The art of France, a highly politicized country, invariably responded to events affecting the deep foundations of the world order. Therefore, the country, in the XIX century. survived the fall of the empire, the restoration of the Bourbons, two revolutions, which participated in many wars, no longer needed an artistic presentation of power. People wanted to see, and the masters to create canvases populated by contemporaries, acting in real circumstances. The work of the great artist Honore Daumier (1808 - 1879) reflected the epoch of the 19th century, full of social upheavals. The graphics of Daumier, a master of political caricature, denouncing the monarchy, social injustice, and militarism, became widely known, having become a kind of chronicle of the life and customs of the era. Daumier's artistic talent was revealed in the 1840s. The artist himself did not seek to exhibit his paintings. His canvases were seen only by a few close people - Delacroix and Baudelaire, Corot and Daubigny, Balzac and Michelet. They were the first to highly appreciate Daumier's pictorial talent, which is often called "sculptural". In an effort to perfect his creations, the artist often sculpted figures out of clay, enhancing characteristic features or exaggerating natural proportions. Then he took a brush and, using this "nature", created picturesque images. In Daumier's painting, they usually distinguish grotesque-satirical, lyrical, heroic, epic lines.
In the depths of romantic art at the beginning of the 19th century, realism began to form, associated with progressive social sentiments. This term was first introduced into use in the middle of the 19th century. French literary critic J. Chanfleury to designate art opposed to romanticism and symbolism ”But realism is a deeper category than individual artistic styles in art. Realism in the broadest sense of the word aims at full reflection real life... It is a kind of aesthetic core of artistic culture, which was already felt in the Renaissance - "Renaissance realism", and in the Age of Enlightenment - "Enlightenment realism". But since the 30s
XIX century. realistic art, striving for an accurate display of the environment, unwittingly denounced bourgeois reality. In time, this current, which received the name critical realism,coincided with the rise of the labor movement in various European countries.
Initially, realism was identified with naturalism, and the transition to it, say, in Germany and Austria, was biedermeier -style direction, which was characterized by the poeticization of the world of things, the comfort of the home interior, close attention to family everyday scenes. Biedermeier rather quickly degenerated into petty-bourgeois sugary naturalism, where insignificant everyday details, but written "exactly like in life", came to the fore.
In France, realism was associated with pragmatism, the predominance of the material of static views, the dominant role of science. Among the largest representatives of realism in literature are O. Balzac, G. Flaubert, and in painting - O. Daumier and G. Courbet.
Support de Balzac(1799-1850) already in one of his first works "Shagreen Skin", combining romantic imagery and symbolism with sober analysis, realistically reflected the atmosphere of Paris after the revolution of 1830. According to the laws of his art, Balzac, in a series of novels and stories that made up the epic "The Human Comedy", showed a social cut of society in which representatives of all classes, states, professions, psychological types live and interact, who have become common nouns, such as, for example, Gobsec and Rastignac ... The epic, consisting of 90 novels and stories and linked by a common concept and characters, included three sections: studies of morals, philosophical studies and analytical studies. Studies of morals reflected scenes of provincial, Parisian, rural life, private, political and military. Thus, Balzac brilliantly showed the laws of the development of reality in a spiral from facts to philosophical generalization. According to the author himself, he sought to depict a society "containing the basis of its movement." Balzac's epic is a realistic picture of French society, grandiose in scope, reflecting its contradictions, the reverse side of bourgeois attitudes and customs. At the same time, Balzac more than once argued that he did not paint portraits of certain persons, but generalized images: his literary characters were not slavishly copied models, but were a kind of specimen of the genus, combining the most characteristic features of one image or another. Generalization is one of the main commandments of Balzac's aesthetics.
Aesthetics Gustaea Flaubert(1821-1880) found its expression in the concept he created about the special role and elitism of literature, which he likened to science. The appearance of the novel Madame Bovary marked a new era in literature. Using a simple story about marital infidelity, Flaubert is our way to show the deep roots of the surrounding vulgarity, the moral insignificance of the provincial bourgeoisie, the suffocating atmosphere of the Second Empire that developed after Louis Bonaparte's July coup in 1848. The novel, this masterpiece of French literature, is not without reason called the encyclopedia of the French province of the 19th century. The writer, selecting characteristic details, restores the historical picture of the whole society from insignificant signs of the time. The tiny town of Yonville, in which the action of the novel unfolds, represents the whole of France in miniature: it has its own nobility, its clergy, its own bourgeoisie, its workers and peasants, its beggars and firefighters who have taken the place of the military. These people, living side by side, are essentially disunited, indifferent to each other and sometimes hostile. The social hierarchy is unbreakable here, strong
pushes around the weak: the owners take out their anger on the servants - on innocent animals. Selfishness and callousness, like an infection, spread throughout the entire district, moods of hopelessness and melancholy permeate all pores of life. Flaubert the artist was preoccupied with the color and sound of the novel, which served as a kind of accompaniment to the sad story of Emma Bovary. “For me,” wrote Flaubert, “there was only one thing that was important - to convey the gray color, the color of mold, in which woodlice vegetate.” With his provincial drama, Flaubert struck a blow at philistine taste, at pseudo-romanticism. It is not for nothing that Madame Bovary was compared to Don Quixote by Cervantes, who put an end to his hobby for a knightly romance. Flaubert proved the enormous potential of realistic art and had a decisive influence on the development of realism in world literature.
The revolution of 1830 opened new stage and in the history of the artistic culture of France, in particular, it contributed to the development of caricature as a powerful means of criticism. In literature, poetry, in the visual arts - graphics most vividly responded to revolutionary events. The recognized master of satirical graphics was Honore Daumier(1808-1879). Being a brilliant draftsman, master of line, he created expressive images with one stroke, spot, silhouette and made political caricature a true art.
Masterfully mastering the technique of light and shadow modeling, Daumier used graphic techniques in his paintings and always emphasized the contour. With a calm fluid black-brown line, he outlined the contours of figures, profiles, headdresses, which was a feature of his pictorial method.
Daumier's paintings are indicated by cycles, the first of which was revolutionary. It can be reasonably said that the revolution of 1830 created Daumier the graphic artist, the revolution of 1848 created the Daumier painter. Daumier was a staunch republican, and the artist's sympathies were on the side of the proletariat and the democratic intelligentsia. The most significant work of the revolutionary cycle is "Uprising", where, depicting only a few figures, arranging them diagonally, Daumier achieved the impression and movement of a large crowd of people, and the inspiration of the masses, and the extent of the action outside the canvas. He focused only on the figure of a young man in a light shirt. He is subordinate to the general movement and at the same time directs it, turning to those walking behind and showing the way to the goal with a raised hand. Next to him is an intellectual, on whose pale face is frozen amazement, but he, carried away by a common impulse, merges with the crowd.
