Characteristic features of realism. Prerequisites for the emergence of critical realism in Europe

22.04.2019

Realism at the turn of the century remained a large-scale and influential literary movement. Suffice it to say that in the 1900s L. Tolstoy and A. Chekhov still lived and worked.

The most brilliant talents among the new realists belonged to the writers who united in the Moscow circle “Sreda” in the 1890s, and who in the early 1900s formed the circle of regular authors of the publishing house “Znanie” (one of its owners and de facto leader was M. Gorky). In addition to the leader of the association, over the years it included L. Andreev, I. Bunin, V. Veresaev, N. Garin-Mikhailovsky, A. Kuprin, I. Shmelev and other writers. With the exception of I. Bunin, there were no major poets among the realists; they showed themselves primarily in prose and, less noticeably, in drama.

The influence of this group of writers was largely due to the fact that it was they who inherited the traditions of the great Russian literature of the 19th century. However, the immediate predecessors of the new generation of realists seriously updated the appearance of the movement already in the 1880s. The creative searches of the late L. Tolstoy, V. Korolenko, A. Chekhov introduced into artistic practice a lot of things that were unusual by the standards of classical realism. The experience of A. Chekhov turned out to be especially important for the next generation of realists.

Chekhov's world includes many diverse human characters, but with all the originality, his heroes are similar in that they all lack something most important. They try to join true life, but, as a rule, they never find the desired spiritual harmony. Neither love, nor passionate service to science or social ideals, nor faith in God - none of the previously reliable means of gaining integrity - can help the hero. The world in his perception has lost a single center; this world is far from hierarchical completeness and cannot be embraced by any of the worldview systems.

That is why life according to any ideological template, a worldview based on a fixed system of social and ethical values, is interpreted by Chekhov as vulgarity. Life turns out to be vulgar, repeating patterns set by tradition, devoid of spiritual independence. None of Chekhov's heroes are unconditionally right, so Chekhov's type of conflict looks unusual. When comparing heroes on one or another basis, Chekhov most often does not give preference to any of them. What is important to him is not “moral investigation,” but rather finding out the reasons for mutual misunderstanding between people. This is why the writer refuses to be the accuser or lawyer of his heroes.

Outwardly mild plot situations in his mature prose and drama are designed to reveal the delusions of the characters, determine the degree of development of their self-awareness and the associated degree of personal responsibility. In general, various moral, ideological and stylistic contrasts in Chekhov’s world lose their absolute character and become relative.

In a word, Chekhov's world is a world of moving relationships, where different subjective truths interact. In such works, the role of subjective reflection (self-analysis, reflections of the characters, their understanding of their actions) increases. The author has good control over the tone of his assessments: it cannot be unconditionally heroic or recklessly satirical. Subtle lyrical irony is perceived by the reader as a typically Chekhovian tone.

Thus, the generation of realist writers of the early 20th century inherited from Chekhov new principles of writing - with much greater authorial freedom than before; with a much wider arsenal artistic expression; with a sense of proportion obligatory for the artist, which was ensured by increased internal self-criticism and self-reflection.

While generously using some of Chekhov's findings, realists of the turn of the century did not always possess the last of the mentioned qualities of an artist. Where Chekhov saw a variety and relative equivalence of life behavior options, his young followers were carried away by one of them. If Chekhov, say, shows how strong the inertia of life is, often nullifying the hero’s initial desire to change, then the realist of Gorky’s generation sometimes absolutizes the very volitional impulse of a person, without testing it for strength and therefore replacing the real complexity of a person with a dream of “strong people.” Where Chekhov predicted a long-term perspective, calling for “squeezing a slave out of oneself” drop by drop, the “Knowledge” writer gave a much more optimistic forecast of “the birth of man.”

Nevertheless, it is extremely important that the generation of realists of the early 20th century inherited from Chekhov constant attention to the personality of man, his individuality. What are the main features of realism of the late 19th - early 20th centuries?

Themes and heroes of realistic literature. The thematic range of works by turn-of-the-century realists is wider than that of their predecessors; For most writers at this time, thematic constancy is uncharacteristic. Rapid changes in Russia forced them to vary themes and invade previously reserved thematic layers. In Gorky’s writing circle at that time, the spirit of the artel was strong: through joint efforts, the “Znanyevites” created a wide panorama of the country undergoing renewal. Large-scale thematic capture was noticeable in the titles of the works that made up the “Knowledge” collections (it was this type of publication - collections and almanacs - that spread in the literature of the beginning of the century). For example, the table of contents of the 12th collection “Knowledge” resembled the sections of some sociological study: the same type of titles “In the city”, “In the family”, “In prison”, “In the village” designated the areas of life being examined.

Elements of sociological descriptiveness in realism are the not yet overcome legacy of social essay prose of the 60-80s, in which there was a strong focus on the empirical study of reality. However, the prose of the “Znanievites” was distinguished by more acute artistic problems. The crisis of all forms of life - most of their works brought readers to this conclusion. What was important was the changed attitude of realists to the possibility of transforming life. In the literature of the 60-80s, the living environment was depicted as sedentary, possessing a terrible force of inertia. Now the circumstances of a person's existence are interpreted as devoid of stability and subject to his will. In the relationship between man and the environment, realists at the turn of the century emphasized man’s ability not only to withstand the adverse effects of the environment, but also to actively rebuild life.

The typology of characters has also been noticeably updated in realism. Outwardly, the writers followed tradition: in their works one could find recognizable types of " little man"or an intellectual who has experienced a spiritual drama. The peasant remained one of the central figures in their prose. But even the traditional “peasant” characterology has changed: more and more often a new type of “thoughtful” man appeared in stories and tales. Characters got rid of sociological averageness and became more diverse in psychological characteristics and attitude. “The diversity of the soul” of the Russian person is a constant motif in I. Bunin’s prose. He was one of the first in realism to widely use foreign material in his works (“Brothers”, “Chang’s Dreams”, “The Mister from San Francisco”). The use of such material became characteristic of other writers (M. Gorky, E. Zamyatin).

Genres and stylistic features of realistic prose. The genre system and stylistics of realistic prose were significantly updated at the beginning of the 20th century.

At this time, the most mobile stories and essays occupied a central place in the genre hierarchy. The novel has practically disappeared from the genre repertoire of realism: the largest epic genre became a story. Not a single novel in the exact meaning of this term was written by the most significant realists of the early 20th century - I. Bunin and M. Gorky.

Starting with the work of A. Chekhov, the importance of the formal organization of the text has noticeably increased in realistic prose. Individual techniques and elements of form received greater independence in the artistic structure of the work than before. So, for example, artistic detail was used more variedly, at the same time, the plot increasingly lost the significance of the main compositional device and began to play a subordinate role. The expressiveness in conveying the details of the visible and audible world has deepened. In this regard, I. Bunin, B. Zaitsev, I. Shmelev especially stood out. A specific feature of Bunin's style, for example, was the amazing unity of visual and auditory, olfactory and tactile characteristics in conveying the surrounding world. Realist writers attached greater importance to the use of rhythmic and phonetic effects of artistic speech and the transfer of individual characteristics oral speech characters (masterful control of this element of form was characteristic of I. Shmelev).

Having lost compared to classics of the 19th century century, the epic scale and integrity of the vision of the world, the realists of the beginning of the century compensated for these losses with a sharper perception of life and greater expression in expressing the author’s position. The general logic of the development of realism at the beginning of the century was to strengthen the role of highly expressive forms. What was important to the writer now was not so much the proportionality of the proportions of the reproduced fragment of life, but rather the “power of the cry”, the intensity of the expression of the author’s emotions. This was achieved by sharpening plot situations, When close-up extremely dramatic, “borderline” states in the lives of the characters were described. The figurative series of works was built on contrasts, sometimes extremely sharp, “screaming”; Leitmotif principles of narration were actively used: the frequency of figurative and lexical repetitions increased.

