Musical culture of classicism: aesthetic issues, Viennese musical classics, main genres. What is classicism

Classicism (from Latin classicus - exemplary) is the artistic style of European art of the 17th–19th centuries, one of the most important features of which was the appeal to ancient art as the highest example and reliance on the traditions of the High Renaissance. The art of classicism reflected the ideas of the harmonious structure of society, but in many ways lost them in comparison with the culture of the Renaissance. Conflicts between personality and society, ideal and reality, feelings and reason testify to the complexity of the art of classicism. Art forms Classicism is characterized by strict organization, balance, clarity and harmony of images.

Classicism is associated with the Enlightenment and was based on the ideas of philosophical rationalism, on ideas about the rational laws of the world. In accordance with the sublime ethical ideas and educational program of art, the aesthetics of classicism established a hierarchy of genres - “high” (tragedy, epic, ode, history, mythology, religious painting, etc.) and “low” (comedy, satire, fable, genre painting, etc.) etc.). In literature (tragedies by P. Corneille, J. Racine, Voltaire, comedies by Molière, the poem “The Art of Poetry” and satires by N. Boileau, fables by J. Lafontaine, prose by F. La Rochefoucauld, J. Labruyère in France, works of the Weimar period by I.V. . Goethe and F. Schiller in Germany, odes of M.V. Lomonosov and G.R. Derzhavin, tragedies of A.P. Sumarokov and Ya.B. Knyazhnin in Russia) significant ethical conflicts and normative typified images play a leading role. For theatrical art (Mondori, Duparc, M. Chanmele, A.L. Leken, F.J. Talma, Rachel in France, F.C. Neuber in Germany, F.G. Volkov, I.A. Dmitrevsky in Russia) Characterized by a solemn, static structure of performances and measured reading of poetry.

The main features of Russian classicism: appeal to the images and forms of ancient art; characters are clearly divided into positive and negative; the plot is based, as a rule, on love triangle: the heroine is the hero-lover, the second lover; at the end of the classical comedy, vice is always punished, and good triumphs; the principle of three unities: time (the action lasts no more than a day), place, action. For example, we can cite Fonvizin’s comedy “The Minor.” In this comedy, Fonvizin tries to implement the main idea of ​​classicism - to re-educate the world with a reasonable word. Positive heroes talk a lot about morality, life at court, and the duty of a nobleman. Negative characters become illustrations of inappropriate behavior. Behind the clash of personal interests, the social positions of the heroes are visible.

Classicism is based on the ideas of rationalism coming from the philosophy of Descartes. A work of art, from the point of view of classicism, should be built on the basis of strict canons, thereby revealing the harmony and logic of the universe itself. Of interest to classicism is only the eternal, the unchangeable - in each phenomenon it strives to recognize only essential, typological features, discarding random individual characteristics. The aesthetics of classicism attaches great importance to the social and educational function of art. Classicism takes many rules and canons from ancient art (Aristotle, Horace).

Among artistic styles, classicism, which became widespread in the advanced countries of the world in the period from the 17th to the beginning of the 19th century, is of no small importance. He became the heir to the ideas of the Enlightenment and manifested himself in almost all types of European and Russian art. He often came into conflict with the Baroque, especially at the stage of its formation in France.

Each country has its own age of classicism. It first developed in France - back in the 17th century, and a little later - in England and Holland. In Germany and Russia, the direction was established closer to the middle of the 18th century, when the time of neoclassicism had already begun in other countries. But this is not so significant. Another thing is more important: this direction became the first serious system in the field of culture, which laid the foundations for its further development.

What is classicism as a movement?

The name comes from the Latin word classicus, which means “exemplary”. The main principle was manifested in the appeal to the traditions of antiquity. They were perceived as the norm to which one should strive. The authors of the works were attracted by such qualities as simplicity and clarity of form, conciseness, rigor and harmony in everything. This applied to any works created during the period of classicism: literary, musical, pictorial, architectural. Each creator sought to find his place for everything, clear and strictly defined.

Main features of classicism

All types of art were characterized by the following features that help to understand what classicism is:

• a rational approach to the image and the exclusion of everything related to sensuality;
• the main purpose of a person is to serve the state;
• strict canons in everything;
• an established hierarchy of genres, the mixing of which is unacceptable.

Concretization of artistic features

Analysis individual species art helps to understand how the style of “classicism” was embodied in each of them.

How classicism was realized in literature

In this type of art, classicism was defined as a special direction in which the desire to re-educate with words was clearly expressed. Authors works of art believed in a happy future where justice, freedom of all citizens, and equality would prevail. It meant, first of all, liberation from all types of oppression, including religious and monarchical. Classicism in literature certainly required compliance with three unities: action (no more than one storyline), time (all events fit within a day), place (there was no movement in space). More recognition in this style was received by J. Molière, Voltaire (France), L. Gibbon (England), M. Twain, D. Fonvizin, M. Lomonosov (Russia).

Development of classicism in Russia

New artistic direction established itself in Russian art later than in other countries - closer to the middle of the 18th century - and occupied a leading position until the first third of the 19th century. Russian classicism, unlike Western European classicism, relied more on national traditions. This is where his originality manifested itself.

Initially it came to architecture, where it reached its greatest heights. This was due to the construction of a new capital and the growth of Russian cities. The achievement of the architects was the creation of majestic palaces, comfortable residential buildings, and country estates of the nobility. The creation of architectural ensembles in the city center, which fully make it clear what classicism is, deserves special attention. These are, for example, the buildings of Tsarskoe Selo (A. Rinaldi), the Alexander Nevsky Lavra (I. Starov), the Spit of Vasilievsky Island (J. de Thomon) in St. Petersburg and many others.

