French romantic painter, master of landscape. History and development of romanticism in painting

The beginning of the 19th century was a time of cultural and spiritual upsurge in Russia. If in economic and socio-political development Russia lagged behind advanced European states, then in cultural achievements it not only kept pace with them, but was often ahead. The development of Russian culture in the first half of the 19th century was based on the transformations of the previous time. The penetration of elements of capitalist relations into the economy has increased the need for literate and educated people. Cities became major cultural centers.

New social strata were drawn into social processes. Culture developed against the background of the ever-increasing national self-awareness of the Russian people and, in connection with this, had a pronounced national character. She had a significant influence on literature, theater, music, and fine arts. Patriotic War of 1812, which to an unprecedented degree accelerated the growth of the national self-awareness of the Russian people and its consolidation. There was a rapprochement with the Russian people of other peoples of Russia.

The beginning of the 19th century is rightly called the golden age of Russian painting. It was then that Russian artists reached a level of skill that put their works on a par with the best examples of European art.

Three names open the Russian painting XIX centuries - Kiprensky , Tropinin , Venetsianov. Everyone has different origins: illegitimate landowner, serf and descendant of a merchant. Everyone has their own creative aspiration - romantic, realist and “village lyricist”.

Despite his early passion for historical painting, Kiprensky is known primarily as an outstanding portrait painter. It can be said that in early XIX V. he became the first Russian portrait painter. The old masters, who became famous in the 18th century, could no longer compete with him: Rokotov died in 1808, Levitsky, who survived him by 14 years, no longer painted due to an eye disease, and Borovikovsky, who did not live several months before the uprising Decembrists, worked very little.

Kiprensky was lucky enough to become an artistic chronicler of his time. “History in faces” can be considered his portraits, which depict many participants in the historical events of which he was a contemporary: heroes of the War of 1812, representatives of the Decembrist movement. The technology also came in handy pencil drawing, the training of which was given serious attention at the Academy of Arts. Kiprensky created, essentially, new genre- a pictorial portrait.

Kiprensky created many portraits of Russian cultural figures, and, of course, the most famous among them is Pushkin. It was written by order Delviga, the poet’s lyceum friend, in 1827. Contemporaries noted the amazing similarity of the portrait to the original. The artist freed the image of the poet from the everyday features that are inherent in the portrait of Pushkin by Tropinin, painted in the same year. Alexander Sergeevich was captured by the artist at a moment of inspiration when he was visited by a poetic muse.

Death overtook the artist during his second trip to Italy. Last years many things went wrong with the famous painter. A creative slump began. Shortly before his death, his life was overshadowed by a tragic event: according to contemporaries, the artist was falsely accused of murder and was afraid to leave the house. Even marrying his Italian pupil did not brighten up his last days.

Few people mourned the Russian painter who died in a foreign land. Among the few who truly understood what a master she had lost domestic culture, there was the artist Alexander Ivanov, who was in Italy at that time. In those sad days he wrote: Kiprensky “was the first to make the Russian name known in Europe.”

Tropinin entered the history of Russian art as an outstanding portrait painter. He said: “A portrait of a person is painted for the memory of those close to him, those who love him.” According to contemporaries, Tropinin painted about 3,000 portraits. Whether this is so is difficult to say. One of the books about the artist contains a list of 212 precisely identified persons whom Tropinin portrayed. He also has many works entitled “Portrait of an Unknown Woman”. State dignitaries, nobles, warriors, businessmen, minor officials, serfs, intellectuals, and figures of Russian culture posed for Tropinin. Among them: historian Karamzin, writer Zagoskin, art critic Odoevsky, painters Bryullov and Aivazovsky, sculptor Vitali, architect Gilardi, composer Alyabyev, actors Shchepkin and Mo-chalov, playwright Sukhovo-Kobylin.