Stylistic expression was especially characteristic of L. Andreev and A. Serafimovich. It is also noticeable in some of M. Gorky’s works. The works of these writers contain many journalistic elements - “montage” joining of statements, aphorism, rhetorical repetitions; the author often comments on what is happening, intrudes into the plot with lengthy journalistic digressions (you will find examples of such digressions in M. Gorky’s stories “Childhood” and “In People”). In the stories and dramas of L. Andreev, the plot and arrangement of characters were often deliberately schematic: the writer was attracted by universal, “eternal” types and life situations.

However, within the work of one writer, a single stylistic manner was rarely maintained: more often, wordsmiths combined several stylistic options. For example, in the works of A. Kuprin, M. Gorky, L. Andreev, precise depiction coexisted with generalized romantic imagery, elements of life-likeness - with artistic conventions.

Stylistic duality, an element of artistic eclecticism - a characteristic feature of the realism of the beginning

XX century. Of the major writers of that time, only I. Bunin avoided diversity in his work: both his poetic and prosaic works maintained the harmony of precise descriptiveness and authorial lyricism. The stylistic instability of realism was a consequence of the transitivity and well-known artistic compromise of the direction. On the one hand, realism remained faithful to the traditions bequeathed by the previous century, on the other, it began to interact with new trends in art.

Realist writers gradually adapted to new forms of artistic search, although this process was not always peaceful. Those who went further along the path of rapprochement with modernist aesthetics were L. Andreev, B. Zaitsev, S. Sergeev-Tsensky, and somewhat later - E. Zamyatin. Most of them were often reproached by critics who were adherents of former traditions for artistic apostasy, or even ideological desertion. However, the process of updating realism as a whole was artistically fruitful, and its total achievements at the turn of the century were significant.

Realism (literature)

Realism in literature - a truthful depiction of reality.

In any work of fine literature we distinguish two necessary elements: objective - the reproduction of phenomena given in addition to the artist, and subjective - something put into the work by the artist on his own. Focusing on a comparative assessment of these two elements, the theory in different eras attaches greater importance to one or the other of them (in connection with the course of development of art and other circumstances).

Hence there are two opposing directions in theory; one - realism- sets art the task of faithfully reproducing reality; other - idealism- sees the purpose of art in “replenishing reality”, in creating new forms. Moreover, the starting point is not so much the available facts as ideal ideas.

This terminology, borrowed from philosophy, sometimes introduces extra-aesthetic aspects into the assessment of a work of art: Realism is completely wrongly accused of lacking moral idealism. In common usage, the term “Realism” means the exact copying of details, mainly external ones. The inconsistency of this point of view, the natural conclusion from which is the preference for the protocol over the novel and photography over the painting, is completely obvious; a sufficient refutation of it is our aesthetic sense, which does not hesitate for a minute between a wax figure reproducing the finest shades living colors, and a deathly white marble statue. It would be pointless and aimless to create another world, completely identical with the existing one.

Copying the external world in itself, even the most strident realistic theory, has never seemed to be the goal of art. The possible faithful reproduction of reality was seen only as a guarantee of the artist’s creative originality. In theory, realism is opposed to idealism, but in practice it is opposed by routine, tradition, the academic canon, mandatory imitation of the classics - in other words, the death of independent creativity. Art begins with the actual reproduction of nature; but, once popular examples of artistic thinking are given, second-hand creativity appears, work according to a template.

This is a common phenomenon of the school, no matter under what banner it appears for the first time. Almost every school makes claims to a new word precisely in the field of truthful reproduction of life - and each in its own right, and each is denied and replaced by the next in the name of the same principle of truth. This is especially evident in the history of the development of French literature, which is all an uninterrupted series of achievements of true Realism. The desire for artistic truth underlay the same movements that, petrified in tradition and canon, later became a symbol of unreal art.

This is not only romanticism, which was attacked with such fervor in the name of truth by the doctrinaires of modern naturalism; so is classical drama. It is enough to recall that the notorious three unities were not adopted out of slavish imitation of Aristotle, but only because they determined the possibility of stage illusion. “The establishment of unities was the triumph of Realism. These rules, which became the cause of so many inconsistencies during the decline of the classical theater, were initially a necessary condition for stage verisimilitude. In Aristotelian rules, medieval rationalism found a means of removing from the scene the last vestiges of naive medieval fantasy.” (Lanson).

The deep inner Realism of the classical tragedy of the French degenerated in the reasoning of theorists and in the works of imitators into dead schemes, the oppression of which was cast off by literature only in early XIX century. From a broad point of view, every truly progressive movement in the field of art is a movement towards Realism. In this regard, those new trends that appear to be a reaction to Realism are no exception. In fact, they represent only a reaction to routine, obligatory artistic dogma - a reaction against realism by name, which has ceased to be a search and artistic recreation of the truth of life. When lyrical symbolism tries to convey to the reader the mood of the poet by new means, when neo-idealists, resurrecting old conventional techniques of artistic depiction, draw stylized images, that is, as if deliberately deviating from reality, they strive for the same thing that is the goal of any - even arch-naturalistic - art: to the creative reproduction of life. There is no truly artistic work - from a symphony to an arabesque, from the Iliad to a Whisper, a Timid Breath - which, upon a deeper look at it, would not turn out to be a truthful image of the creator’s soul, “a corner of life through the prism of temperament.”

It is therefore hardly possible to talk about the history of Realism: it coincides with the history of art. One can only characterize certain moments in the historical life of art when they especially insisted on a truthful depiction of life, seeing it mainly in emancipation from school conventions, in the ability to grasp and courage to depict details that passed without a trace for the previous artist or frightened him by inconsistency with dogmas. Such was romanticism, such is the modern form of Realism - naturalism. Literature about Realism is mostly polemical about its modern form. Historical writings(David, Sauvageot, Lenoir) suffer from vagueness of the subject of research. In addition to the works indicated in the article Naturalism.

Russian writers who used realism

Of course, first of all, these are F. M. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy. The works of the late Pushkin (rightfully considered the founder of realism in Russian literature) also became outstanding examples of literature of this direction - historical drama“Boris Godunov”, the stories “The Captain’s Daughter”, “Dubrovsky”, “Belkin’s Tales”, the novel by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”, as well as the poem by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol “Dead Souls”.

The Birth of Realism

There is a version that realism originated in ancient times, during the time of the Ancient Peoples. There are several types of realism:

"Ancient Realism"
"Renaissance Realism"
"Realism of the 18th-19th centuries"

Notes

Links

A. A. Gornfeld// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: In 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional ones). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

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Realism

1) A literary and artistic movement that finally took shape by the middle of the 19th century. and established the principles of analytical understanding of reality, as well as its life-accurate reproduction in a work of art. Realism sees its main task in revealing the essence of life phenomena through the depiction of heroes, situations and circumstances, “taken from reality itself.” Realists strive to trace the chain of causes and consequences of the phenomena described, to find out what external (socio-historical) and internal (psychological) factors influenced this or that course of events, to determine in human character not only individual, but also typical traits that were formed under the influence of the general atmosphere of the era (along with realism, the idea of socially conditioned human types arises).

Analytical beginning in realism of the 19th century. combines:

with a powerful critical pathos aimed at the flaws of the social structure;
with a desire for generalizations concerning the laws and trends of social life;
with close attention to material side existence, realized both in detailed descriptions of the appearance of the heroes, the characteristics of their behavior, way of life, and in the widespread use of artistic details;
with the study of personality psychology (psychologism).

