Sentimentalism in the art of the 18th century. Examples of sentimentalism in Russian literature. New literary movement

The artists of the pre-revolutionary era in France, in whose work the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophers appeared in the purest and most perfect form, were Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. They both managed to visualize in their works the shifts that occurred not only in French art, but also in the worldview of the people of that time, conveying the psychological climate of the era in all its complexity.

The painting “Prayer Before Dinner” (1746-1761) by Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin as a work of genre painting is typical of the artist’s work and is dedicated to the theme of women’s domestic work and raising children.

The theme of the work is not accidental. The question of the role of women in society, especially as an educator of the younger generation, was pressing among the “third estate.” It is reflected in French literature, philosophy and journalism. It is safe to say that Chardin became the first artist to devote his work to these current social themes.

On the one hand, the work is typical of the painting of the century. It has a lot of grace. The master beautifully presents the details, notes the grace of the objects

and sophistication of gestures. It is not for nothing that even crowned heads liked such works by Chardin. On the other hand, the rich color, expressive texture and harmonious composition distinguish this painting from many other creations of the Rocaille style. This work is more correlated with the “sentimentalism” emerging in France than with Rococo. It contains melodramatic elements of a moralizing nature, designed to improve human feelings and emotions.

A mother and her two daughters are depicted gathered around the dining table for a family meal. The furnishings of the room indicate that the characters in the picture belong to the so-called “third estate.” The presence in the scene of a drum hanging on the back of a chair and a drumstick lying on the floor indicates the mischievous nature of both girls. The artist allows the viewer to assume that before the moment depicted in the picture, the children were actively running, laughing and loudly banging on the drum, which made their cheeks flushed. However, being well brought up, having heard their mother’s call for dinner, both girls abandoned all their games and, sitting down on chairs, fell silent, obediently and touchingly folding their hands on their chests in prayer.

The painting “The Paralytic” (1763) by Jean-Baptiste Greuze gave birth to an entire era in French painting of the 18th century. On the one hand, it became an exemplary work of “sentimentalism”, the embodiment of a new

bourgeois morality. On the other hand, it clearly demonstrated a certain compromise solution, which made it very acceptable for supporters of the very tendencies in aristocratic French culture that the encyclopedists fought against.

Denis Diderot dedicated many kind words to the work “The Paralytic”. Analyzing the exhibition Salon of 1763, he wrote: “...Shouldn’t we now rejoice to see that painting is finally competing with dramatic poetry, touching, enlightening and, thereby, correcting us and calling us to virtue? Dreams, my friend, boldly glorify morality in painting and do not change this forever! What a pity that you were not in the Salon next to that girl who, examining the head of your “Paralytic,” cried out with charming liveliness: “Oh, my God, how he touches me! But if I continue to look at him, I won’t be able to stop myself from crying...” And what a pity that this girl is not my daughter!... The main character, who is in the center of the stage and attracts attention, is an old paralytic who sits in a chair with a pillow under his head and his legs wrapped in a blanket on a stool. He is surrounded by children and grandchildren who want to help him in at least some way... One of the daughters lifts her father's head along with the pillow. Nearby, standing in front of the old man, the son-in-law serves him food... On the other hand, the boy serves his grandfather a drink. And you need to see how painful the boy is for the old man: suffering is expressed not only on his face, it is felt throughout his entire figure... Another boy, older, adjusts the blanket at the feet of the paralytic. A baby squeezed between the old man and his son-in-law and

________ Lecture 103. French painting of the 18th century. sentimentalism and classicism_____________

offers the sick goldfinch. How he holds the bird! With what movement he hands it over! He believes that such a gift will heal his grandfather! On the right, at a distance from the old man, his married daughter is depicted. She sits on a stool, resting her head on her hand. The Holy Scriptures are open on her lap. She was just reading it to her old father... Everything is correlated with the main character of the picture - both what others are doing at the present moment, and what they were doing a minute earlier... Each person in the picture expresses exactly the degree of interest that corresponds his age and character... This picture is good, it is beautiful, and the one who can look at it without a shadow of excitement is pathetic!... I repeat: the picture is good, I have never seen anything like it. That is why she attracts whole crowds of spectators; it is simply impossible to get through to her. You look at her with delight and, when you see her again, you understand that there were reasons for delight...”8.

In general, the concept of “sentimentalism” arose in English from the word “feeling” (sentiment). Representatives of the European Enlightenment valued the human mind, therefore they created the direction of “sentimentalism” - feeling or, more precisely, “sensibility” (English, sensibility) - a word with the same root as the word “sentimentalism”, only it did not come from the French language, but was directly derived from the Latin word “ sensus,” which denotes both sense and reason.

