Directions of Russian art of the 20th century briefly. The main directions of the fine arts of the XX century - SkillsUp - a convenient catalog of lessons on design, computer graphics, Photoshop lessons, Photoshop lessons

The era of Peter I is of fundamental importance for all Russian art of modern times. Russia in all areas, including in the field of cultural construction, had to stand on a par with Western European countries. Peter understood the great importance for Russia of mastering the advanced artistic experience of the West. Works of Western European masters were purchased, pensioner trips were arranged at the state expense of Russian masters to study in Europe, foreign artists were invited to work and train Russian masters in Russia.

I. N. Nikitin. Portrait of an outdoor hetman. 1720s Canvas, oil.

Noting the changes in Russian art, we must not forget that they were based on a great historical heritage, were prepared by the previous course of development of artistic culture. In the art of the XVII century. new features have already appeared, for example, the construction of palaces, the genre of portraiture in painting began to be determined, but they were most fully revealed at the beginning of the 18th century. National traditions also decisively influenced the nature of the work of many foreign masters who worked in Russia.

A. M. MATVEEV Auto-answer with wife. Canvas, oil.

The essence of Peter's transformations in the field of culture is its "secularization". This means that art becomes secular, it ceases to serve the interests of only a religious cult. The very composition of art is being transformed, new types of artistic activity appear, genres, and finally, the pictorial language is changing. The basis of painting is observation, the study of the forms of earthly nature and man, and not following canonized patterns, as in the Middle Ages.

Among the genres of painting, starting from the time of Peter the Great and throughout the 18th century. the leading becomes a portrait. The work of two Russian portrait painters - I. N. Nikitin and A. M. Matveev marks the birth of the psychological portrait itself.

V. L. Borovikovsky. Portrait of A. G. and V. G. Gagarin. 1802. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow

Civil and palace construction of the Petrine era is a bright new period in the history of Russian architecture.

Subordinate to the tasks of practical life arrangement, art in Peter's time was understood as a high degree of skill - "arts" in any business, whether it be painting, sculpture or making a model of a ship or watch mechanisms. The fusion of art with technology, science and craft determines the special artistic and engineering character of the culture of the Petrine era. Not only the state, but also the largest cultural action of Peter I was the founding of St. Petersburg - the new capital of the young Russian Empire, which is becoming the center of new art.

A. G. Venetsianov. At the harvest. Summer. 1820s Canvas, oil. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

Art begins to serve the tasks of decorating life and everyday life, acquires, along with a monumental scope, a festive, magnificent and decorative character. These features were most vividly and perfectly expressed in the work of the great architect VV Rastrelli - the builder of the Grand Palace in Tsarskoye Selo and the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg - brilliant examples of the Baroque style.

Second half of the 18th century - the time of a powerful brilliant flowering of Russian art of modern times. The time for apprenticeship with Europe is over. Established in 1757, the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts becomes a forge of national artistic personnel. The system of art education was streamlined, contacts with the European cultural world became more focused. The beginning of the activity of the Academy of Arts coincided with the establishment of classicism - a style that opposed the decorative splendor and extravagance of the Baroque with strict logic, reasonable clarity and proportion, which are rediscovered in classical works of ancient art and the Renaissance. In architecture, this is the time of the activity of such outstanding architects as V.I. Bazhenov - the author of the Pashkov house in Moscow, M.F. Kazakov - the builder of the Senate building in the Moscow Kremlin and many public and private buildings in Moscow, I.E. which built the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg, C. Cameron - the creator of a magnificent palace and landscape gardening ensemble in Pavlovsk near St. Petersburg. The rise of domestic sculpture in the work of F. G. Gordeev, I. P. Martos, M. I. Kozlovsky, F. F. Shchedrin is also associated with the era of classicism. The portrait sculpture of F. I. Shubin is distinguished by exceptional psychological insight, courage and flexibility of artistic techniques, alien to any conventional schemes. Evidence of the maturity of Russian art, achieved in the second half of the 18th century, is the diversity of creative individuals, which is reflected, for example, in the difference in the artistic style of the two largest masters of pictorial portraiture - F. S. Rokotov and D. G. Levitsky. Levitsky's painting is full of brilliance, intoxication with the visible beauty of the material world, captivates with the fullness of life, the amazing variety of recreated human types, the richness of emotional intonations - solemnity, grace, slyness, pride, coquetry, etc. Rokotov in the best portraits of the 1770s. appears as a master of intimate characteristics, manifested in the nuances and shades of facial expressions, mysteriously flickering from the dusk of picturesque backgrounds. The work of V. L. Borovikovsky, which completed the brilliant flowering of portrait art in the 18th century, was marked by the influence of the ideas and moods of sentimentalism.

F. S. Rokotov. Portrait of A. P. Struiskaya (detail). 1772. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

With the onset of the 19th century significant changes are taking place in Russian art. The beginning of the century was marked by the birth of a new artistic trend - romanticism, the first spokesman of which was O. A. Kiprensky. Russian painting owes the discovery of plein-air writing in the landscape to S. F. Shchedrin. A. G. Venetsianov becomes the founder of the Russian everyday genre. For the first time turning to the image of peasant life, he showed it as a world full of harmony, grandeur and beauty. Contrary to the opposition between “simple nature” and “elegant nature” that existed in academic aesthetics, the elegant was discovered in a field of activity that was previously considered unworthy of art. In the painting of Venetsianov, for the first time, the penetrating lyrics of Russian rural nature sounded. An excellent teacher, he brings up a galaxy of artists, such as A. V. Tyranov, G. V. Soroka and others. One of the leading genres in their work, along with landscape and portrait, is the interior. The genre composition of Russian art is enriched. Depicting life in its simple, non-ceremonial guise, in the peaceful course of everyday life, in pictures of their native nature, they made beauty in art commensurate with the feelings of ordinary people who perceive beauty and poetry as moments of rest and silence, won from everyday worries and labors. At the same time, a pictorial system emerges that is opposed to the academic school, a system based not on traditional patterns of the past, but on the search for harmonic patterns and poetry in everyday, everyday reality. Reality imperiously invades art and leads to the 40s. to the flourishing of everyday and satirical graphics (V. F. Timm, A. A. Agin), which is an analogy to the “natural school” in literature. This line of art culminates in the work of P. A. Fedotov, who introduces a conflict into the everyday picture, a developed dramatic action with a satirical social background, forcing the external environment to serve the goals of the social, moral, and later psychological characteristics of the characters. Rethinking the traditional forms of the academic school gives rise to such monumental creations in historical painting as "The Last Day of Pompeii" by K. P. Bryullov, on the one hand, and "The Appearance of Christ to the People" by A. A. Ivanov, on the other. Ivanov enriched painting with an in-depth psychological development, the discovery of a new, etude method of working on a large canvas. The wise assimilation of the classical heritage, the verification of its precepts by one’s own experience of painting in the open air, the scale of creative concepts, the attitude to the creative gift as a great responsibility for educating the people and improving their spiritual culture - all this made Ivanov’s work not only a school of skill, but also a great lesson in humanism in art.

O. A. Kiprensky. Portrait of a boy A. A. Chelishchev. OK. 1809. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

First third of the 19th century - the highest stage in the development of classicism in Russian architecture, usually referred to as Empire. The architectural creativity of this period is not so much the perfect design of individual buildings as the art of architectural organization of large spaces of streets and squares. Such are the urban planning ensembles of St. Petersburg - the Admiralty (architect A. D. Zakharov), the Stock Exchange on the spit of Vasilyevsky Island (architect J. Thomas de Thomon), the Kazan Cathedral (architect A. N. Voronikhin). The ensembles of K. I. Rossi, the author of the General Staff Building, which completed the composition of Palace Square, and the complex of buildings, streets and squares around the Alexandria Theater in St. Petersburg, designed by him, are marked by a grandiose scope of urban planning.

V. A. Tropinin. Portrait of the son of Arseny Tropinin. 1818. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

From the beginning of the 1860s, from the time of the abolition of serfdom, Russian art received a sharp critical focus and thus spoke of the need for fundamental social transformations. Art declared this, portraying the evil of social injustice, exposing the vices and ulcers of society (most of the works of V. G. Perov of the 1860s). It contrasted the stagnation of modern life with the transforming power of critical historical epochs (paintings by V.I. Surikov of the 1880s).

S. F. Shchedrin. Moonlit night in Naples. 1828-1829. Canvas, oil. State Russian Museum.

The combination of the truth of characters and circumstances with a truthful depiction of life in the forms in which it is perceived in ordinary, everyday experience, is a feature of critical, or democratic, realism, in line with which advanced Russian art has been developing since the early 1860s. The nutrient medium and the main audience of this new art was the raznochintsy intelligentsia. The heyday of democratic realism in the second half of the XIX century. associated with the activities of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions founded in 1870 (see Wanderers). The ideological leader and organizer of the Wanderers was I. N. Kramskoy, one of the most profound artists, a talented theorist, critic and teacher. Under his guiding influence, the TPES contributed to the consolidation of advanced artistic forces, the expansion and democratization of the audience thanks to the availability of artistic language, the comprehensive coverage of the phenomena of folk life, the ability to make art socially sensitive, capable of putting forward topics and issues that concern society at a given historical moment.

