Enlightenment realism in literature. The Enlightenment Character of 18th Century Philosophy

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1. educationalrealism

ENLIGHTENING REALISM is an artistic method in European art and literature of the 18th century, according to which all phenomena public life and the actions of individuals were judged as reasonable or unreasonable. Its creators and theorists were Diderot in France and Lessing in Germany. Distinctive features of Enlightenment realism were the further expansion and democratization of topics in such forms of artistic culture as literature, theater, and painting; the appearance of a new hero - a representative of the third estate, declared in the spirit of the time as the bearer of Reason or Nature; rejection of the normativity inherent in classicism; the demand for the truth of life, documented accurate disclosure of characters and "opinions"; edification of the narrative, associated with the desire to convey to the listener, viewer, reader, public or moral ideas. At the same time, supporters of this method often allowed convention in their works. Thus, the circumstances in the novel and drama were not necessarily typical. They could be conditional, as in the experiment. The main achievement of Enlightenment realism was the creation of the novel of the New Age - a powerful means artistic knowledge reality. Its founder is considered D. Defoe, the initiator of such genre varieties novel as biographical, adventure, psychological, criminal, adventurous, educational and allegorical. D. swift became the creator of the genre of satirical philosophical and political novel. In the era of the mature Enlightenment, a family-household (S. Richardson) and social-household (G. Fielding) novel appeared. The appearance of a new hero led to the emergence of a “petty-bourgeois” drama (“The London Merchant” by D. Lillo, “Deceit and Love” by F. Schiller, “Bate Son” by D. Diderot, etc.), educational democratic (R. Sheridan) and socio-political (G. Fielding) comedy. Stage realism was fully embodied in the work of P. O. Beaumarchais.

Enlightenment ideas had an impact on the formation of a realistic painting XVIII V. The realist artists W. Hogarth, J. B. Chardin entered the struggle to eradicate the vices of society, turned to everyday situations or to the creation of paintings “on modern moral topics - an area not yet tested in any country” (W. Hogarth's satirical cycles). J. B. Chardin turned still life into an independent genre of painting.

2. CreationUlyamaHogarth

The birth of the national school of painting in England dates back to the first half of the 18th century. The founder of the national art school and one of its brightest masters was William Hogarth. With his bold and original work, he laid the foundation for a new flowering of English painting.

Hogarth's works were a true reflection of the life of various sections of English society and were imbued with truthful active critical tendencies.

The paintings and engravings of the artist were distinguished by their high mastery of dramatic narration, innovative originality and originality. artistic solution. He actively fought for the assertion of realism and ideas of citizenship in art. In his theoretical treatise "Analysis of Beauty" (1753), the artist put forward the provisions of the democratic aesthetics of realism. He sharply condemned the deceitful flattery of stereotyped secular portraits, defended everyday painting, based on direct observation and revealing the essence of life phenomena.

Hogarth's art had a significant impact on European everyday painting of the 19th century, it carried many of the most significant features of further development and was a harbinger of everything that became characteristic of European art XIX century, in particular critical realism.

An important part of the creative heritage of William Hogarth is his work on everyday and moral topics. Each of his cycles is a detailed dramatic story about human destinies, it is a kind of challenge to society, where Hogarth accurately and sharply shows the social environment and typical circumstances. English life.

Artist thought What basic task "useful" art is court above life A method serves satire. Like to that How advanced writers Enlightenment created new type artistic works - domestic realistic novel, Hogarth created new For his time genre - series satirical household paintings. These series read How novels And thanks to clarity their artistic language were available much more broad circles of people, how any book.

Hogarth's work is also largely devoted to ridiculing the vices of contemporary society; but by revealing gloomy pictures cruelty, venality, immorality, spiritual poverty and material poverty, the artist never changes his faith in man. The artist creates portraits. His images speak of health, mental strength, inner beauty people - the features that the artist can see and which are the basis of his art.

2. The first steps of Hogarth in art and the formation in his work of an independent assessment in relation to reality

By the 1730s, an original and amazing artist appeared in England - William Hogarth.

W. Hogarth (1697-1764) was born in the family of a rural teacher who moved to London. His father first kept a school in his village, then in London, and later worked as a proofreader, studied literature and left several works of a philosophical nature that did not bring him material security.

From these statements it follows that his method was developed from a very young age. For him, an object of art and the only source artistic images was life. He believed that one should study not the rules of predecessors and the images created by them, but the world. It is pointless to copy objects and figures, it is necessary to develop memory and record observations.

Engraving is characterized simple tricks drawing and a clear rhythm of the composition.

In 1726, Hogarth made two series of illustrations for Goodibras: in the first, at the request of booksellers, he rather closely adhered to the methods of anonymous illustrations of an earlier edition of this book (1710), but made significant changes. The second series can be considered an independent work of the artist. Realistic illustrations testify to the maturity of his drawing, the richness of his creative imagination. They are characterized by the integrity of the composition, a wide original rhythm and an extraordinary saturation with everyday details.

In 1729, Hogarth married the daughter of the painter Thornhill, marrying her secretly from her parents. Parents soon forgave Hogarth and the young couple settled with the Thornhills.

The artist has been painting since the early 1720s, when he studied at the Academy with Vanderbank, participating in the murals of a country house with his teacher Thornhill.

Hogarth pretty quickly exhausted the possibilities of the genre of "conversational" group portraits, which led him into the sphere of salon art. More and more he was fascinated by the themes of public sound, which corresponded to the ideals of the artist and the peculiarities of his talent. But as a satirist and author of topical themes, he unfolded to the fullest in the 1730s.

Thus, in the first period of his activity, young Hogarth appears before us as a person with an early-formed worldview, as a master of great creative determination. Already in early years he takes the first steps towards achieving the goal of a lifetime - the creation of useful works of art for society. Youthful works show that in the sheets on hot topics Hogarth to some extent found his teachers, his genre and established contact with the public he addressed. He took events from life as material and interpreted them satirically, gave them an assessment. Using the experience of his predecessors, he continued to develop his own artistic language. enlightenment realism fine arts

4. Series "Fashion marriage"

In the first half of the 40s of the 18th century, Hogarth created his most famous series, Fashionable Marriage (six paintings, Tate Gallery, London). The cycle is composed of separate dramatic plots. The titles of the scenes reveal the intent of the series. Hogarth repeatedly called himself not a painter, but the “author” of the series, wishing to emphasize by this the significance of the literary plot underlying them, and it is not for nothing that many contemporaries evaluate him precisely as the author. T. Gauthier says: “Hogarth is the Aristophanes of the brush, who draws his comedies instead of writing them.” [, - Krol A.E. William Hogarth. L.-M., 1965, p. 83-84.7] Thackeray, who devoted a whole section to the artist in his lectures on comic writers of the 18th century, emphasizes the professional writing completeness of Hogarth's plot cycles.

The author's thought becomes familiar to the viewer when he recognizes the entire series. The artist depicts people at the moment of the action itself, his characters seem to be talking to each other. Hogarth succeeds in this thanks to the accurate transmission of facial expressions and gestures.

Hogarth's series of paintings were widely popular among writers who used them in dramatic adaptations. Charles Lamb, in his article, says: "... Other paintings we consider - we read his engravings." However, it should be said that the plots and characters created by Hogarth were processed, as a rule, by insignificant authors and only individual episodes.

It is also difficult to establish the exact dating of the Fashionable Marriage cycle. There are two closely related series of paintings on this subject. One, as already mentioned earlier in the Tate Gallery (London), the other, which differs from it in details and which is considered to be Hogarth's sketches, completed by a different hand, is in the collection of H.R. Willet. There is an assumption that the famous series was written between 1742 and 1745.

"Fashionablemarriage"

was Hogarth's third satirical series. In the paintings of this series, the viewer sees a sharp social satire, exposing the public stratum to ridicule. Depicting scenes from life high society Hogarth shows no less ugly and vicious, terrible and funny than in scenes from the life of vagabonds, thieves and prostitutes. The characters, as well as in the previous series, acquire portraiture.

The plot of William Hogarth is a marriage of convenience. This is a story about the marriage of a ruined son to the daughter of a wealthy merchant, a very common phenomenon in England at the time of Hogarth, about the husband's revelry and about nothing, with the exception of a love affair, not filled with the life of a wife. This story ends with a tragic denouement - the death of the count, who was stabbed to death by the countess's lover, who ends up on the gallows for this, and the countess's suicide.

The first episode is already expressive - "Marriage Contract"

which is concluded as a commercial transaction. Stakeholders gathered. They form two groups. The first depicts an old lord with a thoroughbred briefcase and a majestic posture and sitting opposite the bride's father with a marriage contract in his hands, who looks with horror at the future relative and calculates how much this relationship will cost him. Another group is the bride and groom sitting with a boring look, personifying passive indifference. In the foreground are animal figurines tied with a chain, symbolizing the same union that takes place in this room.

The picture is distinguished by expressiveness, a clear, well-thought-out composition, a wavy "serpentine" line emphasizes all the outlines, the characters are skillfully grouped.

Hogarth showed in this story a common phenomenon in the life of English society. Greedy for money and social position, fathers, cunning and greedy, for the sake of their own gain, enter into an alliance between their children, who are a commodity for them. The father of the bride buys himself a place among the nobility and is not afraid to overpay. Greed, fear, servility are embodied in his face and figure. A sly glance underlines his nature. The old lord - the father of the groom, looking around from the height of grandeur, able to maintain an arrogant look in front of the buyer, fills his own worth. Everyone wants to grab a tasty morsel. The fragility of this deal is immediately visible to every viewer.

In the second scene ("Morning breakfast. Soon after weddings")

] All three characters are involved. This composition depicts the morning in the house of the young. Overturned chairs lazily lifted by a sleepy servant, playing cards lying on the floor, musical instruments and a sheet of music - everything speaks of yesterday's holiday, which ended in a fair bacchanalia. The rather pretty countess casually stretches, is about to yawn, and expresses complete indifference to her husband, who has burst into the rooms without removing his hat and has collapsed heavily into an armchair. The manager with a bundle of bills in his hand leaves, raising his hands to the sky.

Everything that happens in the picture - the relationship between the characters, every physiognomy, every gesture - is described extremely clearly and graphically.

Third scene ("U charlatan") [App. rice. 20] tells about the further adventures of her husband. He came with his girlfriend to a charlatan - a doctor. The doctor receives them in a spectacularly decorated office, where each item speaks of the "scholarship" of the owner. A young reveler exposes a charlatan, waving his cane at him. Betty Carless, a well-known matchmaker in London, stands up for the doctor. With the help of gestures, glances and common action, the artist combined the charlatan doctor and the pimp into one group, which, as it were, removes the figure of the defenseless, timid figure of the young victim.

In the next picture - "Morning reception"

the artist reveals the nature of the young countess's entertainment. We see her at the morning toilet. A hairdresser bustles around the hostess, a famous singer in London sings to the accompaniment of a flute, guests are talking animatedly about something, and a lawyer is lounging on the couch, who behaves like at home. He hands the countess tickets to the masquerade. The relationship between the mistress of the house and the attorney provides rich food for thought for others.

Soft harmonies of colors, pink and silver-gray, or olive, pinkish and brownish-gold, convey the external well-being and elegance of this life, and the composition of the paintings, full of hectic movement, corresponds to the inner emptiness and discord in the lives of the heroes of "Fashionable Marriage".

The following paintings from the Fashionable Marriage series bring the viewer closer to the denouement. In the fifth scene [App. rice. 22] shown crucial moment: the husband, stricken to death, falls, the young wife kneels before her lying husband, and the lover - the killer is hiding in the window. The expressiveness of a scene is determined by its dynamics. Hogarth makes a bold attempt to capture the elusive moment both in the movements and in the emotional experiences of the characters. As in other scenes, the action again takes place in a specific setting with many real details. The faces and figures of the scene are shown in shadow.

sixthscene tinged with bitterness and drama. The Countess takes poison. At her feet lies a sheet with the last words of the executed lover. Through the open window of a gloomy old dwelling, a beautiful view of the wide Thames and London Bridge spreads - as a symbol of life, a calmly flowing river stretches, despite any life tragedies.

