Art of Kievan Rus

Most of the monuments of ancient Russian architecture and painting known to us represent church art. Since the Russian Church was part of the Byzantine fold, Russian church art, of course...

Culture of Belarus in the XIX - early XX century.

Architecture. With the accession of Belarusian lands to the Russian Empire, the influence of Russian artistic styles on domestic architecture and fine arts increased. In particular...

Russian culture of the 19th century

In Russian fine arts of the first half of the 19th century, compared with the 18th century. develops a new, more democratic view of value human personality, and in particular a man from the people ...

Culture of Japan

The main parameters that describe any culture in the history of mankind, its character - space and time, were first recorded in his fine art and rituals, which were integral parts of the ancient myth...

Cultural development of Belarus in the Soviet period

The contradictory economic, socio-political and cultural processes that took place on the territory of Belarus in the post-October period...

Literature and Art of Ancient Egypt

New socialist way of life in the USSR in the 20-40s

During this period, there are significant changes in the visual arts. Despite the fact that in the 1920s the Association of Traveling Exhibitions and the Union of Russian Artists continued to exist...

Decorative and applied art of Russia of the XX century. "Megaproject. Model of Olympic Sochi" - planning projects for Sochi - the capital of the 2014 Olympic Games. In addition, 15-20 temporary exhibitions from different cities and museums of the country are exhibited annually...

The evolution of iconostasis painting in the 18th century.

In the early 50s of the XVIII century. in the public life of Ukraine there are great changes associated with the further deepening of feudal relations. In the early 80s of the XVIII century, the final liquidation of the remnants of autonomous Ukraine ...

Yu.K.Zolotov

At the beginning of the 18th century, great changes took place in the art of France. From Versailles art center gradually moved to Paris. Court art, with its apotheosis of absolutism, was in crisis. The dominance of the historical picture was no longer undivided; more and more portraits and genre compositions became available at art exhibitions. The interpretation of religious subjects acquired such a secular character that the clergy refused to accept the altar paintings they ordered (Susanna by Santerra).

Instead of the Roman-Bologna academic tradition, the influences of the Flemish and Dutch realism of the 17th century increased; young artists rushed to the Luxembourg Palace to copy the cycle of paintings by Rubens. In the numerous private collections that arise at this time, there are more and more works by Flemish, Dutch and Venetian masters. In aesthetics, the apology for "sublime beauty" (Felibien) meets with strong opposition from theorists who sympathize with realistic quests. The so-called “battle of the Poussinists and Rubensists” culminated in the triumph of Roger de Piel, who reminded artists of the need to imitate nature and highly appreciated the emotionality of color in painting. The crackling rhetoric of the epigones of academism, corresponding to the spirit of the times of the "Sun King", gradually receded before new trends.

At this critical time, at the turn of two centuries, when old ideals were collapsing and new ones were only taking shape, the art of Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) arose.

The son of a Valenciennes roofer, who did not receive any systematic education, Watteau went to Paris around 1702.

In the first ten years - the early period of creativity - he lived and worked among painters and engravers who performed everyday scenes and engravings of "fashions and customs" that were popular among a wide range of buyers. In the workshop of an obscure craftsman, he made copies from Dutch genre painters. In this environment, the young artist perceived not only the Flemish, but also national painting traditions that developed outside the academic walls. And no matter how the art of Watteau later changed, these traditions forever left a mark on him. Interest in ordinary person, the lyrical warmth of the image, observation and respect for the sketch from nature - all this originated in his youth.

During these years, Watteau also studied decorative art; but friends emphasized his taste for "country festivities, theatrical subjects and modern costumes". One of the biographers said that Watteau "used every free minute to go to the square to draw various comic scenes that wandering charlatans usually played out." No wonder the first Parisian teacher of Watteau was Claude Gillot, named at the Academy "an artist of modern subjects." With the help of the second teacher - Claude Audran, who was the curator of the collections of the Luxembourg Palace, Watteau learned a lot about world art, got acquainted with the "Medici Gallery" by Rubens. In 1709, he tried to win the Rome Prize - it gave the right to travel to Italy. But his composition on the biblical story was not successful. Watteau's work in the workshops of Gillot and Audran contributed to his interest in decorative panels. This genre, so characteristic of all french painting 18th century, with his exquisite whimsicalness, he influenced the compositional principles of the artist's easel works. In turn, the essential elements of the decorative art of Rococo took shape at the beginning of the century under the influence of Watteau's new searches.

In the same 1709, Watteau left Paris for his homeland, in Valenciennes. Shortly before his departure, he performed one of his genre skits. She depicted the performance of a detachment of soldiers. Apparently, the public liked these stories - being in Valenciennes, near which battles took place (there was a war for the Spanish Succession). Watteau continued to work on them, just as he did after returning to Paris.

Watteau's "military genres" are not scenes of war. There is no horror or tragedy in them. These are soldiers' halts, the rest of refugees, the movement of the detachment. They are reminiscent of the realistic genre of the 17th century, and although there is a puppet grace in the figures of officers and refugees, this shade of sophistication is not the main thing in them. Scenes such as "Bivouac" (Moscow, Museum of Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin) decisively differ from the idealizing battle painting by the persuasiveness of the story, the richness of observations. Subtle expressiveness of poses, gestures is combined with the lyricism of the landscape.

The works of Watteau are almost undated, and it is difficult to imagine the evolution of his work. But it is obvious that in the early works of his "modern genre" there is still no melancholy and bitterness that are characteristic of the mature art of the artist. Their plots are very diverse: "military genres", scenes of urban life, theatrical episodes (one of them was presented to the Academy in 1712). Among these contemporary genres is the Hermitage Savoyard, remarkable for its lyrical penetration.

In the first half of the 1710s. Watteau became close to Lesage, the greatest satirist of the time. He was introduced to the house of the famous rich man and collector Crozat, where he saw many masterpieces of the old masters and met eminent Ruben painters (Charles de Lafosse and others).

All this gradually turned the artisan-genre painter, as Watteau was in the early Parisian years, into a popular painter of gallant festivities, as his aristocratic customers knew him. But the recognition of life brought a keen sense of its contradictions, intertwined with a poetic dream of an unattainable beauty.

The most important place among the mature works of Watteau was occupied by gallant festivities. In them, he depicted secular "assemblies" and theatrical masquerades, which he could see at the patron of art Crozat. But if the gallant festivities of Watteau were not pure fantasy and even portraits of friends and customers are found in them, then their figurative structure takes the viewer into a world far from everyday life. Such is the "Feast of Love" (Dresden) - the image of ladies and gentlemen in the park near the statue of Aphrodite with cupid. From figure to figure, from group to group, these subtle nuances of emotions whimsically replace each other, resonating in fragile color combinations, in the soft lines of the landscape. Tiny strokes - green and blue, pink and pearl gray, purple and red - are combined into quivering and gentle harmonies; variations of these light tones give the impression of a slight vibration of the colorful surface of the painting. Rows of trees are placed like theatrical backstage, but the transparency of the flexible, trembling branches in the air makes the backstage spatial; Watteau inhabits it with figures, and through the trunks of trees one can see the distance, captivating with its almost romantic unusualness. The consonance between the emotions of the characters and the landscape in Watteau's paintings is the basis of the important role of his art for the development of landscape painting in the 18th century. The search for emotionality draws Watteau to the legacy of Rubens. This manifested itself in mythological compositions - for example, "Jupiter and Antiope". But Rubensian passion gives way to melancholic languor, the fullness of feelings - the trembling of their shades. Watteau's artistic ideals are reminiscent of Montesquieu's idea that beauty is expressed not so much in facial features as in its often inconspicuous movements.

The painter's method is characterized by the advice that he gave to his student Lycra: “Do not waste time on further staying with any teacher, move on, direct your efforts to the teacher of teachers - nature. Go to the outskirts of Paris and sketch some landscapes there, then sketch some figures and create a picture out of this, guided by your own imagination and choice ”( "Masters of Art about Art", vol. 1, M.-L., 1937, p.597). Combining landscapes with figures, fantasizing and choosing, Watteau subordinated the various elements from which he created paintings to the dominant emotional motive. In gallant festivities, the artist's detachment from the depicted is felt; it is the result of a deep divergence between the dream of the painter and the imperfection of life. And yet Watteau invariably attracts to the subtlest poetry of being. It is not for nothing that his art is most characteristic of musicality, and the characters often seem to listen to an obscure, barely perceptible melody. Such is Metsetin (c. 1719; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), such is the Louvre Finette, full of absent-minded thought.

The subtle emotionality of Watteau's work was a conquest that paved the way for the art of the century to the knowledge of what Delacroix later called "the area of ​​\u200b\u200bvague and melancholy feelings." Of course, the narrow boundaries within which the painter's searches developed put inevitable limits on these searches. The artist felt it. Biographers tell how he rushed from plot to plot, vexed with himself, quickly disappointed in what he had done. This internal discord is a reflection of the inconsistency of Watteau's art.

In 1717, Watteau presented to the Academy a large painting "Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera" (Louvre), for which he received the title of academician. This is one of his best compositions, executed in a magnificent range of golden hues reminiscent of the Venetians, through which a silvery-bluish tonality appears. Secular ladies and gentlemen are moving along the hillside towards the gilded boat, representing themselves as pilgrims of the island of Cythera - the island of love (according to Greek legend, the goddess of love Aphrodite was born on it). The couples follow one after another, as if picking up the general lyrical theme of the picture, varying its emotional shades. The movement, starting from the statue of Aphrodite under the branches of tall trees, unfolds at an accelerating rhythm - melancholy and doubt give way to enthusiasm, animation, and finally - the whimsical play of cupids fluttering over the boat. Almost imperceptible transitions of fragile, changeable feelings, a shaky play of vague forebodings and indecisive desires - such was the area of ​​Watteau's poetry, devoid of certainty and energy. The sharpness of perception of the nuances of feelings reminds of Voltaire's words addressed to the playwright Marivaux about "the paths of the human heart", in contrast to his "great path". In the "Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera" Watteau's exquisite colorism is remarkable; light vibrating movements of the brush create a feeling of mobility of forms, their quivering excitement; everything is permeated with soft diffused light streaming through the light crowns of trees; the outlines of mountainous distances dissolve in a gentle airy haze. Light color accents of orange, pale green and pinkish-red fabrics of clothes light up against a golden background. The dreamy art of Watteau is endowed with a special poetic charm, magically transforming the "gallant festivities" that his contemporaries looked mannered and far-fetched.

Many of Watteau's compositions are reminiscent of theatrical scenes, on which characters live a strange life, performing for themselves old, but still dear to their hearts, roles from a funny and sad play. But the real content of modern performances also determined Watteau's interest in the theater and theatrical plots. There are many of them not only in the early work of the artist. In recent years, the most significant works of this cycle have appeared. Among them is The Italian Comedians (Berlin), written, apparently, after 1716, when Italian actors returned to Paris, expelled from France at the end of the 17th century for satirical attacks against the circles ruling the country. In the final scene of the performance, by the light of a torch and a lantern, the figures of Metsetin, mocking Gilles, dynamic Harlequin, gentle and coquettish actresses emerge from the dusk. Even later, judging by the pictorial manner, the image of the actors of the French Comedy (New York, Beit collection) was performed - an episode of one of the performances of this theater, in which, at least until 1717, the pompous style of acting dominated, ridiculed by Lesage in the first Gil Blas book. The heap of architectural elements and the splendor of the costumes complement the funny pathos of the “Romans” subtly conveyed by the painter (as the actors of the French Comedy Theater were then ironically called), their salon manners and ridiculous poses. Such comparisons reveal the artist's attitude to the events of life, to the tasks of art.

But the most remarkable work of Watteau associated with the theater is Gilles (Louvre). The compositional solution of this large picture is somewhat mysterious and has always given rise to many conflicting interpretations. Against the backdrop of a bright sky and dark green trees, the figure of an actor in white clothes rises. A gray hat frames his face, a calm gaze is fixed on the viewer, his hands are lowered. Behind the ramp-like hillock on which Gilles stands, his fellow craftsmen are located, they pull the donkey by the rope, a grinning Scapin leaves on it. The revival of this group with restrained contrast emphasizes the concentration of the motionless Gilles. The compositional disunity of the figure of Gilles and the characters of the second plan not connected with him by any action can be explained by an interesting assumption that this picture was executed as a sign for one of the fair seasons of the Italian Comedy Theater. Then it is clear why the favorite of the public, Gilles, as it were, addresses the viewer, and the Italian pine is visible in the landscape; in fair theaters such signs often hung. The protagonist of the picture appears in a state of meditation, deep thought; the nature of the composition is ultimately determined precisely by this contradictory interweaving of the appeal to the world and the complex self-profound inner life, which reveals itself in subtle emotional shades. A slightly raised eyebrow, heavy swollen eyelids slightly covering the pupils and a slight movement of the lips - all this gives a special expressiveness to the actor's face. There is sad mockery in him, and hidden pride, and the hidden excitement of a person who is capable of owning people's hearts.

The picturesque manner in which Gilles is executed testifies to the diversity of Watteau's searches, to the innovation of his art. The earlier works were made with a thin and hard brush, small light strokes, oblong, viscous, embossed, slightly sinuous, as if strung on the shapes and contours of objects. Light, crushed on the surface, shimmers with many precious mother-of-pearl shades - pale white, greenish, blue, purple, pink, pearl gray and yellow. These mother-of-pearl overflows gave rise to contemporaries to compose jokes that Watteau does not wash his brushes and takes paints from a pot, where they are all mixed. An amazing variety of shades is combined with the finest glazes. Delacroix called Watteau's technique amazing, arguing that Flanders and Venice were combined in it.

As for "Gilles", its color scheme next to the golden scale of "Pilgrimage to the Island of Cythera" seems colder, bluish, as well as the color of Watteau's later works in relation to the previous "golden" period. The picture is written much more widely than gallant festivities, it feels the free movement of color and, most importantly, the colored shadows on the actor's white clothes - yellowish, blue, lilac and red. This is a bold search, a deepening of realistic tendencies, so vividly embodied in the master's numerous drawings.