The Don Quixote cycle can be called a continuous cycle in Daumier's work. His interpretation of the images of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza is unparalleled in French art. In contrast to the banal illustrators of Cervantes, Daumier was only interested in the psychological side of the image, and the leitmotif of all its 27 variations is the gaunt, incredibly tall and straight Don Quixote, riding among the gloomy hilly landscape on his monstrously bony Rossinante-like gothic chimera; and behind him on a donkey the always lagging cowardly Sancho Panza. The image of Sancho seems to say: enough ideals, enough struggle, it's time to finally stop. But Don Quixote invariably follows forward, true to his dream, he is not stopped by obstacles, he is not attracted by the blessings of life, he is all in motion, in search.
If in "Don Quixote" Daumier reflected the tragic contradiction between the two sides of the human soul, then in the series "Judges and Lawyers" a terrifying opposition arose between the appearance, the external appearance of a person, and his essence. In these truly ingenious series, Daumier rose to social and
The study guide offers a concise coverage of issues related to the development of French and english literature the specified aesthetic direction. In addition to the presentation of the historical and literary material, the manual contains fragments from works of artwhich become the subject of detailed analytical analysis.
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The given introductory fragment of the book History of Foreign Literature of the 19th Century: Realism (O. N. Turysheva, 2014) provided by our book partner - the company Liters.
FRENCH REALISM
First, let us recall the main events of French history, which are the subject of comprehension in the literature of realism or with which its very development is associated.
1804-1814 - the period of Napoleon's reign (First Empire).
1814-1830 - the period of the Restoration (restoration of the Bourbon dynasty to the throne, overthrown by the Great French Revolution).
1830 - the fall of the Restoration regime as a result of the July Revolution and the establishment of the July Monarchy.
1848 - the fall of the July Monarchy as a result of the February Revolution and the creation of the Second Republic.
1851 - the establishment of the Second Empire as a result of a coup d'état and the coming to power of Napoleon III.
1870 - defeat in the war with Prussia, removal from power of Napoleon III and the proclamation of the Third Republic.
1871 - Paris Commune.
Formation french realism falls on the 30-40s. At this time, realism did not yet oppose itself to romanticism, but fruitfully interacted with it: in the words of A. V. Karelsky, he "emerged from romanticism, as from his childhood or youth." The relationship between early French realism and romanticism is clear in the early and mature works of Frédéric Stendhal and Honore de Balzac, who, by the way, did not call themselves realists. The very term "realism" in relation to the phenomenon in question appeared in literature much later - in the late 50s. Therefore, it was retrospectively transferred to the work of Stendhal and Balzac. These authors began to be considered the founders of realistic aesthetics, although they did not break with romanticism at all: they used romantic techniques to create images of heroes and developed a universal theme of romantic literature - the theme of the individual's protest against society. Stendhal generally called himself a romantic, although the interpretation of romanticism he proposed is very specific and obviously anticipates the emergence of a new, later called realistic, trend in French literature. So, in the treatise "Racine and Shakespeare", he defined romanticism as an art that should satisfy the public's demands for an understanding of modern life itself.
Open controversy with romanticism and the rejection of romantic poetics arises later - within the next period in the development of realistic literature. This period, the chronological framework of which is the 50-60s, is separated from early realism by the February Revolution of 1848 - the so-called “democratic protest”, which pursued its goal to limit the power of the aristocracy and was defeated. The defeat of the revolution, the establishment of the Second Empire and the onset of the era of conservatism and reaction after 1850 caused serious changes in the outlook of French writers and poets, finally discrediting the romantic view of the world. We will consider the reflection of this worldview shift in literature on the example of the works of Gustave Flaubert and Charles Baudelaire.
French Realism 1830-1840s
Frederic Stendhal (1783-1842)
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Stendhal was born in the provincial city of Grenoble. Leaving native city at the age of 16, in the vain hope of making a career in the capital, at the age of 17 he enlists in the Napoleonic army and, as an auditor and intendant, participates in all of Napoleon's European companies, from his Italian campaigns to the war against Russia in 1812. He witnessed the Battle of Borodino and personally experienced all the horrors of Napoleon's retreat from Russia, which he described in detail in his diaries, however, quite ironically. So, he compared his participation in the Russian campaign with a sip of lemonade. Stendhal's biographers explain this irony in describing deeply tragic events by the defensive reaction of a shocked consciousness, trying to cope with a traumatic experience in irony and bravado.
The "Napoleonic" period ended with Stendhal's seven-year "emigration" to Italy. Deep knowledge of Italian art and admiration for the Italian national character determined the most important and cross-cutting theme of the subsequent work of Stendhal: the opposition of Italians as bearers of a whole, passionate nature to the French, in whose national nature vanity, according to Stendhal, destroyed the ability for selflessness and passion. This idea is developed in detail in the treatise On Love (1821), where Stendhal contrasts love-passion (the Italian type of love) with love-vanity (the French type of feeling).
After the establishment of the July Monarchy, Stendhal served as the French consul in Italy, alternating diplomatic duties with literary activity... In addition to art history, autobiographical, biographical and travel journalism, Stendhal owns novelistic works (the collection “Italian Chronicles” (1829)) and novels, the most famous of which are “Red and Black” (1830), “Red and White” (not finished. ), "Parma Abode" (1839).
Stendhal's aesthetics developed under the influence of the experience that resulted from his participation in the Russian campaign of Napoleon. Stendhal's main aesthetic work is Racine and Shakespeare (1825). In it, Napoleon's defeat is interpreted as a turning point in the history of literature: according to Stendhal, a nation that survived the downfall of the emperor needs new literature. This should be literature aimed at a true, objective depiction of modern life and comprehension of the deep laws of its tragic development.
Stendhal's reflections on how to achieve this goal (the goal of objectively depicting modernity) are already contained in his early diaries (1803–1804). Here Stendhal formulated the doctrine of personal self-realization in literature. Its name - "Bailey" - he formed from his own name Henri Bayle ("Stendhal" - one of the numerous pseudonyms of the writer). Within the framework of Baileyism, literary creation is considered as a form of scientific knowledge about a person, that is, as a way of studying the objective content of the life of the human soul. From Stendhal's point of view, such knowledge can be provided by positive sciences, and above all mathematics. "Apply mathematics to the human heart" - this is how the writer formulates the essence of his method. Mathematics in this phrase means a strictly logical, rational, analytical approach to the study of the human psyche. According to Stendhal, following this path, it is possible to identify those objective factors under the influence of which the inner life of a person is formed. Reflecting on such factors, Stendhal particularly insists on the role of climate, historical circumstances, social laws and cultural traditions... The most striking example of the application of the “mathematical” method to the sphere of feelings is the treatise On Love (1821), where Stendhal analyzes love from the point of view of the universal laws of its development. One of the central ideas of this treatise connects the peculiarities of the experience of love feelings with belonging to the national culture. The man in love is seen by Stendhal as a carrier national character, which almost completely determines his love behavior.
