Painting of the first half of the 19th century. Russian artists of the first half of the 19th century Art of the first half of the 19th century

Painting of the first half of the 19th century

The beginning of the 19th century is traditionally called the golden age of Russian culture. This is the time when the genius of A. Pushkin, A. Griboyedov and N. Gogol shone, and the Russian school of painting in the person of K. Bryullov received European recognition. The masters of this historical period, despite the dramatic circumstances of life, strove in art to serene harmony and a bright dream, avoided depicting earthly passions. This was largely due to the general mood of disappointment in the active struggle that prevailed in Western Europe and Russia after the collapse of the ideas of the Great French Revolution. People begin to "withdraw into themselves", indulge in solitary dreams. The era of romanticism comes, which in Russia coincided with the beginning of the reign of the new emperor Alexander I and the war with Napoleon.

The portrait art of the beginning of the 19th century reflects the hidden world of emotional experiences, melancholy, and disappointment. Orest Adamovich Kiprensky (1782–1836) became the main representative of the romantic trend in Russian portraiture. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, Kiprensky lived a stormy life, in which there was everything: crazy romantic impulses, passionate love, rise to fame and death in poverty in a foreign land. From the first, St. Petersburg period of his life, a precious legacy remained - works brilliant in painting in the portrait genre (“Portrait of A. K. Schwalbe”, “Portrait of E. V. Davydov”, “Portrait of Countess E. P. Rostopchina”, “Portrait of D. N. Khvostovoy "and others). The heroes of Kiprensky's portraits are emphatically restrained, do not show their emotions, but on the face of each of them lies the stamp of "preparation" characteristic of romanticism for the trials of fate, the significance of the human personality, regardless of class, gender and age.

In the first years of the 19th century, the Empire style came to Russia from Napoleonic France - a new return of classicism. Rational clarity, harmonic balance, majestic severity, overcoming earthly passions for the sake of the ideals of patriotic valor - all these features of the classic style were in demand during the Patriotic War with Napoleon. The most striking exponent of classicism in Russian painting was Fyodor Petrovich Tolstoy (1783–1873), a remarkable sculptor, painter and draftsman. In his captivating still lifes, fruits and flowers appear as the "pearl of creation", as the ancient ideal of harmonic perfection, cleansed of everything "earthly" and accidental.

The fire of Moscow, the partisan movement, the victorious end of the war with Napoleon - all this for the first time forced the nobility to take a fresh look at the people, realize their position and recognize their human dignity. In the work of Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780–1847), the world of the serfs appears for the first time. This artist went against the established academic routine - he began to paint not according to academic schemes, but “a la nature”, which was a great courage in those days. His serfs posed for Venetsianov - residents of the village of Safonkovo, Tver province. The peasant world in the paintings of Venetsianov is seen as if from the window of a romantic noble estate: there is no place for criticism of social injustice, overwork. The world of Venetsianov is full of harmonious perfection, quiet, clear peace, unity of people and nature. The modest, quiet charm of the quiet northern Russian nature, which makes up the special charm of his paintings, penetrates for the first time into the poetically conditional peasant genre of Venetsianov. At his own expense, on his estate, Venetsianov established a school for artists, whom he recruited mainly from the serfs. Some of his students continued his line in art with dignity. Thus, the poetic interiors of Kapiton Alekseevich Zelentsov (1790–1845), the landscapes of Grigory Vasilyevich Soroka (1823–1864) and Evgraf Fedorovich Krendovsky (1810–after 1853) deserve attention. According to A. Benois, "Venetsianov alone brought up a whole school, a whole theory, sowed the first seeds of Russian folk painting."

The best graduates of the Academy of Arts received the right to an internship in Italy - a country of "living" antiquity and beautiful masterpieces of the Renaissance. Many of the artists, having left for Italy, stayed in this country for many years, not seeking to return to Russia, where the spirit of state regulation of art reigned, the painters depended on orders from the imperial court.

In Italy, the talented artist Mikhail Ivanovich Lebedev (1811–1837), who died early, painted his best romantic landscapes. The captivating Italian nature and generous southern sun inspired the most gifted landscape painter of this generation, Sylvester Feodosievich Shchedrin (1791–1830). Shchedrin went on a retirement trip to Italy in 1818 and lived there due to illness until his death in 1837. He repeated the same motifs many times - majestic panoramas of Rome, serene views of rocks and the sea on the southern coast of Italy in the vicinity of Naples and Sorrento. Shchedrin was the first who began to paint the landscape in the open air (open air), freeing him from the traditional academic conventionality of colors. We will not meet romantic storms and rainy bad weather in his landscapes, the bright sun and serene peace reign in his landscapes, people live a single life with the surrounding nature, and nature gives people bliss, relaxation, “helps” in everyday work.

Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852) was the most famous painter among all Russian masters of the early 19th century. His grandiose canvas "The Last Day of Pompeii", created in Italy, was a resounding success in Europe and in Russia. In his homeland, Bryullov was greeted as a national hero. A virtuoso draftsman, in love with the external beauty of the world, Bryullov managed to "inject new blood" into the dying academism, filling it with vivid romantic experiences. Both in plot paintings and in portraits, Bryullov represents life in the forms of the theater. His large ceremonial portraits, where a person is depicted as if caught at the moment of a “role-playing” action (“Horsewoman”, “Portrait of N.V. Kukolnik”, etc.), enjoyed great success with customers. The artist did not set himself the task of conveying the unique individuality of a person; he is primarily occupied with the external captivating beauty of women, the splendor of expensive clothes, the luxury of interior decoration. In the last years of his work, Bryullov departs from the ideal of “serene” external brilliance, his portraits become more intimate and psychologically deep (“Portrait of A. N. Strugovshchikov”, “Self-Portrait” of 1848.)

Above all the artists of the first half of the 19th century stands the figure of the brilliant master Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806–1858). According to A. Benois, "a childish, angelic, inquisitive soul lived in him, the real soul of a prophet, thirsting for the truth and not being afraid of martyrdom." In Italy, where Ivanov was sent on a retirement trip after graduating from the Academy of Arts, for about twenty years he worked on the grandiose canvas “The Appearance of Christ to the People” and returned to his homeland only shortly before his death. The Russian public did not appreciate the picture, and its author soon died of cholera in St. Petersburg, not having time to receive money for the main painting of his life, acquired by the emperor.

Ivanov's preparatory landscape sketches for The Appearance of Christ to the People have become real masterpieces. Working in the open air in the vicinity of Rome, the artist, in search of the truth of color, made amazing color discoveries, anticipating the achievements of the French Impressionists. Ivanov was a true artist-sage of religious feeling, who managed to say a new word in the history of religious painting in the watercolor cycle "Biblical Sketches", to present the most grandiose and incomprehensible with "truly Easter solemnity" (A. Benois).

Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (1776 (?) - 1857) became the first professional Moscow portrait painter, the founder of the Moscow school of painting. For a serf artist, he had a happy fate: his master, Count Morkov, paid for his studies at the Academy of Arts, encouraged his work, and in 1823 gave him freedom. Immediately after that, Tropinin, already popular among Muscovites, received the title of "appointed to academicians." The artist left us a whole gallery of faces of post-fire Moscow, in which a special atmosphere of freedom reigned, the hospitality of the inhabitants, the ability to indulge in the joys of life. Tropinin's portraits amaze with their vitality and at the same time with an affectionate, kind look at a person.

Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815–1852) was a guards officer in the Finnish Regiment, but at the age of 29 in 1844 he left military service and devoted himself entirely to art. Fate allowed him to work for about eight years - Fedotov died at the age of 37 in a psychiatric hospital, having managed to paint not so many paintings, but each of them is a precious pearl that entered the treasury of Russian art. The artist worked in the field of everyday genre, giving it a new height and sharpness. He fills scenes from the life of the merchants and the nobility with mild humor, bantering with modern morals (“Major’s Matchmaking”, “Choiceous Bride”, etc.). Fedotov depicts the world of people and their objective environment with amazing pictorial perfection, love penetration, tenderness and truthfulness. The last picture of the seriously ill artist “Anchor, more anchor!”, desperately quiet and gloomy, resembles cloudy dreams of a fever. Admiration of the world and radiant serenity disappear in it - a new, sober and deeply critical image of reality - realism - enters the historical stage.

Sylvester Shchedrin. New Rome. Castle of the Holy Angel.1824. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In Shchedrin's landscape, the image of the Eternal City is both majestic and intimate. The heavy stone bulk of the castle of the Holy Angel is balanced by buildings and boats on the left bank of the Tiber. The majestic, smooth flow of the river "brings" the viewer's eye to the ancient arched bridge and the silhouette of St. Peter's Cathedral - a symbol of the greatness of Rome. In the foreground, the everyday life of the townspeople flows peacefully and unhurriedly: they pull the boat ashore, get ready to sail, hurry about their business ... All the details of the landscape are alive, seen in nature, devoid of academic conventionality. The painting itself is very beautiful: everything is shrouded in air, penetrated by the morning soft, diffused light.

Sylvester Shchedrin. Grotto of Matromanio on the island of Capri.

The shaded cave of the grotto offers a captivating view of the waters and rocks of the sea bay, which seem to bask in the dazzling bright rays of the sun. The arch of the grotto forms a kind of scenes that effectively fence off the far space of the sea bay from the world of everyday life close to the viewer.

Sylvester Shchedrin. Small harbor in Sorrento overlooking the islands of Ischia and Procido.1826. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Of all the many views of Sorrento by Shchedrin, this landscape is the most Hellenic in spirit. The sun's rays "palpably" descend from the heavens, reflected in the calm silvery surface of the bay, softly illuminate the coastal huts and boats, emphasize the slowness and regularity of movements in the small figures of fishermen busy with their daily chores. The colors of the landscape are luminous, the shadows are transparent, everything is filled with air.

Sylvester Shchedrin. Veranda covered with grapes.

One of the best landscapes of the artist, written in the vicinity of Naples, is permeated with the Hellenic spirit of clear peace and light harmony. Nature appears in Shchedrin as an image of paradise on earth. It breathes with fresh and moist breath of the sea, the aroma of heated grape leaves. Hiding on the veranda from the scorching sun, people indulge in a blissful rest. Golden rays of the sun penetrate through the intertwined branches of the vines, lay down as a glare on the stone supports of the veranda, are reflected by bright reflections on the burnt grass ... Shchedrin masterfully conveys the most complex lighting effect, achieving a unity of light, color, and air element that has never been seen before in the landscape.

MAXIM VOROBYEV. Autumn night in St. Petersburg (Pier with Egyptian sphinxes on the Neva at night).1835. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In one of his best Petersburg views, Vorobyov conveys the fullness of romantic delight in front of the wonderful city and its architecture. The radiance of the full moon turns a real corner of St. Petersburg into a wonderful vision. The famous stone sphinx giants frame the granite embankment with dark silhouettes, the moonlit path on the Neva takes the viewer's gaze into the distance and invites them to admire the impeccable proportions of the palaces on the opposite bank. Contemporaries in Vorobyov's landscapes admired the "transparency of colors", their saturation with light and warmth, "freshness and gradualness in the shadows."

MAXIM VOROBYEV. Oak shattered by lightning.1842. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This landscape was created as an allegory for the unexpected death of the artist's wife, Cleopatra Loginovna Vorobieva, nee Shustova. A blinding flash of lightning split the trunk of a mighty tree. In the deepening blue twilight, the earth merges with the sky, at the foot of the oak, furious sea waves rise, into which a lone figure, almost imperceptible in the maelstrom of the elements, rushes. Here the artist embodies the favorite motive for romanticism: the tragic helplessness of a person before the impact of the majestic, but merciless elements.

MIKHAIL LEBEDEV. In Chigi Park.1837. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

After graduating from the Academy of Arts, Lebedev went on a retirement trip to Italy to continue his studies, from where he wrote: “It seems to me that it is a sin in Italy (and everywhere) to work without nature.” In one of his best works, the artist boldly departs from the canons of the classicist landscape, traditional for this time. The composition is built diagonally and is full of movement. The atmosphere of a hot day, the exuberant strength of the southern vegetation are excitedly and vividly conveyed; the stony soil of the wide road, painted in free strokes, seemed to absorb the heat of the sun.

Along with Silv. Shchedrin, Lebedev, who died early, became a pioneer in Russian painting of a living, direct sense of nature.

GRIGORY CHERNETSOV. Parade on the occasion of the opening of the monument to Alexander I in St. Petersburg on August 30, 1834.1834. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Chernetsov was the court painter of Emperor Nicholas I, who considered himself a great connoisseur of art. Chernetsov’s works accurately reflect the emperor’s tastes - having a penchant for military affairs, Nicholas I demanded that artists “protocol” fix nature in depicting parades, uniforms, weapons, etc. The panorama of Palace Square seems to be drawn along a ruler, the huge northern sky with rain clouds is spectacular “overshadows” the parade of troops in front of the Alexander Column, built according to the project of the French architect Montferrand.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of A. K. Schwalbe.1804. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The portrait depicts the father of the artist Adam Karlovich Schwalbe, the serf of the landowner A. S. Dyakonov. Kiprensky liked to tell how this portrait, shown at exhibitions in Naples and Rome, was mistaken for the work of Rembrandt or Rubens. The artist managed to convey the character of the person being portrayed - energetic and firm. A face with deep wrinkles and a strong-willed chin is superbly sculpted, a hand confidently holding a cane is highlighted by light. This early work belongs to the unconditional masterpieces of Kiprensky's brush, testifying to his deep assimilation of the painting techniques of the old masters.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of Count F. V. Rostopchin.

The Moscow mayor Fyodor Vasilyevich Rostopchin (1765–1826) had a rare sense of humor and was engaged in literary activities. All the color of the then Moscow was going to the famous salon of the Rostopchins. During the invasion of Napoleon, rumor attributed to Rostopchin the order to burn Moscow.

In this work, excellent in drawing and coloring, we will not see any special characteristics of the model's character: the portrait is simple and even modest. Compared to the masters of the previous era, Kiprensky pays less attention to accessories and clothing details. The black frock coat and folded hands are perceived almost as a single spot. Here is how Rostopchin himself commented on this work: “I am sitting idle and without boredom with my hands folded.”

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of Countess E. P. Rostopchina.1809. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The portrait was executed by Kiprensky as a pair to the portrait of the spouse of the Countess F. V. Rostopchin. Ekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina (1775–1859) was Catherine II's lady-in-waiting. She secretly converted to Catholicism and lived a very secluded life in recent years. Kiprensky creates a soft, benevolent, sincere image of the person being portrayed. Her whole appearance breathes silence and self-absorption. The color scheme is rich in subtle and delicate transitions of silver and olive tones, which corresponds to the mood of the portrait.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of the Life Hussars Colonel E. V. Davydov.1809. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The portrait depicts the cousin of the famous poet and hero of the war of 1812 Denis Davydov - Evgraf Vladimirovich Davydov (1775-1823). By the time the portrait was painted, he was a colonel of the Life Guards Hussars, participated in the battle with Napoleon near Austerlitz. The figure is surrounded by a mysterious romantic twilight, in which you can see the foliage of the olive tree against the background of a black-blue sky. Kiprensky finds a wonderful consonance of color: the red color of the uniform, gold braids, white leggings ... In the face of Davydov there is more outward charm than deep psychologism. The brave, fearless hero demonstrates his courageous posture and cheerful prowess of youth.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of A. A. Chelishchev.1808 - early 1809. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Alexander Alexandrovich Chelishchev (1797–1881) was brought up in the Corps of Pages from 1808, and later participated in the war of 1812 - that is, he belonged to the generation that determined the fate of Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. In the guise of an 11-year-old boy, Kiprensky notices a special, childish expression on his face. Dark beady eyes look thoughtfully and attentively at the viewer, seriousness, “preparation” for difficult life tests is read in them. The color scheme of the portrait is based on Kiprensky's favorite contrasting combination of black, white, red and bright gold.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of D. N. Khvostova.1814. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

One of the most captivating female images of Kiprensky is filled with a mood of quiet, thoughtful contemplation. Daria Nikolaevna Khvostova (1783–?) was the niece of M. Lermontov's grandmother.