The pinnacle of the architects’ work can be called the construction of the Marble Palace according to the design of A. Rinaldi, in the decoration of which natural stone was used for the first time.

No less famous is Petrodvorets (A. Schlüter, V. Rastrelli), which is an example of landscape art. Numerous buildings, fountains, sculptures, the layout itself - everything amazes with its proportionality and cleanliness of execution.

Literary direction in Russia

The development of classicism in Russian literature deserves special attention. Its founders were V. Trediakovsky, A. Kantemir, A. Sumarokov.

However, the greatest contribution to the development of the concept of what classicism is was made by the poet and scientist M. Lomonosov. He developed a system of three styles, which determined the requirements for writing works of art, and created a model of a solemn message - an ode, which was most popular in the literature of the second half of the 18th century.

The traditions of classicism were fully manifested in the plays of D. Fonvizin, especially in the comedy “The Minor.” In addition to the mandatory observance of the three unities and the cult of reason, the features of Russian comedy include the following points:

• a clear division of heroes into negative and positive and the presence of a reasoner expressing the position of the author;
• the presence of a love triangle;
• the punishment of vice and the triumph of good in the finale.

Works of the era of classicism in general became the most important component in the development of world art.

1. Introduction.Classicism as an artistic method...................................2

2. Aesthetics of classicism.

2.1.

Basic principles of classicism.........................…………….….....5

2.2.

Picture of the world, concept of personality in the art of classicism......5

2.3.

2.6.

Classicism in architecture................................................................... .....................18

2.7.

Classicism in literature................................................................... .......................20

2.8.

Classicism in music......................................................... ...............................22……………………………………...…………………………...26

2.9...............................…….………………………………….28

Classicism in the theater................................................... ...............................22 ........................................................................................................29

2.10.

The originality of Russian classicism.................................................... ....22 3. Conclusion Bibliography Applications 1. Classicism as an artistic method Classicism is one of the artistic methods that actually existed in the history of art. Sometimes it is referred to by the terms “direction” and “style”. Classicism (French) classicisme

, from lat.

classicus

- exemplary) - artistic style and aesthetic direction in European art of the 17th-19th centuries. Classicism is based on the ideas of rationalism, which were formed simultaneously with the same ideas in the philosophy of Descartes. A work of art, from the point of view of classicism, should be built on the basis of strict canons, thereby revealing the harmony and logic of the universe itself. Of interest to classicism is only the eternal, the unchangeable - in each phenomenon it strives to recognize only essential, typological features, discarding random individual characteristics. The aesthetics of classicism attaches great importance to the social and educational function of art. Classicism takes many rules and canons from ancient art (Aristotle, Horace). Classicism establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into high (ode, tragedy, epic) and low (comedy, satire, fable). Each genre has strictly defined characteristics, the mixing of which is not allowed.

Classicism arises and is formed in certain historical and cultural conditions. The most common research belief connects classicism with the historical conditions of the transition from feudal fragmentation to a unified national-territorial statehood, in the formation of which the centralizing role belongs to the absolute monarchy.

Classicism is an organic stage in the development of any national culture, despite the fact that the classicist stage is different national cultures take place at different times, due to the individuality of the national version of the formation of a general social model of a centralized state.

The chronological framework of the existence of classicism in different European cultures is defined as the second half of the 17th - the first thirty years of the 18th century, despite the fact that early classicist trends were noticeable at the end of the Renaissance, at the turn of the 16th-17th centuries. Within these chronological limits, French classicism is considered the standard embodiment of the method.

Closely connected with the heyday of French absolutism in the second half of the 17th century, it gave European culture not only great writers - Corneille, Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine, Voltaire, but also a great theorist of classicist art - Nicolas Boileau-Dépreau.

The most general philosophical concepts present in all philosophical movements of the second half of the 17th - late 18th centuries. and directly related to the aesthetics and poetics of classicism are the concepts of “rationalism” and “metaphysics”, relevant for both idealistic and materialistic philosophical teachings of this time. The founder of the philosophical doctrine of rationalism is the French mathematician and philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650). The fundamental thesis of his doctrine: “I think, therefore I exist” - was realized in many philosophical movements of that time, united by the common name “Cartesianism” (from the Latin version of the name Descartes - Cartesius). In essence, this is an idealistic thesis, since it brings out the material existence from an idea. However, rationalism, as the interpretation of reason as the primary and highest spiritual ability of man, is equally characteristic of materialistic philosophical movements eras - such, for example, as the metaphysical materialism of the English philosophical school of Bacon-Locke, which recognized experience as a source of knowledge, but placed it below the generalizing and analytical activity of the mind, which extracts from the multitude of facts obtained by experience the highest idea, a means of modeling the cosmos -

supreme reality

- from the chaos of individual material objects.

The concept of “metaphysics” is equally applicable to both varieties of rationalism - idealistic and materialistic. Genetically, it goes back to Aristotle, and in his philosophical teaching it denoted a branch of knowledge that explores the highest and unchangeable principles of all things, inaccessible to the senses and only rationally and speculatively comprehended. Both Descartes and Bacon used the term in the Aristotelian sense.