Thus, the analysis of human psychology through the study of the external determinants of his behavior based on the achievements and methods of science is, according to Stendhal, a necessary condition for the implementation of the project of literature as a form of objective knowledge about the essence of real life. This is the kind of literature that contemporaries who survived the revolution and the defeat of Napoleon need. These events of French history, according to Stendhal, canceled both the relevance of classicism (after all, it is not characterized by plausibility in depicting conflicts) and the relevance of romantic writing (it idealizes life). Stendhal, however, also calls himself a romantic, but he puts a different meaning in this self-name than that which was assigned to romanticism in the 1820s and 30s. For him, romanticism is an art that can say something significant about modern life, its problems and contradictions.
Stendhal also makes a declaration of such an understanding of literature, polemicizing with the romantic refusal to portray the prose of life, in his novel Red and Black.
The plot of the novel consists in the description of five years in the life of Julien Sorel - a young man of low social origin, obsessed with a vain intention to take a worthy place in society. His goal is not just social well-being, but the fulfillment of his own “heroic duty”. Julien Sorel connects this debt with high self-realization, an example of which he finds in the figure of Napoleon - "an unknown and poor lieutenant" who "became the ruler of the world." The desire to conform to his idol and "conquer" society are the main motives of the hero's behavior. Starting his career as a tutor for the children of the mayor of the provincial city of Verrieres, he reaches the post of secretary to the Parisian aristocrat Marquis de La Mole, becomes the fiancé of his daughter Matilda, but dies on the guillotine, being convicted of attempted murder of his first lover, the mother of his Verierre students Madame de Renal, who unwittingly exposed him in the eyes of M. de La Mole as the selfish seducer of his daughter. The story of this, albeit an exceptional, but private story is accompanied by the subtitle "Chronicle of the XIX century". This subtitle gives the tragedy of Julien Sorel a huge typical sound: it is not about the fate of an individual, but about the very essence of a person's position in French society during the Restoration. Julien Sorel chooses hypocrisy as the means of realizing his ambitious claims. The hero does not assume any other way of self-affirmation in society, which makes human rights directly dependent on his social origin. However, the "tactics" chosen by him come into conflict with his natural morality and high sensitivity. Disgusted with the chosen means of achieving the goal, the hero still practices them, hoping that the role he plays will provide him with successful socialization. The internal conflict experienced by the hero can be described as a confrontation in his minds of two models - Napoleon and Tartuffe: Julien Sorel considers Napoleon to be an example of the implementation of his "heroic duty", but calls Tartuffe his "teacher", and reproduces his tactics.
However, this conflict in the mind of the hero still finds its gradual resolution. This takes place in episodes describing his crime and the imprisonment and trial that followed. The portrayal of the crime itself in the novel is unusual: it is not accompanied by any explanatory commentary from the author, so the motives for Julien Sorel's assassination attempt on Madame de Renal seem incomprehensible. Researchers of Stendhal's work offer a number of versions. According to one of them, the shot at Madame de Renal is an impulsive reaction of the hero to the exposure, the justice of which he cannot but admit, and at the same time an impulsive expression of disappointment in Madame de Renal's "angelic soul". In a state of evil despair, the hero, they say, for the first time commits an act that is not controlled by reason, and for the first time acts in accordance with his passionate, "Italian" nature, the manifestations of which he has until now suppressed for the sake of career goals.
In the framework of another version, the hero's crime is interpreted as a deliberate choice, a deliberate attempt in a situation of catastrophic exposure to nevertheless fulfill the duty of high self-realization prescribed for oneself. In accordance with this interpretation, the hero deliberately chooses "heroic" self-destruction: in response to the lucrative offer of the Marquis de La Mole, who is ready to pay Julien for the promise to leave Matilda, the hero shoots Madame de Renal. This seemingly insane act, according to the hero's plan, should discredit all suspicions that he was driven by base greed. “I was insulted in the most cruel way. I killed, ”he will say later, insisting on the high content of his behavior.
The hero's prison reflections indicate that he is experiencing a reappraisal of values. Alone with himself, Sorel admits that the direction of his life was wrong, that he suppressed the only genuine feeling (feeling for Madame de Renal) for the sake of false goals - the goals of successful socialization, understood as a "heroic duty". The result of the "spiritual enlightenment" of the hero (the expression of A. V. Karelsky) is the rejection of life in society, since, according to Julien Sorel, it inevitably dooms a person to hypocrisy and voluntary distortion of his personality. The hero does not accept the possibility of salvation (it is quite achievable at the cost of repentance) and instead of a guilty monologue he utters a speech accusing modern society, thereby deliberately signing himself a death sentence. Thus, the collapse of the idea of \u200b\u200b"heroic duty" turned, on the one hand, into the restoration of the hero's true "I", rejection of the mask and false goal, and on the other hand, total disappointment in public life and a conscious withdrawal from it under the sign of an unquestionably heroic protest.
A distinctive feature of Stendhal's style in the novel Red and Black is an in-depth psychological analysis. Its subject is not just the psychology and consciousness of a person who is in conflict with the social world and with himself, but his self-consciousness, that is, the hero's understanding of the essence of the processes that take place in his soul. Stendhal himself called his style "egotistic" because of the orientation towards the image of the inner life of the reflective hero. This style finds its expression in the reproduction of the struggle of two opposing principles in the mind of Julien Sorel: the sublime (the natural nobility of the hero's nature) and the base (hypocritical tactics). It is not for nothing that the title of the novel contains the opposition of two colors (red and black), perhaps it symbolizes the inner contradiction that the hero is experiencing, as well as his conflict with the world.
The main means of reproducing the psychology of the hero are the author's commentary and the hero's inner monologue. As an illustration, we present a fragment from the penultimate chapter of the novel describing the experiences of Julien Sorel on the eve of the execution.
“One evening Julien seriously thought about committing suicide. His soul was tormented by a deep depression into which he was plunged by the departure of Madame de Renal. Nothing any longer occupied him either in real life or in imagination.<…> Something exalted and unstable appeared in his character, like that of a young German student. He was imperceptibly losing ... courageous pride. "
The continuation of the fragment forms the hero's inner monologue:
“I loved the truth ... And where is it? .. Everywhere there is one hypocrisy, or at least quackery, even among the most virtuous, even among the greatest! And his lips twisted into a grimace of disgust. - No, a person cannot trust a person<…> Where is the truth? In religion, unless ...<…> Ah, if only a true religion existed in the world! ..<…> But why am I still a hypocrite, cursing hypocrisy? After all, this is not death, not prison, not dampness, but the fact that Madame de Renal is not with me - that is what depresses me.<…>
- Here it is, the influence of contemporaries! He said aloud, laughing bitterly. - I speak alone, to myself, two steps from death, and yet I am a hypocrite ... About the nineteenth century!<…> And he laughed like Mephistopheles. “What madness it is to talk about these great questions!”