Unlike the portrait painters of the previous era, the artist does not stop the viewer's attention on the accessories of her clothes: they are given delicately, with common large spots. Eyes live in the portrait - amazing dark eyes, which seem to be covered with a fog of disappointment, sad memories and timid hopes.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of E. S. Avdulina.1822 (1823?). State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Ekaterina Sergeevna Avdulina (1788–1832) is the wife of Major General A. N. Avdulin, a great connoisseur of the arts and an active member of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, the mistress of the mansion on the Palace Embankment and the home theater at the Kamennoostrovsky dacha. She is dressed in a fashionable head-hugging cap, holding a fan in her hands - an indispensable attribute of a lady of this time outside the home environment. Her folded hands are a quote from Leonardo da Vinci's La Gioconda, which Kiprensky undoubtedly saw in the Louvre. One of his contemporaries claimed that in this portrait “the roundness of the body and the light are masterfully done. And how symbolic is the levka losing its petals, standing in a glass of water! .. ”We have before us a romantic, contemplative nature, immersed in its hidden thoughts. A branch of delicate white flowers in a fragile glass on the window seems to be likened to the image of the depicted woman.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Self-portrait.1828. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This self-portrait was painted before the artist left for Italy. Before us is a famous master who has won rave reviews from his contemporaries, and at the same time a tired and disappointed person. According to the memoirs of his contemporaries, "Kiprensky was handsome, with beautiful expressive eyes and naturally wavy curls." Squinting his eyes slightly, he looks at the viewer searchingly, as if asking about something. The portrait is designed in a warm, rich color. The colors in the face echo the colors of the dressing gown. The background, as in other works of the master, seems to be a thickened twilight, from which the figure of the depicted person is gently highlighted.

OREST KIPRENSKY. Portrait of A. S. Pushkin.1827. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg by order of A. Delvig immediately after the return of the poet from the Mikhailovsky exile. Contemporaries who knew Pushkin closely argued that a more similar portrait of the poet does not exist. The image of Pushkin is devoid of everyday life, the characteristic "Arap" features of appearance are softened. His gaze glides past the viewer - the poet seems to be caught by the artist at the moment of creative insight. The lightened background around the head resembles a kind of halo - a sign of being chosen. With an English checkered cloak thrown over his shoulder, Pushkin is likened to the great English romantic poet Byron. He expressed his attitude to the portrait in a poetic message to Kiprensky “A favorite of light-winged fashion ...” - “I see myself as in a mirror, / But this mirror flatters me.”

Vasily Tropinin. Portrait of A. V. Tropinin, the artist's son.OK. 1818. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The portrait depicts Arseny Tropinin (1809–1885), the only son of the artist. This portrait stands out among other works of the master with special inner warmth and cordiality. Tropinin solves the most difficult task - he finds pictorial means expressing the special world of the child's soul. The portrait is devoid of static posing: the boy is depicted in a slight turn, his golden hair is tossed, a smile plays on his face, his shirt collar is carelessly thrown open. With long, moving strokes, the artist sculpts the form, and this dynamic stroke turns out to be in tune with the childish temperament, the romantic expectation of discoveries.

Vasily Tropinin. Portrait of P. A. Bulakhov.

The charm of this character is in liveliness and peace of mind, in the harmony of simple and clear relationships with the world. His ruddy, shiny face is sculpted with moving strokes, a silver fur vest, a blue shirt sleeve are painted broadly and freely, a neckerchief is “tied” with a few strokes of the brush ... This manner of painting perfectly corresponds to the benevolent and cheerful, very Moscow image of Bulakhov, which, according to A. Benois, resembles in the portrait "a cat that licked sour cream."

Vasily Tropinin. Portrait of K. G. Ravich.1823. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The portrait of Konstantin Georgievich Ravich, an official of the Moscow land surveying office, is very Moscow in spirit, far from official strictness and self-profound closure. Ravich seemed to be taken by surprise by the artist: he is in a dressing gown, his hair is in disarray, his tie is loose. The reflections of a bright red robe “flash” with a blush on his sleek and good-natured face. Ravich expresses a common type of Moscow nobility - he was a lover of carousing, playing cards. Subsequently, he was charged with the death of one of the players who suffered a blow after a big loss, spent seven years in prison and was sent to Siberia "on suspicion".

Vasily Tropinin. Portrait of A. S. Pushkin.1827. All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

The portrait was painted in the first months of 1827, shortly after the poet's return from Mikhailovsky exile. Pushkin's friend, S. Sobolevsky, recalled that "Pushkin himself ordered the portrait to Tropinin secretly and brought it to me as a surprise with various farces (it cost him 350 rubles)." According to another version, the portrait was commissioned by Sobolevsky himself, who wanted to see the poet not “smoothed” and “pomaded”, but “disheveled, with a cherished mystical ring on the thumb of one hand.” As a result, in the portrait, the intimacy of the image coexists with the romantic "elevation", perfectly conveyed by the life of the spirit of the great poet.

Vasily Tropinin. Portrait of K. P. Bryullov.

Tropinin met Karl Bryullov in 1836 in Moscow, where the author of The Last Day of Pompeii stopped on his way from Italy to St. Petersburg. The maestro is depicted with a pencil and an album against the backdrop of erupting Vesuvius. “Yes, he himself is a real Vesuvius!” - they talked about Bryullov, admiring the elemental power of his talent. The portrait expresses the public pathos of the perception of Bryullov as a brilliant master, whose appearance resembled the "golden-haired" Apollo. Bryullov highly appreciated Tropinin, confessed in one of his letters to the artist: “I kiss your soul, which, by its purity, is the most capable of fully understanding the delight and joy that fills my heart ...”

Vasily Tropinin. Lacemaker.1823. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Before us is not a portrait of a specific girl, but a collective poetic image of a craftswoman, such as Tropinin could meet in the homes of noble Muscovites. The artist does not depict that heavy that was in her complex and painstaking work, he admires and admires the charm and beauty of youth. P. Svinin wrote about this picture that she “reveals the pure, innocent soul of the beauty and the look of curiosity that she throws at someone who entered at that moment: her hands, bared by the elbow, stopped along with her gaze, a sigh flew out of her virgin chest covered with a muslin handkerchief.

The artist was often reproached for the unchanging smile of his characters. “Why, I don’t invent, I don’t compose these smiles, I write them from life,” answered Tropinin.

Vasily Tropinin. Self-portrait in front of a window overlooking the Kremlin.1846. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In his self-portrait, Tropinin depicts himself as a hard-working artist who managed to "go out into the world" with the help of craft, hard work and talent. He is dressed in a work robe, leaning on a cane, holding a palette and brushes in his left hand. A wide panorama of the Kremlin behind him is the personification of the artist's thoughts about his native city. “The calm that Tropinin’s benevolent old face breathed was not easy for him. Constantly struggling with obstacles and oppression, he acquired this calmness under the shadow of faith and art,” wrote N. Ramazanov, who knew the artist. This self-portrait, which was kept in his house after Tropinin's death, was bought by the Muscovites from the artist's son by subscription and presented as a gift to the Rumyantsev Museum as a sign of special respect and recognition of the master's services to the ancient capital.

KARL BRYULLOV. Italian noon (Italian woman picking grapes).1827. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

This picture was created as a steam room for "Italian Morning" (1823, Kunsthalle, Kiel) and was sent to Russia as a report during the artist's stay in Italy. Bryullov used the opportunity in Italy to study the female model (at the St. Petersburg Academy, women did not pose for artists). He was occupied with the rendering of the female figure in different lighting effects - in the early morning or in the bright light of an Italian afternoon. The genre scene is filled with the spirit of sweet sensuality. The ripe beauty of the Italian echoes the ripeness of grapes filled with sweet juice, sparkling in the sun.

KARL BRYULLOV. An interrupted date (“Water is already running through ...”).Watercolor. 1827–1830 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In Italy, Bryullov was one of the founders of the "Italian" genre, which was very popular with collectors and travelers. The artist's paintings about the everyday life of Italians combine classical beauty and a romantic worldview of reality. In one of the best watercolors of the "Italian" genre, a charming genre scene filled with good-natured humor unfolds against the backdrop of the sweetly beautiful Italian nature. Bryullov masterfully mastered the classical technique of watercolor, masterfully conveying on a sheet of paper the luminous air environment of a hot Italian day, the shirts of heroes sparkling with white, and the stone wall of the house heated by the sun.

KARL BRYULLOV. Bathsheba.

The plot is based on the legend of a bathing young beauty, which was seen by King David, walking along the roof of his palace.

Bryullov enthusiastically sings of female beauty, which "the universe could only be crowned with." The tenderness of the beautiful “ancient” body of Bathsheba, illuminated by the oblique rays of the setting sun, is set off by the lush folds of the draperies, which the artist turned into a pedestal for the beauty. A transparent jet of water flowing into the pool sparkles with sun glare. The whole canvas is permeated with sensual charm and joy of being.

KARL BRYULLOV. Rider.1832. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This ceremonial portrait of the Italians Giovannina (horsewoman) and Amazilia Paccini was commissioned from Bryullov by Countess Yulia Samoilova, a friend of the artist, who took care of these orphaned girls. The artist combines a traditional equestrian portrait with a plot action. On the eve of the beginning of a thunderstorm, a beautiful horsewoman hurries back from a walk. Charming Amazilia ran out to meet her sister on the loggia. The face of Giovannina, despite the rapid jump, remains imperturbably beautiful. Before us is a favorite technique of the era of romanticism: a clash of the mighty natural elements and the resilience of the human spirit. The artist admires the blooming beauty of youth, admires the prettiness of a child, the gracefulness of a thoroughbred horse, the sparkle of silk and the shine of curls of hair ... The portrait turns into an elegant enchanting spectacle, into a hymn to the beauty of life.

KARL BRYULLOV. The last day of Pompeii.1833. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The plot of the picture came from Bryullov after visiting the excavations of Pompeii, an ancient Roman city near Naples, which died in the 1st century from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. When working on the picture, the artist used the descriptions of the historian Pliny the Younger, a witness to the death of the city. The main theme of the picture is “the people seized with fear” before the power of all-conquering fate. The movement of people is directed from the depth of the picture to the viewer diagonally.

The cold light of lightning highlights separate groups of people united by a single spiritual impulse. On the left, in the crowd, the artist depicted himself with a box of paints on his head. N. Gogol wrote that Bryullov's beautiful figures drown out the horror of his position with beauty. The artist combined the ardor of a romantic worldview with the traditional techniques of classicism. The picture was a resounding success in Europe, and in Russia Bryullov was greeted as a triumphant: “You brought peaceful trophies / With you to your father's canopy. - / And it was the last day of Pompeii / For the Russian brush, the first day ”(E. Baratynsky).

KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of I. A. Krylov.1839. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The portrait of Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1768/1769–1844) was painted by the artist in one session, and was not completed. Krylov's hand was completed by the student F. Goretsky from a plaster cast of the already deceased fabulist. Krylov in the portrait is about 70 years old, his appearance is marked by strict nobility and lively, active energy. The picturesque mastery of the portrait, the romantic-sounding combination of black, fiery red and golden yellow colors, beloved by Bryullov, fascinates.

KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of N. V. Kukolnik.1836. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

In St. Petersburg, Bryullov was a regular participant in the evenings where the literary bohemia of that time gathered. Nestor Vasilyevich Kukolnik (1809–1868), a well-known playwright, journalist, and editor of the Khudozhestvennaya Gazeta magazine, was their indispensable participant. According to contemporaries, the Dollmaker had an awkward appearance - very tall, narrow shoulders, a long face with irregular features, huge ears, small eyes. In the portrait, Bryullov aestheticizes his appearance, giving him the mysteriousness of a romantic wanderer. His ears are hidden under a cap of long hair, a sly smile plays on his pale face. The romantic atmosphere is complemented by the deepening dusk of the passing day, a dilapidated wall, reminiscent of the inexorable passage of time, and the expanses of the sea in the distance.

KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of A. N. Strugovshchikov.1840. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Alexander Nikolaevich Strugovshchikov (1808–1878) was a friend of Bryullov, a translator from German, and a publisher of the Art Newspaper. The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg, in Bryullov's workshop on Palace Square. Strugovshchikov poses in a chair upholstered in red leather (in the same chair we see Bryullov in the famous Self-Portrait of 1848). In the guise of a slightly tired Strugovshchikov, the artist emphasized some nervousness and detachment. Nihilism and melancholy were the favorite mask of the generation of that time, when, according to Strugovshchikov, "the pogrom of December 14 took away ... the desire of the progressive people of society to interfere in the internal politics of our life, and the very paths to this were blocked."

KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of Countess Yu. P. Samoilova, leaving the ball with her adopted daughter Amazilia Pacini.Not later than 1842. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The portrait was painted in St. Petersburg, where the eccentric and independent countess came to receive a huge inheritance. In the picture, she is depicted together with her adopted daughter, who, with her fragility, sets off and complements the luxurious, mature beauty of Samoilova. The movement of the figure of the countess is balanced by a powerful turn of a heavy velvet curtain, which seems to continue in her dazzlingly luxurious dress. In this best formal portrait of the master, an unusual enthusiastic fire is felt - a consequence of the artist's special relationship with the model.

KARL BRYULLOV. Self-portrait.1848. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

According to the memoirs of Bryullov's student, this self-portrait was painted by the master during a serious illness in just two hours. The work impresses with the ingenious virtuosity of execution: the hair is “combed” with a few movements of the brush, with inspiration, with small strokes, the exhausted, pale, emaciated face with transparent shadows, the limply dangling arm are written out ... At the same time, the image is not devoid of narcissism and elegant artistry. The difficult physical condition of the master only emphasizes the creative fire, which, despite a serious illness, did not die out in Bryullov until the end of his life.

KARL BRYULLOV. Portrait of the archaeologist M. Lanchi.1851. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This portrait of Bryullov's old friend, the Italian archaeologist Michelangelo Lanci (1779–1867), is striking in its vivid depiction of a person's individuality, heralding a realistic method in the art of portraiture. The archaeologist seemed to be caught at the moment of a lively conversation: he took off his pince-nez and directed an attentive and intelligent look at the interlocutor. Bright, sonorous color, built on a combination of a bright scarlet robe and silver fur, emphasizes the model's love of life.

This "energy" sonority of the portrait is all the more remarkable, since the physical strength of Bryullov himself was already running out. The portrait was the last significant work of the seriously ill artist.

ALEXANDER BRYULLOV. Portrait of N. N. Pushkina.1831–1832 Paper, watercolor. All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

Watercolor portraits of Alexander Bryullov, brother of Karl Bryullov, were extremely popular with his contemporaries. Among the best and most precious for posterity is the portrait of Natalya Nikolaevna Pushkina, the wife of the great poet. The artist not only captures her individual features, he elevates the depicted beauty above the “prose of life”, affirming the female ideal of “pure beauty” that we meet in Pushkin’s poems: “My desires have come true. The Creator / sent you to me, you, my Madonna, / the purest beauty of the purest example.

ALEXANDER BRYULLOV. Portrait of E. P. Bakunina.Not later than 1832. Watercolor on cardboard. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Ekaterina Pavlovna Bakunina (1795–1869) was the sister of Alexander Bakunin, Pushkin's lyceum friend. The poet could meet young Bakunina at lyceum balls, where invited relatives of lyceum students and acquaintances gathered. “How sweet she was! How the black dress stuck to dear Bakunina! But I haven't seen her for eighteen hours - ah! What a position and what anguish... But I was happy for 5 minutes” (from Pushkin’s diary of 1815). In the chamber, miniature portrait, we see Bakunin already in adulthood, but the musicality of the lines, the delicate transparent colors of the watercolor are in tune with the enthusiastic feeling of the young poet.