19th century realism gave birth to a whole galaxy of writers of world significance. In particular, Stendhal, P. Mérimée, O. de Balzac, G. Flaubert, C. Dickens, W. Thackeray, Mark Twain, I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, N. Nekrasov, F. .M. Dostoevsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.P. Chekhov and others.

2) An artistic movement in art (including literature), based on the principle of a vitally truthful reflection of reality. Asserting the most important importance of literature as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism is not at all limited to external verisimilitude when reproducing facts, things, and human characters, but strives to identify the patterns that operate in life. Therefore, realistic art also uses such methods of artistic expression as myth, symbol, and grotesque. In itself, the selection of certain phenomena of reality, preferential attention to certain characters, the principles of their depiction - all this is connected with the literary position of the author, his individual skill. The absence of any kind of bias, genuine artistic freedom helped realists see life in its ambiguity, complexity, and inconsistency. A person’s character is revealed in connection with the reality around him, society, and environment. The often used terms “sociological realism” or “psychological realism” are prone to inaccuracy, since it is sometimes extremely difficult to determine which type of realism the work of a particular writer belongs to.

3) Artistic method, following which the artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself. Affirming the importance of literature as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism strives for a deep knowledge of life, for a wide coverage of reality. In a narrower sense, the term “realism” denotes the direction that most consistently embodies the principles of a vitally truthful reflection of reality.

4) A literary direction in which the surrounding reality is depicted specifically historically, in the diversity of its contradictions, and “typical characters act in typical circumstances.”

Literature is understood by realist writers as a textbook of life. Therefore, they strive to comprehend life in all its contradictions, and a person - in psychological, social and other aspects of his personality.

Common features of realism: Material from the site

Historicism of thinking.
The focus is on the patterns operating in life, determined by cause-and-effect relationships.
Fidelity to reality becomes the leading criterion of artistry in realism.
A person is depicted in interaction with the environment in authentic life circumstances. Realism shows the influence of the social environment on a person’s spiritual world and the formation of his character.
Characters and circumstances interact with each other: character is not only conditioned (determined) by circumstances, but also itself influences them (changes, opposes).
Works of realism present deep conflicts, life is given in dramatic clashes. Reality is given in development. Realism depicts not only already established forms of social relations and types of characters, but also reveals emerging ones that form a trend.
The nature and type of realism depends on the socio-historical situation - it manifests itself differently in different eras.

In the second third of the 19th century. The critical attitude of writers to the surrounding reality has intensified - both to the environment, society, and to man. A critical understanding of life, aimed at denying its individual aspects, gave rise to the name realism of the 19th century. critical.

The largest Russian realists were L. N. Tolstoy, F. M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, A. P. Chekhov.

The depiction of the surrounding reality and human characters from the point of view of the progressiveness of the socialist ideal created the basis of socialist realism. The first work of socialist realism in Russian literature is considered to be M. Gorky’s novel “Mother”. A. Fadeev, D. Furmanov, M. Sholokhov, A. Tvardovsky worked in the spirit of socialist realism.

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Introduction

1. Realism as an artistic movement of the 19th century

1.1 Prerequisites for the emergence of realism in art

1.2 Character traits, signs and principles of realism

1.3 Stages of development of realism in world art

2. The formation of realism in Russian art of the nineteenth century

2.1 Prerequisites and features of the formation of realism in Russian art

Applications

Introduction

Realism is a concept that characterizes the cognitive function of art: the truth of life, embodied by specific means of art, the measure of its penetration into reality, the depth and completeness of its artistic knowledge. Thus, broadly understood realism is the main trend in the historical development of art, inherent in its various types, styles, and eras.

A historically specific form of artistic consciousness of modern times, the beginning of which dates either from the Renaissance (“Renaissance realism”) or from the Enlightenment (“ educational realism"), or from the 30s of the 19th century ("actually realism").

Among largest representatives realism in various types art of the 19th century - Stendhal, O. Balzac, C. Dickens, G. Flaubert, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, M. Twain, A.P. Chekhov, T. Mann, W. Faulkner, O. Daumier, G. Courbet, I.E. Repin, V.I. Surikov, M.P. Mussorgsky, M.S. Shchepkin.

Realism arose in France and England in conditions of the triumph of bourgeois orders. Social antagonisms and shortcomings of the capitalist system determined the sharply critical attitude of realist writers towards it. They denounced money-grubbing, blatant social inequality, selfishness, and hypocrisy. In its ideological focus, it becomes critical realism.

The relevance of this topic in our time lies in the fact that until now, as well as about art in general, there is no universal, universally accepted definition of realism. Its boundaries have not yet been determined - where there is realism and where there is no longer realism. even within the narrower framework of realism in its various styles, although it has some common characteristic features, characteristics and principles. Realism in the art of the 19th century is a productive creative method, which is the basis art world literary works, knowledge of the social connections of man and society, a truthful, historically specific image of characters and circumstances that reflected the reality of a given time.

The purpose of the course work is to consider and study realism in the art of the 19th century.

To achieve the goal, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

1. Consider realism as an artistic movement of the 19th century;

2. Characterize the prerequisites and features of the formation of realism in Russian art of the nineteenth century

3. Consider realism in all directions of Russian art.

The first part of this course work examines realism as an artistic movement of the 19th century, its prerequisites for its emergence in art, its characteristic features and characteristics, as well as the stages of development in world art.
The second part of the work examines the formation of realism in Russian art of the 19th century, characterizing the prerequisites and features of the formation of realism in Russian art, namely in music, literature, and painting.
When writing this course work, the greatest assistance was provided by the literature Petrov S. M. “Realism”, S. Vayman “Marxist aesthetics and problems of realism”.
Book by S.M. Petrov's "Realism" turned out to be very informative and valuable with specific observations and conclusions about the features of artistic creativity of different eras and movements, a general approach was formulated To studying the problem of artistic method.
Book by S. Wyman "Marxist aesthetics and problems of realism." The center of this book is the problem of the typical and its coverage in the works of Marx and Engels.
1. Realismas an artistic movement of the 19th centuryeka

1.1 Prerequisites for the occurrencerealismand in art

Modern natural science, which alone has reached its most recent, systematic and scientific development, like all recent history, dates back to the replacement era, which the Germans called the Reformation, the French the Renaissance, and the Italians the Quinquenecento.

This poha begins in the second half of the 15th century. Blooming in the field of art at this time is one of the sides of the greatest progressive revolution, characterized by the breakdown of feudal foundations and the development of new economic relations. The royal authorities, relying on the townspeople, broke the feudal nobility and founded large, essentially national monarchies, in which modern European sciences developed. These shifts, which took place in an atmosphere of powerful popular upsurge, are closely connected with the struggle for independence from religion secular culture. In the XV-XVI centuries, advanced realistic art was created

In the 40s of the XIX century. Realism becomes an influential movement in art. Its basis was a direct, lively and unbiased perception and a truthful reflection of reality. Like romanticism, realism criticized reality, but at the same time it proceeded from reality itself, and in it it tried to identify ways to approach the ideal. Unlike romantic hero, hero critical realism may be an aristocrat, a convict, a banker, a landowner, a petty official, but he is always a typical hero in typical circumstances.

Realism of the 19th century, in contrast to the Renaissance and Enlightenment, according to the definition of A.M. Gorky is, first of all, critical realism. Its main theme is the exposure of the bourgeois system and its morality, the vices of the writer’s contemporary society. C. Dickens, W. Thackeray, F. Stendhal, O. Balzac revealed the social meaning of evil, seeing the reason in the material dependence of man on man.

In the disputes between classicists and romantics in the fine arts, the foundation was gradually laid for a new perception - realistic.

Realism, as a visually reliable perception of reality, assimilation to nature, approached naturalism. However, E. Delacroix already noted that “realism cannot be confused with the visible semblance of reality.” The significance of an artistic image depended not on the naturalism of the image, but on the level of generalization and typification.