Graphics Watteau was one of the most remarkable pages of French art of the 18th century. The artist usually painted in three colors, using a black Italian pencil, sanguine and chalk. His drawings are based on live observation. They were made for future paintings, which the artist himself did not call as we now call them, but for example: "A small picture representing a garden with eight figures." In Watteau's graphics, we meet these various figures: nobles and beggars, soldiers and noble ladies, merchants and peasants - a huge collection of types, which later amounted to four volumes of engraved "figures of various characters." Sketches of decorative panels, elegant landscape drawings are wonderful, but women's heads are especially good - in different turns, movements that convey those subtle shades of feelings that the painter appreciated so much. It was a search for a pose, a gesture, necessary for the paintings. But these drawings have such a deep content that they acquire an independent realistic value. Light strokes and wavy lines recreate space, sliding reflections of light, the iridescence of shiny fabrics, the tenderness of an air haze. The drawings of Watteau contain the same subtle poetic charm as in his painting.

The last work of Watteau was a sign for the antique shop of Gersin (c. 1721; Berlin). This picture was appreciated by Watteau himself, usually dissatisfied with himself.

Hanging over Gersin's shop for only fifteen days, Watteau's sign attracted the attention of the public. She depicted the inside of this shop with its usual visitors: noble ladies and nobles accompanying them, with owners and servants putting bought paintings into a box. The attention of guests and hosts is absorbed by works of art, therefore, in the "Sign of Gersin" a special atmosphere of exquisite emotionality, characteristic of Watteau's work, dominates. In it, it is concretized, more than ever before, by a lively and real narrative, in which subtle irony is replaced by lyrical tenderness. Near the box where the portrait of Louis XIV is placed, there is a mocking commoner, prim aristocrats are looking at naked nymphs in a large pastoral picture, and in the first group, the lordly pose of a well-groomed lady sets off the modest, slightly shy manners of Gersin's young wife. The shop, like a stage, is open to the street. From the figure of a lady in a pink dress entering the interior, the development of the plot begins, a chain of movements and turns characteristic of Watteau's compositions, a rhythmic alternation of mise-en-scenes and spatial caesuras between them. The plastic richness of poses and gestures is connected here with the development of the narrative, the concrete motivation of emotional communications, which are so characteristic of the painter's creative method. Fragile and delicate color harmonies acquire restraint and plastic certainty.

"The Sign of Gersin" is an expressive story about the people of that time, anticipating the new conquests of realism in the 18th century. But the untimely death of the artist, who died in 1721, interrupted his contradictory and rapid creative development, which determined a lot in French painting of the 18th century.

The work of Watteau had a strong influence on the painters of the early 18th century. His students tried to develop the traditions of his art - Pater, the most prosaic of his direct followers, gravitating towards the pastoral Antoine Quillard and Nicola Lancre, who paid tribute to superficial gallant plots and new forms of the developing household genre. Academics Carl Vanloo and others were fond of the "gallant genre". But the impact of Watteau on French art of the 18th century. was much wider: he opened the way to modern subjects, to a heightened perception of lyrical shades of feelings, poetic communication with nature, a subtle sense of color.

After Watteau, who stood on the verge of two centuries, contradictions between various trends associated with the struggling forces of society began to emerge in French art more clearly. On the one hand, in the 1720-1730s. the art of rococo, which was already emerging earlier, is taking shape. It arises in direct proportion to the new principles of architecture and architectural decoration, when monumental ensembles are replaced by intimate mansions of the nobility, and works of art begin to be interpreted as elegant trinkets decorating the small interiors of these mansions. Ultimately, the hedonistic nature of Rococo, the weakening of interest in the cognitive value of art, is associated with the decline of noble culture at a time described by the words “after us - even a flood”. In the art of these decades, the ratio of types and genres is changing - historical and religious painting is in crisis, being replaced by ornamental and decorative panels, carpets and small desudeportes depicting gallant scenes, seasons, and allegories of art.

The heyday of the Rococo style dates back to the 1730s-1740s; An excellent example of this style in the visual arts is the picturesque and sculptural decor of the interiors of the Soubise Hotel in Paris. This ensemble was created in the second half of the 1730s by the joint efforts of many outstanding masters - the architect Beaufran, sculptors - both Adanov and Lemoine, painters Boucher, Tremoliere, Vanloo and Natoire. One of the best interiors of the mansion is the oval Hall of the upper floor, the so-called Princess Salon. Large arched windows overlooking the courtyard alternate with doors and mirrors of the same shape and height. The use of mirrors in the composition of the interior does not make it grandiose, as it was in the Mirror Gallery of Versailles, where the mirrors were placed directly against the windows. In the oval hall, reflections complicate the interior, creating an imaginary spatial pattern, and the illusion of many asymmetrical openings makes the Princess Salon look like a garden gazebo. The interiors are dominated by white; exquisite light colors - pink and pale blue - reinforce the impression of lightness and grace. Above the arches of doors and windows there are gilded stucco cartouches, cupids, intertwining branches and decorative panels of Natuara, connected in a whimsical garland. This wavy, light pattern hides the boundary between walls and ceiling, while garlands stretching towards the ceiling's central rosette complete the decorative system. Natuara's painting, dedicated to the love story of Cupid and Psyche, becomes part of the pattern, an element of graceful decoration. The smooth wavy rhythms of the architectural ornament of the interior also pass into the compositions of the paintings, linking the figures with a decorative pattern.

Rococo hedonism is manifested in the deliberate sensuality of plots, the affectation of movements, the refinement of proportions and the sweetish tenderness of color shades - pink, greenish, blue. This direction of painting has become widespread in interior decoration, it reflects the typical features of the noble culture of the 18th century.

The interiors of the Soubise Hotel, like other mansions of the first half of the century, are a refined and organic ensemble of architecture, painting, sculpture and applied art. The fine stucco decorations by the sculptor Erpen are combined with the picturesque panels of Tremoliere and Boucher above the door, elegant bronze linings adorn the doors and marble fireplaces, light green and crimson fabrics that cover the walls are embroidered with a gold pattern. Rococo carved wooden furniture, sketches for which the famous decorators Meissonier and Oppenor made, is light and varied, its forms are whimsical like a decorative ornament, curved supports seem unstable.

Heavy and pompous furniture of the 17th century. gives way to more comfortable sun loungers, armchairs and sofas, small chests of drawers and console tables. They are covered with delicate carvings in the form of scrolls, shells and bouquets, paintings depicting Chinese and pastoral motifs, and inlays. Just as the pattern in rocaille porcelain left a free “reserve” field, in furniture bronze overlays frame the often unadorned surface, composed of precious woods of different shades, with a light garland. The whimsical design and ornament eludes the clarity of outlines, miniature and sophistication correspond to the character of the interior. One of the most famous furniture makers of this time was Jacques Caffieri.

Rococo interiors were also characterized by tapestries made at the tapestry manufactory and the Beauvais manufactory based on the cardboards of Jean Beren, Claude Audran, Jean Francois de Troy, Francois Boucher and other painters. Their subjects are gallant scenes and pastorals, hunting and seasons, Chinese motifs (“chinoiserie”). The latter is connected with the abundance of fabrics and porcelain brought from the East. Light colorful consonances and light graceful ornaments are typical for carpets of this time, designed to decorate rocaille interiors. The authors of tapestries for tapestries were most often masters of decorative panels. Among the decorators of the mid-18th century. the carver Jean Verberkt (Versailles interiors) and the painter Christophe Hue (interiors of the castle in Shan) stand out.

Invented at the end of the 17th century. French soft porcelain in the first half of the century developed slowly and was often imitative (manufactories of Saint Cloud, Chantilly and Mennessy). In fact, only in the middle of the century did the original porcelain production flourish - in the Vincennes and especially the Sevres manufactories. At the beginning of the 18th century the technique of silver (Thomas Germain and other masters) was more developed, as well as bronze items - clocks, girandoles and sconces, vases and floor lamps. As for porcelain, Vincennes products are associated with the work of Duplessis and Boucher, according to whose drawings they were made. The subsequent flourishing of the Sevres manufactory, where Falcone worked, was also largely due to the activities of Boucher. It was in this area that the exquisite skill of the rocaille decorator most organically manifested itself. Performed in the middle of the 18th century. in Sevres, according to his sketches, small sculptures of unglazed biscuit porcelain are perhaps the best of what he has done. Their lyrical subtlety and graceful elegance are stylistic features that are also characteristic of other types of decorative art of the era. After Boucher and Falcone, the sculptural workshops of Sevres were led by Le Rich, then Boiseau. At French sculptors and in the second half of the century, interest in chamber forms of plastic arts remained. Models for Sevres were made by Sali, Pigalle, Clodion and others.

François Boucher (1703-1770) considered himself a follower of Watteau. He began by engraving his paintings. But there is a fundamental difference between the deep content of Watteau's art and the external decorativeism of Boucher's work, which became in the middle of the 18th century. trendsetter of artistic tastes in France. In the engravings of Boucher, Watteau's sharply typical genre scenes turned into ornamental vignettes. Similar principles were then embodied in rococo book illustrations - vignettes and endings that adorned the book with an exquisite pattern, just as stucco and desuports adorned rocaille interiors. Together with Lancret, Pater and Eisen Boucher, he engraved drawings for Lafontaine's fairy tales. This is the so-called Larmessen suite, executed in a mixed technique of chisel and etching.

Boucher's drawings are not as spiritual as Watteau's, but they are expressive and emotional in their own way. With almost calligraphic elegance, a watercolor and bistre drawing called “The Mill” (A. S. Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) was made. The composition of the drawing is emphatically decorative - a river, a tree and a cloud form a curved line, similar to the ornaments of this Epoch. In the landscape compositions of Boucher, yet devoid of truthfulness and sincere intoxication with nature, there is lyricism, they are enlivened by motifs taken from everyday life. In addition to sketches for tapestries and porcelain, engravings and drawings, Boucher painted numerous easel paintings, connected, however, with the same principles of rocaille interior decoration. He is the true creator of the French pastoral genre, depicting gallant shepherds and cutesy shepherds or sensual episodes of ancient mythology. Boucher's pastorals are sugary, they serve as an example of the sentimental noble fashion for "rural scenes". Such are the Louvre “Sleeping Shepherdess” (1745), “The Bathing of Diana” (1742) and other works depicting puppet figures in an elegant landscape. It was "the art of the pleasant", it wanted to please, but not disturb. In his youth, during an Italian trip, Boucher adopted some of Tiepolo's painting techniques, especially the lightness of the palette. The bodies of his nymphs seem to radiate a soft light, and the shadows and contours become pink. Boucher's unnatural colors are characteristic of the time when they were looking for exquisite, rare shades that often bore strange names: "pigeon neck", "frisky shepherdess", "color of lost time", "merry widow" and even "color of the thigh of an agitated nymph". The peculiarity of the painting style of Boucher, an academic master, also consisted in the fact that he gravitated towards the "great style" and used idealization methods, like Lebrun's epigones. Academic triangular and pyramidal compositions along with asymmetric rocaille schemes are guessed in his paintings. This cold rationality also distinguishes Boucher from Watteau and his school. Not inclined, according to contemporaries, to look closely at nature, Boucher argued that she lacked harmony and charm, that she was devoid of perfection and poorly lit. Obviously, therefore, in his paintings, he tried to make it colorful and very light - pink and blue. Not surprisingly, Boucher's mannerisms were heavily criticized; the negative assessment of his art by enlighteners is known.

Around Boucher, who in the middle of the century was the leading master of rococo, many artists of this direction were grouped - Charles Joseph Natoire, Pierre Charles Tremolier, Karl Vanloo, gallant painters of the older generation - Charles Antoine Coypel, Jean Marc Nattier.

Sculpture of the first half of the 18th century, like painting, was dependent on the principles of interior decoration. At the Hotel Soubise, the desudéportes are executed in relief, not to mention the figures of cupids woven into the stucco ornament. The mythological groups and portrait busts that stood in the interiors echoed the decorative sculpture. But in the first decades of the 18th century. in sculpture, the traditions of the Versailles school were strong with its monumentality and spatial scope. Many craftsmen who worked in the first half of the century completed orders for the Versailles park, Marly, grandiose Parisian ensembles built back in the 17th century. Guillaume Coustou the Elder (1677-1746) executed the groups of Marley horses, full of energy and expressiveness, now standing at the beginning of the Champs Elysees in Paris. He also owns the sculptures of the facade and the main tympanum of the portal of the Les Invalides - Mars, Minerva and Louis XIV among the allegorical figures.

Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762), a student of Coust, also worked at Versailles. And for its formation, the skills of the monumental palace school played a role. Among the most famous works of Bouchardon is the lost equestrian statue of Louis XV, which once stood in the center of the square of the same name (now the Place de la Concorde), as well as a large fountain on the Parisian rue Grenelle (1739-1745). In the work of this master, new artistic techniques are determined. He frees himself from the heaviness of forms and pomp of draperies, characteristic of late Versailles classicism, and masters the lyrical theme, the grace of movements, the tenderness of light and shade transitions, the musicality of flexible lines. These features are also distinguished by the allegorical figures that adorn the fountain on the Rue Grenelle. It is a large architectural and sculptural composition similar to the facade of a house. The lower rusticated tier serves as a pedestal for the upper one, the center is marked by an Ionic portico of the upper tier, on both sides of it there are niches with statues, under the niches there are reliefs. This is a monument standing at the crossroads of an era: a concave wall with a protruding middle part recalls the whimsicalness of rocaille layouts; in allegorical images of rivers and especially in reliefs, lyrical, pastoral notes are strong; the portico, which serves as the center of the composition, unites it, giving austerity and restraint, unusual for Rococo. One of the most famous works of Bouchardon is the statue of Cupid (1739-1750; Louvre).