PETER SOKOLOV. Portrait of A. S. Pushkin.1836. Watercolor on paper. All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, St. Petersburg

Sokolov was an excellent master of the intimate watercolor portrait of the Pushkin era. The artist's brushes belong to three lifetime portraits of Pushkin, portraits of his contemporaries, friends and enemies. This portrait represents the poet at the end of his life - slightly tired, having experienced many disappointments and anxieties. Sokolov's son, watercolorist Academician A. Sokolov, spoke about Sokolov's method of work:

“With remarkable boldness, the truthful tone of a face, dress, lace accessory or background lay down immediately, almost in full force and was detailed in mixed, mostly grayish tones, with remarkable charm and taste, so that the stroke of the brush, its strokes, the descent of paint to nothing, remained on mind, without interfering with the completeness of all parts. From this, no torture and labor were ever noticeable in his works; everything came out fresh, light and at the same time bold and spectacular in colors.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Self-portrait.1811. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

On the self-portrait, Venetsianov is 31 years old, but he looks like a tired, wise man. At this time, he was already a well-known master portrait painter, who achieved success through his own work and perseverance. The self-portrait strikes with seriousness, truthfulness and simplicity. The artist, holding a palette and brush in his hands, carefully peers at the work. Lively, warm light softly shapes the shape. Venetsianov presented this portrait to the Academy of Arts and received the title of "appointed to academician" for him.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Sleeping shepherd.Between 1823 and 1826. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The landscape of the Russian village, amazing in its penetrating charm, is filled with quiet, radiant peace: the smooth surface of the river, and green vegetable gardens, and distant arable land, and wooded hills ... The colors of the landscape are bright, full-sounding, as if permeated with light. “The Sleeping Shepherd” is one of the best paintings by Venetsianov in terms of lyrical-heartfelt mood, in conveying the intimate connection between man and nature. Venetsianov appears here as a discoverer of the subtle charm of modest Russian nature.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. On the arable land. Spring.First half of 1820s. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The picture shows an allegory of Spring. A peasant woman in an elegant sundress, likened to the goddess of flowering and spring Flora, majestically steps on the arable land. On the left in the background, another peasant woman with horses seems to continue the circular movement of the main character, which closes on the right on the horizon line with another female figure resembling a translucent phantom. Next to the mature beauty of Flora, we see an allegory of the beginning of life - the baby Cupid surrounded by wreaths of cornflowers. On the right side of the picture, next to a dry stump, thin young trees reach for the sun.

The picture depicts the eternal cycle of life: the change of seasons, birth and withering... The researchers noted that this painting by Venetsianov, with its idyllic mood and allegorical clarity, combined with Russian motifs, met the tastes of Emperor Alexander I.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. At the harvest. Summer.Mid 1820s? State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

This picture was conceived by Venetsianov as a pair to the work “On arable land. Spring ”and was part of a kind of cycle about the seasons. The world of peasant life here is devoid of the prosaic hardships of rural labor. This is an idyll seen by the artist from the windows of a "romantic" noble estate. But at the heart of this idyll is the artist's clever and honest thought about the beauty and sublime significance of everyday peasant worries, about the special charm of Russian nature. “Who in the whole of Russian painting managed to convey such a truly summer mood as that which is invested in his painting “Summer”, where behind a somewhat angularly planted woman, with a slightly straightened profile, a purely Russian, no longer straightened nature spreads: distant, yellow a cornfield ripening in hot, sun-saturated air!” exclaimed A. Benois.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Girl in a scarf.

The young beautiful peasant woman was written by Venetsianov with extraordinary warmth and sincerity. She fixed her large eyes on the viewer with a lively look, a slight smile plays on her plump lips. A blue striped scarf and dark, shiny, slicked back hair set off the tenderness of her girlish face. The space of the picture is filled with soft light, the color is based on a noble combination of pale green, blue and light beige tones.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Reapers.Late 1820s. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

In this picture we see the peasant boy Zakharka, the hero of several paintings by Venetsianov, and his mother Anna Stepanova. Flushed from hard work and the midday heat, the boy leaned against his mother's shoulder, fascinated by the bright butterflies that sat on her hand. The form is molded in thick, full-sounding color. Smooth, rounded lines fill the composition with balance and peace. An unpretentious everyday plot from the life of peasants Venetsianov turns into a poetic narrative about the bewitching beauty of the world and the joy of unity with nature.

ALEXEY VENETSIANOV. Peasant woman with cornflowers.1830s State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

The young peasant woman is devoid of romantic elation, her image is simple and filled with quiet, sincere poetry. Immersed in her thoughts, she sadly and detachedly touches the bright blue cornflowers. The coloring of the picture is built on subtle consonances of cold smoky white, silvery, light ocher tones, reflecting the thoughtful-minor mood of the girl.

GRIGORY SOROKA. View of the Spasskoye estate in the Tambov province.1840s Regional Art Gallery, Tver

The serf of P. I. Milyukov, Grigory Soroka, studied intermittently with Venetsianov at his estate Safonkovo. The artist A. Mokritsky wrote that Venetsianov instructed his students: “All these objects, which the material difference must be felt and conveyed by the painter ... For this ... extraordinary vigilance of the eye, concentration of attention, analysis, complete trust in nature and constant pursuit of its changes are needed at various degrees and positions of light; clarity of understanding and love for the cause are needed.”

Magpie talentedly brought to life the precepts of the mentor. He perfectly solves complex pictorial problems, filling the landscape with classical peace and light sincerity. Following Venetsianov, he discovers beauty in the quiet motifs of his native nature.

1840s State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

The calm water surface of Lake Moldinsky reigns in the picture, defining its idyllic-light mood. Slowness and silence are felt in everything: a boy is fishing on the shore, his friend is quietly gliding in a boat along the shore. The buildings of the estate on the opposite bank are buried in the majestic thickets of "eternally beautiful" nature. The transfer of the special poetic beauty of Russian nature and the mood of an amazing, enlightened peace filled with grace make this landscape related to the best works of A. Venetsianov.

GRIGORY SOROKA. Fishermen. View in the estate of Spasskoye, Tambov province.Fragment

KAPITON ZELENTSOV. In the rooms.Late 1820s. State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

At the end of the 20s of the 19th century, the interior genre became popular among artists, which reflected the interest of customers from the noble society in the “poetry of domestic life”. Zelentsov's painting is close in spirit to the best works of his mentor A. Venetsianov. Before the viewer unfolds a suite of three spacious, tastefully decorated rooms, flooded with light. There are paintings and medallions by F. Tolstoy on the walls, a statue of Venus in the corner near the window, elegant mahogany furniture is placed along the walls. The rooms are "animated" by two young men training a dog. When looking at this interior, one embraces a feeling of clear peace and light harmony, which corresponded to the ideas of the ideal of private life.

FEDOR SLAVYANSKY. The office of A. G. Venetsianov.1839–1840 State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Slavyansky continued the line of his teacher A. Venetsianov both in portraiture and in the interior genre. A light, harmonious mood permeates his best interior, depicting rooms in the mentor's house. The superbly painted enfilade of rooms recalls brilliant advances in the study of perspective. At the back of the room, in a soft diffused light, a young man lay down on the sofa - perhaps the artist himself or one of the students of the owner of the house. Everything in this space is reminiscent of serving art and artistic interests: copies from ancient statues, a mannequin of a peasant girl in a kokoshnik by the window, as if revived from bright sunlight, paintings on the walls, stove lining made in the “antique” style.

Painting of the second half of the 19th century * * *In the second half of the 19th century, Russian fine arts were dominated by social and political ideas. In no other European country has there been such a long existence in painting of critical realism - historical

Russian fine arts were characterized by romanticism and realism. However, the officially recognized method was classicism. The Academy of Arts became a conservative and inert institution that hindered any attempt at creative freedom. She demanded to strictly follow the canons of classicism, encouraged the writing of paintings on biblical and mythological subjects. Young talented Russian artists were not satisfied with the framework of academicism. Therefore, they often turned to the portrait genre.

Kiprensky Orest Adamovich , Russian artist. An outstanding master of Russian fine art of romanticism, known as a wonderful portrait painter. In the painting "Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field" (1805, Russian Museum) His first pictorial portrait ("A. K. Schwalbe", 1804, ibid), written in the "Rembrandt" manner. Portrait of a boy by A. A. Chelishchev (circa 1810-11), paired images of the spouses F. V. and E. P. Rostopchins (1809) and V. S. and D. N. Khvostovs (1814, all from the Tretyakov Gallery). His portrait of a young A.S. Pushkin is one of the best in creating a romantic image.

The realistic style was reflected in the works V.A. Tropinin. Early portraits of Tropinin, (family portraits of Counts Morkovs of 1813 and 1815, both in the Tretyakov Gallery), Takov and A. S. Pushkin in the famous portrait of 1827 (All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, Pushkin Do 47 - years of age he was in serf captivity. Therefore, probably, the faces of ordinary people are so fresh, so inspired on his canvases. And the youth and charm of his "Lacemaker" are endless. Most often, V. A. Tropinin turned to the image of people from the people (" Lacemaker", "Portrait of a son", etc.).

Paintings. K.P. Bryullov "The Last Day of Pompeii". Three years later, the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" made a triumphant journey from Italy to Russia. Bryullov was associated with the Academy with all his work. He has been ill in recent years.

In the first half of the XIX century. lived and worked artist Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858). He devoted his entire creative life to the idea of ​​the spiritual awakening of the people, embodying it in the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People”. He worked on the painting for more than 20 years.

In the first half of the XIX century. Russian painting includes everyday plot. One of the first to contact him was Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847). He devoted his work to depicting the life of peasants. However, Venetsianov’s paintings “Threshing floor”, “At the harvest. Summer”, “On arable land. Spring”, “Peasant woman with cornflowers”, “Zakharka”, “Morning of the landowner”, reflecting the beauty and nobility of ordinary Russian people, served to affirm the dignity of a person, regardless of his social status.

Its traditions were continued Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852). His canvases are realistic, filled with satirical content, exposing the mercenary morality, life and customs of the elite of society ("Major's Matchmaking", "Fresh Cavalier", etc.). He began his career as a satirist as a guards officer. Then he made funny, mischievous sketches of army life. In 1848, his painting "The Fresh Cavalier" was presented at an academic exhibition. Other paintings by Fedotov ("Breakfast of an Aristocrat", "Major's Matchmaking") are also of a comedic and satirical nature. His last paintings are very sad (“Anchor, more anchor!”, “Widow”).

34. Karl Bryullov. Bryullov Karl Pavlovich (Briullov Karl) (1799-1852), Russian artist. Bryullov was born in a Russified German family of a sculptor-carver and painter of miniatures in St. Petersburg on December 12 (23), 1799. In 1809-1821 he studied at the Academy of Arts, in particular with the historical genre painter Andrei Ivanovich Ivanov. In 1821, Karl Bryullov was awarded the gold medal of the Academy for the painting: "The appearance of three angels to Abraham at the oak of Mamre" and the right to continue his studies in painting in Italy at public expense. In 1823-1835, Bryullov worked in Italy, having experienced a deep influence of ancient, as well as Italian Renaissance-Baroque art. Bryullov's Italian paintings are imbued with sensual eroticism (Italian Noon, 1827, Russian Museum, St. Petersburg; Bathsheba, 1832, Tretyakov Gallery); during this period, his gift as a draftsman was finally formed. Bryullov also acts as a master of a secular portrait, turning his images into worlds of radiant, “heavenly” beauty (“Horsewoman” or an equestrian portrait by G. and A. Pacchini, 1832, Tretyakov Gallery). Striving for great historical themes, in 1830, having visited the excavation site of the ancient Roman city destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, Bryullov begins work on the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii". The multi-figure tragic canvas becomes one of the “catastrophe paintings” characteristic of romanticism.

The Horsewoman, Italian Noon, The Last Day of Pompeii, Narcissus Looking into the Water, The Death of Inessa de Castro, 1834

The painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" by Bryullov (completed in 1833 and stored in the Russian Museum) produces a sensation both in Russia (where A.S. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, A.I. Herzen and other writers enthusiastically write about it), and abroad, where this work of the painter is hailed as the first great international success of the Russian painting school. In 1835, the artist returned to his homeland as a living classic. Having visited Greece and Turkey along the way, Bryullov creates a number of poetic images of the Eastern Mediterranean. Turning at the suggestion of Emperor Nicholas I to Russian history, Bryullov writes The Siege of Pskov by Stefan Batory (1836–1843, Tretyakov Gallery), failing, however, to achieve (despite a number of striking pictorial finds in the sketches) the epic integrity of his Italian masterpiece. Upon his return to Russia, Bryullov’s monumental design projects began to form an important area of ​​creativity, where he managed to organically combine the talents of a decorator and playwright (sketches for murals at the Pulkovo Observatory, 1839–1845; sketches and sketches of angels and saints for St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

Bryullov acts as a complete master of his images in portraits. Even in custom-made items (like the portrait of "Countess Yulia Samoilova Leaving the Ball with Paccini's Adopted Daughter", circa 1842, Russian Museum), the enchanting splendor of color and mise-en-scenes looks, first of all, as a triumph of art. Even more relaxed, psychologically sincere in colors and chiaroscuro are the images of people of art (poet N.V. Kukolnik, 1836; sculptor I.P. Vitali, 1837; fabulist I.A. Krylov, 1839; writer and critic A.N. Strugovshchikov , 1840; all works in the Tretyakov Gallery), including the famous melancholic self-portrait (1848, ibid.). Ever weaker from illness, since 1849 Bryullov has been living on the island of Madeira, and since 1850 in Italy.

Pavel Fedotov

Fedotov Pavel Andreevich (Fedotov Paul) (1815-1852), an outstanding Russian painter and draftsman. Born in Moscow on June 22, 1815, in the parish of Kharitonia, in Ogorodniki. His father had a small wooden house; he was a poor man, the family was large, and the children, including Pavlush, grew up without special supervision. Eleven years old, Pavel Fedotov was sent to the cadet corps. The boy's abilities were brilliant, his memory was extraordinary, and the authorities could only be embarrassed by the fact that in the margins of Fedotov's exercise books there was a whole collection of portraits of teachers and guards, and in addition in a caricature form. Having started his military service as an ensign of the Finnish Life Guards Grenadier Regiment in St. Petersburg, Fedotov makes music, translates from German, writes epigrams for friends and comrades, and draws caricatures on them.

Breakfast of an Aristocrat, 1851, Fresh Cavalier, 1848, Courtship of a Major, 1848, Picky Bride, 1847

Pavel Fedotov did not have any means, and he could not reach for his comrades in revelry. After much persuasion, Pavel Fedotov decided to leave the service and retired with a pension of 28 rubles 60 kopecks a month. Fedotov moved to Vasilyevsky Island, rented a small room from the hostess and entered the Academy of Arts. In Moscow, the Fedotovs lived poorly: from there they pestered them with sending money.

Ivan Andreevich Krylov - accidentally saw Fedotov's sketches and, despite all his laziness, even wrote a letter to the artist, urging him to leave horses and soldiers forever and set about the real thing - the genre. One artist sensitively guessed the other; Fedotov believed the fabulist and left the Academy. In 1847 the painter painted the first picture, which Fedotov decided to present to the court of professors. This picture was called "The Fresh Cavalier". An even more recent influence is felt in another painting, "The Picky Bride", written on the text of the famous Krylov's fable. At the exhibition of 1849, these two paintings appeared for the first time, and a new, much more perfect one - "Major's Courtship". For the last picture, the artist was awarded the title of academician. She brought the artist and material well-being, but, unfortunately, fate came to the aid of the artist too late. A tense nervous life and unhappy love contributed to the development of a serious mental illness in him. Fedotov had to be placed in a mental hospital, and there he ended his sad existence, occasionally visited by friends, sometimes meek, sometimes violent.