1. I never cease to be hypocritical, as if there is someone here who is listening to me.
2. I forget to live and love when I have so few days left to live ... "
The in-depth analyticism of this fragment is obvious: it offers both the author's analysis of the psychological state of the hero and the analysis that the hero himself carries out in relation to his reasoning and experiences. The numbering of the theses undertaken by the hero emphasizes the analytical character of his reflections.
Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
Basic facts of biography and creativity .
Balzac comes from a family of an official, whose ancestors were peasants by the name of Balssa. His father replaced his family name with an aristocratic version of "Balzac", and the writer himself added the noble prefix "de" to it. According to A.V. Karelsky's observation, the young Balzac belongs to the psychological type that Stendhal was depicted in the image of Julien Sorel. Obsessed with a thirst for fame and success, Balzac, despite his legal education, chooses literature as a sphere of self-affirmation, which he initially considers as a good source of income. In the 1920s, under various pseudonyms, one after another, he published novels in the Gothic spirit, pursuing high fees as the primary goal. Subsequently, he called the 1920s a period of "literary swinishness" (in a letter to his sister).
It is believed that true Balzac's work begins in the 30s. Since the beginning of the 30s, Balzac has been developing an original concept - the idea of \u200b\u200bcombining all works in a single cycle - with the aim of the broadest and most multifaceted depiction of the life of contemporary French society. At the beginning of the 40s the name of the cycle was formed - "The Human Comedy". This title implies a multi-valued allusion to Dante's Divine Comedy.
The embodiment of such a grandiose plan required a huge, almost sacrificial labor: researchers calculated that Balzac wrote up to 60 pages of text every day, systematically indulging in work, by his own admission, from 18 to 20 hours a day.
Compositionally, "The Human Comedy" (like Dante's "Divine Comedy") consists of three parts:
- "Studies on Morals" (71 works, of which the most famous are the short story "Gobsek", the novels "Eugene Grande", "Father Goriot", "Lost Illusions");
- "Philosophical studies" (22 works, of which - the novel "Shagreen Skin", the story "Unknown Masterpiece");
- "Analytical Studies" (two works, the most famous of which is "Physiology of Marriage").
Balzac's aesthetics developed under the influence of the scientific thought of his time, and first of all, natural science. In the Preface to The Human Comedy (1842), Balzac refers to the concept of Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, the predecessor of Darwin, professor of zoology, who put forward the idea of \u200b\u200bthe unity of the entire organic world. In accordance with this idea, living nature, with all its diversity, is a single system based on the gradual development of organisms from lower forms to higher ones. Balzac uses this idea to explain social life. For him, "society is like Nature" (as he writes in the "Preface" to "The Human Comedy"), and therefore it is an integral organism that develops according to objective laws and a certain cause-and-effect logic.
In the center of Balzac's interest is the contemporary, that is, bourgeois, stage in the evolution of the social world. Balzac's plan is aimed at the search for an objective law that determines the essence of bourgeois life.
The described set of ideas determined the basic aesthetic principles of Balzac's work. Let's list them.
1. Striving for a universal, all-encompassing image of French society. It is expressively presented, for example, in the compositional structure of the first part of The Human Comedy - Etudes on Morals. This cycle of novels includes six sections according to the aspect of social life that is explored in them: "Scenes of Private Life", "Scenes of Provincial Life", "Scenes of Parisian Life", "Scenes of Military Life", "Scenes of Political Life", " Scenes of Country Life ". In a letter to Evelina Hanska, Balzac wrote that the Sketches on Morals would depict “all social phenomenaso [nothing]<…> will not be forgotten. "
2. Setting on the image of society as a single system, similar to a natural organism. It finds its expression, for example, in such a feature of The Human Comedy as the presence of connections of very different kinds between characters who are at the most different levels of the social ladder. Thus, an aristocrat in Balzac's world turns out to be the bearer of the same moral philosophy as a convict. But this attitude is especially demonstrated by the principle of "through" characters: in "The Human Comedy" a number of heroes move from work to work. For example, Eugene Rastignac (he appears in almost all Scenes, as Balzac himself explained), or the convict Vautrin. Such characters just materialize Balzac's idea that social life is not a collection of disparate events, but an organic unity, within which everything is connected with everything.
3. Attitude to study the life of society in a historical perspective. Reproaching contemporary historical scholarship for the lack of interest in the history of morals, Balzac, in the Preface, emphasizes the historiographic character of The Human Comedy. For him, modernity is the result of a natural historical development. He considers it necessary to look for its origins in the events of the Great French Revolution of 1789. It is not for nothing that he calls himself the historian of modern bourgeois life, and he calls The Human Comedy "a book about 19th century France."
End of introductory snippet.
Realism, symbolism. The presentation will acquaint with the work of French artists Courbet, Daumier, Millet.
Realism in French painting
The classicism style that reigned in the art of the Enlightenment, already at the end of the 18th century was supplanted by a new style, which was the result of the upheavals caused by the bourgeois revolution in France and disappointment in its results. Romanticism became this style. I have devoted several notes to the art of romanticism. Today we'll talk about realism, which began to form in the depths of romantic art. The French literary critic Jules François Chanfleurie, who first used the term "realism", contrasted it with symbolism and romanticism. But, the realistic artistic direction did not become an absolute antagonist of romanticism, but rather was its continuation.
French realism, striving for a truthful reflection of reality, naturally turned out to be associated with the revolutionary movement and received the name "critical realism". An appeal to modernity in all its manifestations, the reproduction of typical characters in typical circumstances, relying on the vital reliability of the image is the main requirement of realism.
"The art of painting cannot be anything other than the depiction of objects visible and tangible by the artist ... a realist artist must convey the customs, ideas, and the image of his era"
Gustave Courbet
It is unlikely that I could tell about the work and fate of Gustave Courbet, who is often called the founder realism in French painting, better than the creators did film "Liberty Courbet" from the series "My Pushkin"
In his presentation "Realism in French Painting" I also tried to present the work of wonderful French artists Francois Millet and Honore Daumier... For those who are interested in this topic, I want to recommend taking a look at the site Gallerix.ru
As always, small list of books in which you can read about French realism and French realist artists:
- Encyclopedia for children. T.7. Art. Part two. - M .: Avanta +, 2000.
- Beckett V. History of Painting. - M .: LLC "Astrel Publishing House": LLC "AST Publishing House", 2003.
- Dmitrieva N.A. A Brief History of Art. Issue III: Countries of Western Europe of the XIX century; Russia of the XIX century. - M .: Art, 1992
- Emohonova L.G. World art culture: Textbook. A guide for students. Wednesday ped. study. institutions. - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 1998.
- Lvova E.P., Sarabyanov D.V., Borisova E.A., Fomina N.N., Berezin V.V., Kabkova E.P., Nekrasova L.M. World Art. XIX century. Fine arts, music, theater. - SPb .: Peter, 2007.
- Samin D.K. One hundred great artists. - M .: Veche, 2004.
- Freeman J. History of Art. - M .: "Astrel Publishing House", 2003.