Most of all, the features of the Rococo style manifested themselves in the work of Jean Baptiste Lemoine (1704-1778). The main area of ​​his work - decorative plastic and especially portrait busts. He was one of those sculptors who worked at the Soubise Hotel - he owned allegorical figures there. In the portrait bust of a young girl from the collection of the Hermitage (Leningrad), the graceful asymmetry of the composition, the softness of the lines, the coquettish grace of movement - all these features of Lemoine's talent determine his role as the most typical rococo portrait painter, endowed with a lyrical gift and subtlety of perception, but not striving to reveal the complexity of the character.

Simultaneously with the development of Rococo art in French painting in the 1730s-1740s. a different, realistic direction is emerging, associated with the ideas of the third estate.

Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin (1699 -1779) studied with academic masters (Pierre Jacques Case, Noel Nicolas Coypel, Jean Baptiste Vanloo). In Kaz's workshop, he had to copy the teacher's paintings for a long time. Much later, he recalled this time: “We spend long days and nights by the light of lamps in front of motionless inanimate nature, before they give us living nature. And suddenly all the work of previous years seems to come to naught, we feel as confused as when we first picked up a pencil. It is necessary to train the eye to look at nature, and how many have never seen it and will never see it. This is the torment of our life" ( D. Diderot, Salon of 1765. - Collection. soch., vol. VI, M., 1946, pp. 94-95.).

Even in his youth, Chardin's attraction to the still life genre was manifested, and in 1728 at the "youth exhibition", which was held from time to time in one of the main Parisian squares (Dauphin Square), he showed two compositions - "Buffet" and "Slope" ( Louvre). They were successful and introduced Chardin to the ranks of academics. In these works, the influence of Flemish painting was rightly noted; they are decorative and at the same time enriched with a thoughtful contemplation of nature. Chardin gravitated not to the large verbose compositions of the Flemings, but to the more concentrated and in-depth Dutch "breakfasts". Pretty soon he turned to modest subjects. These are "kitchen still lifes" in the spirit of Kalf, still dark in colors, among which green, olive and brown prevail. Already in the early still lifes, the balance of masses is subtly calculated, but the objects are still somehow scattered and the exact transfer of form seems prosaic.

The household genre occupied in the 1730-1740s. a leading place in the work of Chardin, who won the sympathy of the audience as a painter of the third estate.

His "Washerwomen", "Cooks", which appeared in the second half of the 1730s, differed from Boucher's sugary pastorals in their modest poetry, caught in everyday life. Chardin's paintings are characterized by subtle emotionality and soft sincerity. The subjects he chooses are also peculiar. They do not have an active action, a difficult situation. The relationships of the characters are revealed not in some unusual moment of their lives, but in the calm, leisurely current everyday activities. His art is contemplative, there are no complex, dramatic life problems in it. At that time, there were still no sufficient prerequisites for the emergence of another, more effective ideal.

The Cook (1738; Vienna, Liechtenstein Gallery) is presented thoughtfully; the artist seems to delay the flow of time, replacing direct action with meditation. This is a favorite device of his early days, by means of which the significance of the most ordinary episode is enhanced.

One of the greatest pictorial conquests of Chardin is that he widely applied the system of color reflections. Here, for example, the white color is woven from pink, yellow, light blue, gray shades. Small strokes placed one next to the other evoke a feeling of vibrant color transitions and the relationship of objects with their environment.

By the end of the 1730s. in the everyday genre of Chardin, plot ideas become more complicated, moral notes become more noticeable. Almost all genre paintings of these years depict scenes of education: The Governess (Vienna), two paired compositions exhibited at the Salon of 1740 - The Hardworking Mother and Prayer Before Dinner (both in the Louvre). In "A Prayer Before Dinner" three characters - a mother and two little girls - are connected by an uncomplicated everyday situation; the viewer easily guesses many shades in the calm benevolence of the mother, the direct emotions of the children.

Chardin's genre paintings are a poetic story about the "good morals" of ordinary people, about the dignity of their way of life. Chardin's realism was one of the first manifestations of the democratic thought of the Enlightenment with its belief in the dignity of man, with his idea of ​​the equality of people. The creative searches of the painter echoed the reflections of the enlighteners. By 1740, when The Industrious Mother and The Prayer Before Dinner were exhibited, Rousseau's early pedagogical work dates back, setting out projects for the education of "good morals" by no means in a polemically pointed form.

Lyrical emotionality is one of the main properties of Chardin's art. Engraver Koshen in his biography reports one statement of the master, which sounded like a creative credo. Angry with the chatter of a superficial artist who became interested in the secrets of painting, Chardin asked: “But who told you that they paint with paints?” “But what?” he wondered. - "They use paints," answered Chardin, "but they write with feeling."

In the field of genre painting, Chardin had followers who grouped around him: Zhora, Cano, Dumesnil the Younger. To this must be added the names of many engravers who came to the fore under the influence of his art. These are Leba, Ville, Lepisye, Kar, Syuryug, Flipar and others. According to the art critic Lafon de Saint-Ien, engravings from Chardin's paintings were sold out very quickly. In the 1750s and 1760s, when new forms of everyday genre were developing, preaching bourgeois virtue, the sixty-year-old artist created almost nothing new in genre painting; asserting the ethical dignity of the common man, Chardin remained a stranger to deliberate moralization.

The genre of everyday life and still life were closely connected in the art of Chardin. For a painter of the third estate, still life was a deeply meaningful genre of art. He not only spoke about the dignity and poetry of everyday life, he affirmed the beauty and significance of being; Chardin's work resounds with the pathos of understanding nature, revealing the structure and essence of things, their individuality, the patterns of their relationships. Things in his still lifes are spiritualized by the perceived closeness of a person; the naturalness of the arrangement of objects is combined with compositional logic, balance, and precise calculation of relationships. The harmonic clarity of the figurative structure of the still life inspires the viewer with respect for the strict dignity of simple objects of human use. Such are the Louvre "Copper Tank" and the Stockholm "Still Life with a Hare".

By the middle of the 18th century. new coloristic problems were widely discussed by all artists; in 1749, academicians listened to a speech by the master of still life and landscape Jean-Baptiste Oudry about the benefits of comparing objects for a painter who studies the possibilities of color. In a review of the Salon of 1757, under the meaningful title "Observations on Physics and the Arts," Gauthier Dagoty wrote that objects are reflected one in the other.

In the works of Chardin, the picturesque surface is, as it were, woven from the smallest strokes; V mature period creative strokes are wider and freer, although they always feel the restraint of the calm and thoughtful nature of the artist. The freshness of colors and richness of Chardin's reflexes are striking even now, when his still lifes hang next to the works of other masters of the 18th century ("Orange and a Silver Goblet", 1756; Paris, private collection). It conveys not only the features of the texture of objects, but also makes them feel their flesh - for example, tender pulp and overflows of juices under the transparent skin of ripe fruits (“Basket of plums”, Salon 1765; Paris, private collection). Chardin was considered one of the most authoritative connoisseurs of colorful compositions, and it was he who was instructed by the Academy to check the quality of new paints.

Chardin sculpts the shape of the object solidly and confidently, working with colorful "paste", like a ceramist with his future pots. This is how House of Cards (1735; Uffizi) was made; in the still life “Pipes and Jug” (Louvre), a faience vessel is molded with a very dense layer of paint.

The poetry of everyday life, a subtle insight into the essence of things, the lyrical emotionality of color and compositional logic are the most significant differences between Chardin's art and the previous stage in the development of realistic still life.

Chardin was alien to the haste in the implementation of the plan, he worked slowly, carefully considering every detail. The thoughtfulness of the work process was all the more important because Chardin, apparently, did not make preliminary sketches. His contemporary Mariette speaks directly about this. Indeed, Chardin's drawings have hardly come down to us. There are no obvious traces of major corrections to the drawing in his paintings. With this nature of the work, the deep knowledge of drawing and the mastery of composition that the artist possessed stand out especially prominently. His compositions are built extremely well and thoroughly, for example, "Drafter" from the Stockholm Museum.

In the 1770s Chardin was already at an advanced age; during these years, another portrait cycle arose. In earlier portraits of Chardin (for example, in the image of the son of the jeweler Godefroy), character traits were revealed through an occupation that is so important in the picture that it is perceived more as a genre scene. It is no coincidence that the portrait of Godefroy's son is better known as "Boy with a top" (1777; Louvre). In the 1770s, turning to the pastel technique, Chardin focuses on the very appearance of the person being portrayed. In these works, the type of man of the third estate crystallizes. Such is the portrait of the artist's wife (1775; Louvre). In her preoccupation and seriousness of her gaze - traces of everyday small anxieties and unrest - the features of housekeeping and prudence appear, inherent in the very way of life embodied in this image. "Self-portrait with a green visor" (1775; Louvre) represents Chardin himself in home clothes. In a clear volume of the figure, for which the format of the picture is cramped, the hardness of the posture is read. In the confidence of the pose, supported by a restrained turn of the head, in the insight of an attentive look, the strict dignity of a stern and demanding person who has passed a long and difficult life path appears.

Almost simultaneously with the work of Chardin, the portrait art of Latour, one of the largest realism phenomena of the mid-18th century, took shape.

At the beginning of the century, the traditions of the ceremonial painting prevailed, of which Rigaud and Largilliere were representatives; however, their work was influenced by new ideas, and the poetry of feeling pushed aside the pathos of the majestic. As in other genres, in the 1730s and 1740s, various trends in portraiture emerged. Rococo painters Jean-Marc Nattier (1685-1766), Drouet and others decorated court ladies with attributes of ancient goddesses in their paintings. Mannerism and idealization determined the success of Nattier at court. Like Boucher, Nattier did not burden the model with many sessions, limiting himself to a cursory sketch from nature. Contemporaries said that Nattier likens his genre to historical, by which they then understood the artist’s desire for “apotheosis”, idealization, and decoration of nature. In his portraits there is some kind of puppet beauty, the colors are conventional, the silhouettes are exquisite; he reveals not the psychologism of a portrait painter, but the skills of a flattering and skillful decorator. Such, for example, is the portrait of the Duchess de Cholin in the form of Hebe (1744; Louvre). Describing the Salon of 1747, the critic St. Yen ridiculed these "funny apotheoses" of elderly ladies.

Louis Toquet (1696-1772), a follower of Nattier, had a more prosaic, narrative gift. He honored the hierarchy of genres and, gravitating towards the intimacy of portraiture, also used the traditional forms of Rigaud’s ceremonial composition (“Maria Leshchinskaya”; Louvre). In a speech at an academic conference in 1750, he recommended that portrait painters capture favorable conditions that make the face look pretty. Still, Toquet worked more from nature than Nattier, and his love of detail helped him convey the individuality of the model. His portraits are more natural and simpler.

In the 1730s and 1740s, realistic tendencies in portraiture grew stronger. They acted at first in the form of a "genre portrait" of Chardin. Similar features were visible in the art of the portrait painter Jacques André Joseph Aved. In the same years, Latour made his first works.

Maurice Quentin de Latour (1704-1788) was born in the town of Saint Quentin. In his youth, he went to Paris and studied there with minor artists, was influenced by pastelists - the Italian Rosalba Carriera and the Frenchman Vivien. He was noted to have "a natural gift for grasping facial features at a glance", but this gift developed slowly. Only by the mid-1730s. Latour gained fame, in 1737 he was added to the Academy as a "pastel portrait painter", and a year later Voltaire himself called him famous.

The first work of Latour, the date of which we know, is a portrait of Voltaire. Latour's early successes date back to the resumption of the Louvre exhibitions in 1737-1739.

In the Salon of 1742, he exhibited a portrait of Abbé Hubert (Geneva, Museum). The genre nature of this composition brings it closer to similar paintings by Chardin. The learned abbot bent over the tome. The lyrical characterization of Chardin’s model is replaced here by the desire to catch the complex movement of thoughts and feelings at the moment of their active life: with the finger of his right hand, Abbé Hubert holds the pages of the book, as if comparing two passages from this work (“Experiments” by Montaigne). Unlike such portrait painters as Nattier, Latour not only avoided "decorating" the model, but also exposed her originality. Hubert's irregular facial features are imbued with intellectual power. Heavy wrinkled eyelids hide a penetrating gaze, a mocking smile. The facial expressions of the abbot convey a sense of the extraordinary mobility and energy of this person.

The method of characterizing the person being portrayed with the help of expressive facial expressions, which conveys the active life of thought, is due to the ideals of Latour. This is not just a new social type of the first Chardin portraits with its moral virtues. Before us is an active character imbued with the critical spirit of the times.

In the first half of the 1740s. Latour also painted large formal portraits. Having submitted a portrait of the painter Rétoux to the Academy in 1746, Latour received the title of academician.

Among the great compositions of these years, the portrait of Duval de l "Epine (1745; Rothschild collection) stands out, called by his contemporaries the "king of the pastel." Indeed, this is one of the best works of the 1740s. The accuracy of the characterization borders on ruthlessness. A kind smile and seemingly absent-minded a benevolent look looks like a cold mask, common for the canonical forms of a formal portrait.

It is in such works of Latour that the vigilance of the artist is so similar to the dispassion of the naturalist. This is understandable - such a model can rather develop the analytical ability of the painter than excite his feelings. In the arrogant expression of thin dry lips, in the alertness of the gaze, distrust, skepticism and arrogance emerge, as if “seeing through” through the appearance. That is why the portrait of Duval de l "Epine, with all the seeming impassivity of the image, evokes emotions in the viewer that are unlike those that arise when contemplating the portrait of Hubert, where the artist unconditionally sympathizes with the model. Here Latour, as it were, leads the viewer from the canonical mask of an amiable and ironic secular interlocutor to true traits of nature.He forces to compare the mask and the essence.

In the 1750s Latour performed his most famous works. At the Salon of 1753, he exhibited a series of portraits depicting the philosophers of the Enlightenment, writers and scientists of France. One of the most important aspects of the master's work at this time is the affirmation of the dignity of an active and strong-willed personality. Portrait images of Latour tend to be intellectual. The artist avoided the obscure, dark sides of human nature, those qualities that are not illuminated by the light of reason. The spirit of criticism and analytical subtlety were complemented by the intellectualism that was generated by the time of the struggle of advanced thought against the old, dying order. These features also appeared in many of Latour's self-portraits.