The term "realism", introduced by the French literary critic J. Chanfleury in the mid-19th century, was used to designate art that opposed romanticism and academic idealism. Initially, realism came closer to naturalism and the “natural school” in art and literature of the 60-80s.

However, later realism self-identified as a movement that does not coincide with naturalism in everything. In Russian aesthetic thought, realism means not so much an accurate reproduction of life, but rather a “truthful” representation with a “sentence on the phenomena of life.”

Realism expands the social space of artistic vision, makes the “universal art” of classicism speak in a national language, and rejects retrospectivism more decisively than romanticism. A realistic worldview is the other side of idealism[ 9, pp. 4-6].

In the XV-XVI centuries, advanced realistic art was created. In the Middle Ages, artists, submitting to the influence of the church, moved away from the real image of the world inherent in the artists of antiquity (Apollodorus, Zeuxis, Parrhasius and Palephilus). Art moved towards the abstract and mystical; the real depiction of the world, the desire for knowledge, was considered a sinful matter. Real images seemed too material, sensual, and, therefore, dangerous in the sense of temptation. Artistic culture was falling, falling figurative writing. Hippolyte Taine wrote: “Looking at church glass and statues, at primitive painting, it seems to me that the human race has degenerated, consumptive saints, ugly martyrs, flat-chested virgins, a procession of colorless, dry, sad personalities, reflecting the fear of oppression.”

The art of the Renaissance introduces new progressive content into traditional religious subjects. In their works, artists glorify man, show him as beautiful and harmoniously developed, and convey the beauty of the world around him. But what is especially characteristic of the artists of that time is that they all live in the interests of their time, hence the completeness and strength of character, the realism of their paintings. The broadest social upsurge determined true nationality best works Renaissance. The Renaissance is a time of greatest cultural and artistic upsurge, which marked the beginning of the development of realistic art of subsequent eras. A new worldview was emerging, free from the spiritual oppression of the church. It is based on faith in the strengths and capabilities of man, a greedy interest in earthly life. Great interest in people, recognition of values and beauty real world determine the activities of artists, the development of a new realistic method in art based on scientific research in the field of anatomy, linear and aerial perspective, chiaroscuro and proportions. These artists created deeply realistic art.

1.2 Characteristics, signs and principlesrealismA

Realism has the following distinctive features:

1. The artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.

2. Literature in realism is a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him.

3. Cognition of reality occurs with the help of images created through typification of facts of reality (“typical characters in a typical setting”). Typification of characters in realism is carried out through the truthfulness of details in the “specifics” of the characters’ conditions of existence.

4. Realistic art is life-affirming art, even with a tragic resolution to the conflict. The philosophical basis for this is Gnosticism, the belief in knowability and an adequate reflection of the surrounding world, unlike, for example, romanticism.

5. Realistic art is characterized by the desire to consider reality in development, the ability to detect and capture the emergence and development of new forms of life and social relations, new psychological and social types.

In the course of the development of art, realism acquires specific historical forms and creative methods (for example, educational realism, critical realism, socialist realism). These methods, interconnected by continuity, have their own characteristic features. The manifestations of realistic tendencies are different in different types and genres of art.

In aesthetics, there is no definitively established definition of both the chronological boundaries of realism and the scope and content of this concept. In the variety of points of view being developed, two main concepts can be outlined:

· According to one of them, realism is one of the main features of artistic knowledge, the main trend in the progressive development of the artistic culture of mankind, in which the deep essence of art is revealed as a way of spiritual and practical development of reality. The measure of penetration into life, artistic knowledge of its important aspects and qualities, and, first of all, social reality, determines the measure of realism of a particular artistic phenomenon. In each new historical period, realism takes on a new look, sometimes revealing itself in a more or less clearly expressed tendency, sometimes crystallizing into a complete method that determines the characteristics of the artistic culture of its time.

· Representatives of another point of view on realism limit its history to a certain chronological framework, seeing in it a historically and typologically specific form of artistic consciousness. In this case, the beginning of realism dates back to either the Renaissance or the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment. The most complete disclosure of the features of realism is seen in the critical realism of the 19th century; its next stage is represented in the 20th century. socialist realism, which interprets life phenomena from the perspective of the Marxist-Leninist worldview. A characteristic feature Realism in this case is considered to be a method of generalization, typification of life material, formulated by F. Engels in relation to the realistic novel: " … typical characters in typical circumstances..."

· Realism in this understanding explores the personality of a person in indissoluble unity with his contemporary social environment and social relations. This interpretation of the concept of realism was developed mainly on the material of the history of literature, while the first one was developed mainly on the material of the plastic arts.

Whatever point of view one adheres to, and no matter how one connects them with each other, there is no doubt that realistic art has an extraordinary variety of ways of cognition, generalization, and artistic interpretation of reality, manifested in the nature of stylistic forms and techniques. Realism of Masaccio and Piero della Francesca, A. Durer and Rembrandt, J.L. David and O. Daumier, I.E. Repina, V.I. Surikov and V.A. Serov, etc. differ significantly from each other and testify to the broadest creative possibilities for objective exploration of the historically changing world through the means of art.

Moreover, any realistic method is characterized by a consistent focus on understanding and revealing the contradictions of reality, which, within given, historically determined limits, turns out to be accessible to truthful disclosure. Realism is characterized by the conviction that beings and features of the objective real world are knowable through the means of art. realism art knowledge

Forms and techniques for reflecting reality in realistic art are different in different types and genres. Deep penetration into the essence of life phenomena, which is inherent in realistic tendencies and constitutes a defining feature of any realistic method, is expressed in different ways in a novel, lyric poem, historical painting, landscape, etc. Not every outwardly reliable depiction of reality is realistic. The empirical reliability of an artistic image takes on meaning only in unity with a truthful reflection of the existing aspects of the real world. This is the difference between realism and naturalism, which creates only visible, external, and not genuine essential truthfulness of images. At the same time, in order to identify certain facets of the deep content of life, sometimes sharp hyperbolization, sharpening, grotesque exaggeration of the “forms of life itself” are required, and sometimes a conditionally metaphorical form of artistic thinking.

The most important feature of realism is psychologism, immersion through social analysis in inner world person. An example here is the “career” of Julien Sorel from Stendhal’s novel “The Red and the Black,” who experienced a tragic conflict of ambition and honor; psychological drama by Anna Karenina from the novel of the same name by L.N. Tolstoy, who was torn between the feelings and morality of class society. Human character is revealed by representatives of critical realism in an organic connection with the environment, with social circumstances and life conflicts. The main genre of realistic literature of the 19th century. Accordingly, it becomes a socio-psychological novel. It most fully meets the task of objective artistic reproduction of reality.

Let's look at the general features of realism:

1. Artistic depiction life in images, corresponding to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.

2. Reality is a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him.

3. Typification of images, which is achieved through the truthfulness of details in specific conditions.

4. Even with tragic conflict life-affirming art.

5. Realism is characterized by the desire to consider reality in development, the ability to detect the development of new social, psychological and public relations.

The leading principles of realism in the art of the 19th century:

· objective reflection of the essential aspects of life in combination with the height and truth of the author’s ideal;

· reproduction of typical characters, conflicts, situations with the completeness of their artistic individualization (i.e., concretization of both national, historical, social signs, and physical, intellectual and spiritual characteristics);

· preference in methods of depicting “forms of life itself,” but along with the use, especially in the 20th century, of conventional forms (myth, symbol, parable, grotesque);

· predominant interest in the problem of “personality and society” (especially in the inescapable confrontation between social patterns and moral ideal, personal and mass, mythologized consciousness) [4, p.20].

1.3 Stages of development of realism in world art

There are several stages in realistic art of the 19th century.

1) Realism in the literature of pre-capitalist society.