1. Cult of reason 2. Cult of civic duty 3. Appeal to medieval subjects 4. Abstraction from the depiction of everyday life, from historical national identity 5. Imitation of ancient models 6. Compositional harmony, symmetry, unity of a work of art 7. Heroes are bearers of one main feature, given outside of development 8. Antithesis as the main technique for creating a work of art

2.2.

Picture of the world, concept of personality

in the art of classicism The picture of the world generated by the rationalistic type of consciousness clearly divides reality into two levels: empirical and ideological. The external, visible and tangible material-empirical world consists of many separate material objects and phenomena that are in no way connected with each other - it is a chaos of individual private entities. However, above this disorderly multitude

individual items

In the field of human relations with the outside world, classicism sees two types of connections and positions - the same two levels from which the philosophical picture of the world is formed. The first level is the so-called “natural man,” a biological being who stands alongside all objects of the material world. This is a private entity, possessed by selfish passions, disorderly and unrestricted in its desire to ensure its personal existence. At this level of human connections with the world, the leading category that determines the spiritual appearance of a person is passion - blind and unrestrained in its desire for realization in the name of achieving individual good.

The second level of the concept of personality is the so-called “social person”, harmoniously included in society in his highest, ideal image, aware that his good is an integral part of the good of the general. “Social man” is guided in his worldview and actions not by passions, but by reason, since reason is the highest spiritual ability of a person, giving him the opportunity for positive self-determination in the conditions of human community based on ethical standards consistent community life.

Thus, the concept of human personality in the ideology of classicism turns out to be complex and contradictory: a natural (passionate) and a social (reasonable) person is one and the same character, torn by internal contradictions and in a situation of choice.

The main components of character are passions: love, hypocrisy, courage, stinginess, sense of duty, envy, patriotism, etc. It is by the predominance of one passion that a character is determined: “lover”, “miserly”, “envious”, “patriot”. All these definitions are precisely “characters” in the understanding of classicist aesthetic consciousness.

However, these passions are unequal to each other, although according to the philosophical concepts of the 17th-18th centuries. all passions are equal, since they are all from human nature, they are all natural, and no passion on its own can decide which passion is consistent with the ethical dignity of a person and which is not. These decisions are made only by reason. Despite the fact that all passions are equally categories of emotional spiritual life, some of them (such as love, stinginess, envy, hypocrisy, etc.) are less and more difficult to agree with the dictates of reason and are more associated with the concept of selfish good. Others (courage, sense of duty, honor, patriotism) are more subject to rational control and do not contradict the idea of ​​the common good, the ethics of social relations.

So it turns out that rational and unreasonable passions, altruistic and selfish, personal and social, collide in conflict. And reason is the highest spiritual ability of a person, a logical and analytical tool that allows one to control passions and distinguish good from evil, truth from lies. The most common type of classic conflict is a conflict situation between personal inclination (love) and a sense of duty to society and the state, which for some reason excludes the possibility of realization love passion

. It is quite obvious that by its nature this conflict is psychological, although a necessary condition for its implementation is a situation in which the interests of man and society collide. These most important ideological aspects of the aesthetic thinking of the era found their expression in the system of ideas about the laws of artistic creativity.

2.3. The aesthetic nature of classicism The aesthetic principles of classicism have undergone significant changes during its existence. Feature This direction is a reverence for antiquity. Art Ancient Greece was considered by classicists as an ideal model of artistic creativity. “Poetics” of Aristotle and “The Art of Poetry” of Horace had a huge influence on the formation of the aesthetic principles of classicism. Here we find a tendency to create sublimely heroic, ideal, rationalistically clear and plastically completed images. As a rule, in the art of classicism, modern political, moral and aesthetic ideals are embodied in characters, conflicts, situations borrowed from the arsenal ancient history

, mythology or directly from ancient art.

The aesthetics of classicism guided poets, artists, and composers to create works of art distinguished by clarity, logic, strict balance and harmony. All this, according to classicists, was fully reflected in ancient artistic culture. For them, reason and antiquity are synonymous. The rationalistic nature of the aesthetics of classicism manifested itself in the abstract typification of images, strict regulation of genres, forms, in the interpretation of the ancient artistic heritage, in the appeal of art to the mind rather than to feelings, in the desire to subordinate the creative process to unshakable norms, rules and canons (norm - from the Latin. norma – guiding principle, rule, pattern; generally accepted rule, pattern of behavior or action). Just as the aesthetic principles of the Renaissance found their most typical expression in Italy, so in France in the 17th century. – aesthetic principles of classicism. By the 17th century

art culture Italy has largely lost its former influence. But the innovative spirit of French art clearly emerged. individual.

Man is no longer thought of as free, as was typical of the Renaissance worldview, but as subject to norms and rules alien to him, limited by forces beyond his control. The regulating and limiting force appears in the form of the impersonal mind, to which the individual must submit and act according to its commands and instructions.

The high rise in production contributed to the development of the exact sciences: mathematics, astronomy, physics, and this, in turn, led to the victory of rationalism (from the Latin ratio - reason) - a philosophical trend that recognizes reason as the basis of human cognition and behavior.

Ideas about the laws of creativity and the structure of a work of art are determined to the same extent by the epochal type of worldview as the picture of the world and the concept of personality. Reason, as the highest spiritual ability of man, is conceived not only as an instrument of knowledge, but also as an organ of creativity and a source of aesthetic pleasure. One of the most striking leitmotifs of Boileau’s “Poetic Art” is the rational nature of aesthetic activity:

French classicism affirmed the personality of man as the highest value of existence, freeing him from religious and church influence.