One of best works Tropinina - portrait of a son. It must be said that one of the “discoveries” of the Russian art of the 19th century V. there was a child's portrait. In the Middle Ages, a child was viewed as a small adult who had not yet grown up. Children were even dressed in outfits that were no different from adults: in the middle of the 18th century. girls wore tight corsets and wide skirts with flaps. Only at the beginning of the 19th century. they saw the child in the child. Artists were among the first to do this. There is a lot of simplicity and naturalness in Tropinin’s portrait. The boy is not posing. Interested in something, he turned around for a moment: his mouth was slightly open, his eyes were shining. The child's appearance is surprisingly charming and poetic. Golden disheveled hair, an open, childishly plump face, a lively look from intelligent eyes. You can feel how lovingly the artist painted the portrait of his son.

Tropinin painted self-portraits twice. On the later one, dated 1846, the artist is 70 years old. He depicted himself with a palette and brushes in his hands, leaning on a mashtabel - a special stick used by painters. Behind him is a majestic panorama of the Kremlin. In his youth, Tropinin possessed heroic strength and good spirits. Judging by the self-portrait, he retained his strength of body even in old age. The round face with glasses radiates good nature. The artist died 10 years later, but his image remained in the memory of descendants - large, a kind person, enriched Russian art with your talent.

Venetsianov discovered the peasant theme in Russian painting. He was the first among Russian artists to show the beauty of his native nature in his canvases. The Academy of Arts did not favor the landscape genre. It occupied the penultimate place in importance, leaving behind even more despicable - household. Only a few masters painted nature, preferring Italian or imaginary landscapes.

In many of Venetsianov’s works, nature and man are inseparable. They are connected as closely as a peasant is with the land and its gifts. Your most famous works- "Haymaking", "In the arable land. Spring", "At the harvest. Summer" - the artist creates in the 20s. This was the peak of his creativity. No one in Russian art was able to show peasant life and the work of peasants with such love and as poetically as Venetsianov. In the painting "On the Plowed Field. Spring" a woman is harrowing a field. This hard, exhausting work looks sublime on Venetsianov’s canvas: a peasant woman in an elegant sundress and kokoshnik. With her beautiful face and flexible figure, she resembles an ancient goddess. Leading by the bridles of two obedient horses harnessed to a harrow, she does not walk, but seems to soar over the field. Life around flows calmly, measuredly, peacefully. Rare trees turn green, white clouds float across the sky, the field seems endless, on the edge of which a baby sits, waiting for its mother.

The painting “At the Harvest. Summer” seems to continue the previous one. The harvest is ripe, the fields are full of golden stubble - the time has come for the harvest. On foreground, putting aside the sickle, the peasant woman breastfeeds the child. The sky, the field, and the people working on it are inseparable for the artist. But still, the main subject of his attention is always the person.

Venetsianov created a whole gallery of portraits of peasants. This was new for Russian painting. In the 18th century people from the people, and especially serfs, were of little interest to artists. According to art historians, Venetsianov was the first in the history of Russian painting to “accurately capture and recreate the Russian folk type". "The Reapers", "Girl with Cornflowers", "Girl with a Calf", "Sleeping Shepherd" - beautiful images of peasants, immortalized by Venetsianov. A special place in the artist’s work was occupied by portraits of peasant children. How good is "Zakharka" - big-eyed, snub-nosed , a big-lipped boy with an ax on his shoulder! Zakharka seems to personify an energetic peasant nature, accustomed to work from childhood.

Alexey Gavrilovich left a good memory of himself not only as an artist, but also as an outstanding teacher. During one of his visits to St. Petersburg, he took on a novice artist as a student, then another, a third... Thus a whole art school, which went down in art history under the name Venetsianovskaya. Over a quarter of a century, about 70 talented young men passed through it. Venetsianov tried to redeem serf artists from captivity and was very worried if this failed. The most talented of his students, Grigory Soroka, never received his freedom from his landowner. He lived to see the abolition of serfdom, but, driven to despair by the omnipotence of his former owner, he committed suicide.

Many of Venetsianov's students lived in his house on full content. They learned the secrets of Venetian painting: firm adherence to the laws of perspective, close attention to nature. Among his students were many talented masters who left a noticeable mark on Russian art: Grigory Soroka, Alexey Tyranov, Alexander Alekseev, Nikifor Krylov. “Venetsianovtsy” - they lovingly called his pets.

