressed anything. I do not want to imitate anyone, copy anyone, and even more so I do not strive for "art for art's sake"! No! I simply wanted to gain in full knowledge of the tradition a meaningful and independent sense of my own individuality. To know in order to be able, so I reasoned. To be able to express the morals, ideas, appearance of the era in accordance with one's own assessment. "Courbet's naturalism did not allow such restrictions: he loved sharp and rough, only not invented, but existing in reality. Famous P. J. Proudhon (Proudhon), who dedicated on the interpretation of the meaning of Courbet, half of his book "Art" (in Russian - Kurochkin's translation), considers Courbet an idealist in realism. On the other hand, in terms of Courbet's technique, he does not meet all the latest requirements, as she did after him (Manet, 1832−83) successes in the depiction of natural objects lit in the open air (plein air, from the French "plein air"); impressionism also contributed to the technique of painting, insisting on the generalization of tones and the reduction of details. Conclusion development clearly and consistently reflected new trends in artistic culture, which often met with opposition from the official direction.The most significant and original artistic movements did not arise in line with the official school, but, as a rule, in the struggle against its norms and principles. French artists of the second half of the 19th century. sought to capture life as it is in a rapidly changing world, as well as to achieve the greatest authenticity in the depiction of nature and man. To obtain such a result, they were looking for a new one capable of truthfully reflecting reality, new expressive means capable of reflecting modern life. The appeal to the changeable and transient in the surrounding world was combined with the artist's need to express his personal impressions and moods in his work. Artists have brought to a high perfection the art of fixing the fleeting, which before them often escaped the attention of artists. In this context, a "naturalistic" picture can be compared to a section of a movie compressed into one frame or a collage of many detailed shots. By the way, a photo collage, in general, is no longer quite a photograph, but a work of art made by photo means. In addition to the listed qualities, a picture of a naturalist artist, like a representative of any other direction of painting, must have a number of qualities. And first of all, to be harmonized, both compositionally and coloristically, not to mention the fact that the creator, at times, requires filigree mastery of tools and painting techniques. In the picture of a naturalist, there is no place for accidents characteristic of photography, not to mention the emotional component and the search for aesthetics in things that are obviously not aesthetic, in any case, considered not aesthetic at the time of the emergence of naturalism as a direction of fine arts at the end of the 19th century. Quickly fading away, naturalism gave way to photography that “replaced” it and to the emerging impressionism. Interestingly, this trend in painting, until its own name appeared, was referred to by critics as naturalism. "The light that radiated Courbet's art was so bright (...) that without it the outlines of all modern painting would have remained blurry," - says Andre Breton. Many artists, in search of their own style, sooner or later turned to the work of Courbet. Without him, we would not have Monet's wonderful marine paintings, but at least the ones we know them now, nor Cezanne's "signature" brushstroke with his works of the sixties, nor the exquisite nudes in the paintings of Renoir. If it were not for the appearance of Courbet in art, much of the painting of Manet, Whistler, Gauguin and Matisse would remain ununderstood. However, none of these artists expressed their admiration for the talent of Courbet in to the extent that Picasso did, creating in 1950, in memory of the maestro, a soulful version of his "Girls Resting on the Banks of the Seine" and thereby demonstrating the main artistic principle of Courbet: in art, innovation consists in the tireless re-creation of traditions. List of used literature European art. Painting. Sculpture. Graphic arts. Encyclopedia. - T.2. - M .: Bely Gorod, 2006. - P. 327 Yavorskaya N. V. Western European art of the XIX century "- Moscow: Publishing house of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, 1962 - 78. S. Razdolskaya V. I. Art of France in the second half of the XIX century. - L ., 1981. - 311 pp. Dmitrieva N. A. A Brief History of Art. Issue 3. Countries of Western Europe of the 19th century, Russia of the 19th century - M .: Art, 1993. - 348 pp. Adams L. A History of Western Art .: McGraw-Hill Humanities., 2010. - 640 pp. Nalivaiko, D. S. Art: directions, trends, styles / D. S. Nalivaiko. Kiev: Mystetstvo, 1985. - 240 pp. Revald J. History of Impressionism, L. - M., 1959. - P. 185 French painting of the second half of the 19th century and contemporary artistic culture: collection of articles / edited by I. E. Danilova. - M .: Soviet artist, 1972. - 205 p. Krivtsun , O. A. History of art in the light of cultural studies / O. A. Krivtsun // Modern art history: Methodological problems. M.: Nauka, 1994. - S. 29−51. Etudes on the general history of arts / ed. I. E. Danilova. -M.: Soviet artist, 1979. - 305p. Masters of Art about Art / edited by D. Arkin and B. Ternovets. T III. M .: Art, 1965. - 271 p., ill. Appendix: Album of illustrationsFigure 1 - Gustave Courbet. Funeral in Ornans. 1849−1850, 315 × 668, Musée d'Orez, Paris Figure 2 - Gustave Courbet. Bathers. 1853 227×193. Fabre Museum, Montpellier Figure 3 - Gustave Courbet. Girls resting on the banks of the Seine. 1856-1857, 174 × 206, Petit Palais, Paris Figure 4 - Gustave Courbet. Workshop (“Real allegory characterizing the seven-year period of my life”) 1855, 359 × 598. Musée d'Orez, Paris