Interest in the art of ancient Greece and Rome appeared back in the Renaissance, which, after centuries of the Middle Ages, turned to the forms, motifs and subjects of antiquity. The greatest theorist of the Renaissance, Leon Batista Alberti, back in the 15th century. expressed ideas that foreshadowed certain principles of classicism and were fully manifested in Raphael’s fresco “The School of Athens” (1511).

The systematization and consolidation of the achievements of the great artists of the Renaissance, especially the Florentine ones led by Raphael and his student Giulio Romano, formed the program of the Bolognese school of the late 16th century, the most typical representatives of which were the Carracci brothers.

However, nature was by no means understood as a visual picture of the physical and moral world, presented to the senses, but rather as the highest intelligible essence of the world and man: not a specific character, but its idea, not a real historical or modern plot, but a universal human conflict situation, not given landscape, but the idea of ​​a harmonious combination of natural realities in an ideally beautiful unity.

Classicism found such an ideally beautiful unity in ancient literature - it was precisely this that was perceived by classicism as the already achieved pinnacle of aesthetic activity, the eternal and unchanging standard of art, which recreated in its genre models that very highest ideal nature, physical and moral, which art should imitate. It so happened that the thesis about imitation of nature turned into a prescription to imitate ancient art, where the term “classicism” itself came from (from the Latin classicus - exemplary, studied in class):

In all these ideas about art, namely as a rational, ordered, standardized, spiritual activity, the hierarchical principle of thinking of the 17th-18th centuries was realized. Within itself, literature also turned out to be divided into two hierarchical series, low and high, each of which was thematically and stylistically associated with one - material or ideal - level of reality. Low genres included satire, comedy, and fable; to the highest - ode, tragedy, epic. In low genres, everyday material reality is depicted, and a private person appears in social connections (while, of course, both the person and reality are still the same ideal conceptual categories). In high genres, man is presented as a spiritual and social being, in the existential aspect of his existence, alone and along with the eternal fundamentals of questions of existence. Therefore, for high and low genres, not only thematic, but also class differentiation turned out to be relevant based on the character’s belonging to one or another social stratum. The hero of low genres is a middle-class person; high hero - a historical figure, a mythological hero or a fictional high-ranking character - usually a ruler.

In low genres, human characters are formed by base everyday passions (stinginess, hypocrisy, hypocrisy, envy, etc.); in high genres, passions acquire a spiritual character (love, ambition, vindictiveness, a sense of duty, patriotism, etc.). And if everyday passions are clearly unreasonable and vicious, then existential passions are divided into reasonable - social and unreasonable - personal, and the ethical status of the hero depends on his choice. He is unambiguously positive if he prefers a reasonable passion, and unambiguously negative if he chooses an unreasonable one. Classicism did not allow halftones in ethical assessment - and this also reflected the rationalistic nature of the method, which excluded any confusion of high and low, tragic and comic.

Since in the genre theory of classicism those genres that reached the greatest flowering in ancient literature were legitimized as the main ones, and literary creativity was thought of as a reasonable imitation of high models, the aesthetic code of classicism acquired a normative character. This means that the model of each genre was established once and for all in a clear set of rules, from which it was unacceptable to deviate, and each specific text was aesthetically assessed according to the degree of compliance with this ideal genre model.

The source of the rules were ancient examples: the epic of Homer and Virgil, tragedy of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Seneca, a comedy by Aristophanes, Menander, Terence and Plautus, an ode by Pindar, a fable by Aesop and Phaedrus, a satire by Horace and Juvenal.

The most typical and illustrative case of such genre regulation is, of course, the rules for the leading classic genre, tragedy, drawn both from the texts of ancient tragedians and from Aristotle’s Poetics.

For the tragedy, a poetic form was canonized (“Alexandrian verse” - iambic hexameter with paired rhyme), a mandatory five-act structure, three unities - time, place and action, high style, a historical or mythological plot and a conflict, suggesting a mandatory situation of choice between reasonable and unreasonable passion, and the process of choice itself was supposed to constitute the action of the tragedy. It was in the dramatic section of the aesthetics of classicism that the rationalism, hierarchy and normativity of the method were expressed with the greatest completeness and obviousness:

Everything that was said above about the aesthetics of classicism and the poetics of classicist literature in France applies equally to almost any European variety of the method, since French classicism was historically the earliest and aesthetically most authoritative embodiment of the method. But for Russian classicism, these general theoretical principles found a unique refraction in artistic practice, since they were determined by the historical and national characteristics of the formation of the new Russian culture of the 18th century.

2.4. Classicism in painting, mainly on the themes of ancient antiquity and mythology, which provided unsurpassed examples of geometrically precise composition and thoughtful relationships between color groups. Another Frenchman, Claude Lorrain, in his antique landscapes of the surrounding area " eternal city“ordered the pictures of nature by harmonizing them with the light of the setting sun and introducing unique architectural scenes.

Poussin's coldly rational normativism won the approval of the Versailles court and was continued by court artists like Le Brun, who saw in classicist painting the ideal artistic language for praising the absolutist state of the "sun king."

Although private clients favored various variants of Baroque and Rococo, the French monarchy kept classicism afloat by funding academic institutions such as the École des Beaux-Arts. The Rome Prize provided the most talented students with the opportunity to visit Rome for direct acquaintance with the great works of antiquity. The discovery of “genuine” ancient painting during the excavations of Pompeii, the deification of antiquity by the German art critic Winckelmann and the cult of Raphael, preached by the artist Mengs, who was close to him in views, breathed new breath into classicism in the second half of the 18th century (in Western literature this stage is called neoclassicism).