Thus, it can be argued that first third XIX century there was a rapid rise in cultural development Russia and this time is called the golden age of Russian painting.

Russian artists have reached a level of skill that puts their works on a par with the best examples of European art.

Glorifying the heroic deeds of the people, the idea of ​​their spiritual awakening, exposing the ills of feudal Russia—these are the main themes of the fine arts of the 19th century.

IN portrait painting The features of romanticism - the independence of the human personality, its individuality, freedom of expression of feelings - are especially distinct.

Many portraits of Russian cultural figures, including children's portraits, were created. The peasant theme, the landscape that showed the beauty of our native nature, is coming into fashion.

Romanticism in fine arts relied heavily on the ideas of philosophers and writers. In painting, as in other forms of art, romantics were attracted by everything unusual, unknown, be it distant countries with their exotic customs and costumes (Delacroix), the world of mystical visions (Blake, Friedrich, the Pre-Raphaelites) and magical dreams (Runge) or the dark depths of the subconscious (Goya, Füsli). The artistic heritage of the past has become a source of inspiration for many artists: The Ancient East, Middle Ages and Proto-Renaissance (Nazarenes, Pre-Raphaelites).

In contrast to classicism, which exalted the clear power of reason, the romantics sang passionate, stormy feelings that captured a person entirely. The earliest responders to new trends were portraits and landscapes, which became favorite genres of romantic painting.

Heyday portrait genre was associated with the interest of romantics in bright human individuality, beauty and richness of her spiritual world. The life of the human spirit prevails in a romantic portrait over interest in physical beauty, in the sensual plasticity of the image.

In a romantic portrait (Delacroix, Géricault, Runge, Goya) the uniqueness of each person is always revealed, the dynamics and intense beat are conveyed inner life, rebellious passion.

Romantics are also interested in the tragedy of a broken soul: the heroes of their works are often mentally ill people (Gericault “A Madwoman Suffering from an Addiction to Drugs”) gambling", "Children's thief", "Insane, imagining himself as a commander").

Scenery conceived by romantics as the embodiment of the soul of the universe; nature, like the human soul, appears in dynamics, constant variability. The ordered and ennobled landscapes characteristic of classicism were replaced by images of spontaneous, rebellious, powerful, ever-changing nature, corresponding to the confusion of feelings romantic heroes. The Romantics especially loved to write storms, thunderstorms, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, shipwrecks that could have a strong emotional impact on the viewer (Gericault, Friedrich, Turner).

The poeticization of the night, characteristic of romanticism - a strange, unreal world living according to its own laws - led to the flourishing of the “night genre”, which became a favorite in romantic painting, especially among German artists.

One of the first countries in whose fine arts romanticism developed wasGermany .

Creativity had a noticeable influence on the development of the genre of romantic landscapeCaspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). In his artistic heritage Landscapes with images of mountain peaks, forests, the sea, the sea coast, as well as the ruins of old cathedrals, abandoned abbeys, and monasteries predominate (“Cross in the Mountains,” “Cathedral,” “Abbey Among the Oak Trees”). They usually contain a feeling of constant sadness from the awareness of a person’s tragic loss in the world.

The artist loved those states of nature that most correspond to its romantic perception: early morning, evening sunset, moonrise (“Two Contemplating the Moon”, “Monastery Cemetery”, “Landscape with a Rainbow”, “Moonrise over the Sea”, “Chalk Cliffs” on the island of Rügen", "On a sailboat", "Harbor at night").

The constant characters in his works are lonely dreamers, immersed in the contemplation of nature. Looking into the vast distances and endless heights, they become familiar with the eternal secrets of the universe and are carried away into the beautiful world of dreams. This wonderful world Friedrich conveys with the help of a magically shining light- radiant solar or mysterious lunar.

Friedrich's work aroused the admiration of his contemporaries, including I. W. Goethe and W. A. Zhukovsky, thanks to whom many of his paintings were acquired by Russia.