A. I. Kuindzhi. Evening in Ukraine. 1878. Oil on canvas. State Russian Museum. Leningrad.

In the 1860s genre painting dominated, in the 70s the role of the portrait (V. G. Perov, I. N. Kramskoy, N. A. Yaroshenko) and landscape (A. K. Savrasov, I. I. Levitan, I (I. Shishkin, A. I. Kuindzhi, V. D. Polenov). A major role in promoting the art of the Wanderers belonged to the outstanding art critic and art historian V. V. Stasov. At the same time, the collecting activity of P. M. Tretyakov was developing. His gallery (see the Tretyakov Gallery) becomes the stronghold of the new, realistic school, the profile of his collection is determined by the works of the Wanderers.

The next period of Russian art is the end of the 19th - the beginning of the 20th century. The 1980s were a transitional decade, when Wandering realism reached its peak in the work of I. E. Repin and V. I. Surikov. During these years, such masterpieces of Russian painting were created as “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, “Boyar Morozova” by V. I. Surikov, “Religious Procession in the Kursk Governorate”, “Arrest of the Propaganda”, “They Did Not Wait” by I. E. Repin. Next to them are artists of a new generation with a different creative program - V. A. Serov, M. A. Vrubel, K. A. Korovin. The contradictions of late-bourgeois capitalist development exert their influence on the spiritual life of society. In the minds of artists, the real world is marked by the stigma of bourgeois greed and pettiness of interests. They begin to look for harmony and beauty outside the seeming prosaic reality - in the realm of artistic fantasy. On this basis, interest in fairy tale, allegorical and mythological plots revives (V. M. Vasnetsov, M. V. Nesterov, M. A. Vrubel), which leads to the search for such an artistic form that is capable of transferring the viewer's imagination into the sphere of folklore representations, memories of the past or vague premonitions of the future. The predominance of images and forms that indirectly express the content of modernity over the forms of its direct reflection is one of the distinguishing features of the art of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The complexity of the artistic language characterizes the work of representatives of the "World of Art" - an artistic group that took shape at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries.

V. M. Vasnetsov. Alyonushka. 1881. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

The Art Nouveau style becomes decisive in this period. Along with painting, architecture is actively developing, in which the Art Nouveau style, arts and crafts, book graphics, sculpture, and theatrical and decorative art dominate. The areas of application of artistic creativity are expanding enormously, but the interaction and mutual influence of all these areas is more significant. Under these conditions, a type of universal artist is being formed, able to "do everything" - to paint a picture and a decorative panel, to perform a vignette for a book and a monumental painting, to fashion a sculpture and create a sketch of a theatrical costume. To varying degrees, the features of such universalism are marked, for example, by the work of M. A. Vrubel and the leading architect of the Art Nouveau style in Russia, F. O. Shekhtel, as well as the artists of the World of Art.

The most important milestones in the evolution of Russian painting at the turn of the century are marked by the works of V. A. Serov, whose work is imbued with the desire, using new stylistic forms, to avoid formalistic extremes, to achieve classical clarity and simplicity, while remaining faithful to the precepts of the realistic school, its humanism, in which sober - a critical view of the world is combined with an idea of ​​the high purpose of man.

A. K. Savrasov. The Rooks Have Arrived. 1871. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

Artistic life at the beginning of the 20th century. is of unprecedented intensity. Revolutionary events of 1905-1907 stimulated the development of socially active art. The works of N. A. Kasatkin, S. V. Ivanov and others embodied the most important social and social events of those years, the image of the worker as the main force of the revolution. Many masters work in the field of satirical political graphics and magazine cartoons.

The range of artistic traditions to which the art of the 20th century refers is unusually wide. Along with the wandering movement that continues its life, there is a variant of impressionistic painting among the masters of the Union of Russian Artists, symbolism, represented by the work of V. E. Borisov-Musatov and the artists of the Blue Rose association.

K. A. Korovin. In winter. 1894. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

The desire to update the artistic language by referring to the style of urban handicraft and folk art, toys, popular prints, signs, children's drawings, while taking into account the experience of the latest French painting, characterizes the activities of the artists of the "Jack of Diamonds" - a society organized in 1910. In the work of the masters of this directions - P. P. Konchalovsky, I. I. Mashkov, A. V. Lentulov - the role of still life increases significantly. The traditions of ancient Russian painting receive a new refraction in the art of K. S. Petrov-Vodkin.

F. A. Vasiliev. Before the rain 1869. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

Reaches a significant rise at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. sculpture. P. P. Trubetskoy introduces impressionistic features into it. His portrait compositions are distinguished by the acuteness of the captured moment of life, the richness of subtle shades. Working in soft materials, Trubetskoy returned to sculpture the lost sense of the material, the understanding of its expressive properties. The monument to Alexander III, created by Trubetskoy in 1909, is a unique example of the grotesque solution of the image in the history of monuments. The monument to N.V. Gogol, created by N.A. Andreev (1909), belongs to the remarkable achievements of monumental sculpture.

In the sculpture of 1912 "Seated Man" by A. S. Golubkina, an image appears that synthesizes ideas about the fate of the modern proletarian - this is a symbol of temporarily shackled, but full of a rebellious spirit of strength. The creativity of S. T. Konenkov is distinguished by a variety of genre and stylistic forms. The real impressions of the revolutionary battles are embodied by the sculptor in the portrait "Worker-militant of 1905 Ivan Churkin". Not only facial features, but also the solidity of the stone block, emphasized by the stinginess of processing, give rise to an image of indestructible will, tempered in the fire of class battles. The traditions of classical sculpture are being revived in the work of A. T. Matveev.

S. A. Korovin. On the world. 1893. Oil on canvas. State Tretyakov Gallery. Moscow.

The desire to rethink and resurrect to a new life almost all the images and forms invented by mankind over the centuries of history, and at the same time formal experiments, sometimes reaching the denial of all traditions - these are the extreme manifestations of the artistic situation in Russian art of the early 20th century. However, these extremes themselves were an indicator of the deep internal conflict in Russian life on the eve of the revolution and in their own way reflected the complexity of the time, which, according to A. Blok, brought "unheard of changes, unprecedented revolts." Under these conditions, that sensitivity to the phenomena of the time was brought up, which, together with a high culture of craftsmanship, the best artists of the pre-revolutionary period brought to Soviet art (see.

Early 20th century turned out to be a turning point for painting, which with lightning speed, not only catching up, but also in many ways ahead of the main European art schools, made the transition from the old principles of analytical realism to the latest systems of artistic thinking. Started modernism decadence (fr. decadence (from lat. decadence) - decay, decline) and symbolism. culture modernism (from fr. moderne - the latest, modern), philosophical and aesthetic movement in literature and art of the 20th century, reflected the crisis of the former type of worldview, the crisis of aesthetics, which, compared with the latest, has become known as classical. In the visual arts, Art Nouveau manifested itself as a symbolism of images, a predilection for allegories (in painting), fluidity of forms, dynamic compositions, and a special expressiveness of the silhouette (in sculpture).

In Russia, the symbolist trend was represented vividly and varied not only by artists, but also by poets, a purely Russian trend appeared in the poetry of symbolism - acmeism. By analogy with Pushkin's "golden age", this period of the heyday of Russian poetry and art was called the "silver age".

Representatives of this trend in art focused their attention on the artistic expression of "things in themselves" and ideas through symbols, moreover, these things and ideas were conceived as something beyond the limits of human sensory perception. With the help of symbols, they sought to break through the visible reality to the "hidden realities", the supertemporal ideal essence of the world, its "imperishable beauty". With their art, they expressed a yearning for spiritual freedom, a tragic premonition of world socio-historical shifts, distrust of age-old cultural and spiritual values ​​as a unifying principle for all people of the Earth.

The important role of the cultural center in the early XX century. played by a creative association of symbolist poets and artists "World of Art" (1898-1924), created in St. Petersburg by A.N. Benois and SP. Diaghilev. The activities of this association, proceeding under the slogan "art for art's sake", gave impetus to the further development of art journalism, exhibition activities, easel painting, decorative and applied art, and art criticism. The paintings and drawings of the "World of Art" are characterized by refined decorativeness, stylization, and elegant ornamentation. The merit of the "World of Art" was also the creation of new book graphics, prints, theatrical scenery. The intentionally objective, practical painting of the Wanderers, where every gesture, step, turn is socially pointed, directed against something and in defense of something, is being replaced by the non-objective painting of the World of Art, focused on solving internal pictorial, rather than external social problems.

Members of the association were welcome participants in the leading European exhibitions. Outstanding artists of the 20th century took an active part in the exhibition activities of the association "World of Art": A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, M.V. Dobuzhinsky, A.Ya. Golovin, L.S. Bakst, E.E. Lansere, K.A. Somov, I.Ya. Bilibin, N.K. Roerich, B.M. Kustodiev, Z.E. Serebryakova, St. Chekhonin, D.I. Mitrokhin and others. Philosophers collaborated with the editors of the journal "World of Art" D.M. Merezhkovsky, V.V. Rozanov, L.I. Shestov. Many famous poets of the early 20th century had friendly and business relations with the World of Art. - A.A. Blok, Andrey Bely (B.N. Bugaev), M.A. Kuzmin, F.K. Sologub, V.Ya. Bryusov, K.D. Balmont. Contacts were maintained with theater workers, composers, choreographers K.S. Stanislavsky, M.F. Stravinsky, M.M. Fokin, V.F. Nijinsky.

Orientation to the traditions of the national artistic culture of the 18th - early 19th centuries. was supposed, according to the World of Art, to contribute to the revival of Russian art. The artists of the association were fond of German romantic literature, the modernist painting of the British, and the impressionism of the French.