Early creativity, both pre-class and early class (slave-owning, early feudal), is characterized by spontaneous realism, which reaches its highest expression in the era of the formation of class society on the ruins of the tribal system (Homer, Icelandic sagas). In the future, however, spontaneous realism is constantly weakened, on the one hand, by the mythological systems of organized religion, and on the other, by artistic techniques that have developed into a rigid formal tradition. A good example of such a process is the feudal literature of the Western European Middle Ages, moving from the mainly realistic style of the “Song of Roland” to the conventionally fantastic and allegorical novel of the 13th-15th centuries. and from the lyrics of the early troubadours [beg. XII century] through the conventional courtliness of the developed troubadour style to the theological abstraction of Dante’s predecessors. The urban (burgher) literature of the feudal era does not escape this law, also moving from the relative realism of the early fabliaux and fairy tales about the Fox to the naked formalism of the Meistersingers and their French contemporaries. The approach of literary theory to realism goes parallel to the development of the scientific worldview. The developed slave-owning society of Greece, which laid the foundations of human science, was the first to put forward the idea of fiction as an activity that reflects reality.

The great ideological revolution of the Renaissance brought with it a hitherto unprecedented flowering of realism. But realism is only one of the elements that found expression in this great creative boiling. The pathos of the Renaissance is not so much in the knowledge of man in existing social conditions, but in identifying the possibilities of human nature, in establishing, so to speak, its “ceiling”. But the realism of the Renaissance remains spontaneous. Creating images that with brilliant depth expressed the era in its revolutionary essence, images in which (especially in Don Quixote) the emerging contradictions of bourgeois society, which were destined to deepen in the future, were deployed with the utmost generalizing power, the artists of the Renaissance were not aware of the historical the nature of these images. For them these were images of eternal human, not historical destinies. On the other hand, they are free from the specific limitations of bourgeois realism. He is not divorced from heroism and poetry. This makes them especially close to our era, which creates the art of realistic heroism.

2) Bourgeois realism in the West.

The realistic style developed in the 18th century. primarily in the sphere of the novel, which was destined to remain the leading genre of bourgeois realism. Between 1720-1760 the first flowering of the bourgeois realistic novel took place (Dafoe, Richardson, Fielding and Smollett in England, Abbé Prévost and Marivaux in France). The novel becomes a narrative about a specifically outlined modern life, familiar to the reader, rich in everyday details, with heroes who are types of modern society.

The fundamental difference between this early bourgeois realism and the “lower genres” of classicism (including the picaresque novel) is that the bourgeois realist is freed from the obligatory conventional comic (or “piccanine”) approach to the average person, who becomes in his hands an equal person capable of the highest passions of which classicism (and to a large extent the Renaissance) considered only kings and nobles capable. The main thrust of early bourgeois realism is sympathy for the average, everyday concrete person of bourgeois society in general, his idealization and affirmation of him as a replacement for aristocratic heroes.

Bourgeois realism rises to a new level along with the growth of bourgeois historicism: the birth of this new, historical realism coincides chronologically with the activities of Hegel and the French historians of the Restoration era. Its foundations were laid by Walter Scott, historical novels which played a huge role both in the formation of the realistic style in bourgeois literature and in the formation of the historical worldview in bourgeois science. Historians of the Restoration era, who first created the concept of history as a class struggle, were strongly influenced by W. Scott. Scott had his predecessors; Of these, Maria Edgeworth is of particular importance , whose story “Castle Rakrent” can be considered the true source of realism of the 19th century. For the characterization of bourgeois realism and historicism, the material that bourgeois realism was first able to approach historically is very indicative. Scott's novel is an important stage in the development of realism because it destroys the class hierarchy of images: he was the first to create a huge gallery of types from the people who are aesthetically equal to heroes from the upper classes, are not limited to comic, picaresque and lackey functions, but are bearers of all human passions and objects of intense sympathy.

Bourgeois realism in the West rose to the highest level in the second quarter of the 19th century. Balzac , in his first mature work ("The Chouans"), he was still a direct student of Walter Scott. Balzac, as a realist, draws attention to modernity, treating it as a historical era in its historical originality. The exceptionally high assessment that Marx and Engels gave Balzac as an artistic historian of his time is well known. Everything they wrote about realism had Balzac in mind first of all. Such images as Rastignac, Baron Nusengen, Cesar Birotteau and countless others are the most complete examples of what we call “the depiction of typical characters in typical circumstances.”

Balzac is the highest point of bourgeois realism in Western European literature, but realism became the dominant style of bourgeois literature only in the second half of the 19th century. At one time, Balzac was the only completely consistent realist. Neither Dickens, nor Stendhal, nor the Bronte sisters can be recognized as such. Ordinary literature of the 30s and 40s, as well as of later decades, was eclectic, combining the everyday individualizing style of the 18th century. with a whole series of purely conditional moments that reflected the philistine “idealism” of the bourgeoisie. Realism as a broad movement emerged in the second half of the 19th century in the fight against them. Refusing apologetics and varnishing, realism becomes critical , rejecting and condemning the reality he depicts. However, this criticism of bourgeois reality remains within the bourgeois worldview, remains self-criticism . The general features of new realism are pessimism (rejection of a “happy ending”), weakening of the plot core as “artificial” and imposed on reality, rejection of an evaluative attitude towards heroes, rejection of a hero (in the proper sense of the word) and a “villain”, and finally passivism , viewing people not as responsible builders of life, but as “the result of circumstances.” The new realism opposes the vulgar literature of bourgeois self-satisfaction as the literature of bourgeois self-disappointment. But at the same time he opposes healthy and strong literature the rising bourgeoisie as decadent literature, the literature of a class that has ceased to be progressive.

New realism is divided into two main movements - reformist and aesthetic. At the source of the first stands Zola, the second - Flauberealism. Reformist realism is one of the consequences of the influence that the struggle of the working class for its liberation had on literature. Reformist realism tries to convince the ruling class of the need for concessions to the working people in the interests of preserving the bourgeois order. Stubbornly pursuing the idea of the possibility of resolving the contradictions of bourgeois society on its own soil, reformist realism gave bourgeois agents in the working class an ideological weapon. With a sometimes very vivid description of the ugliness of capitalism, this realism is characterized by “sympathy” for the working people, to which, as reformist realism develops, fear and contempt are mixed - contempt for beings who failed to win their place at the bourgeois feast, and fear of the masses who are winning their place completely in other ways. The path of development of reformist realism - from Zola to Wells and Galsworthy - is a path of increasing powerlessness to understand reality in its entirety and especially of increasing falsity. In the era of the general crisis of capitalism (the war of 1914-1918), reformist realism was destined to finally degenerate and lie.

Aesthetic realism is a kind of decadent degeneration of romanticism. Like romanticism, it reflects the typically bourgeois discord between reality and the “ideal,” but unlike romanticism, it does not believe in the existence of any ideal. The only way left for him is to force art to transform the ugliness of reality into beauty, to overcome the ugly content with a beautiful form. Aesthetic realism can be very vigilant, since it is based on the need to transform this particular reality and thereby, so to speak, take revenge on it. The prototype of the entire movement, Flaubert's novel "Madame Bovary" is undoubtedly a genuine and deep realistic generalization of very significant aspects of bourgeois reality. But the logic of the development of aesthetic realism leads it to a rapprochement with decadence and to a formalistic degeneration. Huysmans's path from aesthetically motivated realistic novels to the “legends in the making” of such novels as “Topsy-Turvy” and “Down There” is extremely characteristic. Subsequently, aesthetic realism runs into pornography, purely psychological idealism, which retains only the external forms of the realistic manner (Proust), and formalist cubism, where realistic material is entirely subordinated to purely formal constructions (Joyce).