Painter, graphic artist, poet and art theoristPhilip Otto Runge (1777-1810), mainly devoted himself to the portrait genre. In his works, he poeticized images of ordinary people, often his loved ones (“The three of us” - a self-portrait with his bride and brother, has not survived; “Children of the Huelsenbeck family”, “Portrait of the artist’s parents”, “Self-portrait”). Runge's deep religiosity was expressed in such paintings as “Christ on the Shores of Lake Tiberias” and “Rest on the Flight to Egypt” (unfinished). The artist summed up his thoughts about art in his theoretical treatise “The Color Sphere.”

The desire to revive religious and moral foundations in German art associated with creative activity artists Nazarene school (F. Overbeck, von Karlsfeld,L. Vogel, I. Gottinger, J. Sutter,P. von Cornelius). Having united in a kind of religious brotherhood (“Union of St. Luke”), the “Nazarenes” lived in Rome according to the model of a monastic community and painted paintings on religious subjects. A model for our own creative searches they considered Italian and German paintingXIV - XVcenturies (Perugino, early Raphael, A. Durer, H. Holbein the Younger, L.Cranach). In the painting “The Triumph of Religion in Art,” Overbeck directly imitates Raphael’s “School of Athens,” and Cornelius in “Horsemen of the Apocalypse” imitates Durer’s engraving of the same name.

Members of the brotherhood considered spiritual purity and sincere faith to be the main virtues of the artist, believing that “only the Bible made Raphael a genius.” Leading a solitary life in the cells of an abandoned monastery, they elevated their service to art to the category of spiritual service.

The “Nazarenes” gravitated towards large monumental forms and tried to embody high ideals with the help of the newly revived fresco technique. Some of the paintings were completed by them together.

In the 1820s and 30s, members of the brotherhood dispersed throughout Germany, receiving leading positions in various art academies. Only Overbeck lived in Italy until his death, without betraying his artistic principles. The best traditions"Nazarenes" remained for a long time in historical painting. Their ideological moral quest influenced the English Pre-Raphaelites, as well as the work of such masters as Schwind and Spitzweg.

Moritz Schwind (1804-1871), Austrian by birth, worked in Munich. In easel works he mainly depicts the appearance and life of ancient German provincial cities with their inhabitants. This was done with great poetry and lyricism, with love for its characters.

Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885) - Munich painter, graphic artist, brilliant draftsman, caricaturist, also not without sentimentality, but with great humor, talks about city life (“Poor Poet”, “Morning Coffee”).

Schwind and Spitzweg are usually associated with the movement in German culture known as Biedermeier.Biedermeier - this is one of the most popular styles of the era (primarily in the field of everyday life, but also in art) . He brought to the fore the burghers, the average man in the street. Central theme Biedermeier painting became everyday life a person, flowing in an inextricable connection with his home and family. Biedermeier's interest not in the past, but in the present, not in the great, but in the small, contributed to the formation of a realistic tendency in painting.

French romantic school

The most consistent school of romanticism in painting developed in France. It arose as an opposition to classicism, which had degenerated into cold, rational academicism, and brought forward such great masters who determined the dominant influence of the French school throughout the 19th century.

French romantic artists gravitated towards subjects full of drama and pathos, internal tension, far from the “dull everyday life”. By embodying them, they reformed pictorial and expressive means:

The first brilliant successes of romanticism in French painting associated with the nameTheodora Gericault (1791-1824), who, before others, was able to express a purely romantic sense of conflict in the world. Already in his first works one can see the desire to show dramatic events modernity. For example, the paintings “Mounted Rifle Officer Going on the Attack” and “Wounded Cuirassier” reflected the romance of the Napoleonic era.

Gericault’s painting “The Raft of the Medusa,” dedicated to a recent event, had a huge resonance modern life- the death of a passenger ship due to the fault of the shipping company . Gericault created a giant canvas 7x5 m, on which he depicted the moment when people on the verge of death saw a rescue ship on the horizon. Extreme tension is emphasized by the harsh, gloomy color scheme, diagonal composition. This painting became a symbol of modern Gericault France, which, like people fleeing a shipwreck, experienced both hope and despair.