Inspirer and organizer of the "World of Art", artist, art historian and critic A.N. Benoit (1870-1960) created the style of romantic historicism, conveying the spirit of past eras in magazine and book illustrations. In his works on art history, Benois for the first time substantiated the original features of the Russian national artistic tradition against the background of other European schools. A monumental contribution to world art history was his four-volume "The history of painting of all times and peoples" (1917). A scientist and artist, he actively fought against bad taste and barbaric attitudes towards monuments of history and art, opposed the Russian avant-garde, participated in museum work (in 1918 he headed the Hermitage art gallery). In 1926, disillusioned with the revolution, Benois settled in Paris.

One of the brightest representatives of the "World of Art" L.S. Bakst (1866-1924) became famous as a decorator of famous "Russian Seasons" in Paris. He stylized antique and oriental motifs in his works, creating a sophisticated and decorative fantastic spectacle. Bakst's hand belonged to the design of "ancient" performances in the Alexandria Theater. In 1909-1914. Bakst designed twelve performances "Russian ballets" SP. Diaghilev.

After 1915 Moscow became the capital of innovative art. From 1916 to 1921, it was here that avant-garde tendencies in painting were formed. Gaining strength Association "Jack of Diamonds" (P.P. Konchalovsky, A.V. Kuprin, P.P. Falk, A.V. Lentulov, N.A. Udaltsova and others) and the circle "Supremus" (K.V. Malevich, O.V. Rozanova, I.V. Klyun, L.S. Popova). In Moscow and St. Petersburg every now and then new directions, circles and societies appear, new names, concepts and approaches appear. The revolution of 1917 forced painters to transfer their innovative experiments from the closed space of workshops to the open areas of city streets. Art universities were opened, the Institute of Artistic Culture (Inkhuk) and the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops (Vkhutemas) were created in Moscow.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Russian art, which until then had been taught by students, merges into the general mainstream of Western European artistic quest. Exhibition halls in Russia open their doors to new creations of European art: Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism. At the beginning of the XX century. Huge galleries and private collections of contemporary art are opening in Moscow. Now, in order to get acquainted with the work of Picasso and Matisse, one has to go to Russia, and not just to London, Paris or Madrid.

Russians are still developing french Fauvism, and here is German expressionism, in which the Russian component (V.V. Kandinsky, A.G. Yavlensky, M.V. Verevkina - the core of the Munich Blue Rider group) played a leading role, nothing can surprise them. Gradually, two European artistic trends began to set fashion in Russia - french cubism and Italian futurism. However, cubism has acquired a specific "abstract" sound in our country.

In particular, consistent cubo-futurist was one of the founders of the association "Jack of Diamonds" A.B. Lentulov (1882-1943). The artist developed an original type of futuristic panel that interprets the world as a kaleidoscope of dynamic colors and forms ("Victory Battle", 1914). His enchantingly festive, as if crumbling or, on the contrary, emerging from the colorful elements, images of ancient Moscow church architecture ("Vasily the Blessed", 1913; "Ringing" ("Ivan the Great Bell Tower"), 1915, etc.) create the impression of - optimistic sound.

An equally enthusiastic reception was received in Russia by Italian Futurism, which was rejected with disdain in Paris and Munich. The movement, which received the name "futurism" in Russia (from lat. futurum - the future), was richer and more diverse than what was represented by Italian futurism. Unencumbered by the traditions of cubism and futurism, like France and Italy, the Russians experimented unrestrainedly, achieving a synthesis that even the Parisians could not afford. Russian synthesis was primarily conceptual. It was the result of the creativity of numerous groupings of artists united in the St. Petersburg association "Union of Youth".

The polarization of artistic forces at the beginning of the 20th century, the controversy of many artistic groups intensified exhibition and publishing (in the field of art) activities.

The first experiments of Russian artists in abstract art date back to the 90s. XIX century, one of the first manifestos of which was the book M.F. Larionova "Luchism" (1913), and the real theorists and practitioners were V.V. Kandinsky (1866-1944) and K.S. Malevich (1878-1935). At the same time, the work of K.S. Petrov-Vodkin, who declared a successive connection with ancient Russian icon painting, testified to the vitality of the tradition ("Bathing the Red Horse", 1912).

An exceptionally important place in the development of abstract painting belongs to the brilliant Russian artist, poet and art theorist V.V. Kandinsky (1866-1944). Kandinsky came from a wealthy family of Nerchinsk merchants, descendants of convicts. As was customary among Moscow's big bourgeoisie, Kandinsky studied law and economics at Moscow University, but a legal career did not appeal to him. In 1889, he went on an ethnographic expedition to the Vologda province, where he got acquainted with ancient Russian icon painting and folk art. Another important event in his artistic development was the painting "Haystack" by Claude Monet, looking at which Kandinsky, a student in those years Faculty of Law Moscow University, felt that "there is no object in this picture." From that moment on, the subject lost its former significance for Kandinsky. Gradually, painting supplanted jurisprudence: in 1896 he resigned from the post of professor at Derpt (Tartu) University.

In the early 1900s Kandinsky traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa, but chose Munich (1902-1908) as his permanent residence. In 1910 he created the first abstract work - a chaotic arrangement of colorful spots and lines that do not depict or designate anything, and wrote a treatise entitled "On the Spiritual in Art". From that moment on, a new direction began to develop in the art of the 20th century, called abstract. Kandinsky believed that a new era is emerging in the development of mankind, a race of people of the future is emerging. For them, the world of the inner and spiritual will be valuable. In 1911, together with Franz Marc Kandinsky, he created the famous Blue Rider Association. Artists organize exhibitions, organize the publication of an almanac. The period from 1909 to 1914 was the most intense: Kandinsky painted about two hundred paintings, which were grouped into three cycles: "improvisations", "compositions", "impressions", often with serial numbers and subtitles.

With the outbreak of the war in 1914, Kandinsky, a Russian subject, was forced to leave Germany. Returning to Moscow, he is actively involved in artistic life: he participates in the creation of the Museum of Painting Culture (in total, he participated in the creation of 22 provincial museums), teaches at the university and Vkhutemas. In 1920, Kandinsky was the initiator of Inkhuk.

One of the central figures of the Russian avant-garde was V.E. Tatlin (1885-1953), considered the founder constructivism, movement, which until 1921 was officially recognized by the authorities as the leading direction of revolutionary art. He lived an interesting, eventful life. In the late 1900s - early 1910s. the artist became close with domestic avant-garde artists, primarily with M.F. Larionov and N.S. Goncharova, poets Velimir Khlebnikov, A.E. Kruchenykh, among which he quickly moved to one of the first places. After the October Revolution, Tatlin was energetically involved in social and artistic life: in 1917 he was chairman of the "young faction" in the professional union of painters, since 1918 - chairman of the Moscow Art College of the People's Commissariat for Education, initiator of the creation of a new type of museums ("museums of artistic culture "), chairman of the Association of Left Art Movements (1921-1925), headed the Department of Material Culture of Ginhuk (1923-1925) in Petrograd.

The essence of constructivism was the idea of ​​a practical, utilitarian use of abstract art. Tatlin and the constructivists became famous for one of the most grandiose structures of the early 20th century. - a monument to the III Communist International (1919-1920). The 400 m high spiral tower included a cube, a pyramid and a cylinder, intended to accommodate congress halls, various institutions and a radio station that was supposed to distribute information messages through loudspeakers. The "Tatlin Tower", which was one and a half times the height of the Eiffel Tower, was conceived as an administrative and agitation and propaganda center of the Comintern - an organization that prepared humanity for a world revolution. The construction of metal beams and four transparent volumes rotating at different speeds was supposed to accommodate the executive, legislative and propaganda institutions of the Comintern. The use of technologically new materials and abstract forms, completely devoid of any flavor of tradition, clearly reflected the spirit of the revolution. Tatlin himself considered his creation the highest point of synthesis of different arts.

Another outstanding figure of constructivism was El Lissitzky (pseudonym L.M. Lissitzky) (1890-1941), known as a talented Russian graphic artist, illustrator, typographer, architect, photographer, theorist and architectural critic, one of the creators of a new art form - design. The most interesting period of his work is connected with Vitebsk, which in 1919-1921. was almost the artistic mecca of all of Russia. Suffice it to say that Marc Chagall, who headed the People's Art School, Kazimir Malevich, who founded the UNOVIS group, and El Lissitzky, who directed the Chagall workshop and, together with Malevich, designed the anniversary celebrations of the Vitebsk Committee to Combat Unemployment (1919), lived and worked here. In Vitebsk, Lissitzky invented and developed his own version of three-dimensional Suprematist compositions, which he called "prouns" (projects for the approval of the new). The Prouns, according to the author, synthesized the methods of Suprematism and Constructivism, serving as a "transfer station from painting to architecture." They played the role of a design stage for the creation of design developments: the famous projects of "horizontal skyscrapers", theatrical models, decorative-spatial installations, projects of pavilions and exhibition interiors, new principles of photography and photomontage, poster, book, and furniture design subsequently grew out of the prouns.

Lissitzky participated in the pan-European movement of constructivism, having realized his attitudes towards the communicative role of design as an international language, understandable outside the forms of verbal communication.

Constructivism proved to be extremely prolific not so much in the fundamental as in the applied sphere of art. Two cultural undertakings of the 20th century originate from him. - design and manufacturing art, which is considered a branch or direction of design. The first received worldwide recognition, the second remained at the level of "home-made".