In the Fashionable Marriage series, William Hogarth touched on an important social issue, for which he was considered a moralist - a preacher. The artist does not punish evil. The greedy father who sacrificed his daughter and the old lord who profitably married his son do not suffer. Their children suffered, becoming passive victims of the ruthless social conditions. The fate of the heroes is determined in the plots of Hogarth by the social situation. Positive heroes in his paintings are very rare, since the artist sees the main thing not in triumphant virtue and morality, but in the affirmation of the inevitability of vices and misfortunes.

In the mid-1740s, Hogarth made an attempt to proclaim positive life values. He begins the Happy Marriage series (1745). But the artist's idea was not completed, only six episodes from this begun series have survived. The first, fourth and fifth paintings have been preserved in engravings, in painting - the third and sixth, and in the form of a picturesque fragment - the second.

A special place in the work of William Hogarth is occupied by a series of engravings Diligence and Indolence (1747-1748), in which the artist most extensively develops his positive program.

Hogarth was the son of his age, he ruthlessly denounced vices and at the same time shared those illusions that Enlightenment writers like Defoe preached. Such illusions included the idea that happiness and wealth are a reward to a person for virtue and honest work. Defoe in the novel "Robinson Crusoe" depicts a brave, persistent, hardworking hero who built happiness with his own hands, despite the vicissitudes of fate. In the didactic series Diligence and Indolence, Hogarth pays tribute to this ideal of the times.

Around 1750-1751, Hogarth creates several more graphic works of an instructive nature: the suite "Four Degrees of Cruelty" and two paired etchings "Gin Street" and "Beer Street" [App. rice. 30, 31]. In them, he follows the same program that he carried out in his large didactic series "Diligence and laziness" [App. rice. 32].

In the engravings "Gin Street" and "Beer Street" the artist addresses the people. Hogarth writes: “Since the themes of these engravings are designed to influence some of the common vices inherent in the lower classes, it is safer for the widest distribution of engravings that the author performed them in the cheapest technique.” [, - Krol A.E. William Hogarth. L.-M., 1965, p. 115.15]

This time, Hogarth acted as a public figure fighting against drunkenness, which was the real scourge of England of his time. This social evil intensified along with the growth of poverty and disease among the "lower" classes. Of course, the cause of poverty and mortality of the poor population of London was not rooted in drunkenness alone, but Hogarth, like the progressive minds of that time, did not realize what the source of evil was. Therefore, the artist, together with other English enlighteners, directed the entire force of his criticism not at the foundations of the social order, but only at one of the phenomena accompanying them.

The engravings "Gin Street" and "Beer Street" met with an immediate response, and in 1751 an act was passed in Parliament to prohibit the illegal sale of gin.

As William Hogarth writes, the Gin Street sheet shows the consequences of consuming this drink - "... idleness, poverty, poverty and despair, leading to madness and death."

The artist divides the sheet into two planes along a diagonal running from the upper right corner to the lower left corner. On the right, he depicts several key episodes with a few characters. On the left are city buildings and streets with a crowd of small human figures. The background of the central walls is impoverished London with its crowded ships and dilapidated houses.

The hopelessness of the impasse in which the inhabitants of Gin's Street perish is emphasized by symbols common to Hogarth: a sign for a loan office with three heavy balls and a sign for a tavern in the form of a huge jug with the inscription "Royal Gin".

"Beer Street" provides a contrast to "Gin Street". The scene is full of cheerful animation. The artist depicts a street with clean, rebuilt houses. Passers-by are walking along the street, the painter is finishing a signboard depicting dancing peasants around a barley stack. At the tables people drink beer. The only abandoned house is the loan office, on the steps of which stands an itinerant beer merchant.

If in the previous sheet the comic serves to emphasize the tragic, then Beer Street is all imbued with cheerful mild humor. Ironically, Hogarth depicts beer drinkers with huge bellies, holding full mugs of beer with lush foam. The sign of the loan office no longer seems ominous.

Another series of a moralizing nature was called by Hogarth "The Four Degrees of Cruelty". It depicts the life path of a man who tortures cats and dogs as a child, then tortures horses and eventually becomes a murderer. The corpse of an executed criminal is legally given to doctors, who dismember it into pieces.

Hogarth wrote: " These sheets were engraved V hope V some measure change To the best barbaric appeal With animals, one view torture which does our capital Cities (London) so deplorable For each sensitive souls. If They will render This action And hinder cruelty, I will more be proud topics What am their author, how If would I wrote cardboards Raphael."( Krol A.E. William Hogarth. L.-M., 1965, p. 117.18)

“The Four Degrees of Cruelty”, as well as the series “Diligence and Laziness” as “Gin Street” and “Beer Street”, writes Krol A.E., reveal Hogarth as an artist who does not go through social disasters nicely and does not try to make the audience laugh with pictures of poverty and ignorance. At the same time, Hogarth does not remain a simple moralist-preacher, but looks at the world more broadly and more objectively than most of his contemporaries. Choosing as a hero a count or a tramp, a noble lady or a prostitute, he condemns in their images those dark features that are characteristic not only of individuals, but also of entire social groups. Hogarth addressed these topical episodes to the people and they were popular, but the audience he addressed sometimes admired the amusingness of the episode, the comical faces and did not notice deep meaning his works.

Thus, Hogarth's work played an important role in the development of English art. His works were a realistic reflection of the modern life of various strata of English society and were imbued with active critical thoughts in the spirit of the progressive ideas of that time. Hogarth's paintings and engravings were notable for their high mastery of dramatic narration, innovative originality and originality of artistic solution. He actively fought for the establishment of realism and ideas of citizenship in art, defending the leading place household genre in painting.

3 . CreationJeanbatistaSimeonChardin

jeanbatimstSimeomnChardemn(1699--1779) - French painter, one of the most famous artists of the XVIII century and one of the best colorists in the history of painting, famous for his work in the field of still life and genre painting.

In his work, the artist deliberately avoided the solemn and pastoral-mythological plots characteristic of the art of his time. The main subject of his still lifes and genre scenes, based entirely on field observations and essentially hidden portraits, was the everyday domestic life of people from the so-called third estate, conveyed in a calm, sincere and truthful manner. Chardin, whose activity as an artist marked the heyday of realism in the 18th century, continued the traditions of the Dutch and Flemish masters of still life and everyday genre of the 17th century, enriching this tradition and introducing a touch of grace and naturalness into his work.

A student of Pierre-Jacques Caza and Noel Coypel, Chardin was born and spent his whole life in the Parisian quarter of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. There is no evidence that he ever traveled outside the French capital. Helping Kuapel to perform accessories in his paintings, he acquired an extraordinary art of depicting inanimate objects of all kinds and decided to devote himself exclusively to their reproduction. At the beginning of his independent activity, he painted fruits, vegetables, flowers, household items, hunting attributes with such skill that art lovers mistook his paintings for the works of famous Flemish and Dutch artists, and only from 1739 expanded the circle of his subjects with scenes of the domestic life of poor people and portraits.

He became known early to the Parisian public as an excellent master of still life. This was largely due to the Paris "debutante exhibition", which took place on the Place Dauphine. So, in 1728, he presented several canvases there, among which was the still life "Scat". The painting impressed Nicolas de Largilliere, an honorary member of the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture, so much that he invited the young artist to exhibit his works within the walls of the academy. Subsequently, the painter insisted that Chardin compete for a place at the Academy. Already in September, his candidacy was accepted, and he was listed as "a depiction of flowers, fruits and genre scenes."

The everyday genre and still life are organically linked in his art as aspects of a holistic and poetically deep perception of reality. Following the Dutch, the French genre painter was able to express the charm of the interior and those household items that surround a person. For his compositions, Chardin chose the most ordinary objects - a kitchen water tank, old pots, vegetables, an earthenware jug, and only occasionally in his still lifes can one see the majestic attributes of the sciences and arts. The dignity of these paintings is not in the preciousness of things that the Dutch loved so much, but in their spiritualized poetic life, in the balance of construction, creating an image of harmonious being.

Perfectly mastering the knowledge of color relations, Chardin subtly felt the interconnection of objects and the originality of their structure. Diderot admired the skill with which the artist makes you feel the movement of juices under the skin of the fruit. In the color of the object, Chardin saw many shades and conveyed them with small strokes. Its white color is woven from similar shades. The gray and brown tones that Chardin owned are unusually numerous. Penetrating the canvas, the rays of light give the subject clarity and clarity.

In the 1730s Chardin turned to genre painting, to everyday family and home scenes, full of love and peace, amazing figurative and coloristic integrity (“Prayer before dinner”, 1744). In genre scenes, Chardin recreated the calm, measured way of everyday life - sometimes in the most ordinary, but lyrically sublime moments, sometimes in episodes that have an inner moral significance.

The paintings of genre painting, distinguished by their naive simplicity of content, the strength and harmony of colors, the softness and richness of the brush, even more than Chardin's previous works, put him forward from a number of contemporary artists and strengthened one of his prominent places in the history of French painting. In 1728 he was assigned to the Paris Academy of Arts, in 1743 he was elected to its advisers, in 1750 he assumed the position of its treasurer; in addition, since 1765 he was a member of the Rouen Academy of Sciences, Literature and Fine Arts.

In works different years and different genres, such as "Laundress" (1737), "Jar of Olives" (1760) or "Attributes of the Arts" (1766), Chardin always remains an excellent draftsman and colorist, artist " quiet life", the poet of everyday life; his gaze and tender gaze spiritualizes the most mundane objects. In the last years of his life, Chardin turned to pastels and created several magnificent portraits (self-portrait, 1775), in which he showed his inherent emotional subtlety, but also the ability for psychological analysis.

Encyclopedists did much to spread the fame of Chardin, who contrasted his “bourgeois” art with court artists “torn away from the people” - masters of erotic and pastoral vignettes in the spirit of rococo. Diderot compared his skill with witchcraft: “Oh, Chardin, this is not white, red and black paint that you grind on your palette, but the very essence of objects; you take air and light at the tip of your brush and lay them on the canvas!”

4 . CreationJeanLouisDavid

Jacques-LouismDavimd(August 30, 1748, Paris - December 29, 1825, Brussels) - French painter and teacher, a major representative of French neoclassicism in painting.

Jacques-Louis David was born on August 30, 1748 in the family of an optical commander of iron Louis-Moris David and his wife, Marie-General (nee Buron) and on the same day was baptized in the church of Saint-Germain-l “Oserua. Until August 2, 1757-the day of the death of his father, possibly died on a duel, lived in the Pickens of the Monastery of the Monastery, France. The bureaucrat, nine-year-old Jacques-Louis, having studied with a tutor, entered a college of four nations for a rhetoric course. After which his mother, leaving the child in Paris in the care of her brother, left for Evreyo. Jacques-Fransua Demeson, were architects, the family was also connected with the artist Francois Bouche. that he will become an architect, like both of his uncles.

David takes drawing lessons at the Academy of St. Luke, in 1764 his relatives introduce him to Francois Boucher in the hope that he will take Jacques-Louis as his student. However, due to the artist’s illness, this did not happen - nevertheless, he recommended that the young man start studying with one of the leading masters history painting early neoclassicism by Joseph Vienne. Two years later, in 1766, David entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, where he began to study in the workshop of Vienne. The pedagogical system of the latter, who spent several years in Italy and was fascinated by antiquity, was based on the study of ancient art, the works of Raphael, the Carracci brothers, Michelangelo, the requirement to achieve “truth” and “greatness” in painting.

In 1775-1780, David studied at the French Academy in Rome, where he studied ancient art and the work of Renaissance masters.

In May 1782 he married Charlotte Pekul. She bore him four children.

In 1783 he was elected a member of the Academy of Painting.

Actively participated in the revolutionary movement. In 1792 he was elected to the National Convention, where he joined the Montagnards, led by Marat and Robespierre, voted for the death of King Louis XVI. He was a member of the Committee of Public Security, in which capacity he signed orders for the arrest of "enemies of the revolution." Due to political differences, he divorced his wife at this time.

In an effort to perpetuate the events of the revolution, David paints a number of paintings dedicated to the revolutionaries: “The Oath in the Ballroom” (1791, not finished), “The Death of Marat” (1793, Museum contemporary art, Brussels). Also at this time he organized mass folk festivals and created the National Museum in the Louvre.