Among the works of 1753 is a portrait of d'Alembert (Louvre; preparatory sketch in the Latour museum in Saint Quentin). Facial features are in motion, glare of light enhances the feeling of the variability of a smile and a lively look. The character of the brilliant polemicist, who was the soul of philosophical disputes, is revealed, as it were, in communication with the interlocutor. This is a typical Latour technique.

Rousseau spoke with admiration of Latour's "rare talents" and of the portrait he had executed. The image of Rousseau is known in several versions. In the portrait from the Saint-Quentin Museum, Rousseau is pensive and melancholy, but his eyes are full of special liveliness, reminiscent of the ability of this person to surrender with all his heart to the charm of life. The portrait contains the emotional enthusiasm so characteristic of the soul of the author of The New Eloise.

In another composition (1753; Paris, Pom collection), his chestnut eyes are restless, sad, his eyebrows are frowned and his forehead between them is wrinkled in folds. Here, in the guise of the person being portrayed, the angularity and compulsion of a person who does not seek to please are noticeable. A complex, contradictory image arises, combining sensitivity and skepticism, subtlety and coarse harshness, incredulity and hidden enthusiasm. A remarkable role in this characterization is played by a melancholy, ready to disappear smile.

Apparently by the 1750s. should be attributed to the flourishing of "preparations" Latour, preparatory sketches for portraits. Latour's portrait sketches are distinguished by freedom of stroke, sketchiness of texture, and a variety of techniques: pastel is mixed in them with pencil, chalk, and sanguine. But they have a high figurative and formal completeness.

Most of these sketches are kept in the Saint Quentin Museum.

One of the best is a sketch of a portrait of the actress Marie Fell (Saint Quentin, Latour Museum; the portrait itself, exhibited at the Salon of 1757, has not reached us). She is presented in a role from Rameau's opera Zoroaster, so she is adorned with a light blue turban with a gold ribbon and scarlet and white flowers. The spiritual softness of nature is intertwined here with the charm of acting inspiration. In the graceful turn of the actress's head there is a hint of stage convention, but it gives way to the sincerity of a gentle caressing look and a touching thoughtful smile.

Women's portraits of Latour are very different. In each of them, the insight and subtlety of the characterization are striking - the proud and slightly ironic Camargo, the modest, direct Dangeville, the bold and stubborn Favard, hiding the natural mind under the mask of naive rusticity. All these are outstanding actresses, and in psychological figure the imprint of their artistic individuality is invariably present. So, in the guise of Justine Favard (Saint-Quentin), in her lively mockery, in her gaze, full of bold slyness and impudent enthusiasm, the features of the stage type created by her are also manifested. But artistic talent acts as the most important and, moreover, socially significant quality of individuality.

This is one of the foundations of the broad public resonance of Latour's art. He reflected in the portrait not only the social position of a person - this was done by other painters - but also that activity of nature, which corresponded to the content and nature of the activity of the person being portrayed.

Judging by many reports, Latour was a firm and independent person. Sharp with the nobility, hurting his pride, he refused the order granted by Louis XV. The desire to assert the artist's independence was combined in him with a keen interest in advanced social thought - Diderot's "Salons" store many evidence of the ideological closeness of the painter and his critics, and Latour's letters contain interesting discussions about the variability of nature, about building perspective in a portrait, about the individualization of characters and respectively - painting techniques.

Latour enriched the pastel technique, which was distinguished by such tenderness of velvety texture, such purity of color, giving it a special plastic power.

Creating a portrait, Latour dispensed with accessories; studying the face, he did not even notice the expressiveness of the hands. But Latour portrayed the face with amazing skill. No wonder he forced the person being portrayed to pose for a long time, maintaining a lively and witty conversation with him. Studying the interlocutor, he seemed to be playing a subtle game with him. It seems that Marmontel, without suspecting himself, became a victim of this game when he listened to Latour, "leading the destinies of Europe."

Latour spoke of those whom he portrayed: "They think that I capture only the features of their faces, but without their knowledge I descend into the depths of their soul and take it entirely."

Maybe the artist exaggerated - not all of his works are so deep; and yet these words of the most insightful portrait painter, "professing" his model, could serve as an epigraph to his work. “The face of a man,” wrote Diderot, “is a changeable canvas that agitates, moves, tenses, softens, colors and fades, obeying the countless changes of light and quick breaths that are called the soul.” The ability to catch the shades of spiritual movements, while maintaining the certainty of characterization, is one of the main properties of Latour's realism. He chose such states, which in themselves are distinguished by special liveliness - it is not without reason that he so often depicted his heroes smiling. The smile in Latour's portraits is intellectual. Moreover, the inner world of the person portrayed is revealed with particular brightness in the subtlest psychological expressiveness of a smile that truly illuminates the face.

When comparing the portraiture of Latour and Perronneau, it is often overlooked that Jean-Baptiste Perronneau was eleven years younger than Latour (1715-1783). The first known date for a portrait work by Perronneau is 1744, at which time the French portrait was already highly developed. Perronneau followed the path trodden by his predecessors, and it is not surprising that he soon seemed to be the same age as Latour.

He studied under the academician Natoire, but chose the genre of small-sized portraits, mostly bust, less often half-length. The influence of Latour and the proximity to him were unanimously noted by contemporaries; It's about the general direction. Probably already from 1744 Perronneau began a wandering life; in search of livelihood, he had to travel around Europe. He was not a fashionable court painter, like Nattier, and orders were not easy for him. Customers write about the diligence of Perronno, that he was ready to kill his model, striving for accuracy and perfection of the image. All this did not make his life secure, and he often mentions in his letters about his poverty and failures.

In his work, two decades can be distinguished, which were periods of heyday. The first decade - between 1744 and 1753, the time of the first major successes, the time of recognition of the outstanding talent of Perronno. The second period covers the 1760s.

Describing the artistic techniques of Perronno, critics most often spoke of the grace of the brushstroke, the subtlety of color, and the spirituality of the drawing. These are lyrical virtues, and Perronnot was valued precisely for them; the usual properties of his model for his art are natural kindness, spiritual softness, the uncertainty of changeable emotions.

In his works, the tenderness of color, combinations of gray and olive, green and pink, blue and black shades, united by a silvery tonality, are especially attractive (“Portrait of a boy with a book”, 1740s, Hermitage, see illustration; “Portrait of Mr. Ms. Sorkenville, Louvre). Small strokes and color reflections bring Perronno closer to Chardin. He perfectly reproduced the delicate softness of the skin, the density of good-quality fabric, the airiness of lightly powdered hair, the warm shimmer of jewelry.

The art of Perronno is far from the intellectualism of Latour, from the programmatic statement of a bright personality. But his images are poetic in their own way: it is no coincidence that he was inclined to depict children and women. The lyrical language of Perronno's art served him excellently when it was necessary to convey the charm of a young soul. One of the best examples of this is the portrait of the draftsman's daughter Yukyo (pastel, Louvre). In most cases, Perronno's characters look at the viewer, confiding their spiritual secrets to him. Here the gaze is turned to the side. This makes the painter's touch on the inner life of the person being portrayed more careful and delicate. The sly, tender smile is somewhat indefinite; the transitions from light to shadow are so elusive that the graceful head of Mademoiselle Yukier seems shrouded in a transparent haze.

Among the portrait painters of the second half of the 18th century. Joseph Siffred Duplessis (1725-1802), Adelaide Labille-Guillard (1749-1803) stand out.

In the middle of the 18th century enters the heyday of graphics - drawing, engraving, book illustration. Its successes are generally characteristic of this era, when it acquired relative independence. This was facilitated by the development of genre themes and the growth of respect for the dignity of sketching from life. Masters of drawing appear, creating various suites on the themes of modern life. These processes are all the more understandable because the expansion of the range of subjects took place at that time in genre painting.

A follower of Chardin, Etienne Jora, makes the scenes in the market town square, episodes street life. In the art of the 1750s the narrative beginning is intensified, the genre writers go beyond the limits of home impressions, the interior genre. Painters J.-B. Benard and Jean-Baptiste Leprince in the same years turn to "rural scenes", similar subjects are found among the drawings of the gifted engraver Ville.

One of the most talented draftsmen of the mid-18th century. was Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780). The son of an artisan, Saint-Aubin taught drawing at an architectural school in his youth. In the early 1750s. he twice tried to get the Prix de Rome, but each time it was only the second prize, and academic grants proved unattainable for him. The artist's ideas in the field of historical painting remained in sketches, and he reworked the compositions he had begun so many times that he eventually abandoned it without finishing. But he was very good at drawings based on live observations of everyday life in Paris.

There were two talented draftsmen in the Saint-Aubin family; the second was Augustin (1737-1807). The talents of the brothers are different - Augustin's drawing is primarily accurate and narrative, but it also has the sophistication of a subtle elegant touch. Gaining fame, Augustin becomes a chronicler of official festivities and ceremonies. But in the 1750s he is still united with Gabriel by something that is generally characteristic of these years. So, in 1757, Augustin engraved scenes for the Scenic Journey through Paris.

In Gabriel's work, the plot diversity is striking - he draws fairs and salons, city parks and theater halls, scenes on the streets and squares, lectures by scientists and mesmeric sessions, monuments and landscapes, holidays and dinners, walks and toilets, statues and paintings - from the Louvre to Saint Cloud and Versailles. Under these drawings are often signed: "Made during a walk." He appreciated not only the diversity of life, but also the specificity of types, in this he is faithful to the traditions of French engraving "fashions and customs". One of his best works is the etching "View of the Louvre Salon in 1753". The composition of the etching consists of two tiers - at the top you can see the paintings hung on the walls, and the public looking at them, at the bottom - visitors rushing to the exhibition, climbing the stairs. Especially expressive is the lonely figure of an old man full of anticipation. The excitement and liveliness of the crowd, the concentrated thoughtfulness of connoisseurs, the expressive gestures of controversy lovers - all this is sharply noticed by the engraver. In exquisite tonal gradations there is a special spirituality and emotionality that are reminiscent of Watteau.

Saint-Aubin was looking for a flexible and free technique that could convey the variability of the world, the dynamics of its forms. He used lead and Italian pencils, appreciating the softness and depth of the black tone in them, he liked to work with a pen and a brush, using Chinese ink with a wash, bistre, sepia, yellowish and pale blue watercolors. Italian pencil in his drawings is combined with bistre and pastel, lead pencil- with Chinese ink and sanguine. This mixture of different technical means is a feature of the graphics of Gabriel de Saint-Aubin.

In his later years, Saint-Aubin illustrated the works of the playwright Seden, Mercier's books. It is curious that he himself was the author of satirical poems; among them is an epigram on Bush.

In the middle of the century, the number of engravers depicting scenes of modern mores multiplies. These are Cochin, Gravelo, Eisen, Jean Michel Moreau the Younger. Their art was the most important stage in the development of book illustration - one of the most exquisite creations of graphic culture of the 18th century. Particularly expressive are the engravings of Moreau the Younger, scenes of social life; he was one of the best writers of everyday life in France of that time.

A lot of interesting things at this time in the technique of engraving. The popularity of engraving entailed the improvement of technology, and discoveries followed the search. It is characteristic that the discovered varieties of techniques were united by the desire for lively expressiveness, for dynamic and free techniques. Gilles Demarto begins to work in a pencil manner, developing the discovery of one of his predecessors, F. Charpentier invents lavis - an imitation of blurring in engraving, and the genre painter Leprince, picking up this innovation, develops the aquatint technique. Finally, later there is a color engraving based on lavis and aquatint (Jean Francois Jeaninet, Louis Philibert Debucourt).

At the end of the 18th century, a new rise in French graphics is associated with a reflection of the events of the revolution, which put forward a brilliant galaxy of draftsmen - Prieur, Thevenin, Monnet, Elman, Duplessis-Berto, Svebach and others.

The development of realism in the middle of the century, the aggravation of contradictions and the struggle of trends in art - all this caused the rise of the theory of art, an unprecedented activity of art criticism. By the middle of the century, when, in the words of Voltaire, the nation finally began to talk about bread, the camp of bourgeois enlighteners rallied, in 1751 putting forward their “battle tower” - the Encyclopedia against the aristocrats and the church. An ideological struggle also unfolded in the field of aesthetics. As you know, the enlighteners believed that it was possible to remake society with the help of moral education, therefore, first of all, it is necessary to overthrow immorality and the means by which it is planted in society. When the Dijon Academy put forward the theme "Did the revival of sciences and arts improve morals?" Rousseau replied in the negative, branding art as a flower garland on the iron chains of slavery. In essence, he branded noble culture with its perversity and hostility to nature. With a clear difference, there is an undoubted commonality between this war of Rousseau against a false civilization and the exposure of Rococo art, which can be found in everyone, Diderot's Salon.

Much in enlightenment aesthetics is directed towards the establishment of realism in art. Diderot, who supported the realist artists Chardin, Latour and others, tirelessly repeated this. Diderot's art criticism is perhaps the first example of an active intrusion of an advanced thinker into the field of artistic practice, evaluating the phenomena of art in terms of their realistic value and democratic orientation.

Diderot's aesthetic theory lived the concrete life of art, and in this way it opposed the speculative, speculative constructions of academic theorists. Along with the demands of truth in art, Diderot, analyzing modern painting and sculpture, puts forward the problem of action. He is concerned that the everyday genre is becoming art for the elderly. He wants to see the action in the portrait and falls upon Latour, so dear to his heart, for not making an image of "Cato of our days" from the portrait of Rousseau.

It was during these years that the word "energy" came into use in France. The problem of action in the visual arts for Diderot is the problem of the social activity of art. Anticipating what would come later, he sought to catch and support in painting thought, ardor, imagination - everything that could contribute to the awakening of the nation.