If we proceed from the fact that the Enlightenment is the time of the dominance of reason (The Age of Reason), then the conceptual “sentimentalism” that glorifies human feelings is certainly the opposite of the Enlightenment era. If we take another English word for the mind - “sense” and compare it with the word “sensibility”, then the language will give a different clue - about the close connection between them. It is important to understand that the Age of Enlightenment did not end with the advent of sentimentalism, but its emphasis shifted. For the Enlightenment, reason was the main thing; for sentimentalism, the human sensitive heart became the main thing. Sentimentalism with its principles did not reject, but enriched the enlightenment idea of the universal order of things, subject only to the laws of a single mind, the personality of man, and kept the process of his “sensitive” self-improvement in the focus of his interest. A sentimental person is a deeply warm-hearted and trusting person who feels an excess of kindness and compassion in himself, and therefore is ready to be the first to laugh at himself. A sensitive person is able to be satisfied with small joys: a beloved family, the usual course of life, at the end of which - a rural cemetery. In sentimentalism, the interlocutor for the sensitive human soul is nature, and nature is always spiritualized and, at the same time, peaceful and idyllic. Sentimentalism is most often associated with it in the patriarchal circle of village life.

The most interesting master of the pre-revolutionary period in France was Jean Honore Fragonard, whose work cannot be unconditionally

8 Diderot D. Salons: B 2t. -M., 1 989.-T. 1 .- P. 83-85

________ Lecture 103. French painting of the 18th century. sentimentalism and classicism_____________

attributed to none of the clearly defined artistic movements of the second half of the 18th century. Fragonard was closely associated with each of them, but he did not belong entirely to any of them.

It is known that he was attracted to various phenomena in the art of the past. He studied Rembrandt and Tiepolo, studied Rococo with Boucher, loved Jan van Goyen and Jacob Ruisdael, and idolized Watteau. The most recent period of Fragonard’s activity passed simultaneously under the banner of emerging classicism and the influence of Dutch everyday life writers of the 17th century. With all this, Fragonard, in essence, always remained one of the most characteristic French artists of sentimentalism, inimitable and keenly individual.

Jean Honoré Fragonard's painting "The Farmer's Children" (1768) is to some extent exemplary for the "sentimentalist" aspect of the artist's work. As in many of his other works, Fragonard here shows the possibility of the presence of miraculously sacred phenomena in the everyday profane life of a person.

It depicts a poor man's pitiful shack, immersed in darkness, with a farmer who had fallen asleep from the day's labors and awake children, who, at the moment of their nightly play, were suddenly illuminated from nowhere by light emanating from nowhere, quietly and imperceptibly seeping into their world, like a drop of water through the cork of a barrel filled to the top. All the characters in the picture, both three kids and two dogs, are looking towards the source, emitting a wonderful glow. One boy reaches out his hand and even tries to touch something fundamentally invisible to the external gaze of the spectator. At the same time, the phenomenon of sacred light does not frighten children and animals. It doesn't make kids cry or dogs growl or bark. On the contrary, God, having shed a bright drop of his truth on infant souls, makes children calm, attentive and serious beyond their years.

Visualizing the idea of the presence of a divine essence in the human world, Fragonard, when creating the picture, turned for help to the works of Rembrandt, who at one time solved similar artistic problems. However, the master does not so much copy the creations of his wise predecessor as interpret his painting style and technique. He is fascinated mainly by the lighting solutions of the great Dutch artist and the coloristic techniques associated with them. In general, the painting “The Farmer's Children” is correlated rather not with the French “Rembrandtism”, but with the “Rococo” style in Fragonard’s original “sentimentalist” interpretation.

History of Russian culture. XIX century Yakovkina Natalya Ivanovna

§ 3. SENTIMENTALISM IN RUSSIAN PAINTING

Creativity of A. G. Venetsianov

At the beginning of the 19th century, sentimentalism developed in Russian fine art, as well as in literature. However, in painting and sculpture this process was reflected in a slightly different way. In the fine arts of this period it is difficult to single out any master whose work would fully embody the principles of sentimentalism. Elements of sentimentalism are more often found in combination with elements of classicism and romanticism. Therefore, we can only talk about the greater or lesser influence of this style on the work of a particular artist.

In the first half of the 19th century, the master who most fully reflected the features of sentimentalism was A.G. Venetsianov.

Venetsianov came to art as an already established mature man, with a deeper and more versatile knowledge of Russian life than the students of the Academy of Arts. It is possible that the acquisition of professional knowledge by a young man outside the Academy, the absence of an academic system in his training, later determined the independence and innovation of his work.