The artist was buried on November 18, 1852, and a large crowd of admirers followed his coffin. Wept and was killed on his grave more than all his batman Korshunov. Few paintings remained after Fedotov. The painting "The Widow" is a repetition of the original. Pavel Andreevich Fedotov can be safely placed at the head of a new direction in painting: the artist discovered the cycle of our genre painters, which received a particularly vivid development in the person of Perov and Vladimir Makovsky.

Russian fine arts were characterized by romanticism and realism. However, the officially recognized method was classicism. The Academy of Arts became a conservative and inert institution that hindered any attempt at creative freedom. She demanded to strictly follow the canons of classicism, encouraged the writing of paintings on biblical and mythological subjects. Young talented Russian artists were not satisfied with the framework of academism. Therefore, they often turned to the portrait genre.
Romantic ideals of the era of national upsurge were embodied in painting. Rejecting the strict principles of classicism that did not allow deviations, the artists discovered the diversity and originality of the world around them. This was not only reflected in the already familiar genres - portrait and landscape - but also gave impetus to the birth of everyday painting, which was in the center of attention of the masters of the second half of the century. In the meantime, the primacy remained with the historical genre. It was the last refuge of classicism, however, even here romantic ideas and themes were hidden behind the formally classicist “facade”.
Romanticism - (French romantisme), an ideological and artistic direction in European and American spiritual culture of the late 18th - 1st half. 19th centuries Reflecting disappointment in the results of the French Revolution of the late 18th century, in the ideology of the Enlightenment and social progress. Romanticism contrasted utilitarianism and the leveling of the individual with the aspiration for unlimited freedom and the "infinite", the thirst for perfection and renewal, the pathos of personal and civil independence. The painful discord between the ideal and social reality is the basis of the romantic worldview and art. The assertion of the inherent value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the image of strong passions, the image of strong passions, spiritualized and healing nature, for many romantics - heroes of protest or struggle are adjacent to the motives of "world sorrow", "world evil", "night" side of the soul, clothed in forms of irony, grotesque poetics of two worlds. Interest in the national past (often its idealization), traditions of folklore and culture of one’s own and other peoples, the desire to create a universal picture of the world (primarily history and literature), the idea of ​​art synthesis found expression in the ideology and practice of Romanticism.
In the visual arts, Romanticism manifested itself most clearly in painting and graphics, less clearly in sculpture and architecture (for example, false Gothic). Most of the national schools of Romanticism in the visual arts developed in the struggle against official academic classicism.
In the bowels of the official state culture, a layer of "elitist" culture is noticeable, serving the ruling class (the aristocracy and the royal court) and having a special susceptibility to foreign innovations. Suffice it to recall the romantic painting of O. Kiprensky, V. Tropinin, K. Bryullov, A. Ivanov and other major artists of the 19th century.
Kiprensky Orest Adamovich, Russian artist. An outstanding master of Russian fine art of romanticism, known as a wonderful portrait painter. In the painting "Dmitry Donskoy on the Kulikovo Field" (1805, Russian Museum) he demonstrated a confident knowledge of the canons of the academic historical picture. But early on, the area where his talent is revealed most naturally and naturally is the portrait. His first pictorial portrait (“A. K. Schwalbe”, 1804, ibid.), written in the “Rembrandtian” manner, stands out for its expressive and dramatic light and shade system. Over the years, his skill - which manifested itself in the ability to create, first of all, unique individual-characteristic images, choosing special plastic means to set off this characteristic - is getting stronger. Full of impressive vitality: a portrait of a boy by A. A. Chelishchev (circa 1810-11), paired images of the spouses F. V. and E. P. Rostopchin (1809) and V. S. and D. N. Khvostov (1814, all - Tretyakov Gallery). The artist increasingly plays with the possibilities of color and light and shade contrasts, landscape background, symbolic details (“E. S. Avdulina”, about 1822, ibid.). The artist knows how to make even large ceremonial portraits lyrically, almost intimately relaxed (“Portrait of the Life Hussars Colonel Yevgraf Davydov”, 1809, Russian Museum). His portrait of a young A.S. Pushkin is one of the best in creating a romantic image. Kiprensky's Pushkin looks solemn and romantic, in a halo of poetic glory. “You flatter me, Orestes,” Pushkin sighed, looking at the finished canvas. Kiprensky was also a virtuoso draftsman, who created (mainly in the technique of Italian pencil and pastel) examples of graphic skill, often surpassing his pictorial portraits with open, excitingly light emotionality. These are everyday types (“The Blind Musician”, 1809, Russian Museum; “Kalmychka Bayausta”, 1813, Tretyakov Gallery), and the famous series of pencil portraits of participants in the Patriotic War of 1812 (drawings depicting E. I. Chaplits, A. R. Tomilova, P. A. Olenina, the same drawing with the poet Batyushkov and others, 1813-15, Tretyakov Gallery and other collections); the heroic beginning here acquires a sincere connotation. A large number of sketches and textual evidence show that the artist, throughout his mature period, gravitated towards creating a large (in his own words from a letter to A. N. Olenin in 1834), “spectacular, or, in Russian, striking and magical picture”, where the results of European history, as well as the destiny of Russia, would be depicted in allegorical form. “Readers of Newspapers in Naples” (1831, Tretyakov Gallery) - in appearance just a group portrait - in fact, there is a secretly symbolic response to revolutionary events in Europe.
However, the most ambitious of the picturesque allegories of Kiprensky remained unfulfilled or disappeared (like the "Anacreon's tomb", completed in 1821). These romantic searches, however, received a large-scale continuation in the work of K. P. Bryullov and A. A. Ivanov.
The realistic manner was reflected in the works of V.A. Tropinin. Tropinin’s early portraits, painted in restrained colors (family portraits of Counts Morkovs of 1813 and 1815, both in the Tretyakov Gallery), still belong entirely to the tradition of the Age of Enlightenment: the model is the unconditional and stable center of the image in them. Later, the coloring of Tropinin's painting becomes more intense, the volumes are usually molded more clearly and sculpturally, but most importantly, a purely romantic feeling of the moving elements of life insinuatingly grows, only a part of which the hero of the portrait seems to be a fragment ("Bulakhov", 1823; "K. G. Ravich" , 1823; self-portrait, circa 1824; all three - ibid.). Such is A. S. Pushkin in the famous portrait of 1827 (All-Russian Museum of A. S. Pushkin, Pushkin): the poet, putting his hand on a stack of paper, as if “listens to the muse”, listens to the creative dream that surrounds the image with an invisible halo . He also painted a portrait of A.S. Pushkin. Before the viewer appears wise by life experience, not a very happy person. In the portrait of Tropinin, the poet is charming in a homely way. Some special old-Moscow warmth and comfort emanates from Tropinin's works. Until the age of 47, he was in bondage. Therefore, probably, the faces of ordinary people are so fresh, so inspired on his canvases. And the youth and charm of his "Lacemaker" are endless. Most often, V.A. Tropinin turned to the image of people from the people ("The Lacemaker", "Portrait of a Son", etc.).
The artistic and ideological searches of Russian social thought, the expectation of changes, were reflected in the paintings of K.P. Bryullov "The Last Day of Pompeii" and A.A. Ivanov "The Appearance of Christ to the People".
A great work of art is the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" by Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799-1852). In 1830, the Russian artist Karl Pavlovich Bryullov visited the excavations of the ancient city of Pompeii. He walked along the ancient pavements, admired the frescoes, and that tragic night of August 79 AD rose in his imagination. e., when the city was covered with red-hot ash and pumice of awakened Vesuvius. Three years later, the painting "The Last Day of Pompeii" made a triumphant journey from Italy to Russia. The artist found amazing colors to depict the tragedy of the ancient city, dying under the lava and ash of erupting Vesuvius. The picture is imbued with high humanistic ideals. It shows the courage of people, their selflessness, shown during a terrible catastrophe. Bryullov was in Italy on a business trip from the Academy of Arts. In this educational institution, training in the technique of painting and drawing was well established. However, the Academy unequivocally focused on the ancient heritage and heroic themes. Academic painting was characterized by a decorative landscape, theatricality of the overall composition. Scenes from modern life, an ordinary Russian landscape were considered unworthy of the artist's brush. Classicism in painting received the name of academicism. Bryullov was associated with the Academy with all his work.
He possessed a powerful imagination, a keen eye and a faithful hand - and he produced living creations, consistent with the canons of academism. Truly with Pushkin's grace, he was able to capture on canvas the beauty of a naked human body, and the trembling of a sunbeam on a green leaf. His canvases “Horsewoman”, “Bathsheba”, “Italian Morning”, “Italian Noon”, numerous ceremonial and intimate portraits will forever remain unfading masterpieces of Russian painting. However, the artist has always gravitated towards large historical themes, to the depiction of significant events in human history. Many of his plans in this regard were not implemented. Bryullov never left the idea of ​​creating an epic canvas based on a plot from Russian history. He begins the painting "The Siege of Pskov by the troops of King Stefan Batory." It depicts the climax of the siege of 1581, when the Pskov warriors and. the townspeople attacked the Poles who broke into the city and threw them behind the walls. But the picture remained unfinished, and the task of creating truly national historical paintings was carried out not by Bryullov, but by the next generation of Russian artists. The same age as Pushkin, Bryullov outlived him by 15 years. He has been ill in recent years. From a self-portrait painted at that time, a red-haired man with delicate features and a calm, thoughtful look is looking at us.
In the first half of the XIX century. the artist Alexander Andreyevich Ivanov (1806-1858) lived and worked. He devoted his entire creative life to the idea of ​​the spiritual awakening of the people, embodying it in the painting “The Appearance of Christ to the People”. For more than 20 years he worked on the painting "The Appearance of Christ to the People", in which he put all the power and brightness of his talent. In the foreground of his grandiose canvas, the courageous figure of John the Baptist catches the eye, pointing the people to the approaching Christ. His figure is given in the distance. He has not yet come, he is coming, he will definitely come, says the artist. And the faces and souls of those who are waiting for the Savior brighten, cleanse. In this picture, he showed, as I. E. Repin later said, "an oppressed people, thirsting for the word of freedom."
In the first half of the XIX century. Russian painting includes everyday plot.
One of the first to address him was Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780-1847). He devoted his work to depicting the life of peasants. He shows this life in an idealized, embellished form, paying tribute to the then fashionable sentimentalism. However, Venetsianov’s paintings “Threshing floor”, “At the harvest. Summer”, “On arable land. Spring”, “Peasant woman with cornflowers”, “Zakharka”, “Morning of the landowner”, reflecting the beauty and nobility of ordinary Russian people, served to affirm the dignity of a person, regardless of his social status.
His traditions were continued by Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815-1852). His canvases are realistic, filled with satirical content, exposing the commercial morality, life and customs of the elite of society (“Major’s Matchmaking”, “Fresh Cavalier”, etc.). He began his career as a satirical artist as a guards officer. Then he made funny, mischievous sketches of army life. In 1848, his painting "The Fresh Cavalier" was presented at an academic exhibition. It was a daring mockery not only of the stupid, self-satisfied bureaucracy, but also of academic traditions. The dirty robe, which the main character of the picture put on, very much resembled an antique toga. Bryullov stood in front of the canvas for a long time, and then said to the author half in jest half seriously: “Congratulations, you have defeated me.” Other paintings by Fedotov ("Breakfast of an Aristocrat", "Major's Matchmaking") are also of a comedic and satirical nature. His last paintings are very sad (“Anchor, more anchor!”, “Widow”). Contemporaries rightly compared P.A. Fedotov in painting with N.V. Gogol in literature. Exposing the plagues of feudal Russia is the main theme of Pavel Andreevich Fedotov's work.

Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century

Second half of the 19th century was marked by the flourishing of Russian fine arts. It became a truly great art, imbued with the pathos of the liberation struggle of the people, responding to the demands of life and actively intruding into life. Realism was finally established in the visual arts - a truthful and comprehensive reflection of the life of the people, the desire to rebuild this life on the basis of equality and justice.
The conscious turn of the new Russian painting towards democratic realism, nationality, modernity was marked at the end of the 50s, along with the revolutionary situation in the country, with the social maturity of the raznochintsy intelligentsia, with the revolutionary enlightenment of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, with the people-loving poetry of Nekrasov. In “Essays on the Gogol Period” (in 1856), Chernyshevsky wrote: “If painting is now generally in a rather miserable position, the main reason for this must be considered the alienation of this art from modern aspirations.” The same idea was cited in many articles of the Sovremennik magazine.
The central theme of art was the people, not only the oppressed and suffering, but also the people - the creator of history, the people-fighter, the creator of all the best that is in life.
The assertion of realism in art took place in a stubborn struggle with the official direction, which was represented by the leadership of the Academy of Arts. The academy workers inspired their students with the idea that art is higher than life, put forward only biblical and mythological themes for the artists' work.
But painting was already beginning to join modern aspirations - first of all in Moscow. The Moscow School did not enjoy even a tenth of the privileges of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts, but was less dependent on its rooted dogmas, the atmosphere in it was more lively. Although the teachers at the School are mostly academics, but academics are secondary and vacillating, they did not suppress their authority as they did at the Academy F. Bruni, the pillar of the old school, who at one time competed with Bryullov with the painting “The Copper Serpent”.
In 1862, the Council of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts decided to equalize the rights of all genres, abolishing the primacy of historical painting. The gold medal was now awarded regardless of the theme of the picture, considering only its merits. However, the "liberties" within the walls of the academy did not last long.
In 1863, young artists participating in an academic competition filed a petition "for permission to freely choose subjects for those who wish this, in addition to the given theme." The Academy Council refused. What happened next is referred to in the history of Russian art as the "revolt of the fourteen". Fourteen students of the historical class did not want to write pictures on the proposed theme from Scandinavian mythology - "Feast in Valgaal" and defiantly filed a petition - to leave the academy. Finding themselves without workshops and without money, the rebels united in a kind of commune - similar to the communes described by Chernyshevsky in the novel What Is to Be Done? - the Artel of Artists, headed by the painter Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. Artel workers took orders for the performance of various works of art, lived in the same house, gathered in a common room for conversations, discussions of paintings, and reading books.
Artel broke up seven years later. By this time, in the 70s, on the initiative of the artist Grigory Grigorievich Myasoedov, an association arose - the Association of Artistic Mobile Inserts, a professional and commercial association of artists who stood on close ideological positions.
The Association of the Wanderers, unlike many of the later associations, did without any declarations and manifestos. Its charter only stated that the members of the Partnership should conduct their material affairs themselves, not depending on anyone in this respect, as well as arrange exhibitions themselves and take them to different cities (“move” them around Russia) in order to acquaint the country with Russian art. Both of these points were of significant importance, asserting the independence of art from the authorities and the will of artists to communicate widely with people not only in the capital. The main role in the creation of the Partnership and the development of its charter belonged, in addition to Kramskoy, to Myasoedov, Ge - from Petersburgers, and from Muscovites - to Perov, Pryanishnikov, Savrasov.
The "Wanderers" were united in their rejection of "academicism" with its mythology, decorative landscapes and pompous theatricality. They wanted to portray living life. The leading place in their work was occupied by genre (everyday) scenes. The peasantry enjoyed special sympathy for the Wanderers. They showed his need, suffering, oppressed position. At that time - in the 60-70s. XIX century - the ideological side of art was valued higher than the aesthetic. Only with time did the artists remember the inherent value of painting.
Perhaps the greatest tribute to ideology was given by Vasily Grigoryevich Perov (1834-1882). Suffice it to recall such of his paintings as "The arrival of the police officer for the investigation", "Tea drinking in Mytishchi". Some of Perov's works are imbued with genuine tragedy ("Troika", "Old Parents at the Son's Grave"). Perov painted a number of portraits of his famous contemporaries (Ostrovsky, Turgenev, Dostoevsky).
Some canvases of the "Wanderers", painted from life or under the impression of real scenes, enriched our ideas about peasant life. The painting by S. A. Korovin “On the World” shows a skirmish at a rural meeting between a rich man and a poor man. V. M. Maksimov captured the rage, tears, and grief of the family division. The solemn festivity of peasant labor is reflected in the painting by G. G. Myasoedov “Mowers”.
In the work of Kramskoy, the main place was occupied by portraiture. He painted Goncharov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Nekrasov. He owns one of the best portraits of Leo Tolstoy. The writer's gaze does not leave the viewer, from whatever point he looks at the canvas. One of the most powerful works of Kramskoy is the painting "Christ in the Desert".
The first exhibition of the Wanderers, which opened in 1871, convincingly demonstrated the existence of a new direction that had been taking shape throughout the 60s. It had only 46 exhibits (unlike the bulky exhibitions of the Academy), but carefully selected, and although the exhibition was not deliberately programmatic, the overall unwritten program loomed quite clearly. All genres were presented - historical, everyday life, landscape portraiture - and the audience could judge what the "Wanderers" brought to them. Only sculpture was unlucky (there was one, and even then a little remarkable sculpture by F. Kamensky), but this type of art was “unlucky” for a long time, in fact, the entire second half of the century.
By the beginning of the 90s, among the young artists of the Moscow school, there were, however, those who worthily and seriously continued the civic itinerant tradition: S. Ivanov with his series of paintings about immigrants, S. Korovin - the author of the painting "On the World", where it is interesting and the dramatic (really dramatic!) collisions of the pre-reform village are thoughtfully revealed. But they were not the ones who set the tone: the World of Art, which was equally far from the Wanderers and the Academy, was approaching. What did the Academy look like at that time? Her artistic former rigoristic attitudes disappeared, she no longer insisted on the strict requirements of neoclassicism, on the notorious hierarchy of genres, she was quite tolerant of the everyday genre, she only preferred it to be “beautiful” and not “muzhik” (an example of “beautiful” non-academic works - scenes from the ancient life of the then popular S. Bakalovich). For the most part, non-academic production, as it was in other countries, was bourgeois-salon, its "beauty" - vulgar prettiness. But it cannot be said that she did not put forward talents: G. Semiradsky, mentioned above, was very talented, V. Smirnov, who died early (who managed to create an impressive large painting “The Death of Nero”); one cannot deny certain artistic merits of painting by A. Svedomsky and V. Kotarbinsky. About these artists, considering them to be carriers of the "Hellenic spirit", Repin spoke approvingly in his later years, they impressed Vrubel, just like Aivazovsky, also an "academic" artist. On the other hand, none other than Semiradsky, during the period of reorganization of the Academy, decisively spoke out in favor of the everyday genre, pointing to Perov, Repin and V. Mayakovsky as a positive example. So there were enough vanishing points between the “Wanderers” and the Academy, and the then vice-president of the Academy I.I. Tolstoy, on whose initiative the leading "Wanderers" were called to teach.
But the main thing that does not completely discount the role of the Academy of Arts, primarily as an educational institution, in the second half of the century is the simple fact that many outstanding artists came out of its walls. This is Repin, and Surikov, and Polenov, and Vasnetsov, and later - Serov and Vrubel. Moreover, they did not repeat the "revolt of the fourteen" and, apparently, benefited from their apprenticeship.
Respect for the drawing, for the constructed constructive form, is rooted in Russian art. The general orientation of Russian culture towards realism became the reason for the popularity of the Chistyakov method - one way or another, Russian painters up to and including Serov, Nesterov and Vrubel honored the "unshakable eternal laws of form" and were wary of "dematerialization" or subjugation of the colorful amorphous element, no matter how much they loved color.
Among the Wanderers invited to the Academy were two landscape painters - Shishkin and Kuindzhi. Just at that time, the hegemony of the landscape began in art both as an independent genre, where Levitan reigned, and as an equal element of everyday, historical, and partly portrait painting. Contrary to the predictions of Stasov, who believes that the role of the landscape will decrease, in the 1990s it increased like never before. The lyrical "landscape of mood" prevailed, leading its lineage from Savrasov and Polenov.
The Wanderers made genuine discoveries in landscape painting. Alexey Kondratievich Savrasov (1830-1897) managed to show the beauty and subtle lyricism of a simple Russian landscape. His painting "The Rooks Have Arrived" (1871) made many contemporaries take a fresh look at their native nature.
Fyodor Alexandrovich Vasiliev (1850-1873) lived a short life. His work, interrupted at the very beginning, enriched domestic painting with a number of dynamic, exciting landscapes. The artist was especially successful in transitional states in nature: from sun to rain, from calm to storm.
Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832-1898) became the singer of the Russian forest, the epic latitude of Russian nature. Arkhip Ivanovich Kuindzhi (1841-1910) was attracted by the picturesque play of light and air. The mysterious light of the moon in rare clouds, the red reflections of dawn on the white walls of Ukrainian huts, the slanting morning rays breaking through the fog and playing in the puddles on the muddy road - these and many other picturesque discoveries are captured on his canvases.
Russian landscape painting of the 19th century reached its peak in the work of Savrasov's student Isaac Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900). Levitan is a master of calm, quiet landscapes. A very timid, shy and vulnerable person, he could only relax alone with nature, imbued with the mood of the landscape he loved.
Once he came to the Volga to paint the sun, air and river expanses. But there was no sun, endless clouds crawled across the sky, and the dull rains stopped. The artist was nervous until he was drawn into this weather and discovered the special charm of the lilac colors of Russian bad weather. Since then, the Upper Volga, the provincial town of Ples, has firmly entered his work. In those parts, he created his "rainy" works: "After the Rain", "Gloomy Day", "Above Eternal Peace". Peaceful evening landscapes were also painted there: “Evening on the Volga”, “Evening. Golden reach”, “Evening ringing”, “Quiet abode”.
In the last years of his life, Levitan drew attention to the work of French impressionist artists (E. Manet, C. Monet, C. Pizarro). He realized that he had a lot in common with them, that their creative searches were going in the same direction. Like them, he preferred to work not in the studio, but in the air (in the open air, as the artists say). Like them, he brightened the palette, banishing dark, earthy colors. Like them, he sought to capture the transience of being, to convey the movements of light and air. In this they went further than him, but they almost dissolved three-dimensional forms (houses, trees) in light-air flows. He avoided it.
“Levitan's paintings require a slow examination,” wrote a great connoisseur of his work, K. G. Paustovsky, “They do not stun the eye. They are modest and accurate, like Chekhov's stories, but the longer you look at them, the sweeter the silence of provincial settlements, familiar rivers and country roads becomes.
In the second half of the XIX century. account for the creative flowering of I. E. Repin, V. I. Surikov and V. A. Serov.
Ilya Efimovich Repin (1844-1930) was born in the city of Chuguev, in the family of a military settler. He managed to enter the Academy of Arts, where P. P. Chistyakov became his teacher, who brought up a whole galaxy of famous artists (V. I. Surikov, V. M. Vasnetsov, M. A. Vrubel, V. A. Serov). Repin also learned a lot from Kramskoy. In 1870, the young artist traveled along the Volga. Numerous sketches brought from the trip, he used for the painting "Barge haulers on the Volga" (1872). She made a strong impression on the public. The author immediately moved into the ranks of the most famous masters.
Repin was a very versatile artist. A number of monumental genre paintings belong to his brush. Perhaps no less impressive than the "Barge haulers" is made by the "Religious procession in the Kursk province." The bright blue sky, the clouds of road dust pierced by the sun, the golden glow of crosses and vestments, the police, the common people and the crippled - everything fit on this canvas: the greatness, strength, weakness and pain of Russia.
In many of Repin's paintings, revolutionary themes were touched upon ("Refusal of confession", "They did not wait", "The arrest of the propagandist"). The revolutionaries in his paintings are kept simply and naturally, avoiding theatrical poses and gestures. In the painting “Refusal of Confession”, the condemned man, as if on purpose, hid his hands in his sleeves. The artist clearly sympathized with the heroes of his paintings.
A number of Repin's paintings are written on historical themes ("Ivan the Terrible and his son Ivan", "Cossacks composing a letter to the Turkish Sultan", etc.). Repin created a whole gallery of portraits. He painted portraits of - scientists (Pirogov and Sechenov), - writers Tolstoy, Turgenev and Garshin, - composers Glinka and Mussorgsky, - artists Kramskoy and Surikov. At the beginning of the XX century. he received an order for the painting "The Ceremonial Meeting of the State Council." The artist managed not only to place such a large number of those present on the canvas, but also to give a psychological description of many of them. Among them were such well-known figures as S.Yu. Witte, K.P. Pobedonostsev, P.P. Semenov Tyan-Shansky. It is hardly noticeable in the picture, but Nicholas II is very subtly written out.
Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916) was born in Krasnoyarsk, in a Cossack family. The heyday of his work falls on the 80s, when he created three of his most famous historical paintings: "Morning of the Streltsy Execution", "Menshikov in Berezov" and "Boyar Morozova".
Surikov knew the life and customs of past eras well, he knew how to give vivid psychological characteristics. In addition, he was an excellent colorist (color master). Suffice it to recall the dazzling fresh, sparkling snow in the painting "Boyar Morozova". If, however, to get closer to the canvas, the snow, as it were, “crumbles” into blue, blue, pink strokes. This painting technique, when two or three different strokes merge at a distance and give the desired color, was widely used by the French Impressionists.
Valentin Alexandrovich Serov (1865-1911), the composer's son, painted landscapes, canvases on historical themes, worked as a theater artist. But fame brought him, above all, portraits.
In 1887, the 22-year-old Serov was vacationing in Abramtsevo, the dacha near Moscow of the philanthropist S. I. Mamontov. Among his many children, the young artist was his man, a participant in their romps. Once, after dinner, two people accidentally lingered in the dining room - Serov and 12-year-old Verusha Mamontova. They were sitting at a table on which peaches were left, and during the conversation Verusha did not notice how the artist began to sketch her portrait. The work dragged on for a month, and Verusha was angry that Anton (as Serov was called at home) was forcing her to sit in the dining room for hours.
In early September, The Girl with Peaches was finished. Despite its small size, the picture, painted in rose gold tones, seemed very "spacious". There was a lot of light and air in it. The girl, who sat down at the table as if for a minute and fixed her gaze on the viewer, enchanted with clarity and spirituality. Yes, and the whole canvas was covered with a purely childish perception of everyday life, when happiness is not conscious of itself, and a whole life lies ahead.
The inhabitants of the "Abramtsevo" house, of course, understood that a miracle had happened before their eyes. But only time gives final estimates. It put "The Girl with Peaches" among the best portrait works in Russian and world art.
The following year, Serov managed to almost repeat his magic. He painted a portrait of his sister Maria Simonovich ("The Girl Illuminated by the Sun"). The name stuck a little inaccurate: the girl is sitting in the shade, and the glade in the background is illuminated by the rays of the morning sun. But in the picture everything is so united, so united - morning, sun, summer, youth and beauty - that it is difficult to think of a better name.
Serov became a fashionable portrait painter. Famous writers, artists, artists, entrepreneurs, aristocrats, even kings posed in front of him. Apparently, not to everyone he wrote, his soul lay. Some high-society portraits, with a filigree technique, turned out to be cold.
For several years Serov taught at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. He was a demanding teacher. An opponent of the frozen forms of painting, Serov, at the same time, believed that creative searches should be based on a solid mastery of the technique of drawing and pictorial writing. Many outstanding masters considered themselves students of Serov. This is M.S. Saryan, K.F. Yuon, P.V. Kuznetsov, K. S. Petrov-Vodkin.
Many paintings by Repin, Surikov, Levitan, Serov, "Wanderers" ended up in Tretyakov's collection. Pavel Mikhailovich Tretyakov (1832-1898), a representative of an old Moscow merchant family, was an unusual person. Thin and tall, with a bushy beard and a quiet voice, he looked more like a saint than a merchant. He began collecting paintings by Russian artists in 1856. The hobby grew into the main business of his life. In the early 90s. the collection reached the level of a museum, absorbing almost the entire fortune of the collector. Later it became the property of Moscow. The Tretyakov Gallery has become a world famous museum of Russian painting, graphics and sculpture.
In 1898, in St. Petersburg, in the Mikhailovsky Palace (the creation of K. Rossi), the Russian Museum was opened. It received works by Russian artists from the Hermitage, the Academy of Arts and some imperial palaces. The opening of these two museums, as it were, crowned the achievements of Russian painting of the 19th century.

In Russian culture of the first half of the 19th century, romanticism has its own specifics. Faith in the enlightenment ideals of reason, progress, elementary rights of the individual - all this was still relevant in Russian public life in the first half of the century.
The image of a man received a deep poetic embodiment in the work of the greatest Russian portrait painter of the 1st third of the 19th century.
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky. (1782-1836).
The largest master of the romantic portrait.
When you look at the portraits of Kiprensky, it seems that you see free people. None of his contemporaries managed to express this feeling of a new person in such a way.
Among the most significant works of Kiprensky are portraits of the military - participants in the anti-Napoleonic campaigns of the beginning of the century.

1809. Timing

Portrait of A.A. Chelishchev. 1808 - early 1809 GTG. refers to the early period of O.A. Kiprensky.
The era of romanticism creates a very special relationship to the concept of childhood. If the portrait painters of the 18th century usually depicted a child as a small adult, then the romantics saw in him a special unique world of personality, which still remained pure and unaffected by the vices of adults.

Portrait of Countess Ekaterina Petrovna Rostopchina. 1809. Tretyakov Gallery.
Some of the female images he created are distinguished by a special charm.
It has no equal in all world painting of the 19th century, in terms of the power of expressing spiritual beauty, as if anticipating the image of Pushkin's Tatyana.

Living in St. Petersburg, Kiprensky became close to the most prominent people of his century.
Romantic tendencies in the work of Kiprensky found their embodiment in the portrait of the famous Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky.

Portrait of E.S. Avdulina. 1822-1823.
- one of the best works of late Kiprensky.
appears before the viewer as a man of great spiritual subtlety and nobility, possessing a deeply hidden inner world.

In the portrait of Pushkin, the artist accurately conveys the features of the poet's appearance, but consistently refuses everything ordinary. Realizing the exclusivity of the task - to capture the image of the great poet, - O.A. Kiprensky harmoniously combined the spirit of romantic freedom and the pathos of high classics.
Creative burning.
« I see myself as in a mirror, but this mirror flatters me».

O. A. Kiprensky. "Self-portrait". 1828

Tropinin, Vasily Andreevich(1776-1857) - Russian artist, academician, master of portraiture. By origin - a serf. Tropinin failed to finish the Academy. Count Morkov interrupted his studies in 1804 by summoning Kukavka to his Ukrainian estate. The young artist had to be a house painter and at the same time perform the duties of a courtyard man. From 1821 he lived permanently in Moscow, where he gained recognition and fame.
The images of people from the people created by Tropinin are widely known.

“Tropinin had few rivals in picturesque talent. In 1818, when he was still a serf and lived with his master on the estate of Kukavka in Ukraine, he painted "Portrait of a Son" - amazing in terms of picturesque charm and free manner of painting. This portrait of a blond, tanned boy glows, lives and breathes. After that, Tropinin worked for another forty years, immortalized a great many people, developed more or less stable methods of portraiture, improved in technique, but the portrait of his son remained unsurpassed, with the possible exception of the portrait of Pushkin, written in the same year as Kiprensky and not inferior to him. "(Dmitrieva N.A. Brief history of arts. Issue III: Countries of Western Europe of the XIX century; Russia of the XIX century. - M .: Art, 1992. S. 198-200.).