Speaking about the transfer of the class position of people in painting, Diderot does not mean external attributes that would explain to the viewer who he sees in the portrait. It implies the imprint of this position in the human psyche, its inner world, nature of emotions. "The figures and faces of artisans preserve the skills of shops and workshops." The call to study how the environment shapes the nature of a person, and, finally, to depict a simple person in art was characteristic of the aesthetics of the Enlightenment.

Arguing about the veracity of the artistic image, Diderot in his "Experience on Painting" generalized the realistic searches of contemporary artists. Particularly interesting are his remarks about aerial perspective and color reflections, about chiaroscuro and expressiveness.

Diderot's aesthetic concepts are not without controversy. Rebuking Boucher, he enthusiastically talks about delicacy and elegance in works of art; knowing how to appreciate the picturesque virtues of Chardin, he comes into indescribable admiration for the sugary "heads" of Greuze, declaring that they are higher than the paintings of Rubens. These irreconcilable contradictions of assessments are generated by the very essence of the views of the bourgeois enlighteners.

Attaching great educational importance to art, the enlighteners considered it as a means of educating morals in accordance with their theory. natural man". But since it was precisely at this point, in the realm of ethics, that they turned towards idealism, the supposed goodness of the bourgeois became the subject of idealization in art. Contrasting the viciousness of the aristocrats with an abstract virtue, the enlighteners did not see what capitalism brought with it. Therefore, the bourgeois heroes in Diderot's own dramas are unreal, lifeless and stilted, serving as mouthpieces for delivering sermons. Perhaps the weakest point in enlightenment aesthetics is the demand for morality in art, and the palest pages of essays devoted to art are those where enthusiasm is lavished on the genre of morality. Diderot's blindness in such cases is striking. Particularly curious are those touching stories that he himself composed for painters.

In the visual arts, the artist whose work reflected these contradictions was Jean-Baptiste Greuse (1725-1805). Grez studied in Lyon with the second-rate painter Grandon. The first fame was brought to him by the genre painting "Father of the Family Reading the Bible". In the 1750s he traveled to Italy and brought home scenes from there, in which, apart from the plot, there is nothing Italian. A struggle unfolds around him. The director of the royal buildings, the Marquis of Marigny, tried to attract him with orders for allegorical compositions for the Marquise Pompadour, and offered to send him to Italy. Enlighteners supported the democratism of the plots of Greuze, who acted as a painter of the third estate.

Greuze's programmatic work was exhibited at the Salon of 1761. This is the "Country Bride" (Louvre). Grez's painting is not only an image of one of the moments of home life. The task that he quite consciously set for himself was much broader - in a detailed multi-figure composition to present an exceptional event in family life, glorifying the good morals of the third estate. Therefore, around the main event in the event - the transfer by the father of the family of the dowry to his son-in-law - the story of how enthusiastically the respectful members of the family perceive this "extraordinary movement of the soul" solemnly unfolds. The composition is built in a new way: the characters of the Dream feel as if on a stage, they do not live, do not act, but represent. The arrangement of characters, their gestures and facial expressions are thought out as if by a director brought up by the school of “tearful comedy”. So, the two sisters of the newlywed are compared, as it were, for the purpose of comparing the devotion and tenderness of one and the reprehensible envy of the other. English playwright Goldsmith wrote about similar phenomena in the theatrical art: “In these plays, almost all the characters are good and extremely noble: with a generous hand they distribute their tin money on the stage.”

Even at the Salon of 1761, Grez exhibited several drawings for the Hermitage painting Paralytic. Among the sketches for this painting, a watercolor called "Grandmother" (Paris, private collection) is known. The watercolor depicts a poor dwelling, children crowded around a sick old woman under the stairs. The persuasiveness of the poses, the vitality of the situation are reminiscent of the work of Grez from nature. Known for his drawings of Parisian merchants, beggars, peasants, artisans. At the beginning of the artist's work on the painting, sketches from nature played an important role. But when comparing the sketch with the painting exhibited at the Salon of 1763, a change is noticeable. Postures and movements became affected and somehow wooden, the family rushed to the paralytic, depriving him of his last strength with a noisy parade of their gratitude and zeal. The rag, hanging in the sketch on the crooked railing of the stairs, in the picture turns into a majestic drapery. This sheet, like a family banner, crowns the pyramidal group of virtuous heroes. Summarizing, Grez resorts to academic compositional techniques, placing the characters along the foreground "in bas-relief". Many of Greuze's drawings are endowed with features of realism; they are based on the observation of life. But the artist's creative method tends to be external, stereotyped. This process is reminiscent of an attempt by an academician of the 17th century. Lebrun to reduce all the diversity of human feelings to a few formulas of abstract passions.

In the 1760s with each new work, the heroes of Grez, as it were, acquire “petrified epithets” - the suffering father of the family, the vicious son, the respectful son-in-law, the evil stepmother, etc. , and others).

The composition "North and Caracalla" (Salon 1769; Louvre) is the story of a virtuous father and a vicious son, elevated to the rank of a historical painting. On the one hand, Grez's family virtue became more and more abstract, and its "historical glorification" is quite logical from this point of view. But at the same time, there is a significant new connotation here. Caracalla is not only a vicious son, but also a bad ruler. In refusing to Greuze to accept this picture, the Academy (it was then headed by the aged Boucher) protested against the civic motive that was preparing what was happening already in the 1770s. the replacement of family virtue with civil virtue.

In the works of Greuze of the late period, there is more and more mannerisms. Such are The Broken Jug (Louvre), Dead Birds, Heads and Morning Prayers with their ambiguities, philistine sentimentality and bad painting. It is not surprising that it was Grez who said: "Be spicy if you cannot be truthful." "The art of pleasing" prevailed over the desire to express the progressive ideas of the time in painting.

Greuze founded a whole trend in French painting of the second half of the 18th century (Lepissier, Aubry and many others). It developed in the 1770s, when the art of revolutionary classicism was already taking shape. Therefore, the moralistic genre of this time turned out to be a minor phenomenon in French painting. Etienne Aubry, one of the most typical followers of Greuze, drew the plots of his paintings not from life, but from Marmontel's Moral Tales. In the work of Nicolas Bernard Lepissier (1735-1784) there is another side of the late sentimental genre - idyllicity. Falcone once rightly remarked: "The more obvious the efforts to move us, the less we are moved."

When evaluating the art of Greuze and his followers, one should not confuse the preaching of virtue with another current of sentimentalism of the 18th century, associated with the worldview of Rousseau. The attraction to nature, which is characteristic of the second half of the century, was, in particular, a prerequisite for the development of realistic trends in the landscape art of this era.

At the beginning of the 18th century the foundations of a new perception of nature - its lyricism, emotionality, the ability to be in tune with the movements of the human soul - were laid in the work of Watteau. This art developed then within the framework of other genres: landscape backgrounds in cardboard for carpets, as well as in battle and animalistic compositions. The most interesting are the hunting scenes of François Deporte (1661-1743) and Oudry (1686-1755); live observations are most noticeable in Deporte's studies ("Valley of the Seine", Compiègne).

Major masters of landscape painting proper appeared in the middle of the 18th century. The eldest of them was Joseph Vernet (1714-1789). At the age of twenty he went to Italy and lived there for seventeen years. Therefore, Vernet became famous in France in the 1750s. after success at the Louvre Salon in 1753. Creativity Vernet recalls the traditions of Claude Lorrain - his landscapes are decorative. Sometimes Vernet is inclined to lyrical motifs, sometimes to dramatic notes, in his later years he especially often used the romantic effects of a storm and moonlight. Vernet is a skillful storyteller, he has many species landscapes; such is the famous series "Ports of France", many sea and park views. The landscapes of this artist enjoyed considerable popularity as part of the interior decoration.

Louis Gabriel Moreau the Elder (1739-1805) - later master of landscape painting. He usually wrote views of Paris and its environs - Meudon, Saint Cloud, Bagatelle, Louveciennes. Moreau was famous for his elegant landscape drawings - such as "Landscape with a Park Fence" (watercolor and gouache; Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts). His works are refined, somewhat cold, but subtle in color. Moreau's poetic and vital powers of observation were refracted in such works as The Hills at Meudon (Louvre). His paintings are small in size, the painter's handwriting is calligraphic.

The most famous landscape painter of the second half of the 18th century. was Hubert Robert (1733-1808). During the years spent in Italy, Robert was imbued with reverence for antiquity, for the ruins of Ancient Rome. This is an artist of a new generation, inspired by the ideas of classicism. But Robert's art is especially characterized by an organic combination of interest in antiquity with an attraction to nature. This is the most important trend of French culture in the second half of the 18th century, when in antiquity and nature they saw the prototypes of freedom and the natural state of man. After the artist returned to Paris, he received numerous commissions for architectural landscapes. They had a decorative purpose, decorating the interiors of new classicist mansions. They were also ordered by Russian nobles, such as Yusupov for the estate in Arkhangelsk.

Creating a picture, Robert fantasized, composed, although he used sketches from nature. Like Piranesi, he combined different ruins and monuments in one picture. The artist is characterized by the majesty of architectural motifs. In terms of method and subjects, he is a typical master of classicism. But the realistic tendencies of the landscape of the second half of the 18th century. define a lot in his art. The surface of old stones is saturated with light, he likes to convey the play of light, hanging a shining transparent among the dark ruins. wet laundry. Sometimes a stream flows at the foot of the buildings, and the washerwomen's laundry is rinsed in it. The airiness and softness of the nuances of color are characteristic of Robert's landscapes; in its range there is a wonderful variety of green and pearl-gray shades, among which a restrained accent is often placed by vermilion.

For the development of landscape painting in the second half of the 18th century, new principles of park planning were very important, replacing the regular system. No wonder Robert was fond of "Anglo-Chinese" gardens that imitated natural nature, which was in the spirit of sentimentalism. At the end of the 1770s. he supervised the alteration of a similar park at Versailles; on the advice of landscape painters, the gardens of Ermenonville, Bagatelle, Chantilly, Méreville (the latter - according to Robert's plan) were broken at this time. These were gardens for philosophers and dreamers - with whimsical paths, shady alleys, rustic huts, architectural ruins, conducive to reflection. In turn, the search for naturalness in landscape parks, their compositional freedom, intimate motives - all this influenced landscape painting, stimulated its realistic tendencies.

The greatest painter and graphic artist of the second half of the century was Honore Fragonard (1732-1806). At the age of seventeen, Fragonard went to the workshop of Boucher, who sent him to Chardin; after spending six months with Chardin, the young artist returned to Bush. Fragonard had to help the teacher to carry out large orders. In 1752, Fragonard received the Prix de Rome for his composition on a biblical story. In 1756 he became a student of the French Academy in Rome. Five Italian years were very fruitful for the artist. He could no longer look at the world through Bush's eyes.

Fragonard. Large cypresses of the Villa d "Este. Drawing. Washed bistre. 1760 Vienna, Albertina.

Fragonard's work was strongly influenced by Italian painting, mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries. He also copied the reliefs of ancient sarcophagi, created improvisations on ancient themes - Bacchic scenes of the 1760s. During these years, Fragonard's wonderful landscape drawings arose, full of air and light. Flexible and free graphic techniques corresponded to the sensual subtlety of perception. Transmitting atmospheric haze, the play of sunlight in the alleys, he introduced gentle light and shade transitions into the drawing, enriching the technique of bistre or ink wash. He loved in these years and sanguine. The early landscapes of Fragonard are one of the first successes of the young painter.

In the autumn of 1761, Fragonard returned to Paris. The 1760s is the time when his art was coming of age. It remained highly controversial. Traditional forms of Rococo argued with realistic quests. But the lyrical theme became the main one, even in the mythological genre. In the winter of 1764 he completed his program "Priest Korez sacrificing himself to save Kallira"; this large painting was exhibited at the Louvre Salon of 1765. It was written under the influence of later Italian masters, there is a lot of conditional theatricality in it, but emotionality breaks through the rhetoric. The picture was a success. The order of the Academy (1766) to execute a large plafond for the Louvre Gallery of Apollo promised the title of academician. But this task was never completed by Fragonard, he turned away from the historical genre, and from 1769 he stopped exhibiting in the salons of the Louvre. He was clearly disgusted by the dogma of historical painting of academism. Contemporaries lamented that he was satisfied with the popularity of his works in aristocratic boudoirs, abandoning big ideas and the glory of a historical painter.

In fact, the art of the young master took shape in the 1760s. as lyrical, intimate. Scenes of everyday life, landscapes, portraits in Fragonard's work are marked by the interest in individuality, nature and feeling characteristic of the French artistic culture of this time. The peculiarity of Fragonard's art is that it, perhaps more than the art of other painters of the 18th century, is imbued with hedonism, the poetry of pleasure. As you know, the hedonism of the 18th century. was a controversial phenomenon. The philosophy of pleasure came into conflict with the real conditions of existence of millions of people, and it was not for nothing that the fiery wrath of the democrat Rousseau fell upon it. But at the same time, the assertion of real, earthly sensuality was connected with it: the French materialists contrasted the depravity of the aristocracy and the hypocrisy of saints with the right of a person to enjoy all the richness of being. In other words, the call of the educator La Mettrie to be “an enemy of debauchery and a friend of pleasure” sounded like a protest against hypocrisy and the medieval morality of churchmen. The satiated eroticism of Rococo painting, which reflected the mores of the declining aristocracy, devastated art. And on the work of Fragonard lies the stamp of typical features of noble culture. But in his best things he is free from the cold sophistication of Boucher's epigones, there is a lot of genuine feeling in them.

Even such mythological scenes as “The Theft of the Shirt by Cupid” (Louvre), “Bathing Naiads” (Louvre), acquire a concrete life character, transfer the viewer to the intimate sphere of being. These pictures are full of sensual bliss; smooth compositional rhythms, soft quivering shadows, light and warm colorful hues create an emotional environment. Love yearning in Fragonard's scenes is combined with lively slyness and impudent mockery.