One of the key figures in the art of the XX century. is a brilliant Russian painter, graphic artist, book illustrator, art theorist P.N. Filonov (1881 -1941), creator of an independent direction of the Russian avant-garde - the so-called analytical art. Joining in 1910 in the Union of Youth and rapprochement with members of the Gilea group (V.V. Khlebnikov, V.V. Mayakovsky, V.V. Kamensky, A.E. Kruchenykh, the Burliuk brothers, etc.) influence on the formation of Filonov, who soon became one of the most prominent painters of the Russian avant-garde. In 1916-1918. he fought at the front, and in the 1920s. created a series of works devoted to the civil war, the revolution, the Petrograd proletariat, became the organizer of Ginkhuk in Petrograd.

Filonov called himself an artist-researcher, understanding the process of creating a picture as a process of researching each microelement of its structure. He declared the "principle of doneness" to be the basis of his analytical method: the painstaking elaboration of each square millimeter of the pictorial surface served as a condition for creating even a large picture. Large canvases were painted with a small brush. Each stroke meant a "unit of action", requiring the utmost creative effort. The Filonov method assumed that the viewer should accept not only what the artist sees in the world, but also what he knows about it. Filonov argued that, in addition to form and color, an artistic picture should express a whole world of visible and invisible phenomena, known and secret properties that have countless predicates. Filonov's works ("Formula of World Prosperity", 1916; "Formula of Space", 1919; "West and East", 1913, etc.) were donated by his sister to the State Russian Museum.

One of the largest representatives of surrealism was M.Z. Chagall (1887-1985). He was born in Vitebsk, but in 1922 he emigrated abroad. In the pre-revolutionary Vitebsk and Petrograd times, epic paintings from the Lovers cycle, genre, portrait, and landscape compositions were created. In the 1920-1930s. Chagall traveled to many countries of the world, made friends with P. Picasso, A. Matisse, J. Rouault, P. Bonnard, P. Eluard and others. France became his second home.

Until the end of his days, Chagall called himself a "Russian artist", emphasizing his family commonality with the Russian tradition, which included icon painting, Vrubel's work, and the works of nameless signboards, and painting of the extreme left. The action in Chagall's unusual canvases unfolded according to special laws, where the past and the future, phantasmagoria and everyday life, mysticism and reality were fused. The visionary (dreaming) essence of the works, coupled with a figurative beginning, with a deep "human dimension", made Chagall the forerunner of such trends as expressionism and surrealism. Everyday reality on his canvases was consecrated and spiritualized by eternally living myths, the great themes of the cycle of life - birth, wedding, death.

In the post-revolutionary period in Russia there was a split into the so-called left and right artists. This was explained by the fact that with the victory of the October Revolution, the Soviet government immediately began to implement a new cultural policy. This meant the creation of a type of culture unprecedented in history - the proletarian - based on the most revolutionary and advanced, as it was then believed, the ideology of Marxism, the upbringing of a new type of person, the spread of universal literacy and enlightenment, the creation of monumental works of art glorifying the labor exploits of ordinary people, and etc. As it was thought, the proletarian culture was to replace the noble and bourgeois cultures. Avant-garde artists (Kandinsky, Malevich, Chagall, Tatlin, etc.), who even in pre-revolutionary times declared new principles in art, accepted the transformations with enthusiasm and began to call their work "leftist art." However, over time, they and other artists, including such bright artists as M.F. Larionov, N.S. Goncharova, M.V. Dobuzhinsky, V.M. Kustodiev, Z.E. Serebryakova, disillusioned with the Soviet regime, left Russia. With the emigration of the creative intelligentsia, the "silver age" of Russian art and Russian literature ended.

The other camp, which can be called "right", was a community of politically engaged artists who stood on the firm principles of socialist realism. The "right" camp was heterogeneous, and at least two directions can be seen in it. The first direction resurrected the traditions of the Wanderers of the 19th century. and was grouped around the "Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia" (AHRR) created in 1922, whose members (I.I. Brodsky, A.M. Gerasimov, M.B. Grekov, B.V. Ioganson, E.A. Katsman, G. G. Ryazhsky) saw their task in depicting in an artistic form the triumphal procession through the country of Soviet power. The everyday happy life of peasants and workers, the exploits of the soldiers of the Red Army, the concern of the party and government for ordinary people become topics "heroic realism". One of the largest artists of AHRR I.I. Brodsky (1883-1939) creates a gallery of portraits of Lenin and a cycle of historical and revolutionary paintings, including the famous painting "The Execution of 26 Baku Commissars" (1925). Other Ahrrovites specialize in heroic portraits: A.M. Gerasimov ("Lenin on the podium", 1930), SV. Malyutin (portrait of Furmanov, 1922), H.A. Andreev (portrait of Stalin, 1922), B.V. Jogaison ("Interrogation of Communists", 1933). Group images of the heroes of the revolution are created by M.B. Grekov ("Tachanka", 1925), K.S. Petrov-Vodkin ("Death of the Commissar", 1928), A.A. Deineka ("Defense of Petrograd", 1928). The second direction of socialist realism is connected with the glorification of the beauty of the motherland. For example, K.F. Yuon created cheerful plein-air landscapes, I.I. Mashkov, in the past one of the creators of the "Jack of Diamonds", paints expressive colorful landscapes and still lifes, A.E. Arkhipov specialized in lyrical landscapes and images of cheerful peasant women.

Works of the 1930s dedicated to the glorification of either a happy village after collectivization (SV. Gerasimov "Collective Farm Holiday", 1937) and the valor and strength of the army (S.A. Chuikov "On the Border", 1938), or party leaders, among whom Stalin occupies a leading place.

The AHRR, supported by the authorities, waged a ruthless struggle against numerous avant-garde movements, and many artists eventually had to go underground, emigrate, and go to trial. Cultural figures began to be drawn into the ideological confrontation after the philosophers and party functionaries. Thus, the association NOZH (New Society of Painters), headed by G. G. Ryazhsky, proclaims the creation of a new painting based on tradition. The Society of Artists "Genesis" (P.P. Konchalovsky, A.V. Kuprin, etc.) emphasizes the materialistic vision of the world and the importance of the plot.

The elimination of avant-garde trends from the art scene ended on April 23, 1932, when the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks issued a decree "On the restructuring of literary and artistic organizations", which led to the creation of unified creative unions. From now on, the official use of the term "socialist realism" and the theoretical formulation of its provisions, developed by M. Gorky, open a new period: artists should not serve the ideas of "pure art", but the ideals of the communist party and contribute to the construction of socialism.

The deterioration of the artistic atmosphere in the country began to be felt immediately after the death of Lenin in 1924, during these years party control was strengthened, the newspaper Pravda devoted its pages to speeches against "abstract fabrications inspired by the petty bourgeoisie." The Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party calls on artists to create realistic art of revolutionary propaganda accessible to the masses.

The work of K. Malevich is sharply criticized, and the artist himself is repeatedly arrested. As a result, after a serious illness, the outstanding innovator of the 20th century. dies. In the same 1920s. P. Filonov and a group of his students "Masters of Analytical Art" (MAI) were subjected to ideological persecution. By 1924, the Museum of Painting Culture, Inkhuk ceased to exist. Blows on Soviet avant-gardism follow one after another. V. Kandinsky and El Lissitzky were forced to leave Russia and settle in Germany. In the 1930s they begin to denigrate as the "formalistic" work of V. Tatlin. Having lost the ground for existence in Russia, non-objective art appeals to the Western audience. Its traditions are already inherited by European artists.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the fine arts face a new task - to use the power of art as a weapon against the enemy. Therefore, the poster came to the fore in the graphics (as in the years of the revolution). In the first two years of the war, it was dominated by a dramatic sound. Already on June 22, the poster of the Kukryniksy appeared "We will mercilessly defeat and destroy the enemy!" Everyone knows the poster by I. Tondze "The Motherland Calls" (1941). After the turning point in the war, the mood and figurative structure change: L. Golovanov's poster "Let's get to Berlin!" is imbued with optimism and folk humor. (1944).

During the war years, significant works of easel graphics appeared: fast, documentary-accurate front-line sketches, portrait drawings of fighters, partisans, sailors, nurses, landscapes of the war, as well as a series of graphic sheets on one topic (for example, D. Shmarinov's graphic series "Let's not forget, we won't forgive!", 1942).

After the war, the main theme was peaceful labor. Cheerful in color, sonorous paintings by A. Plastov "Haymaking" (1945), T.N. Yablonskaya "Bread" (1949), A.A. Mylnikov "On Peaceful Fields" (1953), "Tractor Driver's Dinner" (1951). In the landscape genre, the image of the earth warped by war is replaced by the image of nature in harmony with man (S.A. Chuikov "Morning", 1947). The epic beginning is typical for the work of M. Saryan. The portrait also develops. P. Korin, I. Grabar, M. Saryan work in this genre.

In the 1940-1950s. in connection with the restoration of destroyed cities and new construction, monumental and decorative art is intensively developing. Monumental painting finds application in decorating public buildings, gradually it penetrates into the small premises of cafes, clubs, kindergartens. The leading masters in this field of fine arts were A. Deineka, V. Favorsky, P. Korin. P. Korin also created mosaics for the Moscow metro.

In the 1950s printmaking is actively developing - printed easel graphics in various techniques: woodcuts, linocuts, lithographs, etchings. The print of this period is diverse in subject matter - these are everyday work, portrait, landscape, still life, domestic, genre scenes.

At the turn of the 1950-1960s. artistic life is activated. In 1957, the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Artists took place, at which the results of the past were summed up and ways were determined further development Soviet art. In the same year, the All-Union Art Exhibition was held, the exposition of which was built in the republics.