In 1794, after the Thermidorian coup, he was imprisoned for revolutionary views.

In November 1796 he remarried Charlotte.

In 1797, he witnessed the solemn entry into Paris of Napoleon Bonaparte and since then has become his ardent supporter, and after he came to power - the court "first artist". David creates paintings dedicated to Napoleon's passage through the Alps, his coronation, as well as a number of compositions and portraits of persons close to Napoleon. After the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he fled to Switzerland, then moved to Brussels, where he lived until the end of his life.

He was buried in the cemetery of the Leopold quarter in Saint-Josse-ten-Node (in 1882 he was reburied in the Brussels cemetery in Evere), his heart was transported to Paris and buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.

5. CreationJeanAntoineHoudon

Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828) is a famous classicist sculptor. He created a unique portrait encyclopedia of prominent people of the era. Its main character is a social, noble and strong character, courageous and fearless, creative personality. Houdon was never interested in the titles and ranks of those whom he depicted in marble and bronze. In the images he created, not only the external, but also the internal resemblance to the original, the features of the hero's psychology are masterfully conveyed. The portrait of the composer Gluck, orator Mirabeau, comedian Molière, public figures D. Diderot and J. J. Rousseau, American President George Washington - these are the best works of the great sculptor. It is known that Catherine the Great ordered her portrait from him, but Houdon refused to go to Russia. He brilliantly executed the statue of the Russian Empress based on numerous portraits, never having seen the original.

Glory consummate master sculptural portrait, which Houdon won during his lifetime, is undeniable to this day. This is partly due to the personalities of his models - the great people of the 18th century: Voltaire, J. J. Rousseau, D. Diderot, B. Franklin, J. Washington. Meanwhile, other sculptors created portraits of these celebrities, but in our minds they stubbornly continue to exist exactly as Houdon depicted them. And this is not surprising. The works of the master amaze with the feeling of life emanating from them. One of his contemporaries commented on his sculpture: “She would have spoken if the monastic charter had not prescribed silence for her.” The secret is that in his work Houdon used the ancient rule: you need to ask a question, attract attention and portray a person at the very moment when the whole face comes to life and the answer is ready to break from the lips. In addition, he developed one simple, but creating a striking effect, technique. Modeling the eyes and eyelids in accordance with the shape of nature, he made a recess for the entire width of the iris in such a way that the shadow filling it seemed to be part of the voluminous and convex surface of the eye, and the pupil completely black. The left small “pendant” of white marble gave rise to the illusion of a light glare, bringing the impression of volume to perfection. As a result, the eyes looked alive, transparent and slightly moist. No sculptor has yet been able to achieve such accuracy in conveying the expression of the human gaze.

Despite the fact that the recognition of talent came to the master rather quickly, he, judging by the surviving documents, remained a simple and even poorly educated person. His whole life, not rich in spectacular or dramatic events, was reduced to hard daily work in the workshop and everyday everyday worries. However, everything related to his favorite work, Houdon paid the closest attention, whether it was the study of the structure of the human body or rivalry with other sculptors.

Jean Antoine was born in Versailles on March 20, 1741 in a family far from art. His father, Jacques Houdon, was a peasant. By the time his son was born, he worked as a simple gatekeeper at the Versailles residence of Count Delamotte, Inspector General of the Royal Parks. The father and brothers of the mother, Anna Rabash, were gardeners in these parks, and of the three sons and four daughters of the Houdon spouses, only Jean Antoine. the fourth child, won the glory of the artist. It seems that heaven has taken care to provide an opportunity for the boy's innate talent to develop into true mastery. Following the father, who was transferred to the Parisian house of Count Delamotte, the family moved to the capital, and in 1749 this house was rented to the French crown under the “School for Selected Students”. That is, those pupils of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, who, among the best of the best, were preparing for a trip to Rome for further education at the expense of the state. Jacques Houdon was allowed to stay as a gatekeeper at the new school, and Jean Antoine was among the people of art from an early age. The boy eagerly absorbed the very atmosphere of creativity that prevailed at school, came to the workshops and, having begged for clay, enthusiastically sculpted, imitating the elders. First, the students, and then the teachers, drew attention to a capable child, helped him, gave advice, and, finally, contributed to the fact that in 1756 young Houdon became a student of the academy. In the same year, he received a silver medal for success in performing sketches, and five years later, for the bas-relief "The Queen of Sheba brings gifts to Solomon" (1761), he was awarded the first prize - a gold medal with the right to study at the French Academy in Rome - and returned to his native "School for the Chosen" now as a student. His main teacher was M. A. Slodts, but he also learned a lot of useful knowledge from other academicians - J. B. Lemoine and J. B. Pigalle. Jean Antoine devoted the next three years to mastering the art of marble processing, studying history and mythology, at the same time visiting the Anatomical Theater, directly getting acquainted with internal structure person, as well as the Louvre and other collections, joining the works of art of other countries and the great masters of the past.

In 1764 Houdon left for Rome. According to the academic system of education widespread throughout Europe, he was obliged to make copies of sculptures on the themes of classical mythology, and his first work in this direction was the small Vestal Virgin (1767-1768) - a rather freely interpreted repetition of an ancient statue. Moreover, the sculptor disproportionately improved the boring Hellenistic original, giving it the tenderness and femininity characteristic of the Rococo style, while retaining a specifically classical spirit. In the future, he often returned to this image, as well as to many others, sometimes simply copying his work in different materials - plaster, marble, terracotta, bronze - and sometimes creating variants that differ in details. The Roman period of Houdon's work includes such works as "Saint Bruno", "Saint John the Baptist" (both in 1766-1767), "Priest of Lupercalia" (1768) and others, as well as the well-known sculpture "Ecorshe" (1766-1767) - a man with bare muscles, - casts and copies of which have become a necessary attribute art schools Europe and America up to the present day. Moreover, even physicians used it in training.

Interestingly, this outstanding and perhaps the most beloved anatomical model in the history of sculpture was at first just a plaster sketch for John the Baptist. The figure, created from a deep study of anatomy on cadavers at the Hospital of St. Louis of France, is depicted in slow motion with an outstretched benediction right hand and in itself is a masterpiece of sculptural craftsmanship. This pose was completely transferred to the first, non-preserved version of "John the Baptist", performed, like "Saint Bruno", by order of the rector of the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which was more than honorable for a novice artist. Much later, Houdon created another, bronze figure "Ecorchet" (1792), slightly changing the position of the hands

In November 1768 Jean Antoine returned to Paris. The period of apprenticeship was over, and now the young sculptor was faced with the task of becoming an independent master, achieving recognition in his homeland, and at the same time acquiring a financial position befitting his abilities. In 1769, on the basis of the works performed in Italy, Houdon was easily included in the academy, which gave him the right to exhibit in the biennial academic Salons, and therefore to have the opportunity to show his works to the public and, more importantly, to likely high patrons. Since that time, the sculptor participated in almost all such exhibitions until 1814.

The first significant work of Houdon upon his return to France was a portrait bust of the philosopher D. Diderot (1771), which opened a whole gallery of images - both contemporaries and great people of the past: Molière (1778), J. J. Rousseau (variations in 1778-1779), O. G. Mirabeau (1791) and others. After this work, the artist received orders from the Duke of C Aksen-Gotha. the small principality of which in Germany he visited the day before, and the Russian Empress Catherine II, who became the first reigning patroness of the sculptor. In 1773, the master made a marble bust of Catherine the Great, in which he perfectly conveyed the resemblance to the original, not only external, but also characteristic. although in his work he was forced to rely only on paintings, drawings or engravings by French authors. The portrait of the empress completely refutes the well-established belief that Houdon could not work effectively without a live model in front of him. Indeed, the master often made careful measurements of the person being portrayed, made plaster casts of the head and individual parts of the figure, and sometimes, as in the cases of Mirabeau and Rousseau, even removed death masks. But all these actions only facilitated the work of the sculptor, but were in no way decisive. Proof of this can also be the portraits of Molière and J. de Lafontaine (c. 1781), who have long since passed away, striking with the exact transmission of characteristic features.

It should be noted that, despite the excellent ability to process marble, Houdon was primarily a sculptor, not a carver. He first worked with clay and then made a plaster mold, which was kept in the workshop and allowed him to repeat his works in plaster, terracotta, bronze or marble as long as there was demand for them. Moreover, having an excellent command of casting techniques, the sculptor personally participated in the casting of bronze statues, making the final refinement with a scraper and leaving the surface rough, and not carefully polished, as in later, non-author's copies.

Although Houdon went down in history primarily as a portrait sculptor, his creative nature was more impressed by themes drawn from history, religion or mythology. It is known that he was constantly looking for commissions for large-scale works, and throughout his life, speaking of his artistic achievements, he usually singled out statues, such as "Saint Bruno", "Ecorchet" or "Diana" (1776). The latter deserves special mention. The theme of the goddess-huntress dates back to antiquity and is quite traditional for art since the Renaissance. However, Houdon's "Diana" had two distinctive features-- fast movement and complete nudity. The master achieved the illusion of running by forcing the goddess to maintain balance, standing on the toes of one foot. Only in the marble version of 1780 was a reed bush added to create additional support. The statue, which shocked government officials, was such a success with the public, so it was sung by poets and praised by critics, like no other work of Houdon. However, the sculptor still chose not to exhibit it in the Salon, and those who wished could admire the pure classical elegance of "Diana" in the artist's studio.

In 1777, a reduced marble version of "Morpheus" - a plaster statue in the size of nature (1771) - became Houdon's competitive work for the title of a full member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. In the same year, at the Salon, the number of his works was equal to half of all sculptures exhibited at all, and from that time the role of the master as the head of the French sculptural school was determined.

The central place in the work of Houdon is occupied by the best and most significant of his works - the statue of the French writer and philosopher-enlightener Voltaire, on whose image the sculptor worked for many years and created whole line wonderful portraits. Among them, the image of the seated Voltaire (1781) deservedly stands out. The artist dressed the sage in an ancient toga, hiding his weak, thin body. But he did not give up the truth and depicted the face of an old man with sunken cheeks, a collapsed mouth. However, the unquenchable mocking mind of the great philosopher lives in this face so intensely that, on the whole, the work turns into a hymn to the human intellect, proclaims the victory of the immortal spirit over a weak and mortal body. Those who have seen this sculpture are aware of its amazing property - when the viewing angle changes, Voltaire's facial expression changes amazingly. He cries, mocks, looks at the world tragically and chokes with laughter. “In his eyes, he unraveled the soul,” said another great French sculptor, Rodin, about Houdon.

Indeed, in the portraits of scientists, philosophers, people of art, in the female images created by the master, sharpness and versatility come to the fore. psychological characteristics models. Children's portraits are also remarkable from this point of view. In them, the artist discovered an amazing ability to convey the freshness and purity of childhood without sentimentality. His children are thinking individuals with their own inner world.

Not the last, although not the main role in such an accurate transfer of human character was played for the sculptor by direct observation and study of nature. So when, in 1785, Houdon was commissioned to make a marble statue of General J. Washington, he went overseas to work on a portrait bust in close proximity to the model. Upon his return to Paris, this bust was used by the sculptor as a sketch. statue in full height, depicting the general as a general, is perhaps the best portrait of Washington in existence.

In the summer of 1786, the forty-five-year-old sculptor married twenty-year-old Marie-Ange-Cecile Langlois, the daughter of an employee of royal enterprises. In 1787-1790. they had three daughters. Mrs. Houdon and the girls served as models for some of the master's most charming portraits.

In 1787, the artist buys a house, equips a workshop in it and installs small foundry furnaces. Now he has the opportunity to cast in bronze almost every one of his works. In this he is assisted by assistants and students, since he, as an academician, was supposed to have students. However, not a single significant sculptor came out of his workshop. Apparently, Houdon was too busy to pay attention to teaching. And only in the last years of his life, especially after his appointment in 1805 as a professor of special schools of painting, sculpture and architecture at the French Institute, which replaced the Royal Academy, he necessarily fulfilled his teaching duties and only in 1823 completely retired.