The largest representative of the “new classicism” was Jacques-Louis David; its extremely laconic and dramatic artistic language served with equal success to promote the ideals of the French Revolution (“The Death of Marat”) and the First Empire (“The Dedication of Emperor Napoleon I”). marked by a subtle idealization of the model. Artists in other countries (like, for example, Karl Bryullov) also filled works that were classic in form with the spirit of romanticism;

this combination was called academicism.

Numerous art academies served as its breeding grounds. In the middle of the 19th century, the young generation, gravitating towards realism, represented in France by the Courbet circle, and in Russia by the Itinerants, rebelled against the conservatism of the academic establishment. 2.5.

Classicism in sculpture

The impetus for the development of classicist sculpture in

Late, Empire classicism, represented primarily by the prolific Danish sculptor Thorvaldsen, is imbued with a dryish pathos. Purity of lines, restraint of gestures, and dispassionate expressions are especially valued. In choosing role models, the emphasis shifts from Hellenism to the archaic period.

Religious images are coming into fashion, which, in Thorvaldsen’s interpretation, produce a somewhat chilling impression on the viewer. Tombstone sculpture of late classicism often bears a slight touch of sentimentality.

2.6.

Classicism in architecture

The main feature of the architecture of classicism was the appeal to the forms of ancient architecture as a standard of harmony, simplicity, rigor, logical clarity and monumentality. The architecture of classicism as a whole is characterized by regularity of layout and clarity of volumetric form.

The most significant interiors in the classicist style were designed by the Scot Robert Adam, who returned to his homeland from Rome in 1758. He was greatly impressed by both the archaeological research of Italian scientists and the architectural fantasies of Piranesi.

In Adam’s interpretation, classicism was a style hardly inferior to rococo in the sophistication of its interiors, which gained it popularity not only among democratically minded circles of society, but also among the aristocracy. Like his French colleagues, Adam preached a complete rejection of details devoid of constructive function.

The Frenchman Jacques-Germain Soufflot, during the construction of the Church of Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, demonstrated the ability of classicism to organize vast urban spaces. The massive grandeur of his designs foreshadowed the megalomania of the Napoleonic Empire style and late classicism. In Russia, Bazhenov moved in the same direction as Soufflot. The French Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Etienne-Louis Boullé went even further towards developing a radical visionary style with an emphasis on abstract geometrization of forms. In revolutionary France, the ascetic civic pathos of their projects was of little demand; Ledoux's innovation was fully appreciated only by the modernists of the 20th century. The architects of Napoleonic France drew inspiration from majestic images military glory left behind by imperial Rome, such as the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus and Trajan's Column.

By order of Napoleon, these images were transferred to Paris in the form triumphal arch were redesigned in accordance with the principles of classical rationalism. Cities such as St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Warsaw, Dublin, Edinburgh and a number of others have turned into genuine open-air museums of classicism. A single architectural language, dating back to Palladio, dominated throughout the entire space from Minusinsk to Philadelphia. Ordinary development was carried out in accordance with albums of standard projects.

In the period following the Napoleonic Wars, classicism had to coexist with romantically colored eclecticism, in particular with the return of interest in the Middle Ages and the fashion for architectural neo-Gothic.

In connection with Champollion's discoveries, Egyptian motifs are gaining popularity. Interest in ancient Roman architecture is replaced by reverence for everything ancient Greek (“neo-Greek”), which was especially clearly manifested in Germany and the USA. German architects Leo von Klenze and Karl Friedrich Schinkel built up, respectively, Munich and Berlin with grandiose museum and other public buildings in the spirit of the Parthenon.

In France, the purity of classicism is diluted with free borrowings from the architectural repertoire of the Renaissance and Baroque (see Beaux Arts).

2.7. Classicism in literature

Classicism of the 18th century developed under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment.

The work of Voltaire (1694-1778) is directed against religious fanaticism, absolutist oppression, and is filled with the pathos of freedom. The goal of creativity is to change the world for the better, to build society itself in accordance with the laws of classicism. From the standpoint of classicism, the Englishman Samuel Johnson reviewed contemporary literature, around whom a brilliant circle of like-minded people formed, including the essayist Boswell, the historian Gibbon and the actor Garrick.

Dramatic works are characterized by three unities: unity of time (the action takes place on one day), unity of place (in one place) and unity of action (one storyline).

In Russia, classicism originated in the 18th century, after the reforms of Peter I. Lomonosov carried out a reform of Russian verse, developed the theory of “three calms,” which was essentially an adaptation of French classical rules to the Russian language. The images in classicism are devoid of individual features, since they are designed primarily to capture stable generic characteristics that do not pass over time, acting as the embodiment of any social or spiritual forces.

Classicism in Russia developed under the great influence of the Enlightenment - the ideas of equality and justice have always been the focus of attention of Russian classic writers. Therefore, in Russian classicism, genres that require the author’s obligatory assessment of historical reality have received great development: comedy (D. I. Fonvizin), satire (A. D. Kantemir), fable (A. P. Sumarokov, I. I. Khemnitser), ode (Lomonosov, G. R. Derzhavin).