There is a search for new expressive means in each of the types of fine arts. Artists are developing a new, so-called severe style (A. Kamensky) - to recreate reality without the usual for the 1940-1950s. splendor and non-conflict. Artists N. Andronov, P. Nikonov, V. Popkov and others turned to a restrained, generalized form, the composition of their paintings is lapidary, the drawing is cruel and laconic, the color is conditional.

In the 1970-1980s. a new generation of artists appears - O. Bulgakov, T. Nazarenko, N. Nesterova, A. Sitnikov and others. They think a lot about tradition, history, beauty. Their painting style is rich in theatrical spectacle, artistic, virtuoso. The role of monumental and decorative art is growing.

Domestic art of the last decades is extremely diverse. With the beginning of perestroika, various informal and "underground" associations were legalized.

Modern Russian art is developing in diverse, free forms and, thus, at the present time there is a transition from monostylism to polystylism.

This article contains a brief description of the main art styles of the 20th century. It will be useful to know both artists and designers.

Modernism (from French moderne modern)

in art, the cumulative name of artistic trends that established themselves in the second half of the 19th century in the form of new forms of creativity, where not so much following the spirit of nature and tradition prevailed, but the free view of the master, free to change the visible world at his discretion, following personal impression, inner idea or mystical dream (these trends largely continued the line of romanticism). Impressionism, symbolism, and modernism were its most significant, often actively interacting, directions. In Soviet criticism, the concept of “modernism” was anti-historically applied to all art movements of the 20th century that did not correspond to the canons of socialist realism.

Abstractionism(art under the sign of "zero forms", non-objective art) - an artistic direction that was formed in the art of the first half of the 20th century, completely refusing to reproduce the forms of the real visible world. The founders of abstractionism are considered to be V. Kandinsky, P. Mondrian and K. Malevich. W. Kandinsky created his own type of abstract painting, freeing the impressionist and "wild" spots from any signs of objectivity. Piet Mondrian came to his pointlessness through the geometric stylization of nature, begun by Cezanne and the Cubists. The modernist trends of the 20th century, focused on abstractionism, completely depart from traditional principles, denying realism, but at the same time remain within the framework of art. The history of art with the advent of abstractionism experienced a revolution. But this revolution arose not by chance, but quite naturally, and was predicted by Plato! In his later work Philebus, he wrote about the beauty of lines, surfaces and spatial forms in themselves, independent of any imitation of visible objects, of any mimesis. This kind of geometric beauty, in contrast to the beauty of natural "irregular" forms, according to Plato, is not relative, but unconditional, absolute.

Futurism- literary and artistic trend in the art of the 1910s. Oтвoдя ceбe poль пpooбpaзa иcкyccтвa бyдyщeгo, фyтypизм в кaчecтвe ocнoвнoй пpoгpaммы выдвигaл идeю paзpyшeния кyльтypныx cтepeoтипoв и пpeдлaгaл взaмeн aпoлoгию тexники и ypбaнизмa кaк глaвныx пpизнaкoв нacтoящeгo и гpядyщeгo. An important artistic idea of ​​futurism was the search for a plastic expression of the swiftness of movement as the main sign of the pace of modern life. The Russian version of futurism was called kybofuturism and was based on a combination of the plastic principles of French cubism and European general aesthetic installations of futurism. Using intersections, shifts, collisions and influxes of forms, the artists tried to express the crushing plurality of impressions of a contemporary person, a city dweller.

Cubism- "the most complete and radical artistic revolution since the Renaissance" (J. Golding). Painters: Picasso Pablo, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, Gleizes Metzinger. Cubism - (French cubisme, from cube - cube) a direction in the art of the first quarter of the 20th century. The plastic language of cubism was based on the deformation and decomposition of objects into geometric planes, the plastic shift of form. Many Russian artists have gone through a fascination with Cubism, often combining its principles with the techniques of other modern artistic trends - futurism and primitivism. Cubo-futurism became a specific variant of the interpretation of cubism on Russian soil.

Purism- (French purisme, from Latin purus - clean) a trend in French painting of the late 1910s and 20s. The main representatives are the artist A. Ozanfan and architect C. E. Jeanneret (Le Corbusier). Rejecting the decorative tendencies of cubism and other avant-garde movements of the 1910s, the deformation of nature they adopted, the purists strove for a rationalistically ordered transfer of stable and concise object forms, as if “cleared” of details, to the image of “primary” elements. The works of purists are characterized by flatness, smooth rhythm of light silhouettes and contours of objects of the same type (jugs, glasses, etc.). Having not been developed in easel forms, the essentially rethought artistic principles of purism were partially reflected in modern architecture, mainly in the buildings of Le Corbusier.

Serrealism- a cosmopolitan movement in literature, painting and cinema that arose in 1924 in France and officially ended its existence in 1969. It greatly contributed to the formation of the consciousness of modern man. The main figures of the movement Andre Breton- writer, leader and ideological inspirer of the movement, Louis Aragon- one of the founders of surrealism, who in a bizarre way later transformed into a singer of communism, Salvador Dali- artist, theorist, poet, screenwriter, who defined the essence of the movement with the words: "Surrealism is me!", in the highest degree surreal cinematographer Luis Buñuel, painter Juan Miro- "the most beautiful feather on the hat of surrealism", as Breton called it, and many other artists around the world.

Fauvism(from French les fauves - wild (animals)) Local direction in painting early. 20th century The name F. was given in mockery to a group of young Parisian artists ( A. Matisse, A. Derain, M. Vlaminck, A. Marquet, E.O. Friesz, J. Braque, A.Sh. Mangen, K. van Dongen), who jointly participated in a number of exhibitions in 1905-1907, after their first exhibition in 1905. The name was adopted by the group itself and firmly established itself behind it. The direction did not have a clearly formulated program, manifesto or its own theory and did not last long, leaving, however, a noticeable mark in the history of art. Its participants were united in those years by the desire to create artistic images exclusively with the help of an extremely bright open color. Developing the artistic achievements of the Post-Impressionists ( Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh), relying on some formal techniques of medieval art (stained glass, Romanesque art) and Japanese engraving, popular in the artistic circles of France since the time of the Impressionists, the Fauvists sought to maximize the use of the coloristic possibilities of painting.

Expressionism(from French expression - expressiveness) - a modernist trend in Western European art, mainly in Germany, the first third of the 20th century, which developed in a certain historical period - on the eve of the First World War. The ideological basis of expressionism was an individualistic protest against the ugly world, the increasing alienation of man from the world, feelings of homelessness, collapse, and disintegration of those principles on which European culture seemed to rest so firmly. Expressionists tend to gravitate towards mysticism and pessimism. Artistic techniques characteristic of expressionism: the rejection of illusory space, the desire for a flat interpretation of objects, the deformation of objects, love for sharp colorful dissonances, a special color that embodies apocalyptic drama. Artists perceived creativity as a way to express emotions.

Suprematism(from lat. supremus - highest, highest; first; last, extreme, apparently, through the Polish supremacja - superiority, supremacy) The direction of avant-garde art of the first third of the 20th century, the creator, main representative and theorist of which was a Russian artist Kazimir Malevich. The term itself does not reflect the essence of Suprematism. In fact, in the understanding of Malevich, this is an estimated characteristic. Suprematism is the highest stage in the development of art on the path of liberation from everything non-artistic, on the path to the ultimate revelation of the non-objective as the essence of any art. In this sense, Malevich also considered primitive ornamental art to be Suprematist (or “supreme-like”). He first applied this term to a large group of his paintings (39 or more) depicting geometric abstractions, including the famous "Black Square" on a white background, "Black Cross", etc., exhibited at the Petrograd Futurist exhibition "zero-ten" in 1915 It was behind these and similar geometric abstractions that the name Suprematism was attached, although Malevich himself referred to it many of his works of the 20s, which outwardly contained some forms of concrete objects, especially figures of people, but retained the “Suprematist spirit”. And in fact, the later theoretical developments of Malevich do not give grounds to reduce Suprematism (at least Malevich himself) only to geometric abstractions, although they, of course, constitute its core, essence, and even (black and white and white and white Suprematism) bring painting to the limit of its existence in general as a form of art, i.e., to the pictorial zero, beyond which there is no longer painting proper. This path in the second half of the century was continued by numerous directions in art activities that abandoned brushes, paints, and canvas.