Born in 1780 into a merchant family in Moscow, the future artist came to St. Petersburg in 1802, where he entered the service and at the same time persistently practiced painting, copying paintings by famous masters in the Hermitage. In all likelihood, there he met the famous 18th century painter V.L. Borovikovsky, became his student and even lived with him for some time. One must think that this period had a significant influence on the formation of Venetsianov as an artist and person. Many representatives of the Russian enlightenment of the late 18th century visited Borovikovsky’s house: the architect N. Lvov, the poets V. Kapnist, G. Derzhavin. So the young artist found himself in a creative environment full of advanced educational ideas.

The breadth of interests and the desire for intellectual communication distinguished Venetsianov throughout his life. Later, having already become a recognized master, he continues to move among prominent contemporaries. According to her daughter’s recollections, “the most educated society of artists and writers gathered with him, everyone found pleasure in spending evenings with him. Gogol, Grebenko, Voeikov, Kraevsky and others often visited him. There is nothing to say about the artists. Bryullov often visited him...”

Naturally, such communication and friendly relations with many remarkable people of his time had a significant influence on the formation of Venetsianov’s social and artistic views. The development of an artist happened slowly. For many years he combined service in various departmental institutions with painting. Gradually his work attracted the attention of the public and the Academy of Arts, which invited him to teach in a class. But only after his marriage in 1815 and the acquisition of a small estate in the Tver province, Venetsianov completely devoted himself to creativity.

Life on the estate, which allowed the artist to better know the work and life of Russian peasants and to highly appreciate their human qualities, contributed to his turning to a new topic - the depiction of the peasantry, and an image that runs counter to the canons of academicism. The beginning of this new creative path was the pastel “Cleansing the Beetroot”. The artist makes the heroes of his painting people who have never before appeared in Russian painting: peasant women are depicted at work, their faces are ugly, their hands and feet are covered with dirt, their clothes are squalid and unclean. This truthfulness in the depiction of peasants and their labor would become constant in Venetsianov’s works and would later be noted by his contemporaries. The artist’s student Mokritsky wrote: “... no one better than him depicted village peasants in all their patriarchal simplicity. He conveyed them typically, without exaggerating or idealizing, because he fully felt and understood the richness of Russian nature. There is something especially pleasant and true to nature in his portrayal of men. Having an extremely keen and seeing eye, he knew how to convey in them that dustiness and lack of shine that imparts to a peasant his constant presence either in the field, or on the road, or in a smoking hut; so, to put it more figuratively, we can say: his men smell like a hut. Take a closer look at his paintings and you will agree with me. This feature was a consequence of complete trust in nature...” It was this “trust in nature”, “understanding of its wealth” and, it must be added, respect for working people that gave special beauty to the ordinary subjects of Venetian’s paintings.

Having embarked on his chosen path, the artist continues to follow it relentlessly. The first half of the 1820s was the period of Venetsianov’s most intensive and fruitful work. During these years, he created his best works, marked by clear features of sentimentalism with the inherent sympathy for ordinary people, pure moral relations, and nature inherent in this direction.

This is how the Soviet researcher of the artist G. K. Leontyev characterizes this period: “In Safonkovo he gained greater freedom and independence of thoughts and actions. He felt in unity and harmony with nature, with today and with himself. This agreement with the world and with himself was highly characteristic of Venetsianov. Hence the amazing sense of nature, reverence for a tree, a flower, sunlight, the earth. Hence the contemplative admiration, hence the creation of harmonious images.”

The artist’s next major work, “The Threshing Barn,” is another and more confident step along a new path. The painting, like “Cleaning the Beet,” is a poetic recreation of the usual plot of peasant suffering - threshing grain. In a huge threshing floor, penetrated by streams of sunlight pouring from the open doors and the wall opening, ordinary peasant work is going on - men start harnessed horses, a group of women stopped in the foreground, a peasant crouched, sweeping grain. It is noticeable that the work is familiar, the people’s movements are dexterous and unhurried, the figures of the peasants are filled with calm, strength, and inner dignity.

The artist boldly contrasted the canons of classicism with new writing techniques. In contrast to academic traditions, the plot of the picture was taken not only from modern life (and not ancient history or mythology), but from “low”, working, peasant life. It was not the exploits of peasant heroes that the artist sang, but the hard work of the Russian farmer.

In addition, in the scene depicted on the canvas, there is essentially no main character, who, according to the rules of the academic school, was supposed to be placed in the center of the picture. There is no one at all in the center of the “Threshing Floor”, and the peasants located at the edges of the picture are equivalent in terms of the degree of participation in what is happening.