French Revolution 1789-1794 deprived Houdon not only of the bulk of customers and the well-established position of the leading sculptor, but also of creative forces. From the mid 1790s. his art went into decline. However, he continues to work, albeit on a much smaller scale, painting portraits of members imperial family, marshals and generals. In 1804 he was commissioned to make a gigantic bronze statue of Napoleon to be mounted on a column at Boulogne - it was completed in 1812 and destroyed after the fall of the Empire. The last work of the old master was a bust of Emperor Alexander I, exhibited in the Salon of 1814. After that, there is no information about his work. In 1823 Mrs. Houdon died, and on July 15, 1828, the sculptor himself passed away.

As well as possible, the master’s work is characterized by his own words: “One of the most beautiful qualities of such a difficult art of sculpture is the ability to preserve the features in all authenticity and make the images of people who created the glory or prosperity of their homeland almost imperishable. This thought constantly haunted and encouraged me in my long labors.

Voltaire Houdon, despite the painful thinness and senile weakness (the sculptor first saw the writer shortly before his death), is the embodiment of fortitude triumphing over physical weakness. This work is not only the highest achievement of the sculptor himself, but also the pinnacle of European art of the 18th century. The statue of Voltaire caused a lot of enthusiastic responses. Auguste Rodin exclaimed: “What an amazing thing! This is a mockery incarnate! The eyes are somewhat sideways, as if they are waiting for the enemy. The sharp nose resembles a fox: it wriggles all over, sniffing out abuses and a reason for ridicule everywhere, it literally trembles. Jean Antoine Houdon. Voltaire. 1779-1781 Comedie Francaise, Paris.

Jean-Antoine Houdon is a French sculptor. Jean-Antoine Houdon was born on March 20, 1741 in Versailles (France). In 1756, he was admitted to the school of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, received the third prize in sculpture, and in 1761, at the age of twenty, the first prize for the bas-relief "The Queen of Sheba brings gifts to Solomon." Houdon's teachers were Michel Slodtz, Jean-Baptiste Lemoine and Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. For eight years he studied at the school and the Academy, and as one of the best students in 1764 was sent to Rome. In Italy, the sculptor remained for four years and during this time created a number of works that made his name famous. These are the statue of the "Vestal", "Ecorshe" - an anatomical study, sculptures for decorating the churches "St. Bruno" and "St. John the Baptist". In these early sculptures, which the master later repeatedly repeated in other materials, he prefers the classical interpretation of the image, clear, calm, balanced, associated with the study of the ancient heritage. The need to earn money, the search for customers and patrons, probably did not allow him to extend the Italian pensionership, as others did.
In 1768 the sculptor returned to Paris. Here he found his first patron, the German Duke of Saxe-Gotha, who had been the artist's client for many years. Starting from 1769, when Houdon made his debut in the Salon, and until the end of the century, none of the opening Salons could do without the sculptor's things. In the Salon of 1771, one of the most famous busts of Houdon appeared - a portrait of Denis Diderot. The philosopher himself, a connoisseur and critic of art, noted the extraordinary similarity of the portrait. Diderot was often portrayed. But among the portraits created by Van Loo, Anne Marie Collot, J.-B. Pigalle and L.-A.-J. Lecointe, the portrait of Houdon stands out for its brightness and liveliness of characterization. The bust is free from any accessories and ornaments. All attention is focused on the face. Houdon portrayed the philosopher without a wig, for whom he harbored undisguised hatred. Slightly disheveled hair, Houdon interprets it easily and freely, as in all his sculptures. The bust is cut high, the head is turned three-quarters, the mouth is ajar, the eyes are wide open, their gaze is lively and direct, a fleeting facial expression is captured. This work made people talk about young talent in France. Through Diderot and his close friend Melchior Grimm, Houdon soon acquired the most powerful patron, the Russian Empress Catherine II, who could order expensive bronzes and marbles from Houdon. In the 1770s, the sculptor became known as a master of tomb sculpture. Among his most famous works are the tombstones of Field Marshal Mikhail Golitsyn and Senator A. D. Golitsyn (they are in the necropolis of the Donskoy Monastery in Moscow) and the tomb of Count d "Ennery. According to the composition of the tombstones, they date back to the type of classical tomb stelae of Ancient Greece. Houdon performs sculptures on mythological themes. For the marble statue "Morpheus" in 1777, he was elected an academician. One of the most famous sculptures 18th century was his "Diana the Huntress". In Houdon, Diana is depicted naked, she maintains her balance, standing on the toes of one foot, which creates the illusion of running. The frank sensual interpretation of the image does not contradict the purely classical elegance of the statue. The same features are inherent in another popular statue of Houdon - "Winter", which is personified in the form of a beautiful half-naked chilled girl. Many of Houdon's works are well known all over the world also because he replicated them, repeating them many times in cheap plaster and in more expensive marble and bronze. It was perhaps the only sculptor of the 18th century who mastered the technique of casting bronze. He was especially fond of it in the 1780-90s. He wrote: "I can act in two roles - a sculptor and a caster. In the first I am a creator, in the second I can accurately reproduce others ..." However, Houdon entered the history of sculpture primarily as a portrait master. He is characterized by an analytical approach to nature, a relentless search for the truth of life, his images are distinguished by deep and sharp psychologism. The number of his portrait sculptures is great. A special group is made up of portraits of children. Among them are excellent busts of Alexander and Louise Brongniart, portraits of the sculptor's daughters Sabina, Anna-Ange and Claudine, and others. The 18th century, as it were, reopens the world of the child. Houdon managed to convey a feeling of freshness and purity of childhood without a touch of sentimentality and playfulness, characteristic of rococo. In his works, children are thinking individuals with their own inner world.
Among the brilliant portraits of the figures of the French theater, created by Houdon, is posthumous bust Molière, commissioned by the Comédie Francaise. Houdon achieved in it a resemblance to the existing pictorial portrait of Molière, which he failed to see in the process of work, but created an image-personification of the French theater in general. Moliere's head, given in a frame of long, freely flowing hair, is sharply turned, an unusually lively pose suggests immediate action or movement. The look is piercing, the mouth is slightly parted, as if in a conversation. A wide scarf is loosely tied around the neck. Exhibited in the building of the Royal Library, the bust was admired by critics, and Grimm wrote about him: "His look (Mr. Houdon, probably the only sculptor who knows how to convey eyes) pierces the soul." Houdon made portraits of many famous people of his time: Necker, Lafayette, Bailly, Franklin and George Washington and others. For a series of portraits of great people conceived by d'Angivillier, he created a portrait of Marshal de Tourville. Civic virtues, as well as merits in science and art, were the criteria for choosing faces for this portrait gallery. But the portraits of the already mentioned Denis Diderot, J.-A. D'Alembert, Jean Jacques Rousseau (was made from a death mask) and the most famous of them is the portrait of Voltaire. Houdon in very short term, working on the mask he had removed, made a statue of Voltaire. The sculptor presented Voltaire sitting in an armchair, like an antique, wrapped in a mantle, very reminiscent of the philosopher's dressing gown. The wide folds of the mantle fall on the shoulders and knees, outlining the figure hidden under them and at the same time giving it impressiveness. The bandage on the forehead is likened to antique. Accessories create the image of a poet-philosopher who belongs to the modern and ancient worlds. The person portrayed radiates great vitality and high spirituality. All the richness of inner life Houdon conveys in an instantly grasped expression, which is difficult to interpret. This is a subtle, precise and majestic portrait, in which the Age of Enlightenment has found its vivid embodiment. Jean-Antoine Houdon died on July 15, 1828 in Paris.

Enlightenment ideology, its features

Enlighteners expressed the views of the young revolutionary bourgeoisie, who opposed the feudal order on behalf of populace. In their activities they were deprived of bourgeois self-interest and fought for the general welfare.

The shady aspects of capitalist progress in the eighteenth century were only just beginning to emerge. Therefore, the figures of the Enlightenment are characterized by historical optimism. They sincerely believed that after the collapse of the feudal-monarchist regime, a truly democratic system of life based on the principles of freedom, equality and brotherhood would triumph in the world.

Enlighteners acted, as F. Engels points out, "in the highest degree revolutionary." Emphasizing the unreasonableness of the feudal system of life, they prepared public opinion for the perception of the ideas of the "coming mighty revolution." "Everything had to justify its existence before the judgment seat of reason," Engels writes, "or else renounce its existence. The thinking mind was recognized as the only measure of all things" * .

* (K. Marx and F. Engels about art. T. 1. M, 1957, p. 378.)

However, subjectively, enlighteners, as a rule, were not supporters of revolutionary methods of transforming society. They pinned their hopes not on the revolutionary struggle, but on the re-education of man, on the restructuring of his consciousness. IN sharp criticism feudal reality, combined with illusions about the all-conquering power of words and moral example, consists characteristic worldview of the enlighteners, which left a seal on all their work, determined its strengths and weaknesses.

The enlighteners, as Lenin teaches, were animated by "ardent hostility to serfdom and all its offspring in the economic, social and juridical field" * . Lenin's characterization should be used taking into account the specifics of the development of enlightenment thought in each individual country. The enlightenment movement was not equally intense everywhere and opposed all manifestations of serfdom.

* (V. I. Lenin. Poly. coll. cit., vol. 2, p. 519.)

The originality of criticism of serfdom

In the XVIII century. in Western Europe and Russia, writers associated with the Enlightenment criticized the creations of serfdom, mainly in the ideological (political, moral, religious, etc.) sphere. They did not affect the economic relations of society. They were primarily interested in the reflection of class contradictions in human consciousness.

In Western European educational literature (and realism is no exception here) it is difficult to find a work that depicts the life of a serf, his forced labor. It also does not directly disclose class antagonisms.

In the literature of the Enlightenment, criticism of the manifestations of serfdom in the field of morality is widespread. A depraved feudal lord who does not know any prohibition in his feelings is a characteristic figure in the work of Lessing ("Emilia Galotti"), Schiller ("Deceit and Love") and a number of other enlighteners. The depravity of the princes is interpreted here as an organic consequence of the feudal system, in which every whim of the ruler is regarded as a law.

Enlighteners opposed the lack of rights of the people, showed the legal defenselessness of peasants, artisans, who often became victims of feudal arbitrariness. German writers (Schiller, Schubart) vividly depict such a form of it as the sale by princes of their subjects as soldiers to other states.

In enlightenment literature, there is a strong protest against church obscurantism and religious fanaticism. Anti-church motives sound with great force in the dramaturgy of Voltaire ("Zaire", "Mohammed"), in Diderot's "The Nun", which is a sharp satire on monasteries, in Lessing's "Nathan the Wise", in Goethe's poetry. The enlighteners did not disregard the manifestations of serfdom in the political sphere, criticized despotism, supported the aspiration of the oppressed peoples for national independence, defended their right to revolt in the name of national freedom ("Don Carlos" and "William Tell" by Schiller).

Enlightenment realism is highly critical and concrete in its own way. But its criticality and concreteness stretch to certain limits. It does not, as already noted, study the economic relations and class contradictions of feudal society and the absolutist state. Consequently, there is no full-fledged ideological and artistic penetration into the origins of the emergence of social evil.

Such originality realistic literature The 18th century is explained by the idealistic ideas of the enlighteners about the driving forces of history. Life was not yet an objective process for them, independent of human consciousness. They believed that opinions ruled the world, that the development of mankind was determined not by objective laws, but by the subjective will of state legislators and "enlightened monarchs." In the same way, they considered all kinds of shortcomings in the social structure and state government as the result of unreason, lack of enlightenment of people.

From this, Enlightenment thinkers drew important conclusions. Indeed, if social vices are caused by ideological reasons, then they should also be eliminated through ideological, moral influence. Thus, the decisive importance of the ideological factor, including literature and art, in the life of society was substantiated and the role of the class struggle was discounted. Enlighteners were convinced that the future depended on the victory of reason over prejudices. Therefore, conflicts in the work of writers of the XVIII century. are, as a rule, ideological in nature and end with the triumph of the enlightenment principle.