Realistic direction in art and literature of the 19th century.
In the 19th century, society begins to develop rapidly. New technologies appear, medicine, chemical industry, power engineering, and transport are developing. The population begins to gradually move from old villages to cities, striving for comfort and modern life.
The cultural sphere could not but react to all these changes. After all, changes in society - both economic and social - began to create new styles and artistic directions. Thus, romanticism was replaced by a large stylistic trend - realism. Unlike its predecessor, this style assumed the reflection of life in the form in which it is, without any embellishment and distortion. This aspiration was not new in art - it is found in antiquity, and in medieval folklore, and in the era of the Enlightenment.
Realism finds its clearer expression since the end of the 17th century. The increased awareness of people who are tired of living with non-existent ideals gives rise to an objective reflection - realism, which in French means "material". Some tendencies of realism are evident in the painting of Michelangelo Caravagge and Rembrandt. But realism only becomes the most integral structure of views on life in the 19th century. During this period, it reaches its maturity and expands its borders to the entire European territory, and, of course, Russia.
The hero of the realistic direction is a person who embodies reason, seeking to pass judgment on the negative manifestations of the surrounding life. IN literary works social contradictions are investigated, the life of disadvantaged people is increasingly portrayed. Daniel Defoe is considered the founder of the European realistic novel. The basis of his works is the good beginning of man. But circumstances can change him, he is subject to external factors.
In France, Frederic Stendhal became the founder of a new direction. He literally swam against the current. Indeed, in the first half of the 19th century, romanticism reigned in art. The main character was the "extraordinary hero". And suddenly, Stendhal has a completely different image. His heroes actually live their lives not just in Paris, but in the provinces. The author proved to the reader that the description of everyday life, true human experiences, without exaggeration and embellishment, can be brought to the level of art. G. Flaubert went even further. He already reveals the psychological character of the hero. This required an absolutely accurate description of the smallest details, a display of the outer side of life for a more detailed transfer of its essence. Guy de Maupassant became his follower in this direction.
Authors such as Ivan Krylov, Alexander Griboyedov, Alexander Pushkin were at the origin of the development of realism in 19th century art in Russia. The first brightest elements of realism appeared already in 1809 in the debut collection of fables by I.A. Krylov. The main thing at the heart of all his fables is a concrete fact. A character is formed from it, this or that behavioral situation is born, which is exacerbated by the use of established ideas about the nature of animal characters. Thanks to the chosen genre, Krylov showed vivid contradictions in modern life - the clash of the strong and the weak, the rich and the poor, ridiculing officials and nobles.
In Griboyedov's work, realism manifests itself in the use of typical characters who find themselves in typical circumstances - the main principle of this trend. Thanks to this technique, his comedy "Woe from Wit" is relevant today. The characters that he used in his works can always be found.
Realist Pushkin presents a slightly different artistic concept. His characters are looking for patterns in life, relying on educational theories, universal human values. History and religion play an important role in his works. This brings his works closer to the people and their character. An even sharper and more profound nationality manifested itself in the works of Lermontov and Gogol, and later in the works of representatives of the "natural school".
If we talk about painting, the main motto of the 19th century realist artists was an objective depiction of reality. So, French artists, in the mid-30s of the 19th century, led by Theodore Rousseau, began to paint rural landscapes. It turned out that the most ordinary nature, without embellishment, can become a unique material for creation. Whether it's a gloomy day, a dark sky before a thunderstorm, a tired plowman - all this is a kind of portrait of real life.
Gustave Courbet, a French painter of the second half of the 19th century, caused anger in bourgeois circles with his paintings. After all, he portrayed a true life, what he saw around him. These could be genre scenes, portraits and still lifes. His most famous works include "The Burial at Ornans", "Fire", "Deer by the Water" and the scandalous canvases "The Origin of the World" and "Sleepers".
In Russia, the founder of realism in 19th century art was P.A. Fedotov (The Major's Matchmaking). In his works, resorting to satire, he denounces vicious morals and sympathizes with the poor. His legacy is full of cartoons and portraits.
In the second half of the 19th century, the theme of “folk life” was picked up by I.Ye. Repin. In his famous paintings "Refusal of confession" and "Barge Haulers on the Volga" exposed the cruel exploitation of the people and the protest that is brewing among the masses.
Realistic trends continued to exist in the 20th century in the work of writers and artists. But, under the influence of modern times, they began to acquire other, more modern features.
French realism.
Realism 30-40s
Realism is a true, objective reflection of reality. Realism arose in France and England under the conditions of the triumph of the bourgeois order. Social antagonisms and shortcomings of the capitalist system determined the sharply critical attitude of realist writers towards it. Οʜᴎ denounced money-grubbing, flagrant social inequality, selfishness, hypocrisy. In its ideological purposefulness, it becomes critical realism. Together with the ideas of humanism and social justice. In France, in the 30s and 40s, Oporet de Balzac created their best realistic works, who wrote a 95-volume "Human Comedy"; Victor Hugo - ʼʼCathedral Notre dame de parisʼʼ, “Ninety-third year”, “Approved”, etc.
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Gustave Flaubert - "Madame Bovary", "Education of the Senses", "Salammbo" Prosper Merimo - master of short stories "Mateo Falcone", "Colomba", "Carmen", author of plays, historical chronicles "Chronicle of the times of Charles 10", etc.
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In the 30s - 40s in England. Charles Dickens is an outstanding satirist and humorist, the works of "Dombie and Son", "Hard Times", "Great Expectations", which are the pinnacle of realism. William Makepeace Thackeray in Vanity Fair, in historical work The History of Henry Esmond, a collection of satirical essays The Book of Snobs, figuratively showed the vices inherent in bourgeois society. In the last third of the 19th century. the literature of the Scandinavian countries is gaining a global significance. This is, first of all, works by Norwegian writers: Heinrich Ibsen - the dramas "Doll House" ("Nora"), "Ghosts", "Enemy of the People" called for the emancipation of the human person from the hypocritical bourgeois morality. Bjornson dramas "Bankruptcy", "Over Our Power", and poetry. Knut Hamsun - psychological novels "Hunger", "Mysteries", "Pan", "Victoria", which depict a personality revolt against the philistine environment.
Revolution of 1789ᴦ., A time of acute political struggle. In France, five political regimes are changing: 1.) 1795 - 1799 period of the Directory, 2.) 1799 - 1804 period of Napoleon's consulate. 3) 1804 - 1814 - the period of the Napoleonic empire and wars. 4) 1815 - 1830 - the period of restoration. 5) 1830 - 1848 - the period of the July monarchy, 6) the revolution of 1848, the strengthening of the bourgeois. Realism in France took shape theoretically and the word. Literature is divided into two stages: Balzac's and Flaubert's. I) 30 –Year under realism means the reproduction of various natural phenomena. 40s, realism - the installation of the image of modern life, based not only on imagination, but also on direct observation. Features: 1) analysis of life, 2) the principle of typification is approved; 3) the principle of cyclization; 4) orientation towards science; 5) manifestation of psychologism. The leading genre is the novel. Ii) 50sa turning point in the concept of realism, which was associated with the picturesque creativity of Courbet, he and Chanfleury formulated a new program. Prose, sincerity, objectivity in the observed.