Russian avant-garde The 1910s presents a rather complex picture. It is characterized by a rapid change in styles and trends, an abundance of groups and associations of artists, each of which proclaimed its own concept of creativity. Something similar happened in European painting at the beginning of the century. However, the mixing of styles, the "mess" of currents and directions were unknown to the West, where the movement towards new forms was more consistent. Many masters of the younger generation with extraordinary swiftness moved from style to style, from stage to stage, from impressionism to modernity, then to primitivism, cubism or expressionism, going through many steps, which was completely atypical for the masters of French or German painting. The situation that developed in Russian painting was largely due to the pre-revolutionary atmosphere in the country. She exacerbated many of the contradictions that were inherent in all European art as a whole, because. Russian artists studied on European models, were well acquainted with various schools and pictorial trends. A kind of Russian "explosion" in artistic life thus played a historical role. By 1913, it was Russian art that reached new frontiers and horizons. A completely new phenomenon of non-objectivity appeared - a line beyond which the French Cubists did not dare to cross. One by one they cross this line: Kandinsky V.V., Larionov M.F., Malevich K.S., Filonov P.N., Tatlin V.E.

cubofuturism Local trend in the Russian avant-garde (in painting and poetry) of the early 20th century. In the visual arts, cubo-futurism arose on the basis of a rethinking of pictorial finds, cubism, futurism, and Russian neo-primitivism. The main works were created in the period 1911-1915. The most characteristic paintings of cubo-futurism came out from under the brush of K. Malevich, and were also written by Burliuk, Puni, Goncharova, Rozanova, Popova, Udaltsova, Exter. The first cubo-futuristic works by Malevich were exhibited at the famous exhibition of 1913. "Target", on which Larionov's Luchism also debuted. In appearance, the cubo-futuristic works have something in common with the compositions created at the same time by F. Leger and are semi-objective compositions composed of cylinder-, cone-, flask-, shell-shaped hollow three-dimensional colored forms, often with a metallic sheen. Already in the first such works by Malevich, there is a noticeable tendency to move from natural rhythm to purely mechanical rhythms of the machine world (Plotnik, 1912, Grinder, 1912, Portrait of Klyun, 1913).

neoplasticism- one of the earliest varieties of abstract art. It was created by 1917 by the Dutch painter P. Mondrian and other artists who were part of the Style association. Neoplasticism is characterized, according to its creators, by the desire for "universal harmony", expressed in strictly balanced combinations of large rectangular figures, clearly separated by perpendicular black lines and painted in local colors of the main spectrum (with the addition of white and gray tones). Neo-plasticisme (Nouvelle plastique) This term appeared in Holland in the 20th century. Piet Mondrian he defined his plastic concepts, systematized and defended by the group and the magazine "Style" ("De Stiji") founded in Leiden in 1917. The main feature of neoplasticism was the strict use of expressive means. Neoplasticism allows only horizontal and vertical lines to build form. Crossing lines at right angles is the first principle. Around 1920, a second one was added to it, which, removing the stroke and emphasizing the plane, limits the colors to red, blue and yellow, i.e. three pure primary colors to which only white and black can be added. With the help of this rigor, neoplasticism intended to go beyond individuality in order to achieve universalism and thus create a new picture of the world.

Official "baptism" orphism happened at the Salon des Indépendants in 1913. So the critic Roger Allard wrote in his report on the Salon: "... we note for future historians that in 1913 a new school of Orphism was born ..." ("La Cote" Paris March 19, 1913). He was echoed by another critic Andre Varno: "The Salon of 1913 was marked by the birth of a new school of the Orphic school" ("Comoedia" Paris March 18, 1913). Finally Guillaume Apollinaire reinforced this statement by exclaiming, not without pride: “This is Orphism. Here, for the first time, this trend, which I predicted, appeared” (“Montjoie!” Paris Supplement to March 18, 1913). Indeed, the term was invented Apollinaire(Orphism as a cult of Orpheus) and was first publicly announced during a lecture on modern painting and read in October 1912. What did he mean? He doesn't seem to know it himself. Moreover, he did not know how to define the boundaries of this new direction. In fact, the confusion that prevails to this day was due to the fact that Apollinaire unconsciously confused two problems that were interconnected, of course, but before trying to connect them, he should have emphasized their differences. On the one hand, the creation Delaunay pictorial expressive means entirely based on color and, on the other hand, the expansion of cubism through the emergence of several different directions. After a break with Marie Laurencin at the end of the summer of 1912, Apollinaire sought shelter from the Delaunay family, who received him with friendly understanding in their workshop on the Rue Grand-Augustin. Just this summer, Robert Delaunay and his wife experienced a profound aesthetic evolution leading to what he later called the "destructive period" of painting based solely on the constructive and spatio-temporal qualities of color contrasts.

Postmodernism (postmodern, postavant-garde) -

(from Latin post "after" and modernism), the collective name for artistic trends that became especially clear in the 1960s and are characterized by a radical revision of the position of modernism and the avant-garde.

abstract expressionism post-war (late 40s - 50s of the XX century) stage in the development of abstract art. The term itself was introduced in the 1920s by a German art critic E. von Sydow (E. von Sydow) to refer to certain aspects of Expressionist art. In 1929, the American Barr used it to characterize the early works of Kandinsky, and in 1947 he called the works "abstract-expressionist" Willem de Kooning and Pollock. Since then, the concept of abstract expressionism has been consolidated behind a fairly wide, stylistically and technically variegated field of abstract painting (and later sculpture), which developed rapidly in the 50s. in the USA, in Europe, and then all over the world. The direct ancestors of abstract expressionism are considered to be the early Kandinsky, expressionists, orphists, partly dadaists and surrealists with their principle of mental automatism. The philosophical and aesthetic basis of abstract expressionism was largely the philosophy of existentialism, popular in the post-war period.

Readymade(English ready-made - ready) The term was first introduced into the art history lexicon by the artist Marcel Duchamp to designate their works, which are objects of utilitarian use, removed from the environment of their normal functioning and exhibited without any changes at an art exhibition as works of art. Ready-Made claimed a new look at the thing and thingness. An object that ceased to fulfill its utilitarian functions and was included in the context of the space of art, that is, became an object of non-utilitarian contemplation, began to reveal some new meanings and associative moves, unknown either to traditional art or to the everyday-utilitarian sphere of being. The problem of the relativity of the aesthetic and the utilitarian emerged sharply. First Ready-Made Duchamp exhibited in New York in 1913. The most infamous of his Ready-Made. steel "Wheel from a bicycle" (1913), "Bottle dryer" (1914), "Fountain" (1917) - this is how an ordinary urinal was designated.

Pop Art. After the Second World War, a large social stratum of people formed in America who earned enough money to buy goods that were not particularly important to them. For example, the consumption of goods: Coca cola or Levi's jeans become an important attribute of this society. A person using this or that product shows his belonging to a certain social stratum. Current mass culture was formed. Things became symbols, stereotypes. Pop art necessarily uses stereotypes and symbols. pop art(Pop Art) embodied the creative quest of the new Americans, which relied on the creative principles of Duchamp. It: Jasper Johns, K. Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and others. Pop art is taking on the importance of mass culture, so it's not surprising that it took shape and became an art movement in America. Their allies: Hamelton R, Ton China chosen as the authority Kurt Schwieters. Pop art is characterized by a work - an illusion of a game that explains the essence of the object. Example: pie K. Oldenburg depicted in various ways. An artist may not depict a cake, but dispel illusions, show that a person sees for real. R. Rauschenberg is also original: he pasted various photographs to the canvas, outlined them and attached some stuffed animal to the work. One of his famous works is a stuffed hedgehog. Also well known is his painting, where he used photographs of Kenedy.

Primitivism (Naive Art). This concept is used in several senses and is in fact identical to the concept "primitive art". In different languages ​​and by different scientists, these concepts are used most often to refer to the same range of phenomena in artistic culture. In Russian (as well as in some others), the term "primitive" has a somewhat negative meaning. Therefore, it is more appropriate to focus on the concept naive art. In the broadest sense, this refers to fine art, which is distinguished by simplicity (or simplification), clarity and formal immediacy of the pictorial and expressive language, with the help of which a special vision of the world not burdened by civilizational conventions is expressed. The concept appeared in the new European culture of the last centuries, therefore it reflects the professional positions and ideas of this culture, which considered itself the highest stage of development. From these positions, naive art is also understood to mean the archaic art of ancient peoples (before the Egyptian or before the ancient Greek civilizations), for example, primitive art; the art of peoples who were delayed in their cultural and civilizational development (the indigenous population of Africa, Oceania, the Indians of America); amateur and non-professional art on the widest scale (for example, the famous medieval frescoes of Catalonia or the non-professional art of the first American immigrants from Europe); many works of the so-called "international Gothic"; folk art; finally, the art of talented primitivist artists of the 20th century, who did not receive a professional art education, but felt the gift of artistic creativity in themselves and devoted themselves to its independent realization in art. Some of them (French A. Russo, K. Bombois, Georgian N. Pirosmanishvili, Croatian I. Generalich, American A.M. Robertson etc.) have created true artistic masterpieces that have become part of the treasury of world art. Naive art, in terms of the vision of the world and the methods of its artistic presentation, is somewhat close to the art of children, on the one hand, and to the work of the mentally ill, on the other. However, in essence it differs from both. The closest thing in terms of worldview to children's art is the Naive art of the archaic peoples and natives of Oceania and Africa. Its fundamental difference from children's art lies in its deep sacredness, traditionalism and canonicity.

no art(Net Art - from the English net - network, art - art) The newest form of art, modern art practices, developing in computer networks, in particular, on the Internet. Its researchers in Russia, contributing to its development, O. Lyalina, A. Shulgin, believe that the essence of Net-art comes down to the creation of communication and creative spaces on the Web, providing complete freedom of network existence to everyone. Therefore, the essence of Net-art. not representation, but communication, and its original art unit is an electronic message. There are at least three stages in the development of Net-art, which arose in the 80s and 90s. 20th century The first was when aspiring web artists created pictures from letters and icons found on a computer keyboard. The second one began when underground artists and just everyone who wanted to show something from their work came to the Internet.