The emotional richness of Fragonard's art determined the temperament of his techniques, the freedom of a light and dynamic stroke, the subtlety of light and air effects. He was endowed with a wonderful gift as an improviser and by no means always fully embodied the ideas that illuminated him. In the pictorial system of Fragonard, expression is combined with exquisite decorativeism, and the colors do not convey the volume, materiality of objects, as Chardin was able to do.

One of the most famous works of the 1760s - "Swing" (1767; London, Wallace collection) - was made according to the plot of the customer - the financier Saint-Julien, who wished the artist to depict his beloved on a swing. An intimate corner of the park looks like a coquettish boudoir. The fluttering movement of the graceful figure, the outlines of her clothes, reminiscent of the silhouette of a moth, the cutesy play of languid glances - all this creates an image full of spicy rocaille sophistication.

But in the work of Fragonard there are many genre scenes similar to Laundresses (Amiens). In the old park near the massive gray pylons, the washerwomen hang out their linen. The colors are pure and transparent, they convey the radiance of the sun's rays, scattered with soft reflections on the old stones. Dark foliage casts shadows on the old stones, their gray color is woven from olives, grays and greens. The freshness of colors, the richness of nuances, the lightness of the stroke - all this opposed the sluggish and unnatural manner of Boucher's epigones and anticipated the coloristic conquests of the landscape of the 19th century.

Fragonard's attraction to nature gave vitality to his everyday scenes, enriched the landscape genre, forced to appreciate the individuality of the model in the portrait. Fragonard's portraits ("Saint-Non"; Barcelona) are spectacular and temperamental; the artist's concern was not the exact similarity and complexity of the inner world - he loved the excitement of the soul in the portrait, the decorative scope, the unusualness of the colorful costumes. Among the portrait works of Fragonard, the image of Diderot (Paris, private collection) stands out, the graphic works of this genre are “Madame Fragonard” (Chinese ink; Besancon), “Marguerite Gerard” (bistre, ibid.). His merit was the liberation of portraiture from preconceived canons, passion for the sincerity of feelings, the immediacy of their expression.

In the landscape, Fragonard went back to the tradition of Watteau, but Watteau's melancholy daydreaming is replaced by the sensual joy of being.

Unlike Robert, architectural motifs in Fragonard's landscape do not dominate, yielding primacy to spatial relationships and light-air Effects, the environment that forms the concrete image of nature. Perspective leads the eye into depth, but most often not in a straight line. The middle plan is occupied by a bosquet, a clump of trees, a pavilion; curving around them, an alley or path leads into the distance, illuminated by a magical light, but the horizon is usually closed by groves, terraces, stairs. Fragonard's landscape is always intimate. In the pompous Baroque park of the Villa d'Este, Fragonard finds rare corners, devoid of pomp and strict symmetry. These corners are removed from noisy fountains surrounded by crowds of spectators.

Tiny vibrating strokes convey reflections and flashes of sunlight on the foliage. These flashes create a diffuse halo of light around dark objects; a gentle radiance streams from the depths, illuminating the silhouettes of trees. Cascades of light fill Fragonard's drawings, and this is one of the most amazing properties of his graphics. The nature of graphic techniques also changes the color expressiveness of the paper itself - the crowns of trees shine softer in the sun than the white stones of the stairs.

By the 1770s Fragonard's landscape becomes simpler and more sincere. Increasingly, the place of decorated nature is occupied by ordinary nature (“Seashore near Genoa”, sepia, 1773). It is noteworthy that this happened along with the enrichment of the everyday genre with scenes of folk life. Of great importance in the development of the genre and landscape art of Fragonard was a trip to Italy, which he undertook in 1773-1774. The artistic atmosphere in Italy during these years was already new. At the Medici Villa in Rome, young classicists studied - Vincent, Suve, Menajo. But Fragonard brought from Italy not the principles of classicism, but realistic landscapes and everyday scenes.

In the work of Fragonard, several cycles of illustrations are known - for La Fontaine's Tales, Ariosto's Furious Roland, Cervantes' Don Quixote. The illustrations for Ariosto remained in sepia and pencil sketches. An expressive touch and picturesque chiaroscuro, sometimes lyrically soft, sometimes dramatic, made it possible to convey the free and lively rhythm of the poetic story, unexpected changes in intonation. In these drawings, the influence of the allegorical compositions of Rubens and the graphics of the Venetians - Tiepolo and Gasparo Diziani - are noticeable. Unlike the rococo illustrators who decorate the book with vignettes, Fragonard creates a series of sheets that tell about the main events and heroes of the poem. This is a different, new method of illustration. However, he prefers the spectacular expressiveness of extraordinary events from their lives to an in-depth characterization of the characters.

In the later period, Fragonard's work remained in the range of problems typical of this master. His lyrical, intimate art, largely associated with the traditions of noble culture, of course, could not organically perceive the heroic ideals inherent in revolutionary classicism, which triumphed in the 1780s. But during the years of the revolution, Fragonard did not stay away from artistic life, becoming a member of the arts jury and curator of the Louvre.

In French sculpture of the mid-18th century. masters emerged, embarking on new paths.

Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785) was only ten years younger than his teacher J.-B. Lemoine; but his work contains many fundamentally new qualities. The most popular of his works, "Mercury", made in terracotta in Rome, where Pigalle studied in 1736-1739, is still very traditional (in 1744 he received the title of academician for the marble version). The complex pose of Mercury, adjusting his winged sandals, is graceful, there is something crafty and gallant in him, the processing of the material is exquisite in accordance with the intimacy of the theme. Close to him is "Venus" (marble, 1748; Berlin) - an example of decorative sculpture of the middle of the century; she is represented sitting on a cloud, in an unstable position one feels languid bliss, it seems that the figure is about to slip off its support. The softness of the melodious lines, the refinement of the proportions, the delicate processing of the marble, as if shrouded in mist - all this is typical of the refined ideal of the early Pigalle. But already here the intimate notes of rococo are combined with the amazing naturalness of forms. female body. Pigalle would later be called "merciless". And indeed - in the tombs of Dancourt (1771; Notre Dame Cathedral) and Maurice of Saxony (1753-1776) there is not only the rhetoric of allegory, but also the ultimate naturalness of many motives. None of the numerous portrait painters of the Marquise Pompadour conveyed her true appearance with such accuracy (New York, private collection). Even with Latour, she was too pretty. But especially this interest in nature was manifested in the marble statue of Voltaire (1776; Paris, Library of the French Institute). Back in 1770, Voltaire wrote in a letter about his sunken eyes and parchment cheeks. Pigalle followed here the classic formula of "heroic nakedness", but at the same time transferred all these signs of old age into the image. And yet the exact transmission of nature in his art did not always rise to a high generalization, and usually she was accompanied by rhetorical devices.

Almost the same age as Pigalle was Etienne Maurice Falcone (1716-1791). The creator of The Bronze Horseman was one of the greatest masters of sculpture in the 18th century. The son of a carpenter, Falcone, at the age of eighteen, was apprenticed to Lemoine. Like Pigalle, he began in the years of the almost undivided influence of Boucher, the trendsetter of the Pompadour era. But Falcone was more daring than Pigalle about the "art of the pleasant", his horizons were wider, and the legacy of the monumental art of the past prepared him for future works. Falcone appreciated Puget's work, saying that "living blood flows" in the veins of his statues; a deep study of antiquity later resulted in the treatise Observations on the Statue of Marcus Aurelius. It determined a lot in the first significant work Falcone - "Milo of Croton, tormented by a lion" (gypsum model, 1745) - the dramatic nature of the plot, the dynamics of the composition, the expression of the plasticity of the body. In the Salon of 1755, the marble "Milon" was exhibited. But after the first experience, Falcone's creative path became common for the artist of these times. He had to perform allegorical compositions and decorative sculptures for the Marquise Pompadour and the noble mansions of Bellevue, Crecy. These are Flora (1750), Threatening Cupid and Bather (1757). They are dominated by the intimacy of Rococo, the graceful elegance of proportions characteristic of this style, the tenderness of flexible forms, the whimsical rhythm of sinuous contours, and the ease of sliding movements. But Falcone also turned the theme of Rococo into something endowed with subtle poetry.

Since 1757, Falcone became the artistic director of the Sevres porcelain manufactory. He, who gravitated towards monumental compositions, for ten years had to create models for the Sevres biscuit - “Apollo and Daphne”, “Hebe”, etc. For the development of French porcelain, his activity was of great importance; but for the sculptor himself it was a difficult time. By the end of the 1750s - the beginning of the 1760s, the trends of antiquity were felt in the works of Falcone in that subtle refraction that was characteristic of the Epoch. In the works of this period, the search for greater content of the idea, rigor and restraint of the plastic language is noticeable. Such are the large group "Pygmalion and Galatea" (1763), "Tender Sadness" (1763; Hermitage). The rocky elusiveness of a happy moment is replaced by a sense of the importance of the event, the seriousness of thought. These changes, due to new trends in artistic culture and progressive views of Falcone, prepared the flowering of his art of the Russian period.

Augustin Pajou (1730-1809) was a master of decorative monumental sculpture - he decorated the Versailles theater and church, the Palais Royal, Les Invalides, the Palace of Justice in Paris with statues. Numerous busts, which were made by him, are reminiscent of the work of J.-B. Lemoine by the spectacularity of an elegant portraiture, in which there is a subtlety of conveying the external, but there is no deep psychologism.

Michel Claude, nicknamed Clodion (1738-1814), is close to Page. But he is even closer to Fragonard, to his intimate genre scenes. A student of Adam and Pigalle, in 1759 Clodion received the Academic Prize of Rome. In Italy, he was for a long time - from 1762 to 1771, even there he gained fame and returned to Paris as a master, popular among collectors. After being admitted to the Academy for the Jupiter statue, he almost stopped working in the "historical genre" and never received the title of academician. His small sculptures, decorative bas-reliefs and vases, candlesticks and candelabra were made for noble mansions. Clodion's style began to take shape as early as the Italian years, under the influence of ancient art, those relatively late forms of it that became known during the excavations of Herculaneum. Antique scenes in the art of Clodion acquired a subtly sensual character - his orgy, nymphs and fauns, satyrs and cupids are close to rocaille scenes, and not to ancient prototypes.

They are distinguished from the Rococo of the early stage by the more elegiac nature of plot motifs and the restrained compositional rhythms characteristic of the period of the formation of classicism in French artistic culture. Subtle lyricism and soft picturesqueness are the main thing in the work of Clodion, which is a special alloy of grace and vitality. Such are the terracotta “Nymph” (Moscow, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts) and the porcelain bas-relief “Nymphs setting up the herme of Pan” made according to his model of 1788 at the Sevres manufactory (Hermitage).

The largest master of realistic portrait sculpture of the second half of the 18th century. was Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). This was a sculptor of a new generation, directly associated with the revolutionary era. The direction he chose rejected the ideological foundations and refined forms of Rococo art. The sculptor himself had a clear, sober mind and realistic thinking, which contributed to overcoming the conventions of the old mannered school, as well as the rhetorical extremes of the new classicism. For Houdon, a decisive preference for nature over any kind of model is not a commonplace, but really the guiding principle of his work.

In his youth, he was led by Pigalle and Slodz, who communicated to Houdon their great practical knowledge. Having received the Prix de Rome for the relief of Solomon and Queen Savekai, Houdon studied in Rome for four years (1764-1768). As a student of the French Academy in Rome, Houdon studied ancient statues, as well as the work of then popular sculptors of the 17th century. Puget and Bernini. But Houdon's first independent works did not look like either antiquity or baroque. Authorities did not hypnotize him. But for a long time and hard he studied anatomy, methodically working in the Roman anatomical theater. The result of this was the famous "Ecorche" made by Houdon in 1767 - an image of a male figure without skin, with open muscles. From this image, made by a twenty-six-year-old student, many generations of sculptors subsequently studied. The thoroughness of technical knowledge and attention to the laws of nature is the most important basis for the future activities of Houdon, which was strengthened in the Roman years.

During this period he made two marble statues for the church of Site Maria degli Angeli in Rome. Their large size matched the grandiosity of the Michelangelo interior. Only one of these statues has survived - St. Bruno. The very fact that Houdon turned to monumental sculpture testifies to the determination of his desire to overcome the traditional chamber forms of French plastic. By making these statues, Houdon wanted to achieve the inner significance of the image, the strict restraint of posture and movement. It is noticeable that he avoided the Baroque Effects. Nevertheless, the statues of Santa Maria degli Angeli, indicating important tendencies in the art of Houdon, are themselves very prosaic and dry; it would be an exaggeration to see in them the mature work of a master. In the figure of John the Baptist, known from the plaster model of the Borghese Gallery, one can feel the artificiality of the composition and the lethargy of the plastic form.

At the end of 1768 the sculptor returned to Paris. He was assigned to the Academy, showed Roman works and a series of portraits at the Salon. Returning from Italy with certain skills as a muralist, Houdon did not follow this path. On the one hand, he almost did not receive official orders, had no patrons among the royal officials who led the art. He had to look for orders outside of France - he worked, especially a lot in the 1770s, for Catherine II, the German Duke of Coburg-Gotha, and Russian nobles. Many monumental compositions have not reached us - from the relief of the pediment of the Pantheon to the huge bronze statue of Napoleon; in this sense, Houdon was particularly unlucky. But, on the other hand, the very nature of Houdon's work convinces of his constant attraction to the portrait. This is the most strong genre of his work, and it is not for nothing that it is in the art of Houdon that the portrait becomes a monumental, problematic genre.

In 1777 Houdon received the title of academician. The plaster model of Diana (Gotha) was dated a year earlier. Her appearance had a great effect. Houdon was inspired by antiquity. In contrast to the lightly draped coquettish nymphs and Rococo bacchantes, he presented Diana naked, giving her nakedness a special severity, even coldness. The trend of classicism, which developed in the 1770s, appears both in the clarity of the silhouette and in the chased clarity of the form. Against the background of the works of other masters of the 18th century. Diana seems to be a very intellectual work; and at the same time, the appearance of a well-groomed secular lady, strange for Diana, the elegant grace of the pose is imbued with the spirit of the aristocratic culture of the century.