BERANGE Pierre-Jean - French songwriter. The first significant works of B. in this genus are his pamphlets on Napoleon I: "King Iveto", "Political Treatise". But the heyday of B. satire falls on the era of restoration. The return to power of the Bourbons, and with them the emigrants-aristocrats, who during the years of the revolution have not learned anything and have not forgotten anything, evokes in B. a long series of songs, pamphlets, in which the entire social and political system of the era finds a brilliant satirical reflection. Their continuation is pamphlet songs directed against Louis Philippe as a representative of the financial bourgeoisie on the throne. In these songs, to-rye B. himself called arrows fired into the throne, the church, the bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie, the poet appears as a political tribune, through poetry, defending the interests of the laboring bourgeoisie, who played a revolutionary role in the era of B., which subsequently finally passed to the proletariat. Being in opposition to Napoleon during his reign, B. asserts the cult of his memory during the Bourbons and Louis Philippe. In the songs of this cycle, Napoleon is idealized as a representative of the revolutionary power, associated with the masses. The main motives of this cycle: belief in the power of ideas, freedom as some kind of abstract good, and not as a real result of the class struggle, which is extremely important connected with violence ("Idea", "Thought"). In one of the songs of this cycle, B. calls his teachers: Owen, La Fontaine, Fourier... Thus, we have before us a follower of the utopian pre-Marxian socialism. The first collection of poems deprives him of the mercy of his superiors at the university, where he then served. The second collection brings B. a prosecution, ending with a three-month imprisonment, for insulting morality, church and royal power. The fourth collection resulted in a second imprisonment for the author, this time for 9 months. For all that, B.'s participation in political life in the proper sense of the word (if not to touch upon the revolutionary action of the songs) poured out in rather moderate forms, for example.
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in the form of support for the liberals in the revolution of 1830. In recent years, B. withdrew from public life, settling near Paris, moved in his work from political to social motives, developing them in the spirit of populism (ʼʼRyzhaya Zhannaʼʼ, ʼʼBrodyagaʼʼ, ʼʼJackʼʼ, etc.) ...
BALZAC, ONORE(Balzac, Honoré de) (1799-1850), French writer who recreated a complete picture of the social life of his time. An attempt to make a fortune in the publishing and printing business (1826-1828) led Balzac into large debts. Returning to writing, he published in 1829 the novel Last Shuang... It was the first book to be published under his own name, along with a humorous manual for husbands. Physiology of marriage 1829) she drew public attention to the new author. At the same time, the main work of his life began: in 1830 the first Private scenes , an undoubted masterpiece House of a cat playing ball , in 1831 the first Philosophical stories and stories ... For several more years, Balzac worked part-time as a freelance journalist͵ however, the main forces from 1830 to 1848 were given to an extensive cycle of novels and stories, known to the world as Human comedy.In 1834, Balzac conceived the idea of \u200b\u200bconnecting common heroes written from 1829 and future works and combining them into an epic, later called "The Human Comedy". Embodying the idea of \u200b\u200buniversal interdependencies in the world, Balzac conceived an all-encompassing artistic study of French society and man. The philosophical framework of this artistic building is materialism of the 18th century, modern natural-scientific theories to Balzac, peculiarly melted elements of mystical teachings. The Human Comedy has three sections. I. Studies of morals: 1) scenes of private life; 2) scenes of provincial life; 3) scenes of Parisian life; 4) scenes of political life; 5) scenes of military life; 6) scenes of rural life. II. Philosophical studies. III. Analytical studies. It is, as it were, three circles of a spiral, ascending from facts to causes and foundations (see the Preface to The Human Comedy, Sobr.
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cit., vol. 1, M., I960). The "Human Comedy" includes 90 works. Balzac bhe was the first great writer to pay close attention to the material background and "look" of his characters; before him no one had portrayed money-grubbing and ruthless careerism as the main stimuli in life. Gobseck 1830), in Unknown masterpiece (1831), Evgenia Grande, Letters to a stranger about love for the Polish decanter.
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In the 1830s and 1840s, especially in the works of Balzac, the characteristic features of realism appear. Realists see their main task in the artistic reproduction of reality, in the knowledge of the laws that determine its dialectics and variety of form.
“The historian itself should have been French society, I could only be its secretary,” Balzac pointed out in the preface to The Human Comedy, proclaiming the principle of objectivity in the approach to depicting reality as the most important principle of realistic art. Along with this, the great novelist notes: "The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it!" Indeed, as an art that gives a multifaceted picture of reality; realism is far from being limited to moral description and description of everyday life, its tasks also include the analytical study of the objective laws of life - historical, social, ethical, psychological, as well as a critical assessment of modern man and society, on the one hand, and the identification of a positive beginning in living reality - on the other ...
One of the key postulates of realism - the assertion of the principles of realistic typification and their theoretical comprehension - is also associated primarily with French literature, with the work of Balzac. The principle of cyclization, introduced by Balzac, was also innovative for the first half of the 19th century and significant for the fate of realism. The Human Comedy is the first experience of creating a series of novels and stories linked by a complex chain of causes and effects and the fates of characters, each time appearing at a new stage of their fate and moral and psychological evolution. Cyclization responded to the desire of realism for an all-encompassing, analytical and systemic artistic study of reality.
Already in Balzac's aesthetics, an orientation toward science, primarily toward biology, is revealed. This trend develops further in the work of Flaubert, who seeks to apply the principles of scientific research in the modern novel. Thus, the "scientific" attitude characteristic of positivist aesthetics manifests itself in the artistic practice of realists long before it becomes the leading one in naturalism. But both Balzac and Flaubert's striving for "scientific" is free from the tendency inherent in naturalists to absolutize natural laws and their role in the life of society.
The strong and bright side of realism in France is psychologism, in which the romantic tradition appears deeper and more multifaceted. The range of causal motivations of psychology, character, human actions, which ultimately form his destiny, in the literature of realism significantly expands, the emphasis is made equally on historical and social determinism, and on the personal and individual principle. Thanks to this, the greatest reliability of the psychological analysis is achieved.
The leading genre of realism in France, as in other countries, is becoming the novel in its varieties: moral descriptive, socio-psychological, psychological, philosophical, fantastic, adventure, historical.
New themes are reflected in the work of realists: the development of modern society, the emergence of new types and relationships, new morals and new aesthetic views. These themes are embodied in the works of Stendhal, Balzac and Mérimée. The national identity of French realism was reflected in the desire of these writers to understand the essence of the rich social experience accumulated by French society in the turbulent period that began with the revolution of 1789 and continued during the writers' lifetime.
