The heyday of realism in the second half of the 19th century. Stages of development of realism

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Introduction

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

1.1 Prerequisites for the emergence of realism in art

1.2 Characteristics, signs and principles of realism

1.3 Stages of development of realism in world art

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

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

Applications

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Consider realism in all directions of Russian art.

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

1.1 Prerequisites for the occurrencerealismand in art

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.2 Characteristics, signs and principlesrealismA

Realism has the following distinctive features:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let's consider general signs realism:

1. An artistic depiction of life in images that corresponds to the essence of the phenomena of life itself.

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

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

4. Even in the face of a tragic conflict, art is life-affirming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1.3 Stages of development of realism in world art

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

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

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

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

2) Bourgeois realism in the West.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3) Bourgeois-noble realism in Russia

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

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

4) Revolutionary-democratic realism

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Realism in painting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Realism in literature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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What is realism

Realism appeared in Russian literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century, when a radical revolution took place in this world. The writers realized that previous trends, such as romanticism, did not satisfy the expectations of the population, since their judgments lacked common sense. Now they tried to depict on the pages of their novels and lyrical works the reality that reigned around, without any exaggeration. Their ideas were now of the most realistic character, which existed not only in Russian literature, but also foreign literature for more than one decade.

Main features of realism

Realism was characterized by the following features:

depiction of the world as it is, truthful and natural;
in the center of the novels is a typical representative of society, with typical problems and interests;
the emergence of a new way of understanding the surrounding reality - through realistic characters and situations.

Russian literature of the 19th century was of great interest to scientists, because through the analysis of works they were able to understand the very process in literature that existed at that time, as well as give it a scientific basis.

The emergence of the era of Realism

Realism was first created as a special form for expressing the processes of reality. This happened back in the days when such a movement as the Renaissance reigned in both literature and painting. During the Enlightenment, it was conceptualized in a significant way, and was fully formed at the very beginning of the nineteenth century. Literary scholars name two Russian writers who have long been recognized as the founders of realism. These are Pushkin and Gogol. Thanks to them, this direction was comprehended, received theoretical justification and significant distribution in the country. With their help, Russian literature of the 19th century received great development.

It was no longer in the literature sublime feelings, which the direction of romanticism possessed. Now people were worried about everyday problems, their solutions, as well as the feelings of the main characters that overwhelmed them in a given situation. Features of the literature of the 19th century are the interest of all representatives of the direction of realism in the individual character traits of each individual person for consideration in a given life situation. As a rule, this is expressed in a clash between a person and society, when a person cannot accept and does not accept the rules and principles by which other people live. Sometimes in the center of the work there is a person with some internal conflict, which he is trying to cope with himself. Such conflicts are called personality conflicts, when a person understands that from now on he cannot live as he lived before, that he needs to do something to get joy and happiness.

Among the most important representatives of the trend of realism in Russian literature, it is worth noting Pushkin, Gogol, and Dostoevsky. World classics gave us such realist writers as Flaubert, Dickens and even Balzac.

» » Realism and features of 19th century literature

Before the emergence of realism as a literary movement, most writers had a one-sided approach to depicting a person. The classicists portrayed a person mainly in terms of his duties to the state and showed very little interest in him in his everyday life, in family and private life. Sentimentalists, on the contrary, moved on to depicting a person’s personal life and his innermost feelings. Romantics were also mainly interested in spiritual life man, the world of his feelings and passions.

But they endowed their heroes with feelings and passions of exceptional strength, and placed them in unusual conditions.

Realist writers portray a person in many ways. They draw typical characters and at the same time show in what social conditions this or that hero of the work was formed.

This ability to give typical characters in typical circumstances is main feature realism.

We call typical images those in which the most vividly, fully and truthfully embodied the most important features characteristic of a particular historical period for a particular social group or phenomenon (for example, the Prostakov-Skotinins in Fonvizin’s comedy are typical representatives of the Russian middle-land nobility of the second half of the XVIII century).

In typical images, a realist writer reflects not only those traits that are most common at a certain time, but also those that are just beginning to appear and develop fully in the future.

The conflicts underlying the works of classicists, sentimentalists and romantics were also one-sided.

Classical writers (especially in tragedies) depicted the clash in the hero’s soul of the consciousness of the need to fulfill his duty to the state with personal feelings and drives. For sentimentalists, the main conflict grew out of the social inequality of heroes belonging to different classes. In romanticism, the basis of the conflict is the gap between dream and reality. Among realist writers, conflicts are as diverse as in life itself.