In connection with Rousseau’s proclaimed call for closeness to nature and naturalness, crisis phenomena were growing in classicism at the end of the 18th century; The absolutization of reason is replaced by the cult of tender feelings - sentimentalism. The transition from classicism to pre-romanticism was most clearly reflected in German literature of the era of Sturm and Drang, represented by the names of J. W. Goethe (1749-1832) and F. Schiller (1759-1805), who, following Rousseau, saw art as the main force of education person.

2.8. Classicism in music The concept of classicism in music is steadily associated with the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, called like the music of the past that has stood the test of time.

The music of the Classical era glorifies the actions and deeds of man, the emotions and feelings he experiences, and the attentive and holistic human mind.

2.10.

Russian classicism arose in similar historical conditions - its prerequisite was the strengthening of autocratic statehood and national self-determination of Russia starting from the era of Peter I. The Europeanism of the ideology of Peter's reforms aimed Russian culture at mastering the achievements of European cultures. But at the same time, Russian classicism arose almost a century later than French: by the middle of the 18th century, when Russian classicism was just beginning to gain strength, in France it reached the second stage of its existence. The so-called “Enlightenment classicism” - a combination of classicist creative principles with the pre-revolutionary ideology of the Enlightenment - in French literature flourished in the work of Voltaire and acquired an anti-clerical, social-critical pathos: several decades before the Great french revolution the times of apology for absolutism were already distant history. Russian classicism, by virtue of its strong connection

with secular cultural reform, firstly, he initially set himself educational tasks, trying to educate his readers and guide monarchs on the path of public good, and secondly, he acquired the status of a leading trend in Russian literature by the time Peter I was no longer in existence alive, and the fate of his cultural reforms was jeopardized in the second half of the 1720s - 1730s.

Russian classicism also reflected a completely different type of conflict than Western European classicism. If in French classicism the socio-political principle is only the soil on which the psychological conflict of rational and unreasonable passion develops and the process of free and conscious choice between their dictates is carried out, then in Russia, with its traditionally anti-democratic conciliarity and the absolute power of society over the individual, the situation was completely different. otherwise. For the Russian mentality, which had just begun to comprehend the ideology of personalism, the need to humble the individual before society, the individual before the authorities, was not at all such a tragedy as for the Western worldview. The choice, relevant for the European consciousness as an opportunity to prefer one thing, in Russian conditions turned out to be imaginary, its outcome was predetermined in favor of society. Therefore, the situation of choice itself in Russian classicism lost its conflict-forming function, and was replaced by another.

The central problem of Russian life in the 18th century. There was a problem of power and its succession: not a single Russian emperor after the death of Peter I and before the accession of Paul I in 1796 came to power by legal means.

XVIII century - this is an age of intrigue and palace coups, which too often led to absolute and uncontrolled power of people who did not at all correspond not only to the ideal of an enlightened monarch, but also to ideas about the role of the monarch in the state. Therefore, Russian classic literature immediately took a political-didactic direction and reflected precisely this problem as the main tragic dilemma of the era - the inconsistency of the ruler with the duties of the autocrat, the conflict of the experience of power as an egoistic personal passion with the idea of ​​power exercised for the benefit of his subjects. Thus, the Russian classic conflict, having preserved the situation of choice between reasonable and unreasonable passion as an external plot pattern, was entirely realized as socio-political in nature. Russian classicism does not humble its individual passion in the name of the common good, but insists on its natural rights, defending its personalism from tyrannical attacks. And the most important thing is that this national specificity of the method was well understood by the writers themselves: if the plots of French classic tragedies are drawn mainly from ancient mythology and history, then Sumarokov wrote his tragedies based on plots from Russian chronicles and even on plots from not so distant Russian history.

Finally, another specific feature of Russian classicism was that it was not based on such a rich and continuous tradition national literature, like any other national European variety of the method. What any European literature had at the time of the emergence of the theory of classicism - namely, a literary language with an ordered stylistic system, principles of versification, a defined system of literary genres - all this had to be created in Russian. Therefore, in Russian classicism literary theory

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ahead of literary practice. The normative acts of Russian classicism - reform of versification, reform of style and regulation of the genre system - were carried out between the mid-1730s and the end of the 1740s. - that is, mainly before a full-fledged literary process in line with classicist aesthetics unfolded in Russia.

For the ideological premises of classicism, it is essential that the individual’s desire for freedom is considered here to be as legitimate as the need of society to bind this freedom by laws.

The personal principle continues to retain that immediate social significance, that independent value with which the Renaissance first endowed it.

Classical reason, as the source and guarantor of balance in nature and the life of people, bears the stamp of poetic faith in the original harmony of all things, trust in the natural course of things, confidence in the presence of an all-encompassing correspondence between the movement of the world and the formation of society, in the humanistic, human-oriented nature of this communications.

I am close to the period of classicism, its principles, poetry, art, creativity in general.

The conclusions that classicism makes regarding people, society, and the world seem to me to be the only true and rational ones. Measure, as the middle line between opposites, order of things, systems, and not chaos; a strong relationship between man and society against their rupture and enmity, excessive genius and selfishness; harmony against extremes - in this I see the ideal principles of existence, the foundations of which are reflected in the canons of classicism.

List of sources

Europe 17-19 centuries. This period showed the world many talented authors who made significant contributions to the development of art: literature, painting, sculpture, music and architecture. The trends of classicism first appeared in France, when they returned to ancient times and the ideals of that time.

Features of classicism

The main features of this trend originate in antiquity. The authors' thinking was artistically oriented and tended towards clear, holistic expression, as well as simplicity of visual means, balance and logic of statements. Therefore, we can say that the thinking of a person in the era of classicism is rational and idealized.