Theory of realism, its specifics

The ideological aspect of criticism of the feudal-monarchist system is the main originality of enlightenment realism. The realists of the Enlightenment way of thinking debunk the products of serfdom in the moral, legal, and political spheres, but do not penetrate into the economic, class structure of society. Nevertheless, the realistic art of the Enlightenment is all about real life. It develops in the struggle with classicism. Its most prominent theorists - Diderot and Lessing - first of all sought to substantiate the right of the modern writer to critical coverage of reality. Lessing in "Laocoon" resolutely protests against the mechanical transfer of the laws of ancient art to the modern era. A modern artist, unlike Homer, cannot, in his opinion, confine himself to depicting the beautiful, for life has long since lost its harmony and has become replete with contradictions. As a result, new challenges have arisen for the literature.

Capturing the dynamics of historical development, Lessing develops new aesthetic rules that correspond to the spirit of modernity. "Art in modern times, - he writes, - has greatly expanded its boundaries. It now imitates ... all visible nature. Truth and expressiveness are its main law" *.

* (G. E. Lessing. Laocoön, go about the limits of painting and poetry. M., 1957, pp. 89-90.)

Lessing takes a materialistic and dialectical approach to solving the fundamental question of aesthetics. He largely overcame the metaphysical view of artistic creativity, characteristic of the classicists, who considered the work of ancient masters to be a model of perfection and urged them to imitate. Lessing declares reality in its real social content as the subject of artistic representation. The writer has the right to depict not only ideal heroes, but also unaesthetic phenomena of life. So, Lessing subverts the dogmas of classicism and clears the way for realism,

Diderot, like Lessing, opposes copying the forms of classical art. He is a principled opponent of mechanical imitation and fights for the creative assimilation of the artistic experience of ancient writers. Diderot repeatedly develops the idea that the strength of Homer, Sophocles and Euripides consisted in originality, in the truthful reproduction of their national life, without the knowledge and study of which the poets and playwrights of antiquity would have left us only mediocre creations.

The struggle of Diderot and Lessing against the imitation of foreign models, for bringing literature closer to the sources of modern reality, was of great progressive importance, was associated with the defense of the most important side of the realistic method. Enlighteners are fighting for creativity that meets the historical needs of the people, critical in its orientation, truthfully reflecting the life of modern society.

Expanding the scope of art, riveting, unlike the classicists, the attention of writers to the ugly, Diderot and Lessing had to prove that the depiction of anti-aesthetic phenomena does not contradict the essence of "graceful". And they did this by putting forward and substantiating the position of artistic typification, which is capable of imparting aesthetic value to any vital material. "Thanks to truth and expressiveness," writes Lessing, "the most disgusting thing in nature becomes beautiful in art" * .

* (G. E. Lessing. Laocoön, or on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, p. 90)

So, Diderot and Lessing stand up for artistic truth, which grows on the basis of a generalization of real facts. They are in favor of the writer depicting modern life, and not copying the works of ancient classics. Only realism, in their opinion, can satisfy the social and aesthetic needs of a person of the "middle class".

Diderot and Lessing defend the idea of the need to democratize literature, to develop topics that are closely related to the life of the people of the burgher environment. This is how the theory of petty-bourgeois drama, burgher tragedy, and everyday romance is born. The appeal to ordinary topics is substantiated by considerations about the special nature of aesthetic experience. The democratic reader and spectator is concerned about what closely concerns his fate, his position in modern society. This naturally leads to the conclusion about the archaism, untimeliness of the classicist tragedy, "inhabited" by "royal" heroes, both in their social rank and in their psychological appearance (they have an "iron heart") surpassing the level of the average person.

18th century literature characterized by a democratic and critical orientation. The Enlighteners sharply criticized the feudal-monarchist regime, the oppression of small and large rulers, the savagery and fanaticism of churchmen, and at the same time showed the moral nobility and humanity of the "new people" representing the democratic circles of society. The combination of critical and affirmative beginnings is a characteristic feature of Enlightenment realism.

The realists of the Enlightenment, unlike the classicists, depict their heroes in a specific social environment, do not isolate them from history. This is especially true with regard to English novel(Defoe, Swift, Fielding, Smollet), which is distinguished by a wealth of everyday details. The novelists, as M. Gorky notes, introduced the democratic reader into "the environment close and dear to him ... the environment of his family, his society, surrounding him with his aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, friends and acquaintances, in a word - with all his relatives and the whole world of real, everyday, everyday life. The reader was struck by this closeness of the book to life "*.

* (M. Gorky. History of Russian literature. M., 1939, p. 39.)

In the best examples of educational dramaturgy, a person also reveals himself in the social circumstances corresponding to him. An example is the sturmer tragedies of Goethe and Schiller ("Getz von Berlichingen", "Robbers", "Deceit and Love"), the magnificent comedies of Beaumarchais ("The Barber of Seville", "The Marriage of Figaro"), Fonvizin ("Undergrowth", "Brigadier"), Sheridan ("School of Scandal"), the best dramas of Diderot ("Is he good or bad?"), Mercier ("Judge", "T bottle of acetic acid"), etc.

The relationship between man and the environment

The desire of the enlighteners to depict a person in social conditioning directly follows from the position on the decisive role of the social environment in the formation of human character, which was an important achievement for the materialism of the 18th century. This thesis was great importance for the formation and development of realism in art. He directed the attention of writers to social conditions that affect the fate of people, sharpened their critical attitude to reality.

However, the Enlighteners did not consistently draw revolutionary conclusions from their most important discovery. Their consciousness was characterized by contradictions. Considering a person with all his views to be a product of the social environment, they at the same time declared that the social relations of people are governed by opinion. So it turned out a kind of vicious circle.

But the noted contradiction is revealed only in the light of the teachings of Marxism-Leninism. Within the limits of their philosophy, thinkers of the 18th century reasoned quite logically. The fact is that "social environment" was a narrower concept for them than for the realists of the 19th century. They reduced it to the political system, to legal, moral relations, to the very social phenomena that, in their opinion, having a certain impact on a person, are themselves nothing but the result of the activity of human consciousness. The Enlighteners did not include in the social environment the material conditions of people's lives, which ultimately determine the class structure of society and its ideological superstructure.

Failure to understand the role of the material factor in the development of history naturally led the Enlightenment theorists to reassess the importance of ideas and educational work in the struggle for the future. Thus, the idea of a revolutionary change in the economic structure of life was relegated to the background.

Idealistic views on society, on the sources of its development, significantly weakened the struggle of the enlighteners for realism. Ultimately, they led to the appearance in their work of moralizing tendencies, abstract heroes who serve as an illustration of certain educational ideas.

The Contradictions of Enlightenment Realism

The inconsistency of the educational ideology determined the duality of the entire artistic structure of the realistic works of the 18th century. They are characterized by a "double plot", two types of heroes, the obligatory triumph of moral virtue.

The conflict in an enlightenment novel or drama usually has a sharp social content, it begins, as a rule, quite realistically, based on the opposition of property or even class differences, but then "moral forces" come into play, designed to solve the ensuing knot of contradictions by "moral", "reasonable" means (double plot line).

In Fildint's History of Tom Jones the Foundling, the hero's encounter with Squire Western has a real, not an ideal, basis. Tom, rejected as Sophia's fiancé because he is poor, sets off on a wandering journey. His adventures give the writer the opportunity to paint a historically concrete picture of English life with all its social vices. In the end, the "moral" Tom, and not the "immoral" Blifil, becomes Sophia's husband. Her father turns his anger to mercy, but only after Tom unexpectedly becomes a rich heir.

Sudden turns in the destinies of heroes are generally characteristic of enlightenment literature. The natural development of events here often gives way to all sorts of accidents, when it is necessary at all costs to ensure the victory of a "moral" person.

A saving role in the fate of the "moral heroes" of the educational drama is often played by unexpectedly discovered family ties ("Bate son" by Diderot, "The Indigent" by Mercier - Charlotte's conflict with Lee), unexpectedly acquired wealth, which immediately eliminates all disagreements between "moral" and "immoral" characters. In Mercier's Vinegar Cart, the vinegar seller Dominique, in order to get his son to marry the daughter of the arrogant rich man Delomaire, demonstrates a barrel in front of the latter, full of gold. The argument has its immediate effect, and all obstacles to marriage are removed.

An educational novel (Agaton by Wieland, The Adventures of Roderick Random and The Adventures of Peregrick Pickle by Smollet, The Story of Tom Jones Foundling by Fielding, etc.) was widely used in the Enlightenment. Its main character usually goes through a rather harsh school of life education, experiences many kinds of adventures, but then, as a rule, sticks to the safe haven of worldly well-being.

In the initial situation, the hero of an educational novel is far from the ideal of moral perfection - this is an ordinary person, endowed with many weaknesses, prone to vices. But by the end of the story, he's under the influence life experience morally reborn. An example is Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle, whom Smollet, despite all their outrages and moral failures, nevertheless leads to the path of salvation. Enlighteners had an indestructible faith in the capabilities of man, in his good natural inclinations, and with this they linked their hopes for the internal healing of society.

18th century realism performed not only critical functions. For Fielding, Smollett, Lessing, Diderot, Schiller and other enlighteners, it was no less important to create the image of a positive hero. Criticism of soulless, depraved aristocrats is accompanied in their work by the poeticization of the bourgeois, elevated to the rank of "natural people". Moreover, if the negative heroes of the Enlightenment live according to the laws of the social environment that gave birth to them and are distinguished by great concreteness, then the positive ones rise above their class, social affiliation, are, as it were, outside of history, being guided in their behavior by the norms of reason and morality in their educational meaning. They are "set" in advance, they are not characterized by a tendency to self-development, which is the most important feature of realistic art.

The positive hero in Enlightenment realism acts as a "product of nature", and not of socio-historical circumstances. This was his main weakness. But at the same time, a rational grain was laid in the orientation of the enlighteners towards naturalness. It consisted in the desire to saturate literature with humanistic content, to turn it into a means of disseminating educational ideas.

Diderot, Lessing and their like-minded people dreamed of creating integral characters, which were given in their time by the literature of antiquity and the Renaissance; their aesthetic, ideal was a man with a wealth of feelings, civic stamina and consciousness.

However, the enlighteners failed to fully realize this most important provision of their aesthetics. Their positive hero was either a bunch of moral virtues (in the "petty-bourgeois dramas" of Diderot, Mercier, and others), or suffered from internal split (in the tragedies of Lessing, Schiller). Personal in it is opposed to civil, duty - to feeling. Such a contradiction could arise as a result of an enlightening view of the essence of heroics, when a person, placed in tragic conditions, had to fight not with the social environment that gives rise to tragic collisions, but with his own natural shortcomings.

The noted duality of Enlightenment realism is not manifested in all works of literature of the Enlightenment. Examples can be given when positive characters in the work of realists associated with the ideology of the Enlightenment are devoid of any schematism. Suffice it to recall Figaro and Werther. The artistic veracity of these images is explained by the fact that Beaumarchais and Goethe relied primarily on real life phenomena when creating them.

Enlightenment realism is usually dated to the 18th century. On the whole, this is absolutely true. French Revolution 1789-1794 changed the ideological atmosphere in Europe, created the prerequisites for new searches in the field of philosophical and aesthetic theory. It demonstrated the enormous role of the people in history. Thus, the sociological concept of the Enlightenment that the world is ruled by opinions was called into question.

Events of the late XVIII - early XIX centuries have shown that society develops not at the will of individual legislators, but according to its own internal laws, which have an objective character. This circumstance forced both theorists and artists to study reality, its hidden sources of development. Literature took up the study, the explanation of life, in order to penetrate into the origins of the emergence of social evil. Critical realism is emerging.

Nevertheless, the ideas of the Enlightenment live on at this time. In the 19th century there are still writers who believe in the all-conquering power of the word and moral example. And among them, first of all, it is necessary to name J. Sand and C. Dickens. In Russia, educational traditions strongly affect the work of A. S. Pushkin, I. S. Turgenev. They are refracted in a peculiar way in the views of Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, who, on the whole, stood on other, revolutionary-democratic positions. However, in the XIX century. Enlightenment realism appears as a survival phenomenon, by no means constituting the dominant literary trend.

