{short description of image}  
 

RUSSIAN ART AND ARCHITECTURE
THROUGH THE CENTURIES

 
 

Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

 
 

During the first half of the century few people were interested in landscape pictures. The artistic taste of this period was dominated by Karl Briullov and Alexander Ivanov, two of the best representatives of the Russian academic school of painting. The change came when the new generation of painters became more concerned about the landscape itself and made an effort to reproduce its real beauties and forget about its romantic side. The native countryside became the object of attention not only for the painters but for the public too. This was part of the much larger change in taste that coincided with the liberation of serfs and which affected almost all aspects of life. The evolution of painting followed the tendencies that occurred first in literature, dominated by a newly formed school of liberal and radical writers and literary and art critics.
The beginning of the second half of the 19th century marked their rising influence, which soon resulted in the reappraisal and new understanding of aesthetic values. A group of literary critics, writing for the avidly read St. Petersburg journal "Otechestveniya Zapiski" and the review "Sovremenik," strongly influenced, or better to say, imposed their views on most writers, painters, composers and other artists. The leading members of this group were Chernishevskii, Dobroliubov, Pisarev, Nekrasov, Lavrov and Mikhailovski. In 1855 N.G. Chernishevskii, 1828-1889, published his "Aesthetic Relations of Art and Reality," (1855) which marked the beginning of a new utilitarian approach to literature and art. For him intelligentsia was under obligation to expose reactionary forces and tendencies that are thwarting happiness for everyone. He called on writers and artists to develop "social sense of responsibility" and fight for new understanding of "beautiful." Nekrasov later challenged the intellectuals by telling them: "You may not become a poet, but you must be a citizen." Pisarev denied any value to literature and art unless they served revolutionary purposes. Their criticism was seldom used to evaluate artistic qualities of a work, but merely to preach their own political views. They demanded rejection of the past for the sake of social progress and kept inviting the intellectuals, not without a good dose of demagoguery, to fulfill "Their obligation towards the people." Their well written articles and essays had a deep effect on readers, and not only on radical youth, that quite rapidly resulted in a new way of thinking and feeling. For a period of time the decline of arts and literature was obvious. Painters were not spared from it either. They were told that regardless of how artistically or greatly they paint, their pictures would be worthless unless they express something socially useful or contain a moral message. In other words, painting must serve a purpose and propagate an ideology. Its value is not judged by how the canvas was painted and which colors were used, but what it tells to the public. At the same time the advocates of the new art were strongly against the governing class using it for its purposes, but they did not want the art to be neutral either or just express aesthetic values. They wanted it to become highly militant political and moralizing force that will fight for "Universal justice" and serve social and revolutionary purposes. Not many painters and writers found their inspiration in this tendentious revolutionary campaign. The art philosophy of Chernishevskii and his group called by them :Lofty realism," had to wait for the establishment of the Soviet regime in Russia to be instituted by force under the name of "Socialist Realism." IN the meantime further steps away from the academic conventionality were made by some painters, who either followed Fedotov's fastidious social satire, or made attempts to free themselves from stale academic practices.

 
 

GO BACK
NEXT

 

Return to Xenophon. Return to Ruscity. Return to Rushistory. Return to Ukraine.