Bibliography

  1. European art. Painting. Sculpture. Graphic arts. Encyclopedia. - T.2. - M.: White City, 2006. - P.327
  2. Yavorskaya N.V. Western European art of the 19th century" - Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Arts of the USSR, 1962 - 78. P.
  3. Razdolskaya V.I. Art of France in the second half of the 19th century. - L., 1981. - 311 p.
  4. Dmitrieva N. A. A Brief History of the Arts. Issue. 3. Countries of Western Europe of the XIX century; Russia of the XIX century - M.: Art, 1993. - 348 p.
  5. Adams L. A History of Western Art.: McGraw-Hill Humanities., 2010. - 640 p.
  6. Nalivaiko, D.S. Art: directions, trends, styles / D.S. Nalivaiko. Kyiv: Mystetstvo, 1985. - 240 p.
  7. Rewald J. History of Impressionism, L. - M., 1959. - S.185
  8. French painting of the second half of the 19th century and contemporary artistic culture: collection of articles. Art. / ed. I. E. Danilova. - M.: Soviet artist, 1972. - 205p.
  9. Krivtsun, O.A. History of art in the light of cultural studies/O.A. Krivtsun // Contemporary Art History: Methodological Problems. M.: Nauka, 1994. - S. 29−51.
  10. Etudes on the general history of art / ed. I. E. Danilova. -M.: Soviet artist, 1979. - 305s.
  11. Masters of Art about Art / edited by D. Arkin and B. Ternovets. T III. M.: Art, 1965. - 271s., ill.

Naturalism(from Latin naturа - nature) is a creative trend in literature, fine arts, theater, cinema, which appeared in the last third of the 19th century in Europe and America under the influence of the philosophy of positivism and its main representatives - the Frenchman Auguste Comte (1798-1857), Englishman Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and others.

naturalism in literature.

Naturalism is a late stage in the development of realism (or positivism) in the literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Naturalism should not be confused with the "natural school" in Russian literature of the 1840s.

Naturalism is also called the artistic method, which is characterized by the desire for external plausibility of details, for the depiction of single phenomena - without generalizations and typification.

The term "naturalism" as applied to literature was used as early as at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, as a designation of the stylistic trend characteristic of many samples of the so-called "petty-bourgeois drama", which became widespread in the second half of the 18th century. So, Friedrich Schiller understood naturalism as “imitative reproduction of reality” - an interest in small everyday details (in particular, in the dramas of A. V. Iffland), designed to create an “illusion of reality” on the stage. "Petty-bourgeois drama", in turn, was closely associated with the philosophical naturalism of the Enlightenment. Naturalism took shape as an independent artistic movement only in the second half of the 19th century.

Naturalist writers strove for the most dispassionate and objective reproduction of reality by the methods of literary "recording", for the transformation of novels into a "human document" about the state of society in a certain place and time. The text was intended to be as accurate a "splinter" of reality as a photograph. The publication of many works was accompanied by scandals, since naturalists did not hesitate to frankly depict the life of dirty slums, green places and brothels - those places that were not accepted in earlier literature. Man and his actions were understood by naturalists as conditioned by physiological nature, heredity and environment, social conditions, everyday and material environment.