If we talk about the fact that classicism is related to antiquity, then it is important to note that their similarity lay in the form, which, however, might not meet the standards that were accepted in Classical art is distinguished from others, first of all, by respect for ancient values ​​and the ability to display even when they are not relevant.

Psychologically, classicism is explained by the fact that in difficult historical periods, which are transitional and carry a lot of new things, a person strives to turn to what is unchangeable: for example, to the past. In this he finds support: the ancient Greeks are an example of rationalism in thinking, they gave humanity complete ideas about space and time, and many other phenomena in life, and they did it in a simple and accessible form. Complex and florid thoughts and their presentation do not mean the clarity and specificity that humanity required in a dramatically changing world. Therefore, antiquity played an important role in the formation of classicism.

The ideas of classicism are romantic, so many are of the opinion that they are inseparable. And yet there are significant differences in them: romanticism is more divorced from reality in its ideals and ways of displaying them than classicism.

What is classicism? V. Tatarkevich tried to explain this using several principles, which, in turn, were originally set out by the theorist L. B. Alberti:

1. Beauty is an objective property of real objects.
2. Beauty is order, correct composition, which is assessed by the mind.
3. Since art uses science, it must have rational discipline.
4. An image created in the direction of classicism may be real, but depicted according to the model of antiquity.

What is classicism in painting

The main feature of this direction is artistic creativity manifests itself in the artist’s attitude to the work: his feelings, expressed through painting, are also subject to logic.

Among the prominent representatives are the works of N. Prussen, who painted paintings with mythological themes. Particular attention is drawn to their precise geometric composition and thoughtful combination of colors. Also K. Lorrain: although the theme of his paintings differs from the works of N. Prussin (landscapes of the city’s environs), the rationalism in execution is also consistent: he harmonized them with the help of the light of the setting sun.

What is classicism in sculpture and architecture

Since in classicism ancient works were used as a model, when sculpting the authors faced a contradiction: in Ancient Greece, models were depicted naked, but now this was immoral. Artists got out of the situation in a cunning way: they depicted real people in the image of ancient gods. During Napoleon's reign, sculptors began making models of togas.

Classicism in Russia arose much later, but, nevertheless, this did not prevent talented authors from appearing in this country who created in accordance with his ideas: Boris Orlovsky, Fedot Shubin, Ivan Martos, Mikhail Kozlovsky.

In architecture they also sought to recreate the forms inherent in antiquity. Simplicity, rigor, monumentality and logical clarity are the main features.

What is classicism in literature

The main achievement of classicism is that they were divided into hierarchical groups: among them they distinguished high (epic, tragedy, ode) and low (fable, comedy and satire).

In literature, there was a strict requirement for compliance with genre characteristics in a work.

Classicism is artistic movement that originated in Renaissance, which, along with the Baroque, occupied an important place in the literature of the 17th century and continued to develop during the Enlightenment - right up to the first decades of the 19th century. The adjective “classical” is very ancient.: Even before receiving its basic meaning in Latin, "classicus" meant "noble, wealthy, respected citizen." Having received the meaning of “exemplary,” the concept of “classical” began to be applied to such works and authors that became the subject of school study and were intended for reading in classes. It was in this sense that the word was used both in the Middle Ages and in the Renaissance, and in the 17th century the meaning “worthy of study in classes” was enshrined in dictionaries (dictionary of S.P. Richle, 1680). The definition of “classical” was applied only to ancient, ancient authors, but not to modern writers, even if their works were recognized as artistically perfect and aroused the admiration of readers. The first to use the epithet “classical” in relation to writers of the 17th century was Voltaire (“The Age of Louis XIV”, 1751). The modern meaning of the word “classical,” which significantly expands the list of authors belonging to the literary classics, began to take shape in the era of romanticism. At the same time, the concept of “Classicism” appeared. Both terms among the romantics often had a negative connotation: Classicism and the “classics” were opposed to the “romantics” as outdated literature, blindly imitating antiquity - innovative literature (see: “On Germany”, 1810, J. de Stael; “Racine and Shakespeare” , 1823-25, Stendhal). On the contrary, opponents of romanticism, primarily in France, began to use these words as a designation of truly national literature, opposing foreign (English, German) influences, and defined the great authors of the past with the word “classics” - P. Corneille, J. Racine, Moliere, F. La Rochefoucauld. High appreciation of the achievements of French literature of the 17th century, its significance for the formation of other national literatures of the New Age - German, English, etc. - contributed to the fact that this century began to be considered the “era of Classicism,” in which the leading role was played by French writers and their diligent students in other countries. Writers who clearly did not fit within the framework of classicist principles were judged to be "laggard" or "lost their way." In fact, two terms were established, the meanings of which partly overlapped: “classical”, i.e. exemplary, artistically perfect, included in the fund of world literature, and “classic” - i.e. relating to Classicism as a literary movement, embodying its artistic principles.