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In Russian literature of the 18th century, one more, third direction can be distinguished. It denounced serfdom by means of everyday, realistic satire and fought against classicism and sentimentalism. Traditionally, Novikov, Krylov, Fonvizin and, most recently, with reservations, Radishchev are attributed to this direction.
The qualification of this group of writers as a trend encounters certain difficulties. This direction is not of the same type compared to the previous two. It was not so compact, it did not have a well-defined code. And yet, in a sense, this direction existed. It was dominated by elements of satire and everyday realism based on direct observation. There was always something anti-serfdom, anti-masters, anti-salon in the artistic images and critical judgments of this group of writers.
It is no coincidence that the first fiery "Word about Lomonosov" - a patriot, a genius of Russian literature, a native of the people - was uttered by Novikov in his "Experience of a Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers" (1772). Novikov said that "the cheerfulness and firmness of his spirit" were reflected in all enterprises. The second "Word about Lomonosov" was spoken by Radishchev in "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" (1790). The types of future Fonvizin landowners are already caught in Novikov's magazine sketches - such are the images of Falaley, his parents and uncle. Then these types were picked up by Krylov in “Eulogy in memory of my grandfather” (1792), and even later they were resurrected again in a parodic plan by Radishchev in “Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight” (1801). The ideological and stylistic closeness between these writers was sometimes so great that scientists still argue who owns, for example, the Fragment of a Journey to I *** T *** that appeared in The Painter in 1772. Some attribute the excerpt to Novikov, as the publisher of Trutnya, others to Radishchev, due to the similarity of the ideological motives of the excerpt with Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
The writers of this trend fought against the ceremonial solemnity of classicism, its odes, tragedies and developed the comedy genre, burlesque and travesty techniques. Some of them struggled with the extremes of sentimentalism, false, feigned sensitivity (Krylov, Radishchev). The main method that all satirists resorted to was a bolder intrusion into life than classicism and sentimentalism allow. They rejected the prevailing court and salon ideas about reality with the irresistible logic of everyday facts deliberately introduced into literature, pointing to the most important and most ugly in social reality - serfdom. Satirists expanded the scope of art by including "low" matters in it. In essence, a new aesthetic system, unlike classicism and sentimentalism, was created in many respects.
The name “enlightenment realism” (N. L. Stepanov) or “the artistic method of the Russian Enlightenment” (G. P. Makogonenko) in relation to the listed group of writers in Russian literature of the 18th century began to be used by analogy with the established terminology developed by researchers of Western European literatures of that period (N. Ya. Berkovsky, V. R. Grib, etc.). The basis for the analogy is given, firstly, by the tendencies of realism in the work of these writers and, secondly, by the presence in Russia of that time of a certain educational movement (in the broad sense of the word "enlightenment").
Enlightenment realism is one of the private creations of the enlightenment movement, which also influenced other literary movements - classicism and sentimentalism. The main ideas of the Enlightenment, connected with the struggle for the emancipation of man, the preaching of his extra-class values, faith in the reasonable principles of people's activities, the dependence of their characters on education, the social environment - all this is the most fully artistically translated enlightenment realism. But one should take into account the great conventionality of the concept of "enlightenment realism" or "Russian Enlightenment" of the 18th century. It is clear that we give the concept of Enlightenment a somewhat vague character and it must be correlated with a clear, scientific definition of enlightenment, which was given by V. I. Lenin in relation to Russia in the 60s of the XIX century in the work “What heritage are we renouncing?”. Enlighteners in the Leninist sense are characterized by: hostility to serfdom and all its offspring, defense of education, freedom, European forms of life, upholding the interests of the masses, sincere belief that the abolition of serfdom will bring with it general welfare, sincere support for this.
We cannot automatically extend the standard of enlightenment of the 60s of the 19th century, as V. I. Lenin interprets it, to the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century. None of the Russian enlighteners of the 18th century, except for Radishchev, was a supporter of the abolition of serfdom. Novikov, Krylov, and, in particular, Fonvizin did not go further than criticizing its individual aspects, perversions, and extremes. Nor did they have a unified view of the Western European enlighteners of the 18th century. For example, Fonvizin sharply differed from Radishchev in his attitude towards the French enlighteners. The religious Fonvizin considered the French materialists to be atheists who violated morality ... And in Novikov and Krylov, we will find almost nothing about the French enlighteners, except for superficial attacks against Frenchmania.
It makes sense to single out Krylov, Novikov, Fonvizin in special group as realist satirists and enlighteners only in the broadest sense, as people who stood for the criticism of social reality and education in general. Only one Radishchev fits a more precise definition of an enlightener.
All this makes us treat the concept of "enlightenment realism" with reservations.
Novikov should be considered as one of the first representatives of the direction of enlightenment realism. In 1769-1770, he published the journal "Truten" and boldly entered into polemics with Catherine II, who secretly supervised the publication of the journal "Vsakaaya Vsyachina". The subject of controversy was the question of the tasks and meaning of satire. On the side of Novikov, the fresh forces of Russian literature united. He was supported in the controversy by the magazines Mix by L. Sechkarev and Hell's Post by F. Emin. Then Novikov continued to develop his program in the magazines Pustomel (1770), Painter (1772-1773), Wallet (1774).
Defeated in a magazine controversy, Catherine II started an investigation of Novikov in connection with his publishing and Masonic activities and in 1792 imprisoned him in the Shlisselburg fortress.
Novikov the satirist is a transitional figure. On the one hand, he is connected in his tastes, in his passion for parables, allegories, with the generation of Sumarokov. No wonder the “Drone” was decorated with an epigraph from Sumarokov’s fable: “They (peasants. - V.K.) work, and you (nobles. - V.K.) eat their work.” On the other hand, Novikov is a more determined satirist and is associated with Radishchev.
Literary and critical heritage of Novikov is relatively small. It is more connected with history, philosophy, journalism and, mainly, journalism. Let us single out in it the features that are programmatic in relation to the direction.
Catherine II wanted to limit the tasks of satire to abstract moralization: not to offend personalities and facts, "not to aim at persons." Novikov proved the need for a specific satire “on personalities”, “on vices”, in order to give it an effective character. Novikov ridiculed the "rules" of false satire. “Many people of weak conscience,” he wrote, “never mention the name of a vice without adding to it philanthropy ... but it is more fitting to call such people philanthropy philanthropy. In my opinion, the one who corrects vices is more philanthropic than the one who condescends to them or (to say in Russian) indulges ... ".
When Catherine II spoke out against Novikov’s “melancholic,” i.e., skeptical, letters and threatened to “destroy” Truten, he made his attacks on the “old lady” even more transparent: “Madam Everyday Things is angry with us ... It is clear that Madame Everything is so spoiled with praise that now even then she considers it a crime if someone does not praise her. I don't know why she calls my letter a curse? Cursing is swearing, expressed in vile words...”, but there is nothing of the kind in Trutnya. As for threats of annihilation, this word is "proper to autocracy." The most venomous thing in this Novikov's answer was, perhaps, the repeated mention of the "public": "I am very pleased that Mrs. All sorts of things handed me over to the judgment of the public. The public will see from our future letters which of us is right.” Novikov directly pointed out his goals, and he achieved them. In such a sharp public dispute, it was possible to beat the enemy only with the truth of the facts.
Novikov the critic was well aware of the nature of his work, sensitively reacted to the experiences of others in the same way. In the history of Russian literature, he tried to highlight the line that represented satirical creativity.
In the preface to the journal "Pustomel" (1770), Novikov developed further the provisions of Kantemir and Trediakovsky on criticism, putting it on the same level with art: "... it is as difficult to criticize with taste as it is to compose well." It is probably no coincidence that Novikov called his next sharp critical journalistic journal “The Painter”.
The brightest document of Novikov's actual critical activity and the stage of isolation of criticism in independent region is his "Experience of a historical dictionary about Russian writers" (1772). Belinsky regarded the dictionary as "a rich fact of the actual literary criticism of that time." His "Dictionary," Belinsky wrote, "can no longer be missed in the historical review of Russian criticism." In addition, Novikov the critic owns a number of valuable notes on current contemporary literary phenomena, on Fonvizin and other writers.
The reason for compiling the dictionary was the biased note "News about some Russian writers" in the Leipzig journal "New Library of Fine Sciences and Liberal Arts" (1768), written by some "Traveling Russian". His name has not yet been deciphered. Izvestia spoke mainly about aristocratic writers of the post-Petrine period.
Novikov in the Dictionary significantly expanded the circle of writers: instead of 42, as it was in Izvestia, he names 317, including 57 writers of pre-Petrine Rus'. According to the social composition, Novikov has only about 50 writers from the nobility; the majority are raznochintsy and persons of clergy.
But the real reason for the appearance of the "Dictionary" was the desire of Novikov in his own way to "collect" Russian literature in complete picture, to show that writers, thinkers, preachers, educators are the true spiritual leaders of the Russian people, its greatest value. The Dictionary continued Novikov's struggle with Catherine II, who claimed to be the enlightener of the people, it turned out to be a spiritual support in modern struggle. Novikov defiantly did not name Catherine II among Russian writers, but, perhaps, with no secret thought, he named eight names of enlightened girls and women who practiced literature, which was a new and unusual thing, especially in the pre-Karamzin era.
With unconcealed irony, Novikov spoke of the “pocket” odes to the tsarina V. Petrov, the author of the ode “To the Carousel”, to the victories of the Russian army, fleet, to the arrival of “His Excellency Count Alexei Grigorievich Orlov”, and so on. and especially the "random poems" known to have been written in order to get into favor. Petrov "strains to follow in the footsteps of the Russian lyric poet", but it is still difficult to conclude whether "he will be the second Lomonosov or will remain only Petrov ...".
Sumarokov was described in just a few lines. According to the template, he is called the "Northern Racine", in eclogues he is equated with Virgil, in satirical parables and fables he is placed above Phaedrus and La Fontaine. But Novikov did not indicate anything Russian connected with life in Sumarokov.
But Novikov singled out those writers who, one way or another, had a desire for originality. With praise, he spoke of folk themes in the work of Ablesimov, Popov, V. Maikov, who was original and "borrowed nothing." The compiler of the "Dictionary" painted living portraits of writers: Lomonosov, Kozlovsky, Popovsky, Anichkov, Trediakovsky - patriots who fought for Russian culture.
Novikov to a large extent distanced himself from group interests, did not touch on the old strife between writers. He most fully and objectively of all his contemporaries noted the many-sided talents and merits of Lomonosov, the purity of his style, knowledge and development of the rules of the Russian language, the lyrical and oratorical talent of his ode, a poem about Peter the Great. Novikov considered it appropriate to highlight the purely personal features of Lomonosov as a Russian person: “He had a cheerful disposition, spoke briefly and witty, and liked to use sharp jokes in conversations; he was faithful to his fatherland and friends, patronized those practicing verbal sciences and encouraged them; in his manners he was for the most part affectionate, generous to the seekers of his mercy, but at the same time he was hot and quick-tempered.
Novikov had a clear predilection for writers who had come out of the bottom, symbolizing the power folk spirit: Feofan, Emin, Kulibin (merchant, self-taught inventor who wrote poetry); Volkov, son of a merchant, founder of the Russian theater, a man of many-sided talents; Krasheninnikov, an explorer who described Kamchatka, the author of the word "On the Benefits of Sciences and Arts". About Krasheninnikov, Novikov said: “He was one of those who, not by the nobility of the breed, not by the good deed of happiness, rise, but by themselves, by their qualities, by their labors and merits, glorify their breed and make themselves worthy of eternal remembrance.” Krasheninnikov, as you know, was a friend of Lomonosov.
Novikov singled out, wherever possible, a satirical line. He devoted a lengthy column to Cantemir, noting his honesty, straightforwardness, sharp, enlightened mind, who "loved satires." But Novikov's main sympathies undoubtedly belonged to Fonvizin.
Even at the first readings of The Brigadier in salons and palaces in 1769, Novikov, connected with Fonvizin by ties of friendship at Moscow University, placed a benevolent note about him in the Painter in the form of news from Parnassus: the muses Thalia and Melpomene were embarrassed by the appearance of a new talent, complaining to their "father" Sumarokov. The allegorical note ended with the recognition that a new idol of the public had come to replace Sumarokov.