The best in the circle of Tropinin's portrait painting of the 1820s
A slightly raised upper lip gives the poet's face a shade of restrained animation.
The purple robe is draped in wide, loose folds; the collar of the shirt is wide open, the blue tie is tied casually.
The coloring is the freshness of direct observation. The reflexes from the white collar of the shirt are convincingly conveyed, highlighting the chin and naked neck of the person being portrayed.

Already a well-known artist, Tropinin created a type of domestic, intimate portrait with elements of genre painting. As a rule, this is a half-length image of a person doing his usual occupation.
The pretty sly girl is full of grace, understood by contemporaries as a special "pleasure", as something that "wins the heart", but "impossible to understand with the mind."
In the year the picture was painted, Vasily Andreevich Tropinin, the serf artist of Count Morkov, received his freedom. He was 47 years old. In the same year, he exhibited his "Lacemaker" at the Academy of Arts, which immediately gained popularity, which has not left it until now.

Venetsianov Alexey Gavrilovich. 1780 - 1847. the first Russian painter who consciously chose the everyday genre as the basis of his work.
It is to him that the merit of establishing the domestic genre in Russian art as an independent type of painting belongs.
He developed a form of multi-figure genre painting, in which the landscape or interior often plays a large role. Venetsianov was also the first to draw attention to individual folk types. His painting is national and democratic.

In 1811, for his self-portrait, he was recognized by the Academy of Arts as "appointed".

The first fundamental work of Venetsianov was the painting "Barn", which opened up new paths in Russian painting.

The artist created an idealized poetic image of peasant life. Working outdoors allowed Venetsianov to use daylight effects and complex palettes.

Bryullov Karl Pavlovich(1799-1852). Painter, draftsman. Master of historical painting, portrait painter, genre painter.
He overcomes the deadness of the canons of classicism with a romantic desire to fill the image with living feelings.

realistic principles underpinned

The joy of life sparkles, a cheerful and full-blooded feeling of life, merging with the environment. The sun's rays pierce the foliage of the vineyard, glide over the hands, face, clothes of the girl; creates an atmosphere of living connection between man and nature. The girl's face with absolutely regular features and huge sparkling eyes is ideally beautiful, it seems almost porcelain (a frequent effect in Bryullov). The Italian type of appearance was then considered perfect, and the artist beats him with pleasure.

The Committee of the Society, having received "Noon", carefully reproached the artist for choosing a model that did not correspond to the classical ideals of St. Petersburg connoisseurs.

Epicurean line

Tragic line in creativity
The last day of Pompeii. 1830-1833. Timing Oil on canvas. 465.5 x 651
For the first time in Russian painting, classicism was combined with a romantic perception of the world. It should be noted that for K.P. Bryullov was important to the truth of historical reality. He studied written sources about the tragedy in Pompeii (Pliny the Younger, Tacitus), as well as scientific research on archaeological excavations.
His heroes at the last moment of their lives show human dignity and greatness of spirit in the face of the blind elements of evil.
Unlike what we see in classic paintings, the compositional center here is given not to the main historical character (who simply does not exist), but to the deceased mother, next to whom is depicted a still living child, seized with horror. In opposition to life and death, the idea of ​​the canvas is revealed.

Thus, for the first time, the people entered Russian historical painting, although they were shown in a rather idealized way.

Portrait of Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna with her daughter Maria. 1830. Timing In the end, Bryullov came to the image of the Grand Duchess in motion. From now on, in large portraits, he will use this technique, which helps to enhance the expressiveness of the image.

Rider. Portrait of Giovannina and Amazilia Pacini, pupils of Countess Yu.P. Samoilova. 1832. State Tretyakov Gallery
By the beginning of the 1830s, K.P. Bryullov took one of the leading places in Russian and all Western European art. His fame as an outstanding portrait master was reinforced by The Horsewoman, painted in Italy.
Bryullov's ceremonial portrait-picture is marked by innovative features. Unlike the heroes of ceremonial portraits of the 18th century, where the main task was to emphasize the social position of the person being portrayed and his social virtues, Bryullov's characters primarily demonstrate spontaneity, youth, and beauty.

Portrait of the Most Serene Princess Elizabeth Pavlovna Saltykova, born Countess Strogonova, wife of His Serene Highness Prince I.D. Saltykov. 1841. Timing

Portrait of Countess Yulia Pavlovna Samoilova, born Countess Pahlen, leaving the ball with her adopted daughter Amacilia Pacchini. 1842. Timing
the last significant work of K.P. Bryullov and one of his best works in the genre of a ceremonial portrait-painting, which is distinguished by an upbeat, romantic mood.
The artist presented his heroine in a masquerade costume of a queen, against the backdrop of a magnificent theatrical conditional curtain separating her from the participants in the ball.
emphasizes her dominant position in the crowd of people, the exclusivity of her nature.

Ivanov Alexander Andreevich(1806-1858) - painter, draftsman. Master of historical painting, landscape painter, portrait painter. Creativity A.A. Ivanov stands at the center of the spiritual quest of Russian culture of the 19th century.

The highest achievement in Russian historical painting is associated with the work of A. Ivanov. The son of Professor A.I. Ivanov, he studied at the A.Kh., brilliantly mastering composition and drawing (besides his father, his teachers were Yegorov and Shebuev.

In 1824 Ivanov painted the first large oil painting - "Priam asking Achilles for the body of Hector" (TG), for which he received a small gold medal. Already in this early work, Ivanov reveals a desire for psychological expressiveness and archaeological accuracy. When the picture appeared at the exhibition, the critics noted the artist's attentive attitude to Homer's text and the strong expression of the characters in the picture.

At the exhibition in 1827. Ivanov's second painting appeared - "Joseph Interpreting Dreams of the Baker and the Butler" (RM), which was awarded a large gold medal from the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. Here, the expression of faces and the incomparable plasticity of the figures far surpassed “Priam”, testifying to the exceptional talent of the artist and his rapid development. Illuminated figures on a dark background give the impression of statues. The smooth folds of Joseph's antique clothes are interpreted with amazing perfection. Joseph broadcasts a terrible account to the baker, pointing him to the relief depicting the execution, carved on the wall of the dungeon. The butler waits impatiently with bright hope for what the soothsayer will say about him. The baker and the cupbearer are like brothers, the more distinctly, therefore, the expressions of opposite feelings appear on their faces: despair and hope. The Egyptian relief, composed by Ivanov, shows that even then he was familiar with Egyptian archeology and had a fine sense of style. In all his early works, Ivanov strove for strong spiritual movements, expressed in an extremely clear form.

However, this picture almost led to the collapse of Ivanov's career, so brilliantly begun. The image (in the form of a bas-relief) of the execution on the wall of the dungeon was interpreted as a daring allusion to the reprisal of Nicholas I with the Decembrists. Hood barely escaped Siberia. And despite the fact that Ivanov was awarded a large gold medal, the issue of his assignment abroad dragged on. The Society for the Encouragement of Artists, having the intention of sending Ivanov to Italy for improvement, decided to once again test his abilities by setting a new theme: “Bellerophon goes on a campaign against the Chimera” (1829, Russian Museum).

Nevertheless, he was awarded a business trip abroad. At this time, Ivanov was already the author of several paintings, completed huge drawings from antique statues - “Laocoön”, “Venus Medicea”, “Borghesian Fighter” (all in the State Tretyakov Gallery), many drawings from academic sitters. His early albums also contain a number of sketches in pencil and sepia on historical and antique themes, among which a few sketches from nature flicker; portraits are even rarer. By the time preceding his departure abroad, there is a small self-portrait (1828, State Tretyakov Gallery), painted with oil paints.

As a tribute to classicism, Ivanov began in Rome a painting in the spirit of Poussin “Apollo, Hyacinth and Cypress, engaged in music and singing” (1831-1834, State Tretyakov Gallery), using the monuments of ancient sculpture. The painting was left unfinished. Despite this, it is one of the most perfect works of Russian classicism. The beautifully grouped figures seem like animated statues.

Tree foliage wonderfully contrasts with the color of naked bodies: the delicate color of the body of Hyacinth, the swarthy color of Cypress, and the figure of Apollo, as if carved from ivory. The picture is a musically coordinated, harmonic composition. Comparison of sketches shows that Ivanov consciously sought the musical beauty of smooth lines and plastic perfection of form. Wonderfully inspired face of Apollo. Taking the head of Apollo Belvedere as the basis of the image, Ivanov breathed new life into it - the life of feeling. This method of processing ancient images became the main one for Ivanov throughout the first half of his work.

Rereading the gospels, Ivanov finally found a plot that none of the hoods had taken up before him: the first appearance of the Messiah (Christ) before the people, waiting for the fulfillment of their cherished aspirations, predicted by John the Baptist. Ivanov took this story as containing the whole meaning of the gospel. In his opinion, this plot could embody the high moral ideals of all mankind in the way that their contemporaries understood them. Work on sketches of the painting began in the autumn of 1833.

From the very beginning of his work, the thin-k thought of the plot as historical rather than religious, eliminating all the features of its mystical interpretation. He drew up a plan for a decade, in accordance with the extreme complexity of the design. This plan frightened the incredulous St. Petersburg "benefactors" of Ivanov by its duration and high cost. Despite threats from the Society for the Encouragement of Thins to deprive him of all means of subsistence, Ivanov did not give up. He deeply studied the monuments of ancient art and monumental painting of the Italian Renaissance. Unable to make a trip to Palestine in order to get acquainted with folk types and landscapes of places associated with the gospel legend, Ivanov looked for the appropriate nature in Italy.

In 1835 Ivanov finished and sent to St. Petersburg for the academic exhibition “The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection” (RM); the success of the picture exceeded the expectations of thin-ka: he was given the title of academician and extended his stay in Italy for another three years.

In the statuary nature of the figures in this picture (especially Christ, reminiscent of a statue by Thorvaldsen), in the conditional draperies and landscape, which serves as an almost neutral background for the figures, Ivanov paid the last tribute to academicism. This fully corresponded to the original intent of the picture, in which the artist intended to show his ability to depict a naked human body and draperies. However, along with this, he was fascinated here by the task of depicting a weeping beautiful female face and the movement of a figure. He did not dare to make more radical changes in the picture, although the compositions of Giotto he saw in Italy on the same plot prompted the idea to completely abandon the “official piece of nudity”.

The complex facial expression of the Magdalene (a smile through tears) and the well-found position of Christ's legs (based on a deep knowledge of anatomy and giving his figure the illusion of movement) are the most realistic features of the picture in its general academic structure.

Having finished this work, the hood again devoted himself entirely to the development of the main idea. Work on "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (1837-1857, State Tretyakov Gallery) occupied most of Ivanov's life. The surviving numerous materials (sketches, sketches, drawings) and the extensive correspondence of the artists make it possible to restore the main stages of the enormous work. The first sketches date back to 1833, therefore, they were made even before the first trip to Italy.

In 1837 the composition of the painting was already so developed that the artist was able to transfer it to a large canvas, and the next year he shaded it and painted it with terdesienoy.

K1845 “The Appearance of Christ to the People” was, in essence, over, with the exception of some particulars (the face of a slave, the figures emerging from the water, the middle group).

Further work went in two directions - the ultimate concretization of the characters of the characters and the second - the study of the landscape on individual topics, due to the composition of the picture (primary trees, earth, stones, water, distant trees and mountains). It is possible that all this work was preceded by a search for the general tone of the picture, for the solution of which Ivanov wrote in Venice, in close proximity to the great Venetian colorists, a small sketch (“Sketch in Venetian tones”, 1839, State Tretyakov Gallery), which largely predetermined the color of the picture “ Appearance of Christ to the people.

At the end of 1838 there was a break in work. At this time, Ivanov met N.V. Gogol, who then arrived in Rome. They became friends. Their friendship was marked by Ivanov's unexpected appeal to the themes of folk life. Under the influence of the writer, Ivanov created a number of genre watercolors depicting scenes from the life of the common people. They are poetic, vital and imbued with spiritual warmth. Complex multi-figure compositions are united by the action of light. The moon sheds its calm light on a group of children and girls singing Ave Maria (“Ave Maria”, 1839, Russian Museum) in chorus, the warm lights of the candles are reflected by reflections on faces and clothes. Under the burning rays of the southern sun, a sweet scene is played out (“The Groom Choosing Earrings for the Bride”, 1838, State Tretyakov Gallery), The figures of girls in the watercolor “October Holiday in Rome. At the Ponte Mole” (1842, Russian Museum). In watercolor “October holiday in Rome. Scene in the Loggia” (1842, State Tretyakov Gallery) depicts a playful dance. The quick movements of the people surrounding the lanky Englishman are expressed in a complex and beautiful silhouette. Without the influence of Gogol, the appearance of these genre scenes is inexplicable.

In all Ivanov's watercolors, the principle of psychological connection between human figures prevails over the principle of classical architectonic composition. Hood-k clearly aspired in them to the life-like truthfulness of the movements of the figures, their relationships.

In the first two genre watercolors, Ivanov practically faced lighting issues. This task was especially difficult in the watercolor "Ave Maria", in which the cold and even moonlight is combined with the warm and quivering light of candles and the soft light of a lantern in front of the image of the Madonna.

The problem of transmitting sunlight, which especially occupied the artist at the end of the 40s, was first posed by him in the aforementioned watercolor “The Groom Choosing Earrings for the Bride”. A comparison of two versions of this drawing (the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian Museum) shows that Ivanov sought to use lighting as a unifying principle.

K1845 “The Appearance of Christ to the People” was, in essence, over, with the exception of some particulars (the face of a slave, the figures emerging from the water, the middle group). To the right and left of the picture are people baptized in the waters of the Jordan, behind John is a group of future apostles, in the center and to the right are crowds of people excited by the words of John. In the foreground, the artist painted a slave who is preparing to dress his master. The action takes place in the Jordan Valley, the distant hills are covered with trees. A huge old tree overshadows the foliage of the central group.

To solve the problem: to portray humanity, waiting for its liberation, Ivanov considered himself in the right to use everything that had previously been achieved by world art. He drew samples of plasticity from ancient Greek sculpture, studying ancient originals in Rome and Florence, studied Renaissance painting: Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo, Ghirlandaio, and most of all Raphael.

Obviously, from the very first steps of working on the composition of the picture, Ivanov felt the need to organize human figures into groups that are interconnected by a commonality or, conversely, compared in deliberate contrasts. These groups were defined as follows: an old man and a young man emerging from the water, a group of disciples, headed by the Baptist and closed on the left by a figure of a skeptic, the foreground group of a rich man and a slave, and, finally, a group - a trembling father and son - flanking the entire composition to the right. In addition, many figures are placed in the shadows, in the middle of the picture in the crowd of people occupying the upper right part of the canvas. These figures are also organized into groups.

The figure of John the Baptist is of decisive importance. It is located almost in the center and organizes the whole composition with its mighty power. In the image of the Baptist, Ivanov used the monuments of Italian painting and, above all, Raphael, which by no means deprived the image of its own expressiveness. John in the picture is filled with a fiery temperament; he burns the hearts of people with the verb. With a gesture of tremendous power, he points to the approaching Messiah. He was the first to see and recognize the Messiah. His gesture determines the movement of the entire compositional structure of the picture.

Hood-k set as his goal to achieve in each of the characters the most typical expression of each person. character. He succeeded especially in the images of the Baptist, the apostles John, Andrew, Nathanael and the slave, the studies of which are among the best. No wonder Kramskoy considered the Ivanovo Baptist "an ideal portrait."