3) Bourgeois-noble realism in Russia

Bourgeois realism received a unique development in Russia. The characteristic features of Russian bourgeois-noble realism in comparison with Balzac are much less objectivism and less ability to embrace society as a whole. Capitalism, which was still poorly developed, could not put pressure on Russian realism with such force as on Western realism. It was not perceived as a natural state. In the minds of the bourgeois-noble writer, the future of Russia was not determined by the laws of economics, but depended entirely on the mental and moral development of the bourgeois-noble intelligentsia. Hence the peculiar educational, “teaching” character of this realism, whose favorite technique was to reduce socio-historical problems to the problem of individual suitability and individual behavior. Until the emergence of a conscious vanguard of the peasant revolution, bourgeois-noble realism directs its spearhead against serfdom, especially in the brilliant works of Pushkin and Gogol, which makes it progressive and allows it to preserve high degree truthfulness. From the moment the revolutionary-democratic avant-garde emerged [on the eve of 1861], bourgeois-noble realism, degenerating, acquired slanderous features. But in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, realism gives rise to new phenomena of global significance.

The work of both Tolstoy and Dostoevsky is closely connected with the era of the revolutionary democratic movement of the 60s and 70s, which raised the question of the peasant revolution. Dostoevsky is a brilliant renegade who put all his strength and all his organic instinct for revolution at the service of reaction. Dostoevsky's work is a gigantic distortion of realism: achieving almost unprecedented realistic effectiveness, he puts deeply deceitful content into his images through a subtle and mystifying shift of real problems and the replacement of real social forces with abstract and mystical ones. In developing methods for realistically depicting human individuality and the motivation of human actions, Tolstoy in War and Peace raised realism to a new level, and if Balzac is the greatest realist in terms of the scope of modernity, Tolstoy has no rival in the immediate concrete treatment of the material of reality. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy is already freed from apologetic tasks, his truthfulness becomes more free and conscious, and he creates a huge picture of how after 1861 “everything turned upside down” for the Russian nobility and peasantry. Subsequently, Tolstoy moved to the position of the peasantry, but not its revolutionary vanguard, but the patriarchal peasantry. The latter weakens him as an ideologist, but does not prevent him from creating unsurpassed examples of critical realism, which already merge with revolutionary-democratic realism.

4) Revolutionary-democratic realism

In Russia he received his most bright development and revolutionary democratic realism. Revolutionary-democratic realism, being an expression of the interests of petty-bourgeois peasant democracy, expressed the ideology of the broad democratic masses in the conditions of the unvictorious bourgeois revolution and was simultaneously directed against feudalism and its remnants and against all existing forms of capitalism. And since the revolutionary democracy of that time merged with utopian socialism, he was sharply anti-bourgeois. Such a revolutionary-democratic ideology could only develop in a country in which the bourgeois revolution developed without the participation of the bourgeoisie, and it could remain full-fledged and progressive only until the working class emerged as the hegemon of the revolution. Such conditions existed in the most pronounced form in Russia in the 60s and 70s.

In the West, where the bourgeoisie remained the hegemon of the bourgeois revolution and where, consequently, the ideology of the bourgeois revolution was to a much greater extent specifically bourgeois, revolutionary-democratic literature is a variety of bourgeois literature, and we do not find any developed revolutionary-democratic realism. The place of such realism is occupied by romantic semi-realism , who, although he was capable of creating large works ("Les Miserables" by V. Hugo), was fed not by the growing forces of the revolutionary class, which was the peasantry in Russia, but by illusions social groups, doomed to suffer and who wanted to believe in a better future. This literature was not only essentially philistine in its ideals, but to a large extent it was (even if unwittingly) an instrument for enveloping the masses in the democratic dope that the bourgeoisie needed. On the contrary, revolutionary democratic realism is emerging in Russia, standing at the highest level of historical understanding accessible to pre-Marxist consciousness. Its representatives are a wonderful galaxy of “raznochintsy” fiction writers, the brilliantly realistic poetry of Nekrasov and especially the work of Shchedrin. The latter occupies an exceptional place in the general history of realism. Marx's reviews of the cognitive-historical significance of his work are comparable to reviews of Balzac. But unlike Balzac, who ultimately created an objectivist epic about capitalist society, Shchedrin’s work is thoroughly imbued with a consistent militant partisanship, in which there is no room for a contradiction between moral and political assessment and aesthetic assessment.

Petty-bourgeois peasant realism was destined to experience a new flowering in the era of imperialism. It flourished most characteristically in America, where the contradictions between the illusions of bourgeois democracy and the realities of the era of monopoly capitalism became especially acute. Petty-bourgeois realism in America went through two main stages. In the pre-war years, it takes the form of reformist realism (Crane, Norris, the early works of Upton Sinclair and Dreiser), which differs from bourgeois reformist REALISM (like Wells) in its sincerity, organic aversion from capitalism and genuine (albeit half-thought-out) connection with the interests of the masses. Subsequently, petty-bourgeois realism loses its “conscientious” faith in reforms and faces a dilemma: to merge with bourgeois self-critical (and aesthetically decadent) literature or to take a revolutionary position. The first path is represented by a biting, but essentially harmless satire on philistinism by Sinclair Lewis, the second by a number of major artists moving closer to the proletariat, primarily by the same Dreiser and Dos Passos. This revolutionary realism remains limited: it is unable to artistically see reality in “its revolutionary development,” that is, to see the working class as the bearer of the revolution. 5) Proletarian realism

In proletarian realism, as in the realism of revolutionary democracy, at first the critical trend is especially strong. In the work of the founder of proletarian realism, M. Gorky, purely critical works from “The Town of Okurov” to “Klim Samgin” play a very significant role.

But proletarian realism is free from the contradiction between the subjective ideal and the objective historical task and is closely connected with a class that is historically capable of revolutionary remaking the world, and therefore, unlike revolutionary democratic realism, this realism is accessible to a realistic image of the positive and heroic. Gorky's "Mother" played the same role for the Russian working class as "What is to be done?" Chernyshevsky for the revolutionary intelligentsia of the 60s. But between the two novels there is a deep line, which does not boil down to the fact that Gorky is a greater artist than Chernyshevsky.

2 . The formation of realism in Russian art of the nineteenth century

2.1 Prerequisites and features of the formation of realism in Russian art

Approval of realism in Russian art second half of the 19th century V. inextricably linked with the rise of democratic social thought. A close study of nature, a deep interest in the life and fate of the people are combined here with denunciation of the bourgeois-serf system. Of course, this is the reform of 1861, which opened a new, capitalist era in the history of Russia. A new attempt to modernize Russian society 1860 1870s. touched upon the main aspects of life, the socio-economic liberation of peasants, the political reform of the court, the army, local government and the cultural reform of the education system and the press. This led to revival and a certain democratization cultural life. Thinking about the problem of the tragic and the comic in Russian artistic culture of the 19th century, you are inclined to think that the tragic occupies a much larger part. Further looking at the entire 19th century, I would like to dwell more on the period when realism arose in Russian art.

A brilliant galaxy of realist masters of the last third of the 19th century. united into a group of Itinerants (V.G. Perov, I.N. Kramskoy, I.E. Repin, V.I. Surikov, N.N. Ge, I.I. Shishkin, A.K. Savrasov, I.I. . Levitan and others), who finally established the position of realism in everyday life and historical genres, portrait and landscape.

The beginning of the nineteenth century was marked by the appearance of the brilliant Pushkin. Pushkin, whose great life was cut short as a result of a duel in 1837, when the poet was only 38 years old, was not only the founder of new Russian literature, but also wrote his name in golden letters in the history of Russian literature, which is an integral part of world literature. Literature was ahead of other forms of art. Painting, criticism, music experienced a process of mutual penetration, mutual enrichment and development; in the struggle against the then authorities and ingrained customs, a new era was created. This was the time when the masses, who defeated Napoleon, felt their strength, which led to an increase in self-awareness, and the reform of serfdom and tsarism became simply necessary. The desire for common great goals contributed to the flourishing of the best creative qualities of the Russian people.

Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Nekrasov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gorky and the Ukrainian poet and painter Shevchenko appeared in literature. In journalism - Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Pisarev, Dobrolyubov, Mikhailovsky, Vorovsky. In music - Glinka, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and other great composers. And finally, in painting - Bryullov, Alexander Ivanov, Fedotov, Perov, Kramskoy, Savitsky, Aivazovsky, Shishkin, Savrasov, Vereshchagin, Repin, Surikov, Ge, Levitan, Serov, Vrubel - great masters, each of whom can be called a pearl of the world art.

With the appearance of Gogol and Chernyshevsky in the thirties and forties of the 19th century, social-critical tendencies intensified in the realism created by Pushkin and Lermontov, the art of critical realism was established, completely exposing social evil, clearly defining the responsibility and purpose of the artist: “Art must recreate life and show your attitude to the phenomena of life." This view of art, established in literature by Pushkin and Gogol, had a significant influence on other types of art.

Realism in painting

Realism in painting was manifested in the creation of a group of “Wanderers” artists, which included artists who protested against the conservative system of academicism. This group, in order to educate the masses, depicted the real Russian reality; it was associated with the populist movement of going to the people, and contributed to the development of revolutionary democracy.

In Russia in the first half of the 19th century. tendencies of realism are inherent in the portraits of K.P. Bryullova, O.A. Kiprensky and V.A. Tropinin, paintings on themes of peasant life by A.G. Venetsianov, landscapes by S.F. Shchedrin. Conscious adherence to the principles of realism, culminating in overcoming the academic system, is inherent in the work of A.A. Ivanov, who combined a close study of nature with a penchant for deep social and philosophical generalizations. Genre scenes P.A. Fedotov tell about the life of a “little man” in the conditions of feudal Russia. The sometimes accusatory pathos characteristic of them determines Fedotov’s place as the founder of Russian democratic realism.

The Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions (TPHV) was founded in 1870. The first exhibition opened in 1871. This event had its own background. In 1863, the so-called “revolt of 14” took place at the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. A group of Academy graduates, headed by I.N. Kramskoy, protested against the tradition according to which the competition program limited the freedom to choose the theme of the work. The demands of young artists expressed a desire to turn art to problems modern life. Having received a refusal from the Academy Council, the group defiantly left the Academy and organized an Artel of Artists similar to the workers' commune described in the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?" Thus, advanced Russian art freed itself from the official tutelage of the court Academy.

By the beginning of the 1870s. democratic art has firmly conquered the public platform. It has its theorists and critics in the person of I.N. Kramskoy and V.V. Stasova, supported financially by P.M. Tretyakov, who at this time mainly acquired works of the new realistic school. Finally, it has its own exhibition organization - TPHV.

The new art thus received a wider audience, which was mainly made up of commoners. The aesthetic views of the Peredvizhniki were formed in the previous decade in the context of public debate about the ways further development Russia, generated by dissatisfaction with the reforms of the 1860s.

The idea of the tasks of the art of future Peredvizhniki was formed under the influence of the aesthetics of N.G. Chernyshevsky, who declared that “the generally interesting in life”, which was understood by artists, to be a worthy subject of art new school as a requirement for cutting-edge and topical topics.

The heyday of the TPHV activity was the 1870s and early 1890s. The program of folk art put forward by the Wanderers was expressed in the artistic development of various aspects of folk life in the depiction of typical events of this life, often with a critical tendency. However, characteristic of the art of the 1860s. Critical pathos and focus on manifestations of social evil give way in the paintings of the Itinerants to a broader coverage of people's life, aimed at its positive aspects.

The Wanderers show not only poverty, but also the beauty of people’s life (“The Arrival of a Sorcerer at a Peasant Wedding” by V.M. Maksimov, 1875, TG), not only suffering, but also perseverance in the face of life’s adversities, courage and strength of character (“Barge Haulers on Volga" by I.E. Repin, 1870-1873. RM) (Appendix 1), the wealth and grandeur of native nature (works by A.K. Savrasov, A.I. Kuindzhi, I.I. Levitan, I.I. Shishkin) (Appendix 2), heroic pages of national history (the work of V.I. Surikov) (Appendix 2), and the revolutionary liberation movement ("Arrest of the Propagandist", "Refusal of Confession" by I.E. Repin). Striving to reach wider different sides social life, to reveal the complex interweaving of positive and negative phenomena of reality attracts the Wanderers to enrich the genre repertoire of painting: along with the everyday painting that dominated the previous decade, in the 1870s. The role of portraits and landscapes, and later of historical painting, increases significantly. The consequence of this process was the interaction of genres - in everyday painting the role of landscape is strengthened, the development of portraiture enriches everyday painting with the depth of character depiction, at the junction of portrait and everyday painting such an original phenomenon as a social and everyday portrait arises ("Woodman" by I.N. Kramskoy: " Stoker" and "Student" by N.A. Yaroshenko). Developing individual genres, the Wanderers, as an ideal to which art should strive, thought of unity, a synthesis of all genre components in the form of a “choral picture”, where the main character would be the mass of the people. This synthesis was fully realized already in the 1880s. I.E. Repin and V.I. Surikov, whose work represents the pinnacle of peredvizhniki realism.

A special line in the art of the Peredvizhniki is the work of N.N. Ge and I.N.

Kramskoy, resorting to the allegorical form of gospel stories to express complex issues of our time ("Christ in the Desert" by I.N. Kramskoy, 1872, TG; "What is truth?", 1890, TG and paintings of the gospel cycle by N.N. Ge 1890- x years). Active participants in traveling exhibitions were V.E. Makovsky, N. A. Yaroshenko, V.D. Polenov. Remaining true to the basic precepts of the Peredvizhniki movement, participants of the TPHV from a new generation of masters are expanding the range of themes and subjects designed to reflect the changes that took place in the traditional way of Russian life at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. These are the paintings of S.A. Korovin ("On the World", 1893, TG), S.V. Ivanova ("On the Road. Death of a Migrant", 1889, TG), A.E. Arkhipova, N.A. Kasatkina and others.

It is natural that it was in the works of the younger Itinerants that the events and moods associated with the advent of a new era of class battles on the eve of the revolution of 1905 were reflected (the painting “Execution” by S.V. Ivanov). Russian painting owes the discovery of themes related to the work and life of the working class to N.A. Kasatkin (painting "Coal Miners. Shift", 1895, TG).

The development of the traditions of Peredvizhniki occurs already in Soviet times - in the activities of artists of the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AHRR). The last, 48th exhibition of the TPHV took place in 1923.

Realism in literature

Of enormous importance in the social and cultural life of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. acquired literature. A special attitude towards literature dates back to the beginning of the century, to the era of the brilliant development of Russian literature, which went down in history under the name of the “Golden Age”. Literature was seen not only as a field of artistic creativity, but also as a source of spiritual improvement, an arena of ideological battles, and a guarantee of a special great future for Russia. The abolition of serfdom, bourgeois reforms, the formation of capitalism, and the difficult wars that Russia had to wage during this period found a lively response in the works of Russian writers. Their opinions were listened to. Their views largely determined public consciousness population of Russia at that time.

The leading direction in literary creativity was critical realism. Second half of the 19th century. turned out to be extremely rich in talent. The work of I.S. brought worldwide fame to Russian literature. Turgeneva, I.A. Goncharova, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrina, A.P. Chekhov.