The heyday of the realistic portrait of Houdon falls on the 1770-1780s, decades on the eve of the revolution. His works appeared regularly in the Salons of this period; for example, in the exhibition of 1777 there were about twenty busts executed by Houdon. There are more than one hundred and fifty portraits of his work. His patterns are varied. But Houdon's interest in depicting the advanced people of the time, thinkers, fighters, people of will and energy is especially noticeable. This gave his portrait work a great social significance.

The art of Houdon during this period does not strike with any features of the form, its novelty. The novelty is hidden because it consists in maximum simplicity, in the elimination of all sorts of attributes, allegorical motifs, ornaments and draperies. But this is a lot. This allowed Houdon to focus on the inner world of the person being portrayed. His creative method close to the Latour method.

Houdon is a successor to the best realistic traditions of French art of the 18th century - its analyticity and subtle psychologism. Whomever Houdon portrayed, his portraits became the spiritual quintessence of the century, which questions and analyzes everything.

The intensity of the inner life is characteristic of the portrait of the Marquise de Sabran (terracotta, c. 1785; Berlin). Light folds of clothes going up to the right shoulder, curling curls, a dynamic bend of the neck convey the expression of a slightly sharp turn of the head. This is perceived as the ability to react quickly, characteristic of an energetic and mobile character. The liveliness of nature is revealed in the picturesque “strokes” of a free hairstyle intercepted by a ribbon, and in the play of light reflections on the face and clothes. The high cheekbones broad face is ugly; a sharp, mocking mind shines in a caustic smile and a fixed look; there is something very characteristic of her time in the intellectuality of the Marquise de Sabran.

One of the most significant works of Houdon - perhaps the pinnacle of his creative flowering of the pre-revolutionary years - the statue of Voltaire (Leningrad, the Hermitage; another option is the foyer of the French Comedy Theater in Paris). Houdon began working on this portrait in 1778, shortly before the death of the "Patriarch of Ferney", who returned in triumph to Paris. It is known that the pose and movement were not immediately found by Houdon - during the session, it was difficult to see the triumphant grandeur in the quickly tired eighty-four-year-old man, which contemporaries expected from the sculptor. Houdon's imagination, which was not a strong point of his talent, was helped by chance - a lively exchange of remarks that revived memories, re-ignited Voltaire's mind. Therefore, the pose of the philosopher is so expressive. He turned to the imaginary interlocutor, his right hand helping this sharp movement - bony long fingers clung to the arm of the chair. The tension of the turn is felt both in the position of the legs, and in the effort of the torso, and even in the shape of the chair - at the bottom the grooves are vertical, from above they seem to twist in a spiral, transmitting the movement of the arm. In the wrinkled face of Voltaire there is both attention and concentrated thought - the eyebrows are shifted to the bridge of the nose. But the most remarkable thing in him is the sarcastic grin so characteristic of Voltaire's very nature, an expression of the hidden energy of the mind, ready to defeat the ideological enemy with the deadly fire of irony of the brilliant polemicist. The image of Voltaire in the work of Houdon is very far from the then fashionable "apotheoses". Its strength lies in the fact that it reveals the most important features of the Enlightenment, personified in the character of one of its greatest representatives, the era of bold revolutionary thought, merciless criticism of prejudices.

The statue of Voltaire, created by Houdon, can be called a historical portrait - it contains a whole era. To this Houdon did not follow the traditional path of rhetoric and allegory. Even the ancient toga, an obvious technique of classicism, is perceived not as an attribute of an ancient philosopher, but as ordinary loose clothing that successfully hides senile thinness and gives the monumental statue the necessary generalization of form.

Houdon wrote about the great opportunity of the sculptor "to capture the images of people who made up the glory or happiness of their fatherland"; this fully applies to the portrait gallery he created of the enlighteners Voltaire and Rousseau, Diderot and D'Alembert, and many prominent scientists and politicians of the 18th century.

The portrait bust of the composer Gluck (1775; Weimar), a great revolutionary in music, whose work is saturated with heroic pathos and drama, characteristic of the eve of the revolution, is remarkable. In the pose of the composer, in the wide, loose folds of his clothes, one feels a special scope and rise of spiritual strength. The turn of the head is resolute, boldness and energy are guessed in it; large strands of hair are tangled. The high forehead is furrowed as if by the tension of thought; the gaze is turned over the viewer, his passion expresses a tragic insight, an enthusiastic state of mind. Gluck is depicted as if listening to extraordinary music, but the will and courage that inspire him expand the figurative sound of the portrait, make you feel the breath of the great ideas of the time in it. Despite the naturalness of the changing life of the face, the image of the composer is elevated into a special sublime sphere - the sphere of creative inspiration.

And the portrait of Gluck and other works of Houdon are democratic. There is something emphatically plebeian in the lively and charming portrait of a laughing wife (gypsum, c. 1787; Louvre). His models do not claim to be superior in rank or position. Their loftiness lies in the social significance of their activities, and this is one of the main features of the creative concept of Houdon, who conveys the “social action” of his hero in the portrait. Therefore, for example, the features of an experienced orator in the portrait of Mirabeau (1790s; Versailles) are so subtly captured.

Very accurately reproducing real face shapes with the help of a model, Houdon ingeniously captured the essence of character. One of the strongest aspects of the master's portrait realism is the expressiveness of the look in the portrait. In the pupil, he left a piece of marble, shining and giving the look a special expressiveness. Rodin said of Houdon: “The look for him is more than half of the expression. In his eyes, he unraveled the soul.

Associated with the revolutionary upsurge in France, the realistic art of Houdon after the revolution loses its former significance. The classic portraits of members of the imperial family, the bust of Alexander I (1814) are cold and abstract, the Empire formality was hostile to Houdon's method. In 1803, he began teaching at the School of Fine Arts, and from 1814 he completely abandoned sculpture.

The most important features of the work of Houdon, Robert and many other masters of the second half of the 18th century. due to the development of classicism in French artistic culture. The possibilities for the formation of this new style were already noticeable in the middle of the century. Interest in antiquity became more alive after new archaeological discoveries, it was stimulated by the excavations of Herculaneum, which were visited by many artists. But this cannot explain the fact that by the last quarter of a century the new classicism has become the leading trend. His leading role in art turned out to be necessary when, in the words of G. V. Plekhanov, "the opponents of the old order felt the need for heroism" ( G.V. Plekhanov, Elected philosophical works, vol. V, M., 1958.). The preaching of family virtue in the spirit of dreams was replaced by the affirmation of civil virtue, a call to heroic deeds. It was precisely for this that antiquity was needed, in which they were looking for a model of heroism, republican ideals, because, as K. Marx said, “no matter how heroic bourgeois society is, heroism, self-sacrifice, terror, civil war and battles of peoples were needed for its birth » ( K. Marx iF. Engels, Soch., vol. 8, p. 120.).

The first manifestations of classicism are not yet similar to the energetic artistic movement of the pre-revolutionary years. Antique motifs, techniques, plots developed within the intimate architectural decor of the 1760s-1770s. The painting of this trend is characterized by the "Seller of Cupids" by Vienne (1716-1809), the teacher of David (1763; Fontainebleau). The picture is inspired by antiquity, but its plot is entertaining, and the "pleasant grace" of the characters is, in fact, very traditional.

New trends also appeared in the decorative and applied arts, especially from the mid-1760s. The interior acquires tectonicity, clarity of divisions, a continuous ornamental pattern is replaced by a calm surface of the wall, decorated with restrained graphic motifs, as well as easel compositions like decorative landscapes by Hubert Robert. Furniture makers - from Riesener to Jacob - used antique forms, scooping them from archaeological publications. Furniture becomes constructive, it stands firmly on the floor; instead of whimsical outlines, now it is characterized by strict straight lines. The smooth surface is decorated with embossed medallions, antique motifs predominate in the ornament. Among the best interiors of this period are the interiors of the Palace of Versailles by J.-A. Gabriel (for example, the library of Louis XVI, 1774).

By this time, the artistic policy of absolutism was changing. The Academy of Arts and the Directorate of Royal Buildings - official institutions - strive to regulate art. Rococo pastorals no longer satisfy the royal officials, there is a need to revive the "majestic style" that can support decrepit absolutism. The masters of the historical genre are abandoning the traditional forms of the “gallant mythology” of Rococo. Gabriel François Doyen (1726-1806), Louis Lagrené the Elder (1725-1808) and others combine large heavy and pompous paintings into "majestic" subjects. Idealizing tendencies intensify in portraiture (Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun). The historical painting of academicians begins to glorify the "civil virtues" of good monarchs. In 1780, the painter Suvet received the title of academician for a painting with a grandiloquent name: “Freedom granted to the arts in the reign of Louis XVI by the cares of Mr. d'Angivillier”.

Comte d'Angivillier, who became head of the Directorate of Royal Buildings in 1774, vigorously pursued the best in art. Back in the days of his predecessor, the Marquis of Marigny, the secretary of the Academy of Cochin invented flattering loyal plots for painters: "August, closing the doors of the temple of Janus", "Titus frees the prisoners", "Marcus Aurelius saves the people from hunger and plague." D "Angivillier acts more decisively. Antique stories are dangerous - they sound too tyrannical. And the royal official encourages the national theme in historical painting, giving it a reactionary, monarchist character. The regulation of artistic life leads to the forcible abolition of all institutions of the arts, except for the Academy. In 1776, the Academy of St. Luke was abolished by "the cares of Mr. d" Anzhiviye, after persecution, the Colise and Correspondence salons were closed; all this was done under the false pretext of the need to "purify morals." The director of the royal buildings was unfriendly to the largest progressive artists of this era - the sculptor Houdon and the painter David.

Under these conditions, during the years of increased reaction, popular uprisings, aggravation of social contradictions and the accelerating movement of French society towards revolution, the progressive art of revolutionary classicism took shape, headed by Jacques Louis David.

The work of David, considered in the next volume, in the pre-revolutionary decades was an integral part of the all-French artistic movement of classicism: The heroic images created by David in the 1780s were supposed to awaken a citizen in a Frenchman; their severe passion kindled hearts. No wonder one of the Jacobins in 1790 called David an artist, "whose genius brought the revolution closer." David's classicism grew out of the progressive tendencies of 18th-century French painting; at the same time, he refuted the traditions of the aristocratic culture of the rococo, becoming the beginning of the development of new problems in the art of the 19th century.

The eighteenth century was one of the turning points in the history of Russia. The culture that served the spiritual needs of this period began to quickly acquire a secular character, which was greatly facilitated by the convergence of art and science. So, today it is very difficult to find an artistic difference between the geographical "land map" of those days and the emerging engraving (with the exception of the works of A.F. Zubov). Most of the engravings of the first half of the century look like technical drawings. The rapprochement between art and science awakened in artists an interest in knowledge.

In painting, the genres of the new, realistic art were outlined and defined. The predominant role among them was acquired by the portrait genre. In religious art, the idea of ​​man was belittled and the idea of ​​God was exalted, so secular art had to begin with the image of man.

Creativity I. M. Nikitin

The founder of the national portrait genre in Russia was Ivan Maksimovich Nikitin (born around 1690 - d. 1741). We do not know the biography of this artist well, but even scarce information shows that it was unusual. The son of a priest, he originally sang in the patriarchal choir, but later turned out to be a mathematics teacher at the Antillernaya School (future Artillery Academy). Peter I became aware of his early passion for fine arts, and Nikitin was sent as a scholarship holder to Italy, where he had the opportunity to study at the academies of Venice and Florence. Returning from abroad and heading the Russian realistic school, the painter remained faithful to the ideals of the time of Peter the Great all his life. During the reign of Anna Ioannovna, he joined the opposition circles and paid the price of Siberian exile, returning from which (during the accession of Elizabeth Petrovna) he died on the road.

Nikitin's talent is already visible in his earliest works, for example, in the portrait of Peter I's beloved sister, Natalya Alekseevna (1714), who acted as the patroness of the court theater that originated in Rus'. The canvas, revealing the technical ineptness of the author (the wooden rigidity of the folds of the velvet mantle is especially striking), at the same time truthfully conveys the appearance of the princess, as her close people knew her - plump, aging. Her obviously morbid corpulence is exacerbated by the sallow complexion of her skin (soon, in 1716, she died of dropsy).

The period of mature creativity of the master is able to adequately represent not only natural portraits of Peter I himself, but also such an outstanding work as “Portrait of the Floor Hetman” (1720s).

In terms of its technical execution, Nikitin's creation is quite at the level of European painting of the 18th century. It is strictly in composition, the shape is molded softly, the color is full-sounding, and the warm background creates a feeling of real depth.

The image captivates with its simplicity, unusual for the art of the beginning of the century. Although the hetman is wearing full dress, richly embroidered with braids, it is felt that he is more accustomed to the atmosphere of campaigns than audiences. His manly face is hardened by wind and sun; only the forehead brightens, standing out, untouched by sunburn under the cap that covered it in campaigns. The eyes, accustomed to peering into the plains, look searchingly from under slightly inflamed, reddened eyelids.

The “floor hetman” is perceived by today's viewer as an image of a courageous person - a contemporary of the artist, who also came to the fore not because of his generosity, but thanks to tireless work and abilities.

Having noted the merits of Nikitin, it should, however, be stipulated that the painter achieved the inner characterization of the depicted person only if the character of the person being portrayed was, as they say, “written on the face” sharply and definitely. Nikitin's work solved in principle the initial problem of the portrait genre - showing the uniqueness of the individual appearance of people.

Among other Russian portrait painters of the first half of the 18th century, one can also name A. M. Matveev (1701 - 1739), who was trained in painting in Holland. the best works It is customary to consider portraits of the Golitsyns (1727 - 1728) and a self-portrait in which he depicted himself with his young wife (1729).

Both Nikitin and Matveev most clearly reveal the realistic trend in the development of the Russian portrait of the Petrine era.