The artist found the theme of his last large painting, “Epsom Races,” in England. It depicts horses flying like birds (a favorite image of Gericault, who became an excellent rider as a teenager). The impression of swiftness is enhanced by a certain technique: the horses and jockeys are painted very carefully, and the background is broad.

After the death of Gericault (he died tragically, in the prime of his strength and talent), the recognized head French romantics became his young friendEugene Delacroix (1798-1863). Delacroix was comprehensively gifted, possessing musical and literary talent. His diaries and articles about artists are the most interesting documents of the era. His theoretical research the laws of color had a huge influence on future impressionists and especially on V. Van Gogh.

Delacroix’s first painting, which brought him fame, was “Dante and Virgil” (“Dante’s Boat”), based on the plot “ Divine Comedy" She amazed her contemporaries with her passionate pathos and the power of her gloomy coloring.

The pinnacle of the artist’s creativity was “Freedom on the Barricades” (“Freedom Leading the People”). Credibility real fact(the picture was created at the height of July Revolution 1830 in France) merges here with romantic dream about freedom and symbolism of images. A beautiful young woman becomes a symbol of revolutionary France.

In response to modern events there was more early painting"Massacre of Chios" dedicated to the struggle Greek people with Turkish rule .

Having visited Morocco, Delacroix discovered the exotic world of the Arab East, to which he devoted many paintings and sketches. In "Women of Algeria" the world of the Muslim harem appeared before the European audience for the first time.

The artist also created a series of portraits of representatives of the creative intelligentsia, many of whom were his friends (portraits of N. Paganini, F. Chopin, G. Berlioz, etc.)

In the later period of his work, Delacroix gravitated towards historical themes, working as a monumentalist (paintings in the Chamber of Deputies, Senate) and as a graphic artist (illustrations for the works of Shakespeare, Goethe, Byron).

The names of English painters of the Romantic era - R. Benington, J. Constable, W. Turner - are associated with the genre of landscape. They have truly turned a new page in this area: native nature found such a broad and loving reflection in their work that no other country knew at that time.

John Constable (1776-1837) was one of the first in the history of European landscape to write sketches entirely from life, turning to direct observation of nature. His paintings are simple in their motifs: villages, farms, churches, a strip of river or sea ​​beach: "Hay Wagon", Detham Valley", "Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Garden". Constable's works served as an impetus for the development of realistic landscape in France.

William Turner (1775-1851) - marine painter . He was attracted by the stormy sea, showers, thunderstorms, floods, tornadoes: “The last voyage of the ship “Brave”, “Thunderstorm over the Piazzetta.” Bold coloristic quests, rare lighting effects sometimes his paintings turn into shining phantasmagoric spectacles: “Fire of the London Parliament”, “Blizzard. The steamer leaves the harbor and sends distress signals when it gets into shallow water.” .

Turner owns the first painting of a steam locomotive running on rails - a symbol of industrialization. In the film "Rain, Steam and Speed" a steam locomotive rushes along the Thames through a foggy rain haze. All material objects seem to merge into a mirage image that perfectly conveys the feeling of speed.

Turner's unique study of light and color effects largely anticipated the discoveries of French impressionist artists.

In 1848, arose in Englandpre-raphaelite brotherhood (from Latin prae - “before” and Raphael), which united artists who did not accept their contemporary society and the art of the academic school. They saw their ideal in the art of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance(hence the name). The main members of the brotherhood areWilliam Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. In their early works these artists used the abbreviation RV instead of signatures .

The love of antiquity was similar to the romantics of the Pre-Raphaelites. They turned to biblical subjects (“The Light of the World” and “The Unfaithful Shepherd” by W. H. Hunt; “The Childhood of Mary” and “The Annunciation” by D. G. Rossetti), scenes from the history of the Middle Ages and plays by W. Shakespeare (“Ophelia” by Millais ).

In order to paint human figures and objects in their natural size, the Pre-Raphaelites increased the size of their canvases and made landscape sketches from life. The characters in their paintings had prototypes among real people. For example, D. G. Rossetti portrayed his beloved Elizabeth Siddal in almost all his works, continuing, like a medieval knight, to remain faithful to his beloved even after her untimely death (“Blue Silk Dress”, 1866).