It is characteristic that a real portrait underlies each character, each type included in the picture. At the next stage, the hood attracts the heads of ancient sculptures, as if shaping them with the classical features of living nature.

“The Appearance of Christ to the People” combines the lofty idea of ​​the liberation of mankind with a monumental form.

By 1845 include sketches of the murals "The Resurrection of Christ", intended for the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which was being built by K.A.Ton. During this period, Ivanov came up with the idea of ​​creating a whole cycle of paintings on biblical subjects. These murals were supposed to cover the walls of a special public building (not a church, as the artist himself always emphasized). Their themes and sequence were more in line with the book “The Life of Jesus” by D. Strauss, but were based on a deep and independent study of the primary sources by the artist himself. Ivanov decided to present here the evolution of the beliefs of mankind in their close relationship and historical conditioning. In a cycle of sketches that embodied this idea, the problems of the historical fate of the people, the relationship between the people and the individual, so typical of romantic historicism, received the most profound solution compared to all Russian historical painting of the 2/3rd century. The abundance and endless variety of watercolor sketches on biblical subjects made by Ivanov is striking (almost all of them are kept in the State Tretyakov Gallery).

It is difficult to point out the best among the sketches. Therefore, we should focus only on the more characteristic ones. Such, for example, is the sketch “Three wanderers announce to Abraham the birth of Isaac”, the composition of which is striking in its monumentality, the fusion of man and nature, and the expressiveness of the figures. No less interesting is the Gathering of Manna in the Wilderness, a mass scene in which fleeing people are captured by a joyful whirlwind, or the Procession of the Prophets, full of powerful, amazing rhythm. Despite the fact that Ivanov's idea remained only in sketches, these sketches belong to the greatest assets of art.

Its landscapes are wonderful. "Appian Way" (1845, State Tretyakov Gallery). “The Gulf of Naples at Castellammare” (1846, State Tretyakov Gallery). Ivanov resolutely entered the path of the plein air. In his painting, nature is not through myth, as in the works of the classics, but through reality.

Ivanov's work, going far beyond the romantic ideals of the era, is the most powerful expression of the realistic orientation of Russian art in the mid-19th century.

In the early years of his retirement in Italy, in the early 1830s, Ivanov painted a beautiful painting "Apollo, Cypress and Hyacinth Making Music and Singing."

Brilliant sketches of murals for the "Temple of Humanity" conceived by him In "Biblical Sketches" Ivanov sought to organically combine the gospel truth with historical truth, the legendary mythical with reality, the sublime with the ordinary, the tragic with everyday life.

Art of the middle (40s - 50s) of the 19th century - the "Gogol" period of Russian culture

In the work of Fedotov, for the first time in Russian art, a program of critical realism was implemented. The "accusatory orientation" also affected the "Breakfast of an Aristocrat".

The picture "The Widow" Fedotov performed in several versions, consistently moving towards the goal - to show human misfortune as it really is.

The painting "Anchor, more anchor!" holistic in color - muddy red, and an ominous emotional mood. The canvas is truly tragic: in it, the melancholy of unsightly routine and the meaninglessness of existence comes to the fore.

Classicism was the leading trend in architecture and sculpture in the first third of the 19th century. In painting, it was developed primarily by academic artists in the historical genre (A.E. Egorov - "Torture of the Savior", 1814, Russian Museum; V.K. Shebuev - "The Feat of the Merchant Igolkin", 1839, Russian Museum; F.A. Bruni - " Death of Camilla, Horace's sister", 1824, Russian Museum; "The Copper Serpent", 1826-1841, Russian Museum). But the true successes of painting lay, however, in a different direction - romanticism. The best aspirations of the human soul, ups and downs of the spirit were expressed by the romantic painting of that time, and above all by the portrait. In the portrait genre, the leading place should be given to Orest Kiprensky (1782-1836).

Kiprensky was born in the St. Petersburg province and was the son of a landowner A.S. Dyakonov and the fortress. From 1788 to 1803, he studied, starting with the Educational School, at the Academy of Arts, where he studied in the class of historical painting with Professor G.I. Ugryumov and the French painter G.-F. Doyen, in 1805 he received the Big Gold Medal for the painting "Dmitry Donskoy on the victory over Mamai" (RM) and the right to a pensioner's trip abroad, which was carried out only in 1816. In 1809-1811. Kiprensky lived in Moscow, where he helped Martos in the work on the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, then in Tver, and in 1812 returned to St. Petersburg. The years after graduating from the Academy and before leaving abroad, covered with romantic feelings, are the highest flowering of Kiprensky's work. During this period, he moved among the free-thinking Russian noble intelligentsia. He knew K. Batyushkov and P. Vyazemsky, V.A. posed for him. Zhukovsky, and in later years - Pushkin. His intellectual interests were also wide, not without reason that Goethe, whom Kiprensky portrayed already in his mature years, noted him not only as a talented artist, but also as an interestingly thinking person. Complicated, thoughtful, changeable in mood - such appear before us portrayed by Kiprensky E.P. Rostopchin (1809, State Tretyakov Gallery), D.N. Khvostov (1814, Tretyakov Gallery), boy Chelishchev (c. 1809, Tretyakov Gallery). In a free pose, looking thoughtfully to the side, casually leaning on a stone slab, stands Colonel of Life Caps E.B. Davydov (1809, Russian Museum). This portrait is perceived as a collective image of the hero of the war of 1812, although it is quite specific. The romantic mood is enhanced by the depiction of a stormy landscape against which the figure is presented. The coloring is built on sonorous colors taken at full strength - red with gold and white with silver - in the clothes of a hussar - and on the contrast of these colors with the dark tones of the landscape. Opening various facets of the human character and the spiritual world of a person, Kiprensky each time used different possibilities of painting. Each portrait of these years is marked by a painting master. The painting is free, built, as in the portrait of Khvostova, on the subtlest transitions from one tone to another, on different color luminosity, then on the harmony of contrasting clean large light spots, as in the image of the boy Chelishchev. The artist uses bold color effects to model the form; impasto painting contributes to the expression of energy, enhances the emotionality of the image. As rightly remarked by D. V. Sarabyanov, Russian romanticism has never been such a powerful artistic movement as in France or Germany. There is neither extreme excitement nor tragic hopelessness in it. In the romanticism of Kiprensky, there is still much from the harmony of classicism, from a subtle analysis of the “windings” of the human soul, which is so characteristic of sentimentalism. “The current century and the past century”, colliding in the work of the early Kiprensky, who was formed as a creative person in the best years of military victories and bright hopes of Russian society, and made up the originality and inexpressible charm of his early romantic portraits.

In the late Italian period, due to many circumstances of his personal fate, the artist rarely managed to create anything equal to his early works. But even here one can name such masterpieces as one of the best lifetime portraits of Pushkin (1827, Tretyakov Gallery), painted by the artist during the last period of his stay at home, or the portrait of Avdulina (c. 1822, Russian Museum), full of elegiac sadness.

An invaluable part of Kiprensky's work is graphic portraits, made mainly with a soft Italian pencil with pastel highlights, watercolors, and colored pencils. He portrays General E.I. Chaplitsa (TG), A.R. Tomilova (RM), P.A. Olenina (TG). The appearance of quick pencil portraits-sketches is in itself significant, characteristic of the new time: any fleeting change in the face, any spiritual movement is easily recorded in them. But in Kiprensky's graphics, a certain evolution is also taking place: in later works there is no immediacy and warmth, but they are more virtuosic and refined in execution (portrait of S.S. Shcherbatova, it. car., State Tretyakov Gallery).

Pole A.O. can be called a consistent romantic. Orlovsky (1777–1832), who lived in Russia for 30 years and brought to Russian culture themes characteristic of Western romantics (bivouacs, horsemen, shipwrecks. “Take your quick pencil, draw, Orlovsky, sword and battle,” Pushkin wrote). He quickly assimilated on Russian soil, which is especially noticeable in graphic portraits. In them, through all the external attributes of European romanticism, with its rebelliousness and tension, something deeply personal, hidden, secret lurks (Self-portrait, 1809, State Tretyakov Gallery). Orlovsky, on the other hand, played a certain role in “breaking through” the paths to realism thanks to his genre sketches, drawings and lithographs depicting St. Petersburg street scenes and types, which brought to life the famous quatrain of P.A. Vyazemsky:

Rus' of the past, removed

You pass on to offspring

You grabbed her alive

Under the folk pencil.

Finally, romanticism finds its expression in the landscape. Sylvester Shchedrin (1791–1830) began his career as a student of his uncle Semyon Shchedrin with classic compositions: a clear division into three plans (the third plan is always architecture), on the sides of the wings. But in Italy, where he left the St. Petersburg Academy, these features were not consolidated, they did not turn into a scheme. It was in Italy, where Shchedrin lived for more than 10 years and died in the prime of his talent, that he revealed himself as a romantic artist, became one of the best painters in Europe along with Constable and Corot. He was the first to open plein air painting for Russia. True, like the Barbizons, Shchedrin painted only sketches in the open air, and completed the picture (“decorated”, as he defined it) in the studio. However, the motive itself changes emphasis. So, Rome in his canvases is not the majestic ruins of ancient times, but a living modern city of ordinary people - fishermen, merchants, sailors. But this ordinary life under Shchedrin's brush acquired a sublime sound. The harbors of Sorrento, the embankments of Naples, the Tiber at the castle of St. Angels, people fishing, just talking on the terrace or relaxing in the shade of trees - everything is conveyed in the complex interaction of the light and air environment, in a delightful fusion of silver-gray tones, usually united by a touch of red - in clothes, and a headdress, in the rusty foliage of trees , where any one red branch was lost. In the last works of Shchedrin, an interest in chiaroscuro effects was increasingly evident, heralding a wave of new romanticism by Maxim Vorobyov and his students (for example, "View of Naples on a moonlit night"). Like the portrait painter Kiprensky and the battle painter Orlovsky, the landscape painter Shchedrin often paints genre scenes.

Strange as it may sound, the everyday genre found a certain refraction in the portrait, and above all in the portrait of Vasily Andreevich Tropinin (1776 - 1857), an artist who freed himself from serfdom only at the age of 45. Tropinin lived a long life, and he was destined to know true recognition, even fame, to receive the title of academician and become the most famous artist of the Moscow portrait school of the 1920s and 1930s. Starting with sentimentalism, however, more didactically sensitive than Borovikovsky's sentimentalism, Tropinin acquires his own style of depiction. In his models there is no romantic impulse of Kiprensky, but simplicity, artlessness, sincerity of expression, truthfulness of characters, authenticity of household details captivate in them. The best of Tropinin's portraits, such as the portrait of his son (c. 1818, Tretyakov Gallery), the portrait of Bulakhov (1823, Tretyakov Gallery), are marked by high artistic perfection. This is especially evident in the portrait of Arseny's son, an unusually sincere image, the liveliness and immediacy of which is emphasized by skillful lighting: the right side of the figure, the hair is pierced, flooded with sunlight, skillfully rendered by the master. The range of colors from golden-ocher to pink-brown is unusually rich, the widespread use of glazing still reminds of the painting traditions of the 18th century.

Tropinin in his work follows the path of giving naturalness, clarity, balance to simple compositions of a bust portrait image. As a rule, the image is given on a neutral background with a minimum of accessories. This is exactly how Tropinin A.S. Pushkin (1827) - sitting at the table in a free position, dressed in a house dress, which emphasizes the natural appearance.

Tropinin is the creator of a special type of portrait-painting, that is, a portrait in which features of the genre are introduced. "Lacemaker", "Spinner", "Guitarist", "Golden Sewing" are typified images with a certain plot plot, which, however, have not lost their specific features.

With his work, the artist contributed to the strengthening of realism in Russian painting and had a great influence on the Moscow school, according to D.V. Sarabyanov, a kind of "Moscow Biedermeier".

Tropinin only introduced a genre element into the portrait. Alexei Gavrilovich Venetsianov (1780–1847) was the real founder of the everyday genre. A land surveyor by education, Venetsianov left the service for the sake of painting, moved from Moscow to St. Petersburg and became a student of Borovikovsky. He made his first steps in the “arts” in the portrait genre, creating amazingly poetic, lyrical, sometimes fanned with romantic mood images in pastel, pencil, oil (portrait of V.C. Putyatina, State Tretyakov Gallery). But soon the artist left portraiture for the sake of caricature, and for one action-packed caricature "The Nobleman", the very first issue of the "Magazine of Caricatures for 1808 in Persons" he had conceived was closed. The etching by Venetsianov was, in fact, an illustration to Derzhavin's ode and depicted petitioners crowding in the waiting room, while a nobleman was visible in the mirror, who was in the arms of a beauty (it is assumed that this is a caricature of Count Bezborodko).

At the turn of the 10-20s, Venetsianov left St. Petersburg for the Tver province, where he bought a small estate. Here he found his main theme, devoting himself to depicting peasant life. In the painting The Barn (1821–1822, Russian Museum), he showed a labor scene in the interior. In an effort to accurately reproduce not only the poses of the workers, but also the lighting, he even ordered to saw out one wall of the threshing floor. Life as it is - that's what Venetsianov wanted to portray, drawing peasants peeling beets; a landowner giving a task to a courtyard girl; sleeping shepherdess; a girl with a beetroot in her hand; peasant children admiring a butterfly; scenes of harvest, haymaking, etc. Of course, Venetsianov did not reveal the sharpest conflicts in the life of the Russian peasant, did not raise the "sore questions" of our time. This is a patriarchal, idyllic way of life. But the artist did not introduce poetry into it from the outside, did not invent it, but scooped it up in the very life of the people depicted by him with such love. In the paintings of Venetsianov there are no dramatic plots, a dynamic plot, they, on the contrary, are static, “nothing happens” in them. But man is always in unity with nature, in eternal labor, and this makes the images of Venetsianov truly monumental. Is he a realist? In the understanding of this word by artists of the second half of the 19th century - hardly. His conception has a lot of classicistic ideas (it is worth remembering his "Spring. On Plowed Field", State Tretyakov Gallery), and especially sentimentalist ones ("On the Harvest. Summer", State Tretyakov Gallery), and in his understanding of space - also from romantic ones. And, nevertheless, the work of Venetsianov is a certain stage on the way of the formation of Russian critical realism of the 19th century, and this is also the enduring significance of his painting. This determines his place in Russian art as a whole.

Painting by A.G. Venetsianova Morning of the landowner

Venetsianov was an excellent teacher. The Venetsianov school, the Venetians, is a whole galaxy of artists of the 1920s and 1940s who worked with him both in St. Petersburg and on his Safonkovo ​​estate. This is A.V. Tyranov, E.F. Krendovsky, K.A. Zelentsov, A.A. Alekseev, S.K. Zaryanko, L.K. Plakhov, N.S. Krylov and many others. Among the students of Venetsianov there are many peasants. Under the brush of the Venetians, not only scenes of peasant life were born, but also urban ones: St. Petersburg streets, folk types, landscapes. A.V. Tyranov also painted interior scenes, portraits, landscapes, and still lifes. The Venetians were especially fond of "family portraits in the interior" - they combined the concreteness of the images with the detail of the narrative, conveying the atmosphere of the environment (for example, Tyranov's painting "The Chernetsov Brothers Artists' Workshop", 1828, which combines a portrait, a genre, and a still life).

The most talented student of Venetsianov is undoubtedly Grigory Soroka (1813–1864), an artist of tragic fate. (Magpie was freed from serfdom only by the reform of 1861, but as a result of a lawsuit with a former landowner he was sentenced to corporal punishment, could not bear the thought of it and committed suicide.) Under the brush of Soroka and the landscape of his native lake Moldino, and all the objects in the office of the estate in Ostrovki, and the figures of the fishermen frozen over the surface of the lake are transformed, filled with the highest poetry, blissful silence, but also aching sadness. This is a world of real objects, but also an ideal world imagined by the artist.