And finally, a completely new interpretation of perspective. In the works of academic artists, it was customary to place the depicted scene in the foreground, with the background playing the role of a decorative background in relation to the developing event. In “The Threshing Barn,” the action goes into an unprecedentedly deep space. Moreover, Venetsianov appears here as a bold innovator in solving the problem of perspective, using it as one of the means of more truthfully conveying reality.

At the exhibition of 1824, the artist, together with the Threshing Barn, exhibited several more works on a peasant theme: “Peasant Woman”, “Peasants”, “Peasant Woman with Mushrooms in the Forest”, “Peasant Woman Carding Wool in a Hut”, “Peasant Children in the Field” , “Morning of the Landowner”, “Here’s Father’s Lunch for You!” Later, thematically related to this series were written: “The Sleeping Shepherd,” “At the Harvest,” “Summer,” “On the Plowed Field.” Spring”, as well as “Girl with a beetroot”, “Peasant girl with a sickle in the rye”, “Reaper”, etc.

Delving deeper into the “peasant theme,” the artist begins to more and more clearly feel the involvement of the people he depicts in the surrounding nature. People working on the land are perceived by him in inextricable unity with this land, which not only gives them bread, but endows them with pure and kind feelings. This is the moral basis of “accord with the world” that was so close to Venetsianov himself and determined the internal mood of his paintings of this period.

Gradually, landscape motifs begin to appear on the canvases. The painting “The Sleeping Shepherd” was the first to depict a Russian landscape created outside the workshop, directly “on location”. In place of the fantastic, artificially composed landscapes of academic paintings or paintings of luxurious but alien Italian nature, for the first time in Russian painting there appear images of the boundless Russian distance, a river overgrown with alder, a dim sky with clouds. Native nature, harmoniously combined with the images of people, gives them poetry. So, in the film “On the arable land. Spring" a young pretty peasant girl leads two horses harnessed to a harrow across a field. The joy of spring awakening emanates from the wet earth, delicate greenery, and the figure of a girl. The peasant woman's festive, non-work clothes, the clear high sky, the soft tread of the girl and the horses following her - all this creates the impression of harmony between man and nature.

The paintings created by the artist in the 20s of the 19th century opened a new page in the history of Russian fine art. Peasants do not just appear on his canvases, they enter Russian painting as a whole, they enter sedately, with dignity. They are people of labor, the artist constantly depicts them at work - on the threshing floor, arable land, at the harvest. Their work is hard, but they work skillfully, dexterously, and this inspires respect. Kind, pleasant faces and lively eyes testify to their intelligence and moral virtues. In this respect, Venetsianov is certainly close to Karamzin, who showed with the example of “poor Liza” that “the peasants know how to feel.” The influence of the ideas of sentimentalism and the personality of the founder of Russian literary sentimentalism on Venetsianov’s work is clearly visible. The artist knew Karamzin and painted his portrait. At the same time, Venetsianov not only, of course, read his stories, which the enlightened society of that time was engrossed in, but also became acquainted with other works of sentimentalist fiction. Thus, in the artist’s correspondence there is information about his reading of the works of Christian Gellert (a sentimentalist writer of the 18th century) and the so-called “Traveller”. The letter to a friend contains the following note from Venetsianov: “I am sending the Traveler and thank you. This kind author does not write, but speaks. You will do a lot if, while reading, you will have the pleasure of listening to him in other volumes.”

As you know, it was Karamzin, who fought for the simplification and modernization of the literary style, who wrote “as he said.” On this basis, G. K. Leontyeva, a researcher of Venetsianov’s work, believes that we are talking about “Letters of a Russian Traveler” by Karamzin.

The “Karamzinist”, sentimentalist principle is also felt in the artist’s enthusiastic perception of his native nature and the merging of man with it. Venetsianov’s idyllic “Sleeping Shepherd Boy” in this regard is, of course, akin to Karamzin’s “peasant,” who is moved by the sight of a singing bird.