OP-ART(Eng. Op-art - an abbreviated version of optical art - optical art) - an artistic movement of the second half of the 20th century, using various visual illusions based on the features of the perception of flat and spatial figures. The current continues the rationalistic line of technicism (modernism). It goes back to the so-called "geometric" abstractionism, whose representative was V. Vasarely(from 1930 to 1997 he worked in France) - the founder of op art. The possibilities of Op-art have found some application in industrial graphics, posters, and design art. The direction of op art (optical art) originated in the 50s within abstractionism, although this time it was of a different variety - geometric abstraction. Its distribution as a current dates back to the 60s. 20th century

Graffiti(graffiti - in archeology, any drawings or letters scratched on any surface, from Italian graffiare - scratch) This is the designation of subculture works, which are mainly large-format images on the walls of public buildings, structures, transport, made using various kinds of spray guns, aerosol paint cans. Hence the other name "spray art" - Spray-art. Its origin is associated with the mass appearance of graffiti. in the 70s. on New York subway cars, and then on the walls of public buildings, store blinds. The first authors of graffiti. there were mostly young unemployed artists of ethnic minorities, primarily Puerto Ricans, therefore, in the first Graffiti, some stylistic features of Latin American folk art appeared, and the very fact of their appearance on surfaces not intended for this, their authors protested against their powerless position. By the beginning of the 80s. a whole trend of almost professional masters G. was formed. Their real names, previously hidden under pseudonyms, became known ( CRASH, NOC 167, FUTURA 2000, LEE, SEEN, DAZE). Some of them transferred their technique to canvas and began to exhibit in galleries in New York, and soon graffiti appeared in Europe.

HYPERREALISM(hyperrealism - English), or photorealism (photorealism - English) - artist. movement in painting and sculpture, based on photography, reproduction of reality. Both in its practice and in its aesthetic orientations towards naturalism and pragmatism, hyperrealism is close to pop art. they are primarily united by a return to figurativeness. It acts as an antithesis to conceptualism, which not only broke with representation, but also called into question the very principle of the material realization of art. concept.

land art(from the English land art - earthen art), a direction in the art of the last thirdXXcentury, based on the use of a real landscape as the main artistic material and object. Artists dig trenches, create bizarre heaps of stones, paint rocks, choosing for their actions usually deserted places - pristine and wild landscapes, thereby, as it were, striving to return art to nature. Thanks to his<первобытному>In appearance, many actions and objects of this kind are close to archeology, as well as to photo art, since the majority of the public can contemplate them only in series of photographs. It looks like we will have to come to terms with yet another barbarism in the Russian language. I don't know if it's a coincidence that the term<лэнд-арт>appeared at the end 60s at a time when in developed societies the rebellious spirit of the student body directed its forces to overthrow established values.

MINIMALISM(minimal art - English: minimal art) - artist. flow emanating from the minimal transformation of the materials used in the process of creativity, simplicity and uniformity of forms, monochrome, creative. artist's self-restraint. Minimalism is characterized by the rejection of subjectivity, representation, illusionism. Rejecting the classic creativity and tradition. artistic materials, minimalists use industrial and natural materials of simple geometric. shapes and neutral colors (black, gray), small volumes, serial, conveyor methods of industrial production are used. An artifact in the minimalist concept of creativity is a predetermined result of the process of its production. Having received the most complete development in painting and sculpture, minimalism, interpreted in a broad sense as the economy of the artist. funds, found application in other forms of art, primarily theater and cinema.

Minimalism originated in the United States in the trans. floor. 60s Its origins are in constructivism, suprematism, dadaism, abstractionism, formalistic Amer. painting of the 1950s, pop art. Direct precursor to minimalism. is an Amer. painter F. Stella, who presented in 1959-60 a series of "Black Paintings", where orderly straight lines prevailed. The first minimalist works appear in 1962-63 The term "minimalism." belongs to R. Walheim, who introduces it in relation to the analysis of creativity M. Duchamp and pop artists, minimizing the artist's intervention in the environment. Its synonyms are "cool art", "ABC art", "serial art", "primary structures", "art as a process", "systematic art". painting". Among the most representative minimalists are − C. Andre, M. Bochner, W. De Maria, D. Flavin. S. Le Witt, R. Mangold, B. Marden, R. Morris, R. Ryman. They are united by the desire to fit the artifact into the environment, to beat the natural texture of materials. D. Jade defines it as "specific. object”, different from the classical one. plastic works. arts. Independent, lighting plays a role as a way to create minimalist art. situations, original spatial solutions; computer methods of creation of works are used.

Nowadays, designers are not considered artisans, but in the past, eminent craftsmen looked down on artists who worked in this area. Ilya Repin wrote: "To make carpets that caress the eye, weave lace, engage in fashion - in a word, in every way interfere with God's gift with scrambled eggs." Over time, the attitude towards fashion designers has changed - Kultura.RF tells how Russian artists became trendsetters.

Oriental motives

Leon Bakst. Costume design for the ballet "Narcissus" for the role of the Bacchae. 1911. Photo: porusski.me

Leon Bakst. Costume design for the ballet Cleopatra. 1910. Photo: artchive.ru

Leon Bakst. Costume design for the ballet "Carnival" for the role of Estrella. 1910. Photo: artchive.ru

Leon Bakst is best known as a painter and theater artist. However, it was he who first proved that the work of a costume designer is worthy of attention and admiration.

Performances by the Sergei Diaghilev Ballet Company in Paris in the late 1900s and early 1910s were overwhelmingly successful and popular. Exotic scenery and costumes created by Bakst produced a "hypnotic effect" on the audience. And from the theater stage, his ideas migrated to the auditorium. The artist Mstislav Dobuzhinsky wrote: "refinement bright colors, the luxury of turbans with feathers and fabrics woven with gold, the lush abundance of ornaments and decorations - all this was so amazing, so much responded to the thirst for something new, that it was perceived by life. [Charles Frederic] Worth and [Jeanne] Paquin - trendsetters in Parisian fashion - began to propagate Bakst".

Colored stockings, shoes embellished with rhinestones, shawls, scarves, eye-catching jewelry (long strings of imitation pearls, jewelry with large stones, numerous bracelets on arms and legs), turbans, colored wigs, bright decorative cosmetics and much more - the fashion of the 1910s formed under the great influence of Bakst and his "Eastern" works.

Soon, Leon Bakst began to influence European fashion from within the industry: he created sketches of costumes for fashion houses, drew patterns for fabrics and, as the painter Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin recalled, "dressed Paris with carnivorous oriental silks." Paul Poiret, one of the most prominent couturiers of that era, denied that he was inspired by the works of Bakst, but he was the first to offer cooperation to the Russian artist. It was during this period that Poiret's color scheme became unexpectedly bright - and one can see the influence of Bakst in this. In the future, Bakst and Poiret worked in similar directions, and many fashionable novelties were attributed to both of them: for example, harem pants as women's evening wear, extremely narrow "lame skirts" and multi-layered outfits.

Leon Bakst did a lot for world fashion and did not consider it unworthy of an artist. Shortly before his death, in an interview, he said: “There is no great and small in art. Everything is art".

avant-garde fashion

Natalia Goncharova. Costume design for Leonid Myasin's ballet "Liturgy" - Seraphim. 1915. Photo: avangardism.ru

Natalia Goncharova at work on a costume sketch. 1916. Photo: theartnewspaper.ru

Natalia Goncharova. Costume design for the ballet "On Borisfen" to music by Sergei Prokofiev. 1932. Photo: theartnewspaper.ru

The works of Natalia Goncharova today are considered the most expensive among all women artists, and she herself has become the most famous Russian artist abroad. The great-grandniece of Alexander Pushkin's wife, Goncharova, initially intended to become a sculptor. However, the artist Mikhail Larionov, whom she later married, advised her to take up painting—and Goncharova soon turned to arts and crafts.

In 1913 Alexandre Benois, painter, critic and art critic, wrote in his diary: “Goncharova's series of fashions is charming. The colors of these dresses are artistic, not cloying. Why am I only now finding out that the artist has devoted her energies to updating women's clothing, why don't the famous fashionistas of Moscow go to her and learn from her? Fashionistas were late: Sergei Diaghilev invited Goncharova to Paris to work together on the scenery of the Russian Seasons, and the artist never returned to her homeland. It is believed that before leaving for France, Goncharova sold sketches of outfits to the famous craftswoman Nadezhda Lamanova, whose atelier was located not far from the salon, where the first exhibition of the artist was held in the same 1913.

In exile, Natalia Goncharova continued to collaborate with magazines and fashion houses - many sketches have been preserved. The Paris Fashion Museum also stores the outfits from Goncharova. Unfortunately, neither the names of fashion designers nor the names of those who ordered these works are known today, but it is obvious that the bright decorative works of one of the founders of the Russian avant-garde could not but attract attention in the 1910s. Even the appearance of Natalia Goncharova herself and her style - seeming carelessness and simplicity - were avant-garde and somewhat ahead of their time.

Accessibility and originality

Vera Mukhina. Costume design, Atelier magazine, 1923. Photo: fashionblog.com

Vera Mukhina and Natalia Lamanova. Sketch of a home dress from a headscarf. Photo: nlamanova.ru

Vera Mukhina. Sketch of a bud dress. Cover of Atelier magazine, 1923. Photo: casual-info.ru

The author of the legendary statue "Worker and Collective Farm Woman" Vera Mukhina was engaged not only in monumental art. She drew a lot, and even before the revolution she created a number of sketches for theatrical costumes and for the design of productions of the Chamber Theater, which, unfortunately, did not take place. And in the 1920s, she devoted a lot of time to applied art, including the creation of clothes.

The first in the USSR center for modeling everyday costumes, the "Modern Costume Workshops", the costume section of the State Academy of Artistic Sciences - Mukhina took an active part in everything. In 1923, the Atelier magazine was published - the first Soviet fashion magazine. One of his most striking models was the Mukhina model, dressed in a fluffy bud skirt and a wide-brimmed red hat. The sketches of the artist were also published in the Krasnaya Niva magazine.