Armed not only with their talent, but also with a deep knowledge of reality, the realists created a gigantic panorama of French life, showing it in motion. The works of Stendhal, Balzac, Mérimée and Beranger testified that in the course of the historical process the French nobility was approaching complete decline. Realists also saw the regularity of the emergence of new masters of life - representatives of the bourgeoisie, which they branded in the images of Valno or Gobsek.
The features of nascent realism immediately manifest themselves in different ways in the works of various writers. Despite the fact that the problematics of the works of Balzac and Stendhal are in many ways similar, the individual characteristics of their creative method differ significantly: Stendhal is, first of all, a master of the psychological novel, striving to deeply explore the inner world of individuals. Balzac creates a huge canvas of French reality, a whole world inhabited by many figures.
Both Stendhal and Balzac are historicism. Through their works, the idea goes that society is in a state of constant change, and they are looking for the reasons for this evolution. Historicism is also inherent in Merima. For him, the life of society is a constant change in the balance of social forces, affecting human character. In a number of his works, Merimee shows his contemporaries, disfigured and corrupted by bourgeois society ("Double Error", "Etruscan Vase", etc.).
All of the above features of French realism manifested themselves already in the 1830s - 40s, primarily in the works of Balzac and Stendhal. However, the fundamental novelty of realism as an artistic method is still poorly understood by the writers and critics of that time. Stendhal's theoretical performances (including Racine and Shakespeare, Walter Scott and The Princess of Cleves) are entirely in line with the struggle for romanticism. Balzac, although he senses the fundamental novelty of the method of The Human Comedy, does not give it any concrete definition. In his critical works, he separates himself from Stendhal and Mérimée, at the same time recognizing the closeness that connects him with these writers. In his "Study of Bale" (1840) Balzac tries to classify the phenomena of contemporary literature, but at the same time refers himself to different currents (to the "eclectic") and Stendhal (to the "literature of ideas"). For the "school of ideas" Balzac considered an analytical beginning aimed at revealing complex collisions as characteristic inner peace... By the "eclectic school" he meant art, striving for a wide epic coverage of reality and social generalizations contained in the multitude of types created by artists based on observations of life. Even such an authoritative critic of the 19th century as Sainte-Beuve, in his article "Ten Years Later in Literature" (1840) dispenses with the term "realism", and in "The Human Comedy" he sees only a manifestation of excessive and reprehensible truthfulness, comparing its author with " a doctor who immodestly divulges the shameful diseases of his patients. " The critic treats Stendhal's works with the same shallowness. And only with the appearance of "Madame Bovary" (1857) Flaubert Saint-Beuve declares: "... I seem to catch the signs new literature, traits that are apparently distinctive for the representatives of new generations "(" Madame Bovary "by Gustave Flaubert" (1857)).
All this testifies to the fact that the formation of the theoretical concept of a new artistic method at the first stage of its evolution lags far behind practice. In general, the first stage of French realism is the creation of a new method, the theoretical substantiation of which will begin somewhat later.
The growing critical tendency in French literature proceeded along an ascending line, intensifying as the anti-popular essence of Louis Philippe's bourgeois monarchy was revealed. As evidence of this, in the second half of the 30s, Balzac's Lost Illusions appeared, dedicated to the theme of disillusionment with bourgeois reality.
In France, realistic aesthetics received a more pronounced theoretical formulation than in other countries, and the word "realism" itself was first used as a term expressing a complex of artistic principles, whose adherents created something like a school.
As noted earlier, the term "realism" began to appear on the pages of French magazines as early as the 1820s, but only in the 1840s this word was freed from its negative evaluative meaning. Deep changes in attitudes towards the concept of "realism" will take place somewhat later, in the mid-1950s, and will be associated with the activities of J. Chanfleurie and L. E. Duranty and their associates.
It should be noted that the path of the early French realists was far from smooth. Bourgeois society hounded and persecuted those who wrote the truth about it. The biographies of Beranger, Stendhal, Balzac are rich in facts that testify to how cleverly the bourgeois ruling circles used the most various means in order to get rid of the writers they disliked. Beranger was put on trial for his works. Stendhal was almost unknown during his lifetime, Balzac, widely known abroad, died without receiving due recognition in France. Merimee's service career was quite successful, but he was also assessed as a writer only after his death.
The 1830s and 40s represented an important period in the history of France and its literature. By the end of this period, that is, by the eve of the 1848 revolution, it had already become clear that the most essential, the newest in the rich literary experience of the 30s and 40s is associated with the realistic trend, whose representatives were able to create the most vivid and truthful pictures of French life between the two revolutions, to lay a solid foundation for the further development of national French literature.
The French art school at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries can be called the leading European school, it was in France at that time that art styles such as Rococo, Romanticism, Classicism, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism originated.
Rococo (French rococo, from rocaille - a decorative motif in the form of a shell) - a style in European art of the 1st half of the 18th century. Rococo is characterized by hedonism, a withdrawal into the world of idyllic theatrical play, an addiction to pastoral and sensually erotic subjects. The character of the Rococo decor acquired emphatically graceful, sophisticatedly complicated forms.François Boucher, Antoine Watteau, Jean Honore Fragonard worked in the Rococo style.
Classicism - style in European art of the 17th - early 19th century, a characteristic feature of which was the appeal to the forms of ancient art as an ideal aesthetic and ethical standard.Jean Baptiste Greuze, Nicolas Poussin, Jean Baptiste Chardin, Jean Dominique Ingres, Jacques-Louis David worked in the style of classicism.
Romanticism - the style of European art in the 18-19th centuries, the characteristic features of which were the assertion of the intrinsic value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the image of strong and often rebellious passions and characters.Francisco de Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Gericault, William Blake worked in the style of romanticism.
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Edouard Manet. Breakfast at the workshop. 1868 g. |
The birth of realism in painting is most often associated with the work of the French artist Gustave Courbet, who opened his own painting in Paris in 1855. personal exhibition "Pavilion of Realism", although even before it, the artists of the Barbizon school Theodore Rousseau, Jean-Francois Millet, Jules Breton worked in a realistic manner. In the 1870s. realism was divided into two main areas - naturalism and impressionism.
Realistic painting has become widespread throughout the world. The Wanderers worked in the style of realism of an acute social orientation in Russia in the 19th century.
Impressionism (from the French impression - impression) - a style in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, a characteristic feature of which was the desire to most naturally capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey its fleeting impressions. Impressionism did not raise philosophical issues, but focused on the fluidity of the moment, mood and lighting. Life itself becomes the subjects of the Impressionists, like a line of small holidays, parties, pleasant picnics in nature in a friendly environment. The Impressionists were among the first to paint in the open air, without finalizing their work in the studio.Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Alfred Sisley and others worked in the style of impressionism.
Post-impressionism - an art style that emerged at the end of the 19th century. The Post-Impressionists strove to freely and generally convey the materiality of the world, resorting to decorative stylization.Post-Impressionism gave rise to such areas of art as expressionism, symbolism and modernity.
Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec worked in the style of post-impressionism.
Let us take a closer look at impressionism and post-impressionism using the example of the work of individual masters of France in the 19th century.
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Edgar Degas. Self-portrait. 1854-1855 |
Starting with the strict composition of historical paintings and portraits, Degas in the 1870s became close to the representatives of impressionism and turned to the depiction of modern urban life - streets, cafes, theatrical performances.
In Degas's paintings, a dynamic, often asymmetrical composition, precise flexible drawing, unexpected angles, the activity of interaction between figure and space are carefully thought out and verified.
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E. Degas. Bathroom. 1885 g. |
The favorite pastel technique allowed Edgar Degas to fully demonstrate his talent as a draftsman. Saturated tones and "shimmering" strokes of pastels helped the artist create that special colorful atmosphere, that iridescent airiness that so distinguishes all his works.
In his mature years, Degas often turns to the topic of ballet. Fragile and weightless figures of ballerinas appear before the viewer either in the twilight of dance classes, or in the light of spotlights on the stage, or in short moments of relaxation. The apparent randomness of the composition and the impartial position of the author create the impression of a spy on someone else's life, the artist shows us the world of grace and beauty, without falling into excessive sentimentality.
Edgar Degas can be called a subtle colorist, his pastels are surprisingly harmonious, sometimes delicate and light, sometimes built on sharp color contrasts. Degas's manner was remarkable for his freedom, he applied pastels with bold, broken strokes, sometimes leaving the tone of the paper showing through the pastel or adding strokes with oil or watercolor. Color in Degas's paintings arises from an iridescent radiance, from a flowing stream of rainbow lines that give birth to form.
Degas's later works are distinguished by the intensity and richness of color, which are complemented by the effects of artificial lighting, enlarged, almost flat forms, the tightness of space, giving them an intensely dramatic character. In that
period Degas wrote one of his best works - "Blue Dancers". The artist works here in large spots of color, giving priority to the decorative organization of the surface of the painting. By the beauty of color harmony and compositional solution, the painting "Blue Dancers" can be considered the best embodiment of the theme of the ballet by Degas, who achieved in this painting the ultimate richness of texture and color combinations.
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P.O. Renoir. Self-portrait. 1875 g. |
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P.O. Renoir. Paddling pool. 1869 g. |
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P.O. Renoir. Portrait of the actress Jeanne Samary. 1877 g. |
It should be noted that the use of green, yellow, ocher, pink and red tones for depicting skin shocked the public of that time, unprepared for the perception of the fact that shadows should be colored, filled with light.
In the 1880s, the so-called "Ingres period" begins in the work of Renoir. Most famous work this period - "Big Bathers". To build a composition, Renoir first began to use sketches and sketches, the lines of the drawing became clear and definite, the colors lost their previous brightness and saturation, the painting as a whole began to look more restrained and colder.
In the early 1890s, new changes took place in Renoir art. In a painterly manner, iridescence of color appears, which is why this period is sometimes called "pearlescent", then this period gives way to "red", so named because of the preference for shades of reddish and pink colors.
Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (years of life 1848-1903) - French painter, sculptor and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he was the largest representative of post-impressionism. He began to paint in adulthood, the early period of creativity is associated with impressionism. The best works of Gauguin were written on the islands of Tahiti and Hiva-Oa in Oceania, where Gauguin left the "vicious civilization". The characteristic features of Gauguin's style include the creation on large flat canvases of static and contrasting compositions in color, deeply emotional and at the same time decorative.In The Yellow Christ, Gauguin depicted a crucifixion against the backdrop of a typical French rural landscape, a suffering Jesus surrounded by three Breton peasant women. The pacification spilled in the air, the calm submissive postures of women, the landscape saturated with sunny yellow color with trees in red autumn foliage, the peasant busy with his own affairs in the distance, cannot but come into conflict with what is happening on the cross. The environment contrasts sharply with Jesus, on whose face that stage of suffering is displayed, which borders on apathy, indifference to everything around him. The contradiction of the boundless torment accepted by Christ and the "invisibility" of this sacrifice by people - that's main topic this work of Gauguin.
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P. Gauguin. Are you jealous? 1892 g. |
on the shore two sisters - they just bathed, and now their bodies are spread out on the sand in casual voluptuous positions - talking about love, one memory causes contention: “How? Are you jealous!".
In painting the luscious full-blooded beauty of tropical nature, natural people, unspoiled by civilization, Gauguin portrayed a utopian dream of an earthly paradise, of human life in harmony with nature. Gauguin's Polynesian canvases resemble panels in terms of decorative color, flatness and monumentality of the composition, generalization of stylized drawing.
P. Gauguin. Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? 1897-1898
The picture “Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" Gauguin considered the sublime culmination of his reflections. According to the artist's intention, the painting should be read from right to left: three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title. The group of women with a child on the right side of the picture represents the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the extreme left group, Gauguin depicted human old age, approaching death; the blue idol in the background symbolizes the other world. This painting is the pinnacle of Gauguin's groundbreaking post-impressionist style; his style combined a clear use of colors, decorative color and compositional solutions, flatness and monumentality of the image with emotional expressiveness.
Gauguin's work anticipated many features of the Art Nouveau style emerging during this period and influenced the formation of the masters of the Nabis group and other painters of the early 20th century.
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V. Van Gogh. Self-portrait. 1889 g. |
In 1888, Van Gogh moved to Arles, where the originality of his creative manner was finally determined. A fiery artistic temperament, a painful impulse for harmony, beauty and happiness and, at the same time, fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied either in landscapes shining with sunny colors of the south ("The Yellow House", "The Harvest. La Cro valley"), or in ominous images reminiscent of a nightmare ("Night Cafe Terrace"); dynamics of color and smear
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V. Van Gogh. Night cafe terrace. 1888 g. |
Van Gogh's strenuous work in recent years was accompanied by bouts of mental illness, which led him to a hospital for the mentally ill in Arles, then to Saint-Remy (1889-1890) and to Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he committed suicide. Creativity of two recent years the artist's life is marked by an ecstatic obsession, an extremely heightened expression of color combinations, abrupt mood changes - from frenzied despair and gloomy visionary ("The Road with Cypresses and Stars") to the quivering feeling of enlightenment and peace ("Landscape at Auvers after the rain").
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V. Van Gogh. Irises. 1889 g. |
V. Van Gogh. Wheat field with crows. 1890 g.
"Wheat Field with Crows" - a painting by Van Gogh, painted by the artist in July 1890 and is one of his most famous works. The painting was supposedly completed on July 10, 1890, 19 days before his death in Auvers-sur-Oise. There is a version that Van Gogh committed suicide in the process of painting this picture (after going out to the open air with materials for drawing, he shot himself from a pistol purchased to scare away flocks of birds in the heart area, then he independently reached the hospital, where he died from loss blood).