One of the most remarkable writers of the mid-century was Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818-1883). Representative of the ancient noble family, who spent his childhood on his parents' estate Spassky-Lutovinovo near the city of Mtsensk, Oryol province, he, like no one else, was able to convey the atmosphere of a Russian village - peasant and landowner. Turgenev lived most of his life abroad. Nevertheless, the images of Russian people in his works are surprisingly alive. The writer was exceptionally truthful in depicting a gallery of portraits of peasants in a series of stories that brought him fame, the first of which, “Khor and Kalinich,” was published in the magazine “Sovremennik” in 1847. “Sovremennik” published the stories one after another. Their release caused a great public outcry. Subsequently, the entire series was published by I.S. Turgenev in one book called “Notes of a Hunter”. Moral quests, love, and the life of a landowner's estate are revealed to the reader in the novel "The Noble Nest" (1858).

The conflict of generations, unfolding against the backdrop of a clash between the nobility experiencing a crisis and the new generation of commoners (embodied in the image of Bazarov), who made denial (“nihilism”) the banner of ideological self-affirmation, is shown in the novel “Fathers and Sons” (1862).

The fate of the Russian nobility was reflected in the works of I.A. Goncharova. The characters of the heroes of his works are contradictory: soft, sincere, conscientious, but passive, unable to “get off the couch” Ilya Ilyich Oblomov (“Oblomov”, 1859); educated, gifted, romantically inclined, but again, in Oblomov’s style, inactive and weak-willed Boris Raisky (“The Cliff”, 1869). Goncharov managed to create an image of a very typical breed of people, to show a widespread phenomenon of social life of that time, which received literary critic ON THE. Dobrolyubov's name "Oblomovism".

The middle of the century marks the beginning literary activity the greatest Russian writer, thinker and public figure, Count Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910). His legacy is enormous. The titanic personality of Tolstoy represents the figure of an author characteristic of Russian culture, for whom literature was closely connected with social activities, and the professed ideas were propagated primarily by the example of one’s own life. Already in the first works of L.N. Tolstoy, published in the 50s. XIX century and which brought him fame (the trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth”, Caucasian and Sevastopol stories), a powerful talent was revealed. In 1863, the story "Cossacks" was published, which became important stage in his work. Tolstoy came close to creating the historical epic novel “War and Peace” (1863-1869). His own experience of participating in the Crimean War and the defense of Sevastopol allowed Tolstoy to reliably depict the events of the heroic year of 1812. The novel combines a huge and varied material, its ideological potential is immeasurable. Paintings family life, love line, the characters of people are intertwined with large-scale canvases historical events. According to L.N. himself Tolstoy, the main idea in the novel was “folk thought.” The people are shown in the novel as the creator of history, the people's environment as the only true and healthy soil for any Russian person. The next novel by L.N. Tolstoy - "Anna Karenina" (1874-1876). It tells the story of a family drama main character combined with artistic comprehension acute social and moral issues modernity. The third great novel of the great writer is “Resurrection” (1889-1899), called by R. Rolland “one of the most beautiful poems about human compassion". Dramaturgy of the second half of the 19th century was represented by the plays of A. N. Ostrovsky ("We are our own people - we will be numbered", "Profitable place", "The Marriage of Balzaminov", "Thunderstorm", etc.) and A.V. Sukhovo-Kobylin ( trilogy "Krechinsky's Wedding", "The Affair", "The Death of Tarelkin").

An important place in the literature of the 70s. occupies M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, whose satirical talent was most powerfully manifested in “The History of a City.” One of the best works by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin's "The Golovlev Lords" tells the story of the gradual disintegration of the family and the extinction of the Golovlev landowners. The novel shows the lies and absurdity underlying the relationships within the noble family, which ultimately leads to their death.

The unsurpassed master of the psychological novel was Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881). Dostoevsky's genius was manifested in the writer's extraordinary ability to reveal to the reader hidden, sometimes terrifying, truly mystical depths human nature, showing monstrous mental catastrophes in the most ordinary settings ("Crime and Punishment", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Poor People", "Idiot").

The pinnacle of Russian poetry of the second half of the 19th century. was the work of Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov (1821-1878). The main theme of his works was the depiction of the hardships of the working people. To convey through the power of artistic expression to an educated reader living in prosperity the full depth of the people's poverty and grief, to show the greatness of the simple peasant - such was the meaning of N.A.'s poetry. Nekrasov (poem “Who Lives Well in Rus',” 1866-1876) The poet understood his poetic activity as a civic duty to serve his country. In addition, N.A. Nekrasov is known for his publishing activities. He published the magazines Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski, on the pages of which the works of many later famous Russian writers first saw the light of day. In Nekrasov's Sovremennik for the first time he published his trilogy “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” L.N. Tolstoy, published the first stories of I.S. Turgenev, Goncharov, Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky were published.

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46. Global problems of culture of the 20th century.

World culture of the 20th century is a complex process, divided into several stages by events of global significance - world wars. The complexity and inconsistency of this process is aggravated by the fact that for a significant period of time the world was split into two camps along ideological lines, which introduced new problems and ideas into cultural practice. The problem of the crisis of culture is one of the leading ones in the philosophical and cultural thought of the twentieth century. The issue of the cultural crisis was generated by the changes in the life of European society that it underwent at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. The atmosphere of a global crisis that has gripped all spheres of European society has exacerbated a number of contradictions. Economic instability, confusion and despair in the face of social catastrophes, the decline of traditional values, the decline of faith in science, in the rational comprehension of the world and other features of the crisis that gave rise to terrible confusion of the Spirit. However, the twentieth century made the greatest contribution to understanding the problem of the crisis of culture. Perhaps, in European philosophical thought there is not a single serious researcher who, to one degree or another, would not touch upon this topic: O. Spengler and A. Toynbee, H. Ortega y Gasset and J. Huizinga, P.A. Sorokin and N.A. Berdyaev, G. Hesse and I.A. Ilyin, P. Tillich and E. Fromm, K. Jaspers and G. Marcuse, A.S. Arsenyev and A. Nazaretyan. In the 20th century, culture and art were faced with a more complex reality, with an increasingly catastrophic social development, an exacerbation of social contradictions, with conflicts generated by the scientific and technological revolution, with global problems affecting the interests of all mankind and, as a consequence, with the flourishing of modernism. The politicization of culture can be clearly seen in the history of Russian culture in the 20th century. The October Revolution of 1917 marked the beginning of the transition to a new system of social relations, to a new type of culture. At the beginning of the 20th century, V.I. Lenin formulated the most important principles of the attitude of the Communist Party to artistic and creative activity, which formed the basis of the cultural policy of the Soviet state. In the first post-October decade, the foundations of a new Soviet culture were laid. The beginning of this period (1918-1921) is characterized by the destruction and denial of traditional values (culture, morality, religion, way of life, law) and the proclamation of new guidelines for sociocultural development: world revolution, communist society, universal equality and fraternity. Marxism became the spiritual core of the Soviet civilizational system and served as a theoretical tool for formulating a doctrine that reflected the problems of Russian reality. Ideological propaganda took on an increasingly chauvinistic and anti-Semitic character. In January 1949, a campaign against “rootless cosmopolitans” began, which entailed destructive interference in the destinies of a number of scientists, teachers, literary and artistic workers. Most of those accused of cosmopolitanism turned out to be Jews. Jewish cultural institutions - theaters, schools, newspapers - were closed. Ideological campaigns, the constant search for enemies and their exposure maintained an atmosphere of fear in society. After Stalin's death, the features of totalitarianism continued to exist for a long time in cultural policy. The beginning of the 90s passed under the sign of the accelerated collapse of the unified culture of the USSR into separate national cultures, which not only rejected the values general culture USSR, but also each other’s cultural traditions. Such a sharp contrast between different national cultures led to an increase in sociocultural tension, to the emergence of military conflicts and subsequently caused the collapse of a single sociocultural space.