Soon Vera Mukhina met Nadezhda Lamanova. In 1925, they jointly released "Art in everyday life" - an album with spectacular, but practical models that every Soviet woman could repeat at home. Lamanova acted as a theorist in this collaboration, and Mukhina embodied her ideas on paper. Then they took part in the International Exhibition of Decorative Arts and Art Industry in Paris. Modest models from the most simple materials with folk-style trim competed with luxurious outfits from European fashion designers - and very successfully: Mukhina and Lamanova received the Grand Prix "for national identity combined with a modern fashion trend."

In 1933, the Moscow House of Fashion Models was opened, and Vera Mukhina became a member of its artistic council. As Leon Bakst noted in his time, “artists are ahead of fashionistas.”

New clothing concept and unisex

Alexander Rodchenko. Varvara Stepanova in a dress made of fabric according to her own sketch, produced at the First Cotton Printing Factory. Photo: jewish-museum.ru

Alexander Rodchenko. Lilya Brik in a scarf with Varvara Stepanova's print. 1924. Photo: jewish-museum.ru

Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova. 1920s Photo: jewish-museum.ru

The artist Varvara Stepanova is usually remembered together with her husband Alexander Rodchenko, an outstanding artist and photographer. However, the "violent Stepanova", as Vladimir Mayakovsky called her, was not only the wife and ally of the famous author. "The Amazon of the Russian avant-garde", a bright representative of constructivism, was able, as required by this direction, to abandon art for the sake of art. Or rather, forced him to serve ordinary people.

In 1922, the First Cotton Printing Factory opened in Moscow. Artists came to the aid of the production workers. Varvara Stepanova and her friend Lyubov Popova became textile designers and started designing prints for fabrics. Staples, chintzes, flannelettes, crepe de chines adorned drawings with clearly defined contours, abstract forms, non-objective Suprematist ornaments. In just two years of work at the factory, Stepanova developed 150 sketches, 20 of which were printed.

Alexander Rodchenko. Students in sportswear designed by Stepanova. 1924. Photo: avangardism.ru

Varvara Stepanova. Sketch of a tracksuit. 1923. Photo: avangardism.ru

Alexander Rodchenko. Evgenia Sokolova (Zhemchuzhnaya) demonstrates a tracksuit designed by Varvara Stepanova. 1924. Photo: casual-info.ru

At the same time, the artist taught at the textile department of the Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops. Stepanova also turned out to be a brilliant fashion theorist, developing a new approach to clothing. In the article "Today's suit is overall" she wrote: “Fashion, psychologically reflecting life, habits, aesthetic taste, gives way to clothes organized for work in various branches of labor,<...>clothes that can be shown only in the process of working in it, outside real life not representing a self-contained value, a special kind of "works of art". Stepanova suggested replacing decorativeness and embellishment with convenience and expediency. The new Soviet man needed new appropriate clothing. The tracksuits she designed with geometric patterns were comfortable and suited both men and women equally.

The LEF magazine even wrote about Popova: “Days and nights she sat over drawings for calico, trying in a single creative act to combine the requirements of the economy, the laws of external design and the mysterious taste of the Tula peasant woman. No amount of compliments or flattering offers could seduce her. She categorically refused any work for the exhibition, for the museum. “Guessing” a calico was incomparably more attractive for her than “pleasing” the aesthetic gentlemen from pure art..

Popova's geometric ornaments, drawn with compasses and a ruler, seemed unusual at first, and many considered them unsuitable for women's clothing. However, fabrics with new patterns were such a great success that in the summer of 1924, during the "Congress of Peoples" in Moscow, the samples were sold out "up to a arshin."

And in 1925, an international exhibition was held in Paris, the same one where the works of Vera Mukhina and Nadezhda Lamanova received the Grand Prix. Lyubov Popova also participated in it. The designer of the Soviet pavilion, Alexander Rodchenko, wrote to his wife, Varvara Stepanova: Textile drawings by Lyubov Popova 60, and yours 4 ". True, Popova herself never found out about this - she died a year before the exhibition.

The art of the early 19th century is associated with the era of social upsurge caused by the Patriotic War of 1812 and the anti-serfdom movement, which led to the Decembrist uprising in 1825.

In the field of artistic culture given period there was a relatively fast change of direction: classicism gives way romanticism, and romanticism on the way of its development meets with increasing realism in art. Indeed, this was mainly in painting. If the artists of the 18th century strove for realism in conveying the individual uniqueness of the individual, then in the 19th century they began to depict what was valuable, what worried them in public life.

In the second quarter of the 19th century, capitalism had already established itself in most countries in Europe, while the disintegration of the feudal-serf system was still continuing in Russia. However, both in Europe and in Russia, this period is characterized by the rise of a stormy social life - in Europe it is primarily The French Revolution and its consequences, and in Russia the growing struggle against serfdom, especially after the failure of the Decembrist uprising.

During this period, classicism, which dominated the walls Academy of Arts, has exhausted its progressive significance. In 1829, the Academy was subordinated to the department of the imperial court, so it became conductor of official views. In an effort to strengthen their position in art, the professors of the Academy tried to master certain techniques characteristic of romanticism. Thus, the method of academic romanticism was formed, which was designed to create an ideal, sublime beauty, far from real everyday life.

In contrast to academic art, in the first half of the 19th century, another art began to take shape in Russia, which began to be called critical realism. Artists began openly, without resorting to the conditional form of gospel stories, to expose the vices of their contemporary society, the founder of Russian critical realism in painting is rightfully considered Pavel Fedotov.

The second half of the 19th century in Russia was marked by a new upsurge in the liberation struggle for a better life. The intelligentsia took the leading place in the social movement. Serfdom was abolished, but life did not become easier from this.

During this period, the importance of art increased, in particular, painting, which was considered a powerful means of educating people. At the end of the first half of the 19th century began to work Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, which has now begun to play a huge role in society, as a conductor of democratic paths. Here, the Venetian pedagogical system, based on a close study of the surrounding life, immediately took root. The fact that the School was located away from the capital, as if in the midst of people's life, also played its role. The most outstanding of the pupils of the School was V.G. Perov

Art in the period of the 2nd half is distinguished by high ideological content, passionate interest in solving urgent social issues, and its folk character. Serving the people has become one of the main goals of progressive Russian artists. For the first time in the history of Russian art, the life of the working people became the main theme of the works of democratic artists. The people are depicted not from the outside, but as if from the inside. The artists who became the defenders of the people, many of whom themselves came from the people, spoke about its oppression, hard life and lack of rights. These socially critical moods also penetrated the classes of the Academy of Arts: in 1861 its graduate V. Jacobi performed the painting "Halt of prisoners". And in 1864, the picture had a resounding success. K. Flavitsky "Princess Tarakanova", which is dedicated to the mysterious prisoner of the Peter and Paul Fortress, who was considered the daughter of Elizabeth Petrovna.

Princess Tarakanova (1864)

Despite all these changes in the social life of Russia, the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts continued to defend academic art, far from life, abstract. The highest kind of painting was still considered history painting mainly on mythological and religious subjects. As a result, advanced artists, unwilling to accept the backward principles of the Academy, came into conflict with the old teaching system, which resulted in open "riot of the 14th" artists. Graduates, led by the artist Kramskoy, refused to perform thesis on a given mythological theme. They demanded freedom in choosing a theme. The Council of the Academy denied the graduates their request, then they left the Academy in protest, refusing their diploma.

Upon leaving the Academy on November 9, 1863, the Protestants organized Artel of artists. The initiator of the whole affair was Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoy. Members of the Artel rented an apartment and settled together. The household was run by Kramskoy's wife. Artel soon gained recognition. She was often called "Kramskoy Academy". Every Thursday, in the evenings, painters and writers gathered in the artel workshop. At these evenings, exciting issues of politics, social life, art were discussed - all this contributed to the education of artistic youth, the rallying of artistic forces.

The artel existed for about 7 years and broke up in 1870. The Artel was replaced by a new art association - Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions.

A very important place in the art of the 19th century is activities of P. M. Tretyakov, who proved himself a real citizen of Russia, starting a collection of Russian painting and sculpture, starting from antiquity. He spent all his money on the purchase of paintings, and often supported poor talented artists with money.

The main area of ​​Russian painting of the second half of the 19th century was household genre. The leader was still peasant theme. Wanderers portrayed folk life, showing the social conflict between the ruling and oppressed classes of Russian society. Accusatory traditions continued in painting. Takes a big place children's theme.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century, a reform took place in Russian fine arts, according to which the mythological, religious themes began to give way to the depiction of real historical events. The beginning of this reform was laid by the Russian artist Ge N.N.

In the Russian landscape of the second half of the 19th century, a sharp struggle is unfolding for the establishment of a national theme. Remarkable artists Savrasov, Shishkin, Levitan and others in these years break with the traditions of the "idealized", "smoothed", far from life, mainly Italian and French, academic landscape and turn to the image of the nature of their native country. Chernyshevsky's statement "The beautiful is life" found a warm response among the masters of landscape painting. Representing nature in its everyday, natural appearance, the Wanderers showed in it broad poetry and beauty.

In the 2nd half of the 20th century, several particularly bright, powerful, talented painters, masters of historical painting, stood out in Russian painting - these are I. Repin, V. Surikrv, V. Vasnetsov.

Russian art at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries took shape in a revolutionary mood. Decadent views and pessimism penetrated the environment of the creative intelligentsia. Aesthetic values ​​have changed in society. In search of their own path in art, many artists began to unite in various artistic organizations - associations.

In 1903, many realist artists united in "Union of Russian Artists", where they continued the traditions of the Wanderers, wrote truthful, realistic works. Remarkable artists of this period were Serov, Vrubel, Nesterov, Ryabushkin, etc.