The ideologist of the Pre-Raphaelites wasJohn Ruskin (1819-1900) - English writer, art critic and art theorist, author of the famous series of books “Modern Artists”.

The work of the Pre-Raphaelites significantly influenced many artists and became a harbinger of symbolism in literature (W. Pater, O. Wilde) and fine arts (O. Beardsley, G. Moreau, etc.).

The nickname "Nazarenes" may have come from the name of the city of Nazareth in Galilee, where Jesus Christ was born. According to another version, it arose by analogy with the name of the Hebrew religious community Nazarenes It is also possible that the name of the group came from the traditional name for the hairstyle “Alla Nazarena”, common in the Middle Ages and known from A. Dürer’s self-portrait: the manner of wearing long hair, parted in the middle, were reintroduced by Overbeck.

Biedermeier(German: “brave Meyer”, philistine) - surname fictional character from poetry collection German poet Ludwig Eichrodt. Eichrodt created a parody of a real person - Samuel Friedrich Sauter, an old teacher who wrote naive poetry. Eichrodt in his caricature emphasized the philistine primitiveness of Biedermeier's thinking, which became a kind of parody symbol of the era. sweeping strokes of black, brown and greenish colors convey the fury of the storm. The viewer's gaze seems to be in the center of a whirlpool; the ship seems to be a toy of waves and wind.

Romanticism (French romantisme), an ideological and artistic movement in European and American culture of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Born as a reaction to the rationalism and mechanicism of the aesthetics of classicism and the philosophy of the Enlightenment, which took hold during the revolutionary breakdown of the old world order, romanticism contrasted utilitarianism and the leveling of the individual with aspirations for boundless freedom and the infinite, a thirst for perfection and renewal, and the pathos of personal and civil independence.

The painful discord between ideal and reality formed the basis of the romantic worldview; His characteristic affirmation of the intrinsic value of human creative and spiritual life, the depiction of strong passions, the spiritualization of nature, interest in the national past, the desire for synthetic forms of art are combined with motives of world sorrow, a craving for research and recreation of the “shadow”, “night” side human soul, with the famous " romantic irony", which allowed the romantics to boldly compare and equate the high and the low, the tragic and the comic, the real and the fantastic. Developing in many countries, romanticism everywhere acquired a bright national identity, determined by local historical traditions and conditions.

The most consistent romantic school developed in France, where artists, reforming the system expressive means, dynamized the composition, combined forms with a stormy movement, used bright rich colors and a broad, generalized style of painting (painting by T. Gericault, E. Delacroix, O. Daumier, plastic art - P.J. David d'Angers, A.L. Bari, F. Ryud). In Germany and Austria, early romanticism is characterized by close attention to everything highly individual, a melancholy-contemplative tonality of the figurative-emotional structure, mystical-pantheistic moods (portraits and allegorical compositions of F.O. Runge, landscapes by K.D. Friedrich and J. .A. Koch), the desire to revive the religious spirit of German and Italian painting 15th century (creativity of the Nazarenes); the art of Biedermeier (the works of L. Richter, K. Spitzweg, M. von Schwind, F. G. Waldmüller) became a kind of fusion of the principles of romanticism and “burger realism”.

In Great Britain, the landscapes of J. Constable and R. Bonington are noted for the romantic freshness of painting, the fantastic images and unusual means of expression are the works of W. Turner, G.I. Fusli, with an attachment to the culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Renaissance - the work of the masters of the late romantic Pre-Raphaelite movement (D.G. Rossetti, E. Burne-Jones, W. Morris and other artists). In many countries of Europe and America romantic movement was represented by landscapes (paintings by J. Inness and A.P. Ryder in the USA), compositions on themes folk life and history (the works of L. Galle in Belgium, J. Manes in the Czech Republic, V. Madaras in Hungary, P. Michalowski and J. Matejko in Poland and other masters).