Like Karamzin, the artist attached great importance to public education, in which he saw a means that could soften the extremes of serfdom and improve the situation of the people. These convictions led Venetsianov in 1818 to the legal Decembrist organization “Society for the Establishment of Schools under the System of Mutual Education” and contributed to his rapprochement with the Decembrist M.F. Orlov. Venetsianov makes an attempt to put his views into practice on his estate. His daughter later recalled that “about forty years ago, there was no rumor anywhere about peasant schools, but in our little Safonkovo we had a school of 10 peasant boys.” Along with the school, the estate taught peasants various crafts - blacksmithing, carpentry, shoemaking, painting, etc., and women - handicrafts and weaving. In general, Venetsianov’s economic practice was based on the conviction of the moral and material obligations of the landowner in relation to his serfs. He formulates this idea in one of his letters: “Our (that is, the landowners’) responsibilities are very difficult if they are fulfilled according to civil and church laws, and even according to the laws of material improvement of the state. No matter how you throw it, it will all turn out that it is not a peasant in a serfdom, but a landowner who fully understands his relationship to the peasant, and not one who is drowning in the mud of feudalism.” So, as we see, the artist sharply condemns landowners who do not understand “their relationship” to the serfs and do not care about their material and moral well-being. But it follows from this that the correct and honest observance by the landowner of his duties towards his peasants can ensure the complete well-being of the latter. The artist’s idyllic description of the order established by Venetsianov on his estate, which we find in the memoirs of his daughter, speaks in favor of precisely this understanding of the artist’s relationship between landowners and serfs. It is no coincidence, I think, that this description is preceded by the phrase that he takes care of the peasants “like a father.”

Condemnation of the cruelties of serfdom and the belief that a humane landowner will become a father for his serfs - how all this is in the spirit of Karamzin and his school!

And the very image of peasants on Venetsianov’s canvases convinces that the artist was alien to understanding all the vices of serfdom. Good-looking, calm, full of inner dignity people - they are by no means sad victims of serfdom. Even in the painting “The Morning of the Landowner,” where the theme of the relationship between masters and servants could have been revealed more acutely, there is no sense of any antagonism between them; the depicted scene is filled with the calm efficiency of everyday worries that the serfs share with their landowner.

However, sharing Karamzin’s views on serfdom, Venetsianov goes further than him in understanding the labor activity of the peasants, in the veracity of their depiction. His peasants are not Karamzin’s idealized “villagers,” but living people, only their appearance seems to be highlighted by the artist, bearing the imprint of the same loving-sentimental perception that characterizes his landscape sketches.

Speaking about Venetsianov’s activities during this period, one cannot fail to mention his school, since he was not only an outstanding painter, but also a teacher. Respect for the people and faith in their strength fueled his pedagogical work. He constantly looked for talent among the poor, among those who were exchanged for greyhound puppies and sold as real estate. His student, artist A. N. Mokritsky, later recalled: “Venetsianov loved to share his knowledge and wealth with others; he was the kindest man; All the poor students turned to him: often he himself looked for them,” Venetsianov gave them money for paints, advised them, fed them, clothed them. He helped others get rid of serfdom, waiting for hours to receive a noble nobleman or a rich “benefactor.” In his autobiographical story “The Artist,” T. G. Shevchenko spoke in detail about Venetsianov’s role in his liberation. A man of amazing modesty, he himself did not attach any importance to this, sincerely believing that in these good deeds he played the role of a simple broker.

The mentor taught his students not only professional skills: “He raised us,” wrote Mokritsky, “and taught us good things, and forced some to learn to read and write. His family was our family, we were like his own children...”

Thus, the “Venetsianov school” was gradually created. In 1838, the artist informed the President of the Academy of Arts A. N. Olenin that thirteen students were studying in his workshop. And in 1830, at an exhibition at the Academy of Arts, five works by the artist himself and thirty-two works by his students were exhibited. By this time, Venetsianov’s pedagogical method had acquired the appearance of a harmonious system. Its basis was drawing from life, and not copying, as was customary at the Academy. The artist “put the student’s eye” on the reproduction of the simplest objects (a cup, a glass of water, boxes, etc.). After this, they moved on to plaster to develop “fidelity and smoothness of the lines.” And then - back to nature. Students painted interiors, portraits of each other, and still lifes. Naturally, academic professors reacted to the new system with caution, if not hostility. The opposition of the academic authorities and the constant financial difficulties experienced by the artist eventually forced him to part with the School. He would later write with bitterness in his autobiographical note: “Venetsianov became exhausted and lost the means to support the school, that is, to have students on his payroll.”

However, the cessation of school did not mean the death of Venetsianov’s system. The methodology of the principles of the realistic manner of painting will gradually enter into life as the basis of artistic education. Initially, the most capable and searching artists will gropingly come to it, then (much later) it will be recognized by the Academy and will enter into its practice.

The system, as well as the work of Venetsianov, undermining the canons of academicism, will make a significant contribution to the development and improvement of the realistic method in Russian fine art, and will prepare for its further successes in the 40s and 50s.

author Wörman Karl

1. Features of Central Italian painting Since the Florentine Leonardo da Vinci awakened the dormant powers of painting, throughout Italy it has consciously moved towards the goal of making the painting live a fuller real life and at the same time be more perfect