Krylov and Griboyedov played a major role in the formation of Russian realism at the beginning of the 19th century.

Krylov became the creator of the Russian realistic fable. Krylov's fables deeply truthfully depict the life of feudal Russia in its essential features. Ideological content his fables, democratic in their orientation, the perfection of their construction, wonderful verse and a living colloquial language developed on a folk basis - all this was a major contribution to Russian realistic literature and influenced the development of the work of such writers as Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol and other.

Griboyedov, with his work “Woe from Wit,” gave an example of Russian realistic comedy.

But the true founder of Russian realistic literature, who provided perfect examples realistic creativity in a wide variety of literary genres, was the great national poet Pushkin.

Realism- 19th - 20th centuries (from Latin realis- valid)

Realism can define heterogeneous phenomena united by the concept of life truth: the spontaneous realism of ancient literature, the realism of the Renaissance, enlightenment realism, “ natural school"as the initial stage of the development of critical realism in the 19th century, realism XIX-XX centuries, “socialist realism”

Main features of realism:

Depiction of life in images that correspond to the essence of life phenomena, through typing the facts of reality;
A true reflection of the world, a wide coverage of reality;
Historicism;
The attitude towards literature as a means of a person’s knowledge of himself and the world around him;
Reflection of the connection between man and environment;
Typification of characters and circumstances.

Realist writers in Russia. Representatives of realism in Russia: A. S. Pushkin, N. V. Gogol, A. N. Ostrovsky, I. A. Goncharov, N. A. Nekrasov, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. S. Turgenev, F. M. Dostoevsky, L N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin and others.

Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) -

Realism in literature is a direction whose main feature is a truthful depiction of reality and its typical features without any distortion or exaggeration. This originated in the 19th century, and its adherents sharply opposed sophisticated forms of poetry and the use of various mystical concepts in works.

Signs directions

Realism in 19th-century literature can be distinguished by clear characteristics. The main one is artistic image reality in images familiar to the average person, which he regularly encounters in real life. Reality in the works is considered as a means for a person to understand the world around him and himself, and the image of each literary character is worked out in such a way that the reader can recognize himself, a relative, colleague or acquaintance in it.

In the novels and stories of realists, art remains life-affirming, even if the plot is characterized by a tragic conflict. Another sign of this genre is the desire of writers to consider the surrounding reality in its development, and each writer tries to discover the emergence of new psychological, public and social relations.

Features of this literary movement

Realism in literature, which replaced romanticism, has the signs of art that seeks and finds truth, striving to transform reality.

In the works of realist writers, discoveries were made after much thought and dreaming, after analyzing subjective worldviews. This feature, which can be distinguished by the author’s perception of time, determined the distinctive features of realistic literature of the early twentieth century from traditional Russian classics.

Realism inXIX century

Such representatives of realism in literature as Balzac and Stendhal, Thackeray and Dickens, George Sand and Victor Hugo, in their works most clearly reveal the themes of good and evil, and avoid abstract concepts and show real life of their contemporaries. These writers make it clear to readers that evil lies in the lifestyle of bourgeois society, capitalist reality, and people’s dependence on various material values. For example, in Dickens's novel Dombey and Son, the owner of the company was heartless and callous not by nature. It’s just that he developed such character traits due to the presence big money and the ambition of the owner, for whom profit becomes the main achievement in life.

Realism in literature is devoid of humor and sarcasm, and the images of the characters are no longer the ideal of the writer himself and do not embody him cherished dreams. From the works of the 19th century, the hero practically disappears, in whose image the author’s ideas are visible. This situation is especially clearly visible in the works of Gogol and Chekhov.

However, this literary trend is most clearly manifested in the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, who describe the world as they see it. This was expressed in the image of characters with their own strengths and weaknesses, the description of mental torment, a reminder to readers of the harsh reality that cannot be changed by one person.

As a rule, realism in literature also affected the fate of representatives of the Russian nobility, as can be judged from the works of I. A. Goncharov. Thus, the characters of the heroes in his works remain contradictory. Oblomov is a sincere and gentle person, but due to his passivity he is not capable of better things. Another character in Russian literature has similar qualities - the weak-willed but gifted Boris Raisky. Goncharov managed to create the image of an “anti-hero” typical of the 19th century, which was noticed by critics. As a result, the concept of “Oblomovism” appeared, referring to all passive characters whose main features were laziness and lack of will.

The heyday of realism in the second half of the 19th century. Stages of development of realism

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1.3 Stages of development of realism in world art

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

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

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

Realism in literature

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