Russian art of the middle of the XVIII century. Creativity A. P. Antropov

The traditions laid down by Nikitin did not receive direct development in the art of the period of the reign of Peter's closest successors, including the so-called Bironism.

The creations of portrait painters of the middle of the 18th century testify that the era no longer gave them the fertile material that their predecessor Nikitin had at their disposal. However, a vigilant and conscientious fixation of all the features of the appearance of the depicted led to the fact that individual portraits acquired a truly accusatory power. This especially applies to the work of Alexei Petrovich Antropov (1716 - 1795).

A native of the craftsmen, a student of A. M. Matveev, he finally formed in the “picturesque team” of the Chancellery from buildings, which was in charge of technical and artistic work on numerous court buildings. His works remained for the middle of the 18th century a document of the time, like Nikitin's works for the first quarter of the century. He executed portraits of A. M. Izmailova (1754), Peter III (1762) and other canvases, in which the originality of the author’s creative manner and the traditions of folk applied art, manifested in decorativeness; combinations of bright spots of pure (local) color, fused together.

In the “Portrait of Peter III”, this decorative color makes you immediately catch the discrepancy between the splendor of the palace setting and the person depicted against its background. A small head, narrow shoulders and disproportionately long legs reinforce this impression. Looking at the portrait, you involuntarily believe the stories of the wife of Peter III, the future Empress Catherine II. In the "notes" she reports that her husband loved the children's game of soldiers (by the way, Peter III is depicted in a military uniform, with a field marshal's baton, and a battle scene is presented in the depths of the picture).

Antropov's activity covers, except for the middle, the entire second half of the 18th century. Nevertheless, it is advisable to complete the consideration of the history of art in the first half of the 18th century with an analysis of his work, because in the further development of Russian artistic culture, other tasks were identified, in the solution of which the image of a person in the uniqueness of his individual appearance served as nothing more than a starting point.

RUSSIAN ART OF THE SECOND HALF OF THE 18TH CENTURY

By the second half of the 18th century, Russia, having completely departed from the obsolete forms of medieval artistic culture, entered a path of spiritual development that was not common with European countries. Its general direction for Europe was determined by the impending French Revolution of 1789. True, the emerging Russian bourgeoisie was still weak. The historical mission of the onslaught on the feudal foundations turned out to be connected for Russia with the activities of the advanced noble intelligentsia, whose representatives were to be enlightened! XVIII century gradually come to the Decembristism of the beginning of the next century.

Enlightenment, being the largest general cultural phenomenon of the era, was formed under the dominance of legal ideology. The theorists of the rising class - the bourgeoisie - sought to substantiate from the point of view of legal consciousness its domination and the need to eliminate feudal institutions. One can cite as an example the development of the theory of "natural law" and the publication in 1748 of the famous work of the Enlightener Charles Montesquieu "The Spirit of the Laws". In turn, the nobility, taking retaliatory actions, turned to legislative provisions, because other forms of resistance to the impending threat left their hands.

In Western Europe, among the art forms, theater emerged, the stage of which became a tribune of ideas that prepared society for a revolutionary transformation. This period is characterized by the formulation and solution of problems of the social and educational role of the theater. Here it is enough to recall Denis Diderot's "Paradox of the Actor" and Gotthold Lessing's "Hamburg Dramaturgy", which have remained forever in the golden fund of aesthetics.

As for Russia in the second half of the century, the government of Catherine II also took extensive protective legislative measures, starting with the “order” of the empress for the Commission on Codes of 1767 and up to the “Letter of Letters to the Nobility” (1787).

The Russian enlightenment entirely proceeded from the provisions of the theory of “natural law”, which asserted the right supposedly inherent in the very nature of man to respect the dignity of the individual, regardless of his social status, the prerogative of the sovereign disposal of the fruits of his own labor, etc. Thus, the views of the Russian enlightenment were gravitated before all to the problem of personality. (At the same time, one can recall that the program document of the Great french revolution called the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

In the fifties, the first public theater appeared in Russia, founded by F. G. Volkov. True, the number of theaters was not large, but one should take into account the development of the amateur stage (at Moscow University, at the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, the gentry corps, etc.). The home theater of the architect and translator N.A. Lvov played a significant role in the life of the capital. On the place occupied by dramaturgy in Russian literature XVIII century, says at least the fact that even Catherine II, in search of means of government guardianship over the minds, used the form of a dramatic composition (she wrote the comedies “Oh, time!”, “Name day of Mrs. Vorchalkina”, “Deceiver” and others).

In St. Petersburg and Moscow, in addition to theaters meant for noble circles, there were at one time theaters created on the initiative of printing workers and factory apprentices, designed for the middle and lower urban strata. Their repertoire included dramas, comedies and plays by Jean-Baptiste Molière. Contemporaries noted that “the mob, merchants, clerks and others like them” showed “so great greed” for performances that, “leaving their other amusements, of which others are not very funny by action, they gathered daily for these spectacles.” Finally, we must recall the serf theaters, the number of which by the end of the century reached one hundred and seventy. The best of the serf troupes - Sheremetev - consisted of 150 actors and 40 orchestra members.

Theatrical art has the ability to visually unfold an event in all its vital concreteness before the mass of spectators. The material from which the actor constructs stage types is himself as a citizen and as a person, that is, as a person. The search for ways to affirm human dignity, civil ideals, which marked the history of Russian painting and sculpture in the second half of the 18th century, took place in the same vein as searches in the field of theatrical art.

Development of the portrait genre

Turning to the direct history of Russian fine art in the second half of the 18th century, we must first dwell on the birth of the so-called intimate portrait. To understand the features of the latter, it is important to note that everyone, including the great masters of the first half of the century, also worked as a ceremonial portrait. The artists sought to show, first of all, a worthy representative of the predominantly noble class. Therefore, the person depicted was painted in full dress, with insignia for services to the state, and often in a theatrical pose, revealing the high social position of the person being portrayed.

The ceremonial portrait was dictated at the beginning of the century by the general atmosphere of the era, and later by the established tastes of customers. However, it very quickly turned, in fact, into an official one. The art theorist of that time, A. M. Ivanov, stated: “It must be that ... the portraits seemed to speak for themselves and, as it were, announce: “look at me, I am this invincible king, surrounded by majesty.”

In contrast to the ceremonial portrait, an intimate portrait sought to capture a person as he appears to the eyes of a close friend. Moreover, the task of the artist was to, along with the exact appearance of the depicted person, to reveal the features of his character, to give an assessment of the personality.

The onset of a new period in the history of Russian portraiture was marked by the canvases of Fyodor Stepanovich Rokotov (born 1736 - d. 1808 or 1809).

Creativity of F. S. Rokotov

The paucity of biographical information does not allow us to reliably establish who he studied with. There were long disputes even about the origin of the painter. The early recognition of the artist was ensured by his genuine talent, which manifested itself in the portraits of V. I. Maikov (1765), unknown in pink (1770s), young man in a cocked hat (1770s), V. E. Novosiltseva (1780), P. N. Lanskaya (1780s).

In the portrait of an unknown person in pink, a pretty girl is depicted, with delicate, almost childish features. A pastel range of pinks and silvery-gray tones imparts a chaste purity to the image. Unforgettable is the expression on the face of the unknown - a half-smile sliding on her lips, a look of shaded almond-shaped eyes. Here and gullibility, and some kind of reticence, perhaps its own heart secret. The portrait of Rokotov awakens in a person the need for spiritual communication, speaks of the fascination of knowing the people around him. However, with all the artistic merits of Rokotov's painting, it is impossible not to notice that the mysterious half-smile, the enigmatic look of his elongated eyes pass from portrait to portrait, not revealing, but only as if offering the beholder to unravel the nature hidden behind them. One gets the impression that the author creates a kind of theatrical mask of a mysterious human character and imposes it on all those who pose for him.

The further development of the intimate portrait was associated with the name of Dmitry Grigorievich Levitsky (1735 - 1822).

Creativity D. G. Levitsky

He received his initial art education under the guidance of his father, an engraver of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. Participation in the work on the painting of the Kyiv Andreevsky Cathedral, carried out by A.P. Antropov, led to a subsequent four-year apprenticeship with this master and a passion for the portrait genre. In the early canvases of Levitsky, the connection with the traditional ceremonial portrait is clearly visible. A turning point in his work was marked by a custom-made portrait series of pupils of the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens, consisting of seven large-format works performed in 1773-1776. The order meant, of course, ceremonial portraits. It was envisaged to depict girls in full growth in theatrical costumes against the backdrop of the scenery of amateur performances staged at the boarding house.

By the winter season of 1773-1774, the pupils were so successful in performing arts that the imperial court and the diplomatic corps were present at the performances.

The empress herself acted as the customer in connection with the upcoming first graduation of the educational institution. She sought to leave to posterity a clear memory of the fulfillment of her cherished dream - the education in Russia of a generation of nobles who, not only by birthright, but also by education, enlightenment, would rise above the lower classes.

However, the way the painter approached the task, reveals, for example, "Portrait of E. I. Nelidova" (1773). The girl is depicted, as is believed, in her best role - Serbina's maid from the staging of Giovanni Pergolesi's opera The Servant-Mistress, which told about a clever maid who managed to achieve the master's cordial disposition, and then marriage with him. Gracefully lifting her light lace apron with her fingers and cunningly bowing her head, Nelidova stands in the so-called third position, waiting for the wave of the conductor's baton. (By the way, the fifteen-year-old "actress" was so loved by the public that her game was noted in the newspapers and poems were dedicated to her.) It is felt that for her theatrical performance is not a reason to demonstrate the "graceful manners" instilled in the boarding school, but an opportunity to reveal young enthusiasm, constrained by the daily strict rules of the Smolny Institute. The artist conveys the complete spiritual dissolution of Nelidova in the stage action. Gray-green shades close in tone, in which the landscape theatrical backdrop is designed, the pearl colors of the girl's dress - everything is subordinated to this task. Levitsky also shows the immediacy of Nelidova's nature. The painter deliberately made the tones in the background dimmer and at the same time made them sparkle in the foreground - in the clothes of the heroine. The gamma is based on the ratio of gray-green and pearl tones, rich in its decorative qualities, with pink in the color of the face, neck, hands and ribbons that adorn the costume. Moreover, in the second case, the artist adheres to the local color, forcing him to recall the manner of his teacher Antropov.

Artistic achievements that gave originality to this small portrait gallery, Levitsky consolidated in subsequent work, creating, in particular, two excellent portraits of M. A. Lvova, nee Dyakova, daughter of the Senate chief prosecutor (1778 and 1781).

The first of them shows an eighteen-year-old girl, almost the same age as the Smolensk women. She is depicted in a turn, the ease of which is expressively emphasized by the golden side light that fell on the figure. The radiant eyes of the young heroine look dreamily and joyfully somewhere past the viewer, and her wet lips are touched by a poetically vague smile. In her appearance - slyly-fervent courage and chaste timidity, all-penetrating happiness and enlightened sadness. This is a character that has not yet fully developed, full of expectations of a meeting with adulthood.

The girl was in love with an architect, a close friend of Levitsky, but her parents did not agree that their daughter should marry a "craftsman". Then they got married in secret. It was during that period that the master captured her in the first portrait. For three years she lived under her parents' roof, hoping that her father and mother would change their anger to mercy. In the end, her perseverance won out.

The second portrait was painted when the young woman was twenty-one years old, but she looks older than her years. There is weariness in her eyes, bitterness slips in her smile. It is felt that she had to face something difficult, difficult. However, the calm, majestic turn of the shoulders, the proudly thrown back head show that it was the struggle that brought up her self-esteem and shaped her personality.

The color scheme has changed. In the first work, the painting is brought to tonal unity and resembles Rokotov's coloristic searches. In the portrait of 1781, the color is taken in the intensity of its sound. Warm sonorous tones make the color tense, a little harsh.

Portraits of M. A. Lvova, N. I. Novikov, A. V. Khrapovitsky, the husband and wife of the Mitrofanovs, Bakunina and others, dating back to the eighties, testify that Levitsky, combining the harsh accuracy of Antropov and the lyricism of Rokotov, became the most prominent representative of Russian portrait painting of the 18th century.

The galaxy of the largest portrait painters of the 18th century is completed by Vladimir Lukich Borovikovsky (1757 - 1825).

Creativity V. L. Borovikovsky

The eldest son of a small Ukrainian nobleman, who, together with his father, earned a livelihood by icon painting, he first attracted attention with allegorical paintings in Kremenchug, made in 1787 for the arrival of Catherine II. This gave the young master the opportunity to go to St. Petersburg to improve his painting skills. He managed, as they say, to take lessons from D. G. Levitsky and, in the end, to establish himself in the capital's artistic circles.

In the legacy left by the artist, the portrait of M. I. Lopukhina (1797) stands out in particular. The master captured a young woman from a well-known surname in Russian history. It was written not in the living room, but against the background of the landscape - under the crown of the spreading trees of an old park, next to a field of ripening rye. Lopukhina is standing gracefully leaning on the marble parapet. Here, in silence, nothing can interfere with the manifestation of her feelings. True, the painter singles out only one of them - languid bliss; in the canvas, everything is subordinated to the expression of this feeling, and, above all, variations of light, faded tones of color. The lightest transitions of blue, lilac and olive green run along the canvas just under the breath of a caressing breeze. Barely lifted heavy eyelids shade her eyes and give them a look of sensitive reverie. Descending from the shoulders, a thin shawl emphasizes the graceful and pampered movement of a flexible body. It is repeated in lowered hands and finds responses in the rounded ovals of all the lines that build the composition (even in the outline of a bent rose in a glass standing on the parapet).

The portraits of Borovikovsky, including the one just examined, indicate that the painter has risen to the next, new (after Levitsky's achievements) step in deepening the image of a person. Levitsky opened the world of diversity of human characters for the Russian portrait genre. Borovikovsky, on the other hand, tried to penetrate into the state of mind and thought about how the character of the model was formed.