In "Pustomel" in 1770, Novikov again returned to Fonvizin and his comedy "The Brigadier": "His comedy was praised by reasonable and knowledgeable people so much that it was better and Molière in France did not see acceptance with his comedies and did not want ...".
A more accurate assessment of Fonvizin was given in the Dictionary. Recall that Fonvizin had not yet written "Undergrowth", and Novikov already noted, referring to "The Brigadier", "sharp words and intricate jokes" that are "scattered on every page"; “It was composed precisely in our manners, the characters are very well sustained, and the plot is the simplest and most natural.” Fonvizin led a group of writers that enjoyed special sympathy with Novikov - Emin, Maikov, Popov.
All aspects of Novikov's activity - journalist, satirist, critic - contributed to the development of Russian literature in a democratic direction, towards realism. But his own creativity is still such that realism here is not a system of creativity. These are just elements and trends. Novikov, still in the spirit of classicism, resorts to meaningful names of heroes (Pravdolyubov, Milovana, Recklessness). His portraits are built on the principle of a syllogism, a ready-made formula, a term, and are not deployed as faces or images. His rationality is still strong. The closest thing to realistic writing is its copies from lordly and peasant "replies", the first outlines of living people: Falaley, Filatka, Andryushka, etc. This is a step forward from the "inclination" of someone else's satire on Russian mores, as was the case with Lukin, a step towards Fonvizin's grotesque masks, his purely Russian plots. The merit of Novikov as a critic is that he singled out a satirical line in the history of Russian literature and connected his most secret hopes in the future with writers of a satirical direction, or, as he sometimes very well put it, "real painting."
In the literary position of Krylov, researchers (D. D. Blagoy, N. L. Stepanov and others) unanimously note its versatile satirical and educational character. Kaiba (1792) ridicules classic high-flown odes and sentimental idylls. Nights (1792) parodies Jung's pre-romantic Night Thoughts, translated by Karamzin, as well as adventurous and picaresque short stories in the spirit. Lesage and M. Chulkov, and even earlier, in the “Mail of the Spirits” (1789), Scarron's burlesque paintings of morals. Travesty is one of the characteristic techniques of the satirist Krylov, who was not satisfied with any of the existing literary trends, but who had not yet finally found his own.
He is a master at accepting and compromising various literary masks. His "Speeches" (be it "Speech spoken by a rake in an assembly of fools" or "Eulogy to the science of killing time", "Eulogy to Yermalafida") ridicule sentimentalism in a parodic form. Krylov came up with walking nicknames for his literary opponents: under Yermalafid, it is believed, Karamzin was bred (“Yermalafiya” in Greek means verbose chatter, nonsense, rubbish); under Antirichardson - a sentimental writer, author of "Russian Pamela" P. Yu. Lvov; under the "imaginary Detouche" - V. I. Lukin. "A eulogy in memory of my grandfather" (1792) continues the tradition of Novikov's satire, "A letter from a county nobleman to his son Falaley" - Fonvizin's images.
There are elements of eclecticism in Krylov's activity, and yet it must be defined more precisely than is usually done. Krylov's struggle was fraught with an attempt to pave the way for some third direction. And indeed, he fights to bring art closer to the truth of life, to Russian reality, to introduce serious content into it. In the 19th and 44th letters of the Spirit Mail, he ridiculed both coarse, perverted tastes and court entertaining opera. Krylov, long before Gogol, proclaimed that "the theater is a school of morals, a mirror of passions, a court of delusions and a game of reason." And at the same time, in his reviews of Klushin's comedy Laughter and Grief, he introduced (after Novikov) an important clarification into the concept of "public": there is an audience generous with applause, "sudden verdicts" that should not be relied upon.
Krylov approached the social understanding of beauty. He knew well that one must argue about "tastes" and this is one of the duties of criticism. Long before Chernyshevsky, Krylov compared different views, for example, about female beauty, which existed in the peasant and master environment: “To be portly, to have a natural blush on the cheeks is decent for one peasant woman; but a noble woman should try to avoid such a disadvantage: leanness, pallor, languor - these are her virtues. In this enlightened age, taste in everything reaches perfection, and a woman of great society is compared to Dutch cheese, which is only good when it is spoiled ... ". Some shades in this quote can be correctly understood if we remember that Krylov’s evidence comes, so to speak, from the opposite: after all, a certain “philosopher in fashion” is discussing this topic, trying to seem reasonable without having a drop of reason ... But the comparison of tastes suggested itself, and Krylov’s sympathies, of course, are on the side of the “natural blush”.
Silf Svetovid writes about the strange customs of some people who are not ashamed to be known as parasites and often repeat with arrogance the words: "my villages, my peasants, my dogs, and so on." Krylov paints a bleak picture of social order. The quantitative accumulation of observations is accompanied by elements of realistic typification. Sylph Farsight informed the magician Malikulmulk that the generous name of a person, in truth, is applicable only to the “farmer”, “ ordinary people”, “not attached to either the court, or to the civilian, or to the military services.” In "Kaiba", ridiculing literary opponents, Krylov unequivocally opposed life common people and his morality of court life, full of immorality.
In a review of the comedy of his friend and associate in the publication of The Spectator and St. Petersburg Mercury A. Klushin Laughter and Sorrow (1793), Krylov outlined his concept of dramaturgy and theatrical performance in some detail.
He makes the following requirement to any critic: to be impartial, not to upset either by scolding or rudeness, but to act as he himself would like to be treated.
It is important to compare Krylov's judgments about comedy with Lukin's theory, whose prefaces Krylov reproaches for length, and comedies for lack of sharpness. Another comedian - Klushin - he credited the use of contrasts to ridicule vice with laughter and crying; the law of drama is the rapid development of action. In Klushin's comedy, the critic naturally condemned the shortcomings in the plot and denouement, for "the author should not seem like a miracle worker, but an imitator of nature"; to build a plot, you never need to resort to more tricks than those that occur in life. "In the theatre, moralizing must be drawn from the action."
Krylov's dramatic theory was clearly above the rules on which Klushin's comedy is built, and overtook the development of contemporary drama. This theory was suitable for the later written by Krylov's own comedies "A Lesson to Daughters" and "Fashion Shop", extremely close to the manner of Fonvizin and partly the early Griboyedov.
But one should not overestimate the degree of realism of Krylov's criticism. It is impossible to mentally transfer to his activities in the 18th century the ideas of Krylov the fabulist of the 19th century, when he became a great realist. The "educational novel" condensed to laconicism in "Eulogy in memory of my grandfather" or the "travel novel" in "Kaiba" do not yet have an expanded system of the "enlightenment" novel. The first is reminiscent of a naturalistic "reply" in the spirit of Novikov, and the second - Voltaire's "philosophical" novels, the "realism" of which is extremely arbitrary.
Let's take a look at what Krylov blamed Yermalafida, i.e. Karamzin. In many cases, Krylov "nitpicked" as a classic, and not as a realist. He reproached sentimentalists for going too far in their liberties and violating the old canons: sentimentalists in comedies “appear on stage whole nation in bast shoes, in zipuns and in hats with a crease. Yermalafid can “adjust high moralizing to the balalaika, and only reasonable reasoning can be danced by men ...”. For all the playfulness of Krylov's tone, his sympathy is not on the side of Yermalafida and the "bearded ones."
Krylov the critic was a satirical realist who allowed more and more intrusion of the social element into art. But he still had a strong eye for classicism.
It was Fonvizin who came closest to what we call pre-realism. Without "Undergrowth" there would be no "Woe from Wit" and "Inspector".
Modern researchers P. N. Berkov, K. V. Pigarev have revealed in detail all the features of realism in The Undergrowth. And yet, for Fonvizin, some rules of classicism were still obligatory. It is no coincidence that Belinsky vigilantly noticed them in The Undergrowth. It would be more correct, as K. V. Pigarev does, to speak only about the tendencies of realism in The Undergrowth, and not about the complete realistic method.
It is known that Fonvizin, like Novikov, Krylov, has a series satirical works in the form of dictionaries, questions and answers, reasoning, messages, in which he acts as an accuser of feudal ulcers, a household satirist, a realist. Just like Novikov and Krylov, he expanded the limits of satire in classicism and undermined the latter. Fonvizin gradually replaced the "inclination" of other people's images to Russian customs with a direct depiction of Russian customs. In The Experience of the Russian Soslovnik, he was interested in the discrepancy between the external title of a person and his internal content. All this created the prerequisites for realism. Fonvizin struggled with excessive admiration for everything foreign, from the Russian people he demanded true literacy, good knowledge of the natural language, consciousness of his patriotic duty (“Petition to the Russian Minerva from Russian writers”).
But Fonvizin's criticism was limited. In comedies, he wanted to "condemn" not all the nobility, but only those who abuse their rights. huge power critical image serfdom was weakened by very moderate conclusions. He emphasized that he was far from “free speech” and “hated” it with all his soul.
Fonvizin was sharp and even bilious in his assessment of the French enlighteners: Voltaire, Rousseau, and especially Helvetius. The only thing he praised. Fonvizin, being in France, is an abundance of opportunities for education and theater. Staging tragedies did not attract him: in his opinion, they were not original, especially after the death of the actor Leken - this could be seen in Russia. But the comedies delighted him: “I never imagined,” he wrote to his relatives and P.I. Panin in 1778, “to see the imitation of nature so perfect.”
With an experienced eye, he noticed a highly developed beginning of the “ensemble” in the French game, especially when the best actors participated in the comedy: “You can’t, watching it, not forget yourself so as not to honor it as a true story that is happening at that moment.” There is something new in Fonvizin's remarks about French comedy in comparison with the views of Lukin, Plavilytsikov, Krylov. Real story he is placed above the fictional comedy, he requires full realistic plausibility, reliability of the reproduction of life. No one in Russia has ever emphasized this fidelity of art to the truth of life with such persistence.
The theater had great value for Fonvizin the playwright. In Russia, Fonvizin was on friendly terms with Dmitrevsky, Volkov, Shuisky, used their advice, adapted the roles to the possibilities of live performers.
The way of thinking and the nature of Fonvizin's work are very reminiscent of Gogol. Fonvizin is the first Russian writer who has a contradiction between the objective meaning of creativity and subjective intentions and judgments. But theoretically, neither these contradictions, nor the nature of the realism that developed in his work were comprehended either by himself or by contemporary criticism. For a long time they fell out of sight and subsequent judges of Russian literature. Vyazemsky, in his well-known monograph on Fonvizin (1848), bypasses this creative problem, interpreting the contradictions of the writer in a purely biographical, psychological terms. It can be said that only in our time methodological prerequisites have developed that allow us to correctly reveal the contradictory inner writer's image of Fonvizin.
The literary and critical heritage of Radishchev is small. Only his article “Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight, or Dramatic Narrative Conversations of a Young Man with His Nurse” belongs to the field of criticism in the proper sense of the word.
This article is devoted to an apology for Trediakovsky's hexameter and a satirical ridicule of the Rousseau theory of education. But it is expedient to bring for consideration several chapters from Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow (1790) that are relevant to criticism: the chapter “Tver”, in which Radishchev discusses Russian versification; the chapter “Torzhok” with a brief account of the history of censorship and the section “The Tale of Lomonosov”, which is not accidentally placed at the end of the “Journey” and, as it were, sums up everything that is said in the book about the talent, the sweeping soul “to the glory of the born” Russian people. Finally, of great importance for understanding Radishchev's aesthetic positions is his philosophical treatise On Man, On His Mortality and Immortality (written in Ilimsk and published in 1809).
A writer, a thinker and a revolutionary merged together in Radishchev. Only his work fully reflected the social experience of the 18th century.
Radishchev deviated far from literary criticism proper, but deviated towards those important general, political and philosophical problems, without which criticism cannot exist. Its significance is not in the development of any individual sections of criticism, but in the development of its general theoretical premises. Radishchev deeply understood the nature of the spiritual. He explained the origin of logical categories by the results of people's practical activities, the conditions of their social life. He wrote that "upon opening the skull, you will not find signs of thought anywhere, but it is in the brain and this is enough for us." "Reasoning is nothing but addition to experiments...". Our feelings are aroused by nature, then these sensations ascend to reason, reason and become thought. “Who would have thought that such a slightest tool, language, is the creator of everything that is graceful in a person”; "... speech, expanding the mental forces in a person, feels the effect of these over him and becomes almost an expression of omnipotence."
Radishchev consistently revealed what connects man with the animal kingdom and what qualitatively distinguishes man from him. This question was subsequently discussed by Feuerbach, Darwin, Spencer, Bucher, Taylor, Plekhanov, Engels.