Russian historical painting of the 1930s and 1940s developed under the sign of romanticism. Karl Pavlovich Bryullov (1799–1852) was called a “genius of compromise” between the ideals of classicism and the innovations of romanticism. Fame came to Bryullov while still at the Academy: even then Bryullov’s ordinary studies turned into finished paintings, as was the case, for example, with his Narcissus (1819, Russian Museum). After completing the course with a gold medal, the artist left for Italy. In pre-Italian works, Bryullov turns to biblical subjects (“The Appearance of Three Angels to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre”, 1821, Russian Museum) and antique (“Oedipus and Antigone”, 1821, the Tyumen Regional Museum of Local Lore), is engaged in lithography, sculpture, writes theatrical scenery, draws costumes for performances. The paintings “Italian Morning” (1823, location unknown) and “Italian Noon” (1827, Russian Museum), especially the first, show how close the painter came to the problems of the open air. Bryullov himself defined his task as follows: “I illuminated the model in the sun, assuming backlighting, so that the face and chest are in shadow and reflected from the fountain illuminated by the sun, which makes all the shadows much more pleasant compared to simple lighting from the window.”

The tasks of plein air painting thus interested Bryullov, but the artist's path, however, lay in a different direction. Since 1828, after a trip to Pompeii, Bryullov has been working on his equal work, The Last Day of Pompeii (1830–1833). The real event of ancient history is the death of the city during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. e. - gave the artist the opportunity to show the greatness and dignity of man in the face of death. Fiery lava is approaching the city, buildings and statues are collapsing, but children do not leave their parents; the mother covers the child, the young man saves his beloved; the artist (in which Bryullov portrayed himself) takes away the colors, but, leaving the city, he looks with wide eyes, trying to capture a terrible sight. Even in death, a person remains beautiful, like a woman thrown from a chariot by crazed horses is in the center of the composition. One of the essential features of his painting was clearly manifested in Bryullov's painting: the connection between the classicist style of his works and the features of romanticism, with which Bryullov's classicism is united by faith in the nobility and beauty of human nature. Hence the amazing "accommodation" of the plastic form that preserves the clarity, the drawing of the highest professionalism, prevailing over other expressive means, with romantic effects of pictorial lighting. Yes, and the very theme of inevitable death, inexorable fate is so characteristic of romanticism.

As a certain standard, a well-established artistic scheme, classicism in many ways limited the romantic artist. The conventions of the academic language, the language of the “School”, as the Academies were called in Europe, were fully manifested in Pompeii: theatrical poses, gestures, facial expressions, lighting effects. But it must be admitted that Bryullov strove for historical truth, trying as accurately as possible to reproduce specific monuments discovered by archaeologists and astonished the whole world, to visually fill in the scenes described by Pliny the Younger in a letter to Tacitus. Exhibited first in Milan, then in Paris, the painting was brought to Russia in 1834 and was a resounding success. Gogol spoke enthusiastically about her. The significance of Bryullov's work for Russian painting is determined by the well-known words of the poet: "And the "Last Day of Pompeii" became the first day for the Russian brush."

In 1835, Bryullov returned to Russia, where he was greeted as a victor. But he no longer dealt with the historical genre itself, because “The Siege of Pskov by the Polish King Stefan Batory in 1581” was not completed. His interests lay in a different direction - portraiture, to which he turned, leaving historical painting, like his great contemporary Kiprensky, and in which he showed all his creative temperament and brilliance of skill. One can trace a certain evolution of Bryullov in this genre: from the ceremonial portrait of the 30s, the model of which can serve not so much as a portrait as a generalized image, for example, the brilliant decorative canvas “Horsewoman” (1832, State Tretyakov Gallery), which depicts a pupil of Countess Yu. P. Samoilova Giovanina Pacchini, it is no coincidence that it has a generalized name; or a portrait of Yu.P. Samoilova with another pupil - Amatsily (circa 1839, Russian Museum), to portraits of the 40s - more chamber, gravitating towards subtle, multifaceted psychological characteristics (portrait of AN. Strugovshchikov, 1840, Russian Museum; Self-portrait, 1848, State Tretyakov Gallery). In the face of the writer Strugovshchikov, the tension of inner life is read. Fatigue and bitterness of disappointment emanates from the appearance of the artist in a self-portrait. A sadly thin face with penetrating eyes, an aristocratically thin hand hung helplessly. In these images there is a lot of romantic language, while in one of the last works - a deep and penetrating portrait of the archaeologist Michelangelo Lanci (1851) - we see that Bryullov is not alien to the realistic concept in interpreting the image.

After the death of Bryullov, his students often used only the formal, purely academic principles of writing that he carefully developed, and Bryullov's name had to endure a lot of blasphemy from critics of the democratic, realistic school of the second half of the 19th century, primarily V.V. Stasov.

The central figure in the painting of the middle of the century was undoubtedly Alexander Andreevich Ivanov (1806-1858). Ivanov graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy with two medals. He received a small gold medal for the painting “Priam asking Achilles for the body of Hector” (1824, State Tretyakov Gallery), in connection with which criticism noted the artist’s careful reading of Homer, and a large gold medal for the work “Joseph interpreting the dreams of prisoners with him in prison butler and baker” (1827, Russian Museum), full of expression, expressed, however, simply and clearly. In 1830, Ivanov leaves through Dresden and Vienna to Italy, in 1831 he ends up in Rome, and only a month and a half before his death (he died of cholera) returns to his homeland.

The path of A. Ivanov has never been easy, winged fame did not fly behind him, as for the “great Karl”. During his lifetime, Gogol, Herzen, Sechenov appreciated his talent, but there were no painters among them. Ivanov's life in Italy was filled with work and reflections on painting. He did not seek wealth or secular entertainment, spending his days in the walls of the studio and on sketches. Ivanov's worldview was influenced to a certain extent by German philosophy, primarily Schellingism with its idea of ​​the artist's prophetic destiny in this world, then by the philosophy of the historian of religion D. Strauss. Passion for the history of religion led to an almost scientific study of sacred texts, which resulted in the creation of famous biblical sketches and an appeal to the image of the Messiah. Researchers of Ivanov's work (D.V. Sarabyanov) rightly call his principle the "principle of ethical romanticism", i.e. romanticism, in which the main emphasis is shifted from the aesthetic to the moral. The artist's passionate faith in the moral transformation of people, in the perfection of a person who seeks freedom and truth, led Ivanov to the main theme of his work - to the painting, to which he devoted 20 years (1837 - 1857), "The Appearance of Christ to the People" (TG, author's version - timing).

Ivanov went to this work for a long time. He studied the painting of Giotto, the Venetians, especially Titian, Veronese and Tintoretto, wrote a two-figure composition "The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection" (1835, Russian Museum), for which the St. Petersburg Academy gave him the title of academician and extended the period of retirement in Italy for three years.

The first sketches of "The Appearance of the Messiah" date back to 1833, in 1837 the composition was transferred to a large canvas. Then the work went on, as can be judged by the numerous remaining sketches, sketches, drawings, along the line of specifying the characters and the landscape, and searching for the general tone of the picture.

By 1845, "The Appearance of Christ to the People" was, in essence, over. The composition of this monumental, programmatic work is based on a classicistic basis (symmetry, the placement of the expressive main figure of the foreground - John the Baptist - in the center, the bas-relief arrangement of the entire group as a whole), but the traditional scheme is uniquely rethought by the artist. The painter sought to convey the dynamism of construction, the depth of space. Ivanov searched for this solution for a long time and achieved it thanks to the fact that the figure of Christ appears and approaches people who are being baptized by John in the waters of the Jordan, from the depths. But the main thing that strikes in the picture is the extraordinary veracity of various characters, their psychological characteristics, which impart amazing authenticity to the entire scene. Hence the persuasiveness of the spiritual rebirth of the heroes.

Ivanov's evolution in his work on The Phenomenon can be defined as a path from a concrete-realistic scene to a monumental-epic canvas.

Changes in the worldview of Ivanov the thinker, which occurred over many years of work on the painting, led to the fact that the artist did not finish his main work. But he did the main thing, as Kramskoy said, “he woke up the inner work in the minds of Russian artists.” And in this sense, the researchers are right when they say that Ivanov's painting was "a harbinger of hidden processes" then taking place in art. Ivanov's finds were so new that the viewer was simply not able to appreciate them. No wonder N.G. Chernyshevsky called Alexander Ivanov one of those geniuses “who resolutely become people of the future, sacrifice ... to the truth and, approaching it already in their mature years, are not afraid to start their activities again with the dedication of youth” ( Chernyshevsky N.G. Notes on the previous article//Contemporary. 1858. T. XXI. November. S. 178). Until now, the picture remains a real academy for generations of masters, like Raphael's "Athenian school" or Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling.

Ivanov had his say in mastering the principles of the plein air. In landscapes painted in the open air, he managed to show all the strength, beauty and intensity of the colors of nature. And the main thing is not to break up the image in pursuit of an instant impression, for striving for the accuracy of a detail, but to preserve its synthetic character, so characteristic of classical art. Harmonious clarity emanates from each of his landscapes, whether it depicts a solitary pine tree, a separate branch, the expanses of the sea or the Pontic swamps. This is a majestic world, conveyed, however, in all the real richness of the light-air environment, as if you feel the smell of grass, the fluctuation of hot air. In the same complex interaction with the environment, he depicts the human figure in his famous sketches of naked boys.

In the last decade of his life, Ivanov came up with the idea of ​​creating a cycle of biblical gospel paintings for some public building, which should depict the plots of Holy Scripture in ancient Eastern color, but not ethnographically straightforward, but sublimely generalized. The unfinished watercolor sketches of the Bible (TG) occupy a special place in Ivanov's work and, at the same time, organically complete it. These sketches provide us with new opportunities for this technique, its plastic and linear rhythm, watercolor spot, not to mention the extraordinary creative freedom in interpreting the plots themselves, showing the depth of Ivanov the philosopher, and his greatest gift as a muralist ("Zachariah in front of an angel", "Joseph's Dream", "Prayer for the Chalice", etc.). Ivanov's cycle is proof that a brilliant work in sketches can be a new word in art. "In the 19th century - the century of the deepening analytical splitting of the former integrity of art into separate genres and separate pictorial problems - Ivanov is a great genius of synthesis, committed to the idea of ​​​​universal art, interpreted as a kind of encyclopedia of spiritual quests, collisions and stages of growth of the historical self-knowledge of man and mankind" (Allenov M.M. Art of the first half of the XIX century//Allenov M.M., Evangulova O.S., Lifshits L.I. Russian art of the 10th - early 20th century. M., 1989. S. 335). A monumentalist by vocation, Ivanov lived, however, at a time when monumental art was rapidly declining. The realism of Ivanov's forms did not correspond much to the art of a critical nature that was being established.

The socio-critical trend, which became the main trend in the art of the second half of the 19th century, made itself known in graphics as early as the 1940s and 1950s. An undoubted role here was played by the "natural school" in literature, associated (very conditionally) with the name of N.V. Gogol.

The album of lithographed caricatures "Yeralash" by N.M. Nevakhovich, which, like the Venetian "Journal of Caricatures", was devoted to the satire of morals. Several subjects could be placed on one page of a large format, often the faces were portraits, quite recognizable. "Yeralash" was closed on the 16th issue.

In the 1940s, the publication by V.F. Timm, illustrator and lithographer. “Ours, written off from life by Russians” (1841–1842) - an image of the types of a St. Myatlev about Mrs. Kurdyukova, a provincial widow, traveling around Europe out of boredom.

The book of this time becomes more accessible and cheaper: illustrations began to be printed from a wooden board in large numbers, sometimes with the help of polytypes - metal castings. The first illustrations for Gogol's works appeared - “One Hundred Drawings from N.M. Gogol "Dead Souls" A.A. Agina, engraved by E.E. Vernadsky; The 50s were marked by the activities of T. G. Shevchenko as a draftsman (“The Parable of the Prodigal Son”, exposing cruel morals in the army). Cartoons and illustrations for books and magazines by Timm and his associates Agin and Shevchenko contributed to the development of Russian genre painting in the second half of the 19th century.

But the main source for genre painting in the second half of the century was the work of Pavel Andreevich Fedotov (1815–1852). He devoted only a few years of his short tragic life to painting, but he managed to express the very spirit of Russia in the 1940s. The son of a Suvorov soldier, accepted into the Moscow Cadet Corps for his father's merits, Fedotov served in the Finnish Guards Regiment for 10 years. After retiring, he is engaged in the battle class of A.I. Sauerweid. Fedotov began with everyday drawings and caricatures, with a series of sepia from the life of Fidelka, the lady's dog, who died in a bose and mourned by the mistress, with a series in which he declared himself as a satirical writer of everyday life - the Russian Daumier of the period of his Caricatures (in addition to the series about Fidelka - sepia "Fashion Shop", 1844-1846, State Tretyakov Gallery; "An Artist Who Married Without a Dowry in the Hope of His Talent", 1844, State Tretyakov Gallery, etc.). He studied both on the engravings of Hogarth and the Dutch, but most of all - on Russian life itself, open to the gaze of a talented artist in all its disharmony and inconsistency.

The main thing in his work is everyday painting. Even when he paints portraits, it is easy to detect genre elements in them (for example, in the watercolor portrait "Players", State Tretyakov Gallery). His evolution in genre painting - from the image of the caricature to the tragic, from congestion in detail, as in "The Fresh Cavalier" (1846, State Tretyakov Gallery), where everything is "discussed": a guitar, bottles, a mocking maid, even papillottes on the head of an unlucky hero - to extreme laconicism, as in The Widow (1851, Ivanovo Regional Art Museum, version - State Tretyakov Gallery, State Russian Museum), to a tragic sense of the meaninglessness of existence, as in his last painting "Anchor, more anchor!" (about 1851, State Tretyakov Gallery). The same evolution in the understanding of color: from a color that sounds at half strength, through pure, bright, intense, saturated colors, as in the "Major's Matchmaking" (1848, State Tretyakov Gallery, version - State Russian Museum) or "Aristocrat's Breakfast" (1849-1851, State Tretyakov Gallery ), to the exquisite color scheme of The Widow, betraying the objective world, as if dissolving in the diffused light of day, and the integrity of the single tone of his last canvas (“Anchor ...”). It was a way from simple everyday writing to the implementation in clear, restrained images of the most important problems of Russian life, for what, for example, is the "Major's Matchmaking" if not a denunciation of one of the social facts of the life of his time - the marriages of impoverished nobles with merchant "money bags"? And "The Picky Bride", written on a plot borrowed from I.A. Krylov (who, by the way, greatly appreciated the artist), if not a satire on marriage of convenience? Or is it a denunciation of the emptiness of a secular dude who throws dust in his eyes - in the "Breakfast of an Aristocrat"?

The strength of Fedotov's painting is not only in the depth of problems, in the entertaining plot, but also in the amazing mastery of execution. Suffice it to recall the charm-filled chamber “Portrait of N.P. Zhdanovich at the harpsichord” (1849, Russian Museum). Fedotov loves the real objective world, writes out every thing with delight, poeticizes it. But this delight before the world does not obscure the bitterness of what is happening: the hopelessness of the position of the "widow", the lie of the marriage deal, the longing of the officer's service in the "bear corner". If Fedotov's laughter breaks out, it is the same Gogol's "laughter through tears invisible to the world." Fedotov ended his life in the "house of sorrow" at the fateful 37th year of his life.

The art of Fedotov completes the development of painting in the first half of the 19th century, and at the same time, quite organically - thanks to its social sharpness - the "Fedotov direction" opens the beginning of a new stage - the art of critical, or, as they often say now, democratic, realism.