The historical fate of romanticism was complex and ambiguous. One or another romantic tendency marked the work of major European masters of the 19th century - artists of the Barbizon school, C. Corot, G. Courbet, J.F. Millet, E. Manet in France, A. von Menzel in Germany and other painters. At the same time, complex allegorism, elements of mysticism and fantasy, sometimes inherent in romanticism, found continuity in symbolism, and partly in the art of post-impressionism and art nouveau.

Reference and biographical data of the "Planet Small Bay Painting Galleries" were prepared on the basis of materials from the "History of Foreign Art" (edited by M.T. Kuzmina, N.L. Maltseva), " Art Encyclopedia foreign classical art", "Great Russian Encyclopedia".

IN late XVIII At the beginning of the 19th century, the ideas of classicism and Enlightenment lost their attractiveness and relevance. New which, in response to the canonical techniques of classicism and the moral social theories of the Enlightenment, turned to man, his inner world, gained strength and captured minds. Romanticism became very widespread in all areas of cultural life and philosophy. Musicians, artists and writers in their works sought to show the high purpose of man, his rich spiritual world, the depth of feelings and experiences. From now on, man with his inner struggle, spiritual quests and experiences, and not the “blurred” ideas of general well-being and prosperity, became the dominant theme in works of art.

Romanticism in painting

Painters convey the depth of ideas and their personal experiences through their creations using composition, color, and accents. Different European countries had their own characteristics in the interpretation of romantic images. This is due to philosophical trends, as well as the socio-political situation, to which art was a living response. Painting was no exception. Germany, fragmented into small principalities and duchies, did not experience serious social upheavals; artists did not create monumental canvases depicting titanic heroes; there was deep interest here spiritual world man, his beauty and greatness, moral quests. Therefore, romanticism in German painting is most fully represented in portraits and landscapes. The works of Otto Runge are classic examples of this genre. In the portraits made by the painter, through the subtle elaboration of facial features, eyes, through the contrast of light and shadow, the artist’s desire to show the inconsistency of personality, its power and depth of feeling is conveyed. Through the landscape, a slightly fantastic, exaggerated image of trees, flowers and birds, the artist also tried to discover the versatility of the human personality, its similarity with nature, diverse and unknown. A bright representative romanticism in painting was the landscape artist K. D. Friedrich, who emphasized the strength and power of nature, mountains, seascapes, consonant with man.

Romanticism in French painting developed according to different principles. Revolutionary upheavals and turbulent social life were manifested in painting by artists’ inclination to depict historical and fantastic subjects, with pathos and “nervous” excitement, which was achieved by bright color contrast, expression of movements, some chaos, spontaneity of the composition. Romantic ideas are most fully and vividly represented in the works of T. Gericault and E. Delacroix. The artists masterfully used color and light, creating a pulsating depth of feeling, a sublime impulse towards struggle and freedom.

Romanticism in Russian painting

Russian social thought responded very keenly to new directions and trends emerging in Europe. and then the war with Napoleon - those significant historical events, which most seriously influenced the philosophical and cultural quests of the Russian intelligentsia. Romanticism in Russian painting was represented in three main landscapes, monumental art, where the influence of classicism was very strong, and romantic ideas were closely intertwined with academic canons.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, increasing attention was paid to the depiction of the creative intelligentsia, poets and artists of Russia, as well as ordinary people and peasants. Kiprensky, Tropinin, Bryullov with great love they tried to show the depth and beauty of a person’s personality, through a glance, a turn of the head, and details of a costume to convey the spiritual quest and freedom-loving character of their “models.” Great interest in the human personality and its central place in art contributed to the flourishing of the genre of self-portrait. Moreover, the artists did not paint self-portraits to order; it was a creative impulse, a kind of self-report to their contemporaries.

Landscapes in the works of the romantics were also distinguished by their originality. Romanticism in painting reflected and conveyed a person’s mood; the landscape had to be in tune with it. That is why artists tried to depict the rebellious nature of nature, its power and spontaneity. Orlovsky, Shchedrin, depicting sea ​​element, mighty trees, mountain ranges, on the one hand, conveyed the beauty and diversity of real landscapes, on the other, created a certain emotional mood.