Naturalism arose under the influence of the rapid development of the natural sciences and can be seen as the transfer of scientific methods of observation and analysis to the field of artistic creativity. Naturalist writers in creating their works relied on a thorough study of the life, working conditions and the very work of their heroes, technologies and tools, clinical reports, medical works. The natural science explanation of any human actions by the action of "blood and nerves" (Zola's expression) led naturalists to doubt that a person has free will. Their determinism often turned into fatalism and extreme pessimism.

The key difference between naturalism and classical realism is that the heroes of naturalistic works are not responsible for their lives, they simply have no choice. Many naturalist characters are helpless products of the environment and bad heredity, driven through life by animal instincts, but compelling social and economic realities prevent the satisfaction of these instincts.

Naturalism in painting.

Naturalism (from Latin naturа - “nature”) is a late stage in the development of French realistic painting, which occurred in the 1870s.

Naturalists were former academic artists who sought to capture modern reality as accurately as possible, photographically, in particular, the daily life of the peasantry and the working class.

Before the appearance of the term "impressionism", its representatives were also classified as naturalists. So, for example, Zola does in the essay of 1868 "Naturalists". As the Impressionists gained more and more recognition, interest in naturalism faded away. The task of dispassionate fixation of reality, which the artists of this direction set themselves, was successfully carried out by photography.

In painting, as in literature, naturalism was reflected in a frank demonstration of all the physiological characteristics of a person and his pathologies. Many old paintings by naturalist masters depict scenes of cruelty and violence, depicted by artists in an absolutely dispassionate manner.

Naturalist artists in their work refused to analyze and generalize the social and economic problems of public life, and were also followers of a limited creative method. At the same time, this style contributed to the introduction of new themes into art, the emergence of interest in depicting the so-called "social bottom". The followers of naturalism used new means to display reality, which contributed to the formation and development of critical realism in the nineteenth century.

Among the masters of naturalism, who have received worldwide recognition, stand out K. Meunier, T. Steilen, M. Lieberman, F. Pearlstein, L. Freud, V. Vela, K. Kollwitz, F. P. Michetti.

Naturalism in the performing arts.

Naturalistic drama is a focal refraction of the aesthetics of naturalism in the European theater of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Representatives of naturalism (including Stanislavsky) saw their task in the most reliable and believable reflection of everyday reality on the stage.

Theorists of naturalistic drama - Emile Zola in France and Wilhelm Belshe in Germany - emphasized the connection of the new literary movement with Darwin's evolutionary theory and demanded the application of the experimental method of natural science in literature.

The principle of documentary study of the displayed environment from the naturalistic novel is transferred by naturalists to drama.

Examining, as it were, under a microscope, modern society, the environment that forms a person, a naturalist cannot help but see the social injustice of this society. The consequence of faith in natural science was the widespread use of Darwin's biological theory to explain human actions, and often his social position.

In contrast to the aristocratic cult of personality in the romantic drama, the naturalistic drama pays less and less attention to the individual hero, all the characters are equal, the hero becomes either some problem or the whole family, as in Schlaf's Selicke Familie and Zuderman's Happiness in the Corner.

Naturalistic drama, which made a whole revolution both in the field of subject matter and in the field of form, thundered on the stages of all European theaters, by the beginning of the 1890s, was beginning to experience a deep crisis. The stratification of society creates more and more cadres of intelligent proletarians, who do not always find a use for themselves. More and more disappointment in the power of science penetrates into their midst. The hope for a speedy resolution of the social problem within the framework of capital is shattered.

As a result, the theme of social pity, which permeated almost all the dramas of early naturalism, loses its sharpness and gradually gives way to complete pessimism. The socially accusatory stream, so strong in Ibsen's first naturalistic dramas ("Nora", "Pillars of Society", "Union of Youth", etc.), also dries up.

In the themes of naturalistic drama, questions of the moral improvement of the individual begin to prevail. For the sake of it, the hero of the drama sometimes refuses the role of the leader of the masses striving for social and political liberation (Zudermann's John the Baptist).

In the drama of late naturalism, more and more place is given to mood - a moment that became especially important even later - in impressionist and symbolist drama. While a favorable end was still possible in the naturalistic drama of the early period, a tragic denouement inevitably ends every drama of late naturalism.

The intelligentsia, disappointed in the possibility of transforming the existing social system, is seized by the horror of life, and it is already ready to leave reality for the world of bare fiction. Characteristically, almost no playwright-naturalist remained with him to the end. Even such luminaries of naturalism as Ibsen, Hauptmann, Shlyaf, became the forerunners of symbolism.

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