Like all educators of the 18th century, Radishchev attached an important role to the environment in the upbringing of a person. He knew how to draw truly revolutionary conclusions from this situation. Unjust laws distort the nature of a person, affect his temper and mental strength. There is nothing more harmful, said Radishchev in the chapter "Torzhok", as "guardianship" over the thought, "payoffs in thoughts." Some “uniform censor” filled with the spirit of servility to the authorities, “one senseless police officer of the deanery can do the greatest harm in education and stop the procession of reason for many years.”
However, Radishchev's literary tastes were by no means as advanced in everything as his philosophical and political views. In the chapter "Tver", Radishchev, in the form of a conversation between two passers-by, discusses inconsistently the obstacles that hinder the successful development of Russian poetry. These obstacles, as it turns out, are created not only by the political environment, censorship, but also by "authorities" such as Lomonosov and partly Trediakovsky, Sumarokov. They canonized iambic and rhyme too much, and with their authority they supposedly threw a “bridle of a great example” on poetry, which makes it difficult to see the possibilities of hexameter, unrhymed verse. But what would those prospects be? It is unlikely that the experiments proposed by Radishchev could replace the victories of iambic that have already taken place, the relative ease of language achieved.
It was necessary to update the content and improve the form at the same time. In contradiction with his own statements, Radishchev immediately offered an example of "newfangled" poetry - the ode "Liberty". But it was just written in traditional sonorous iambs, with rhyme, and its innovation lay in the unusualness of the theme. Because of the title alone, as its author sadly declared, he was denied publication of this work... As for Radishchev's proposal to depict the "difficulties of the action itself", that is, the struggle for political freedom, even with the texture of a difficult verse, it led only to disharmonious verses, such as this: "Turn darkness into the light of slavery." In vain did the author disagree with those who told him frankly that such a verse was "very tight and difficult." Radishchev wanted to preserve the high odic style in poetry, giving it a civil sound. Pushkin's "Liberty" (1817) is also written in iambs and with rhyme, but without the deliberate difficulty of the verse.
But if it was hardly necessary to translate all Russian poetry into hexameters (“dactylochoreic hexameters”), then this did not mean that it was not necessary to develop the Russian hexameter at all. It was needed at least for translations of Homer and other classical authors. And in this regard, the experience of Trediakovsky, the author of Tilemakhida, was "good for something," as the subtitle of the introductory section of Radishchev's article "Monument to the Dactylochoreic Knight" says. Radishchev opposes the ingrained prejudice against Trediakovsky. Trediakov's "not funny with dactyls", but "his misfortune was that he, being a learned man, had no taste." But he understood well what Russian versification was. Radishchev gives many examples of successful, sonorous, full-voiced hexameters in Trediakovsky.
Trediakovsky's idea to develop a Russian hexameter, a "high" size, Radishchev considered fruitful and promising. This is the essence of his “monument” to the not entirely successful “knight” Trediakovsky, who began to pave the way for dactylochoreic meter in Russian poetry and needed an apology.
Pushkin, as is well known, also highly valued the philological and versification studies of Trediakovsky. Radishchev also refers to that side of Tilemakhida, which, in his opinion, is "good for nothing." There is a lot of mannered moralizing in the work, and this brings it closer to the sentimentalist "novel of education", such as, for example, Emile Rousseau. And Radishchev does not spare "Tilemakhida" and "Emil".
Radishchev parodies "Tilemakhida" and the "novel of education" in the spirit of Novikov-Krylovsky and Fonvizin travesty, reducing the high-flown educational maxims of mentors with the low truths of living reality, which are much dearer to him. Here he acts, like them, a satirist.
Radishchev tells what happened to the Prostakovs (he slightly changed the name of the Prostakovs) after the punishment that befell them. They left their patrimony, successfully shied away from guardianship, bought the Narenhof manor near St. Petersburg (“the manor of fools”) and lived happily ever after. The neighboring landowners were even worse than them. The trends of the time were reflected in the fact that the Prostyakovs began to raise their youngest son no longer in the same way as Mitrofanushka, but according to the system of Rousseau and Bazedov. The younger one's name is Faleley - he, of course, is akin to Novikov's Falaley from The Painter. Uncle Cymbald, assigned to Faleley, tirelessly recites memorized maxims to the home-grown Emil, abundantly quoting the Tilemachida. And Faleley sneers at them with the manners of the same incorrigible village undergrowth. The bickering between the servant and the master is reminiscent of the lively tricks of the then comedies. Much is built on an unexpected rethinking of incomprehensible words, consonances. Cymbalda speaks of the goddess Artemis, while Faleley thinks that we are talking about some peasant Artemy; Cymbalda quotes the verse: "Many different colors splattered green beds ... ", and Faleley flatly mutters:" I know, uncle, I know; mother has a dowry made of damask green bedding.” The carnal passions that were bursting with the pupil of Cymbalda soon burst out. He fell in love with the girl Lukerya, and his mind was clouded. Like a house of cards, all educational recipes collapsed...
The Tale of Lomonosov is not only the final chord of Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, but also an outstanding work by Radishchev the critic. The Word... deeply analyzes the problem of the role of genius in the progressive development of literature.
Radishchev “weaves” the “planter of the Russian word” with a civil “crown”, and not the one that was usually awarded to “servile” to the authorities: “... as long as the Russian word strikes the ear, you will live and not die.” Lomonosov's services to Russian literature are "diverse". In Lomonosov's great "accommodating" odes, everyone can envy the charming pictures of the people's peace and quiet, "this strong fence of cities and villages." After Lomonosov, many people will be able to become famous, "but you were the first." The glory of Lomonosov "is the glory of the leader." And yet there was no worthy follower of Lomonosov in the “civilian orgy”.
But all the more severe should be the trial of some of the weak sides of Lomonosov's work. Radishchev throws a sharp reproach to Lomonosov: "... you flattered Elizabeth with praise in verse." As much as Radishchev would like to forgive this Lomonosov for the sake of the great inclination of his soul to beneficence, but why “sting the truth and offspring”: they will not forgive if they prevaricate. The merit of a genius is great, but there is a higher court, the court of the people and time: “Truth is the highest deity for us ...” You can find other shortcomings in Lomonosov: he passed by dramaturgy, “languished in the epic”, was a stranger in verses of “sensibility”, was not always insightful in judgments and “in his very odes he sometimes contained more words than thoughts.” But "the one who paved the way to the temple of glory is the first culprit in acquiring glory, even though he could not enter the temple." "In the path of Russian literature, Lomonosov is the first."
Behind these assessments, Radishchev already peeped a new, his own, more consistent program. On the revolutionary path of serving Russian literature, Radishchev himself was the first.
Thus, classicist criticism was the program of a whole literary trend for three-quarters of a century. It carried through the decades faithful to the original principles of Lomonosov and developed, arguing or agreeing with him, in the circle of several basic problems.
She consistently delved into the development of the problems of Russian versification, the composition of Russian literary language, three styles and three main genres: odes (Lomonosov, Derzhavin), epics (Trediakovsky, Kheraskov) and dramas (Sumarokov, Lukin, Melters). At first, the normativity generally accepted in European classicism was affirmed in criticism, and then more and more criticism began to be imbued with national specifics, generalizing the emerging poetics of Russian classicism, the personal experience of writers. The main provisions of the concept of the history of Russian literature from ancient times began to be outlined.
On the methodological side, criticism struggled between two extremes: on the one hand, the “eternal” rules of art consecrated by tradition, on the other, the complete arbitrariness of personal taste. Therefore, in criticism there were either too frequent references to authorities, or a passion for trifles, stylistic nit-picking. Gradually, rules derived from creativity itself began to play an important role (Derzhavin, Kheraskov, Lukin, Fonvizin). In terms of its genres, criticism moved from treatises and rhetorics to prefaces and commentaries and, finally, to articles. The critical vocation became more and more separated from the literary one. In criticism, Sumarok's "average" style, general accessibility, and simplicity began to win more and more.
Classicism was for a long time the only trend in Russian literature and did not experience attacks from the outside, because its rules essentially had enduring significance and, in a modified form, continued to live in other directions.
Sentimentalism in literature and in criticism was initially designated, as well as classicism, as an innovation of one outstanding person. Following the Lomonosov period, the Karamzin period followed. As in classicism, here criticism is closely associated with literature. Sometimes criticism even outstripped literature (if we take, for example, the problem of Shakespeare in Karamzin).
Important innovations in sentimentalist criticism are striking. Karamzin managed to merge criticism with journalism and give it a burning public character. The very pulse of all literary life has changed. The critic-journalist, the reader and the writer have joined in a living chain of interaction. Criticism taught to read and taught to write. The public has learned to wait for critical reviews of literary novelties. In this sense, Karamzin "wanted" the public to read. Criticism began to generalize the real practice of its literary direction, and not just develop "rules", although Russian works were still relatively rarely analyzed. Criticism, combined with the latest aesthetics (Baumgarten), became a science. Taking all these points together, Belinsky called Karamzin the "founder" of Russian criticism.
The central place in sentimentalist criticism was occupied by the study of the problems of the individual, historical and national character of phenomena. Hence the attention to the personality of a person, to “sensitivity”, psychologism, hence the well-known democratization of heroes, the mixing of various elements of life, linguistic styles and partly genres (along with tragedy and comedy, drama was legalized), prose that was capacious in its possibilities came to the fore. Criticism began to rely on new models and authorities in world literature - Rousseau, Lessing, Lenz, Richardson, Thomson, Shakespeare instead of Racine, Boileau, Moliere, Voltaire. Realizing himself as an innovator in the field of “sensitive style” in its broadest sense, Karamzin considered the history of Russian literature from the point of view of the formation of a national identity in it (from Boyan the prophetic), along the way reproaching his classicist predecessors for their inability to depict Russian characters artistically. In criticism, terms and concepts began to be used more strictly, the genres of articles and reviews became more diverse, and the assessments themselves became more objective. The gap between rules and taste, models and practice, narrowed, as criticism itself became a "science of taste", one of the sides of the emerging public opinion.
"Enlightenment realism", in contrast to previous trends, did not have one of its leading figures, the main leader and organizer. It was a collective affair of a number of writers. (We emphasize once again all the conventionality of the allocation and name of this direction.)
Each of the previous directions has always revealed in the course of time such tendencies in the cognition of reality that began to shake its original poetic positions. In classicism, this was expressed in the "inclination" of samples to Russian customs, in sentimentalism - in the doctrine of "characters". Writers approached living reality most closely in the field of satire and social denunciations. This "real painting" eventually formed in Russian literature a kind of independent trend, which grew above other trends and even began to oppose them as the most truthful and fruitful. It turned out to be the forerunner of critical realism, although such was in more broad sense also "pure" classicism, and "pure" sentimentalism.
Most of the figures of "enlightenment realism" were united by a bright accusatory tendency, which received its most complete expression in the work of the revolutionary-minded Radishchev.
Criticism of the 18th century was a preliminary stage in the formation of the "subject" of criticism.
Classicism connected the nascent Russian literature with the pan-European rationalistic norms of creativity and developed the initial rules for the artistic depiction of reality. Sentimentalism brought literature closer to Russian society, posed the problem of characters in their psychological, historical, national and social characteristics, and linked criticism with journalism. Satirical or "enlightenment realism" related literature with social accusation, with the struggle against serfdom, developed the concept of realistic truthfulness as the starting point in the process of forming the realistic method.
But all these discoveries have not yet been brought to a synthesis, generalized in a single direction. Professional critics did not yet exist, the genre specificity of critical speeches was not yet stable. Among the classicists, it appeared in edifying prefaces and rhetoric, among the sentimentalists within the framework of transient articles and reviews, and among the representatives of "enlightenment realism" the question of declarations and program articles did not even arise yet. Nevertheless, this "fading" of rhetoric was a progressive phenomenon, since it led criticism out of the captivity of academic norms into the realm of living searches. Criticism of "enlightenment realism" was already acquiring a solid materialistic foundation, accumulating experience in generalizing real satire and social exposure.