Concept – Classicism

Classicism is a concept that entered the history of literature in the late 19th and early 20th centuries., in works written by scientists of the cultural-historical school (G. Lanson and others). The features of Classicism were primarily determined from the dramatic theory of the 17th century and from N. Boileau’s treatise “Poetic Art” (1674). It was considered as a direction oriented towards antique art, drawing its ideas from Aristotle’s Poetics, and also as embodying the absolutist monarchical ideology. Revision of such a concept of Classicism both in foreign and in domestic literary criticism falls on the 1950-60s: from now on, Classicism began to be interpreted by most scientists not as an “artistic expression of absolutism”, but as a “literary movement that experienced a period of bright prosperity in the 17th century, during the years of the strengthening and triumph of absolutism” (Vipper Y.B. O "seventeenth century" as a special era in history west European literatures 17th century in the world literary development.). The term “Classicism” retained its role even when scientists turned to non-classicist, baroque works of literature of the 17th century. The definition of Classicism emphasized, first of all, the desire for clarity and precision of expression, strict subordination to rules (the so-called “three unities”), and comparison to ancient models. The origin and spread of Classicism was associated not only with the strengthening of the absolute monarchy, but also with the emergence and influence of the rationalistic philosophy of R. Descartes, with the development of the exact sciences, especially mathematics. In the first half of the 20th century, Classicism was called the “school of the 1660s” - a period when great writers - Racine, Moliere, La Fontaine and Boileau - simultaneously worked in French literature. Gradually, its origins were revealed in Italian literature of the Renaissance: in the poetics of G. Cintio, J. C. Scaliger, L. Castelvetro, in the tragedies of D. Trissino and T. Tasso. The search for an “orderly manner”, the laws of “true art” was found in English (F. Sidney, B. Johnson, J. Milton, J. Dryden, A. Pope, J. Addison), in German (M. Opitz, I. H. . Gottsched, J.V. Goethe, F. Schiller), in Italian (G. Chiabrera, V. Alfieri) literature of the 17th-18th centuries. Russian Classicism of the Enlightenment took a prominent place in European literature (A.P. Sumarokov, M.V. Lomonosov, G.R. Derzhavin). All this forced researchers to consider it as one of the important components artistic life Europe for several centuries and as one of the two (along with Baroque) main movements that laid the foundations of the culture of the New Age.

Durability of Classicism

One of the reasons for the longevity of Classicism was that the writers of this movement considered their work not as a way of subjective, individual self-expression, but as the norm of “true art”, addressed to the universal, unchanging, to “beautiful nature” as a permanent category. The classicist vision of reality, formed on the threshold of the New Age, possessed, like the Baroque, internal drama, but subordinated this drama to the discipline of external manifestations. Ancient literature served for classicists as an arsenal of images and plots, but they were filled with relevant content. If early, Renaissance Classicism sought to recreate antiquity through imitation, then Classicism of the 17th century entered into competition with ancient literature, seeing in it, first of all, an example of the correct use of the eternal laws of art, using which one can be able to surpass ancient authors (see Dispute about the “ancients” and “new”). Strict selection, ordering, harmony of composition, classification of themes, motifs, and all the material of reality, which became the object of artistic reflection in the word, were for the writers of Classicism an attempt to artistically overcome the chaos and contradictions of reality, correlated with the didactic function of works of art, with the principle of “teaching”, drawn from Horace , entertaining." A favorite conflict in the works of Classicism is the clash of duty and feelings or the struggle of reason and passion. Classicism is characterized by a stoic mood, contrasting the chaos and unreason of reality, one’s own passions and affects with a person’s ability, if not to overcome them, then to curb them, in extreme cases - to both dramatic and analytical awareness (the heroes of Racine’s tragedies). Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am” plays the role of not only a philosophical and intellectual, but also an ethical principle in the artistic worldview of the characters of Classicism. The hierarchy of ethical and aesthetic values ​​determines the predominant interest of Classicism in moral, psychological and civil themes, dictates the classification of genres, dividing them into “higher” (epic, ode, tragedy) and lower (comedy, satire, fable), the choice for each of these genres specific theme, style, character system. Classicism is characterized by the desire to analytically distinguish between different works, even artistic worlds, the tragic and the comic, the sublime and the base, the beautiful and the ugly. At the same time, turning to low genres, he strives to ennoble them, for example, to remove crude burlesque from satire, and farcical features from comedy (“high comedy” by Molière). The poetry of Classicism strives for a clear expression of significant thought and meaning; it refuses sophistication, metaphorical complexity, and stylistic embellishments. Of particular importance in Classicism are dramatic works and the theater itself, which is capable of most organically performing both moralizing and entertaining functions. In the bosom of Classicism developed and prose genres- aphorisms (maxims), characters. Although the theory of Classicism refuses to include the novel in the system of genres worthy of serious critical reflection, in practice the poetics of Classicism had a tangible impact on the concept of the novel as an “epic in prose”, popular in the 17th century, and determined the genre parameters of the “little novel” or “romantic short story” 1660-80s, and “The Princess of Cleves” (1678) by M.M. de Lafayette is considered by many experts to be an example of a classic novel.

Theory of Classicism

The theory of Classicism is not limited only to Boileau’s poetic treatise “Poetic Art”: although its author is rightly considered the legislator of Classicism, he was only one of many creators of literary treatises of this direction, along with Opitz and Dryden, F. Chaplin and F. d’Aubignac. It develops gradually, experiences its formation in disputes between writers and critics, and changes over time. National versions of Classicism also have their differences: French - develops into the most powerful and consistent artistic system, and also influences the Baroque; German - on the contrary, having emerged as a conscious cultural effort to create a “correct” and “perfect” poetic school worthy of other European literatures (Opitz), as it were, “chokes” in the stormy waves of the bloody events of the Thirty Years' War and is drowned out and covered by the Baroque. Although rules are a way to keep creative imagination, freedom within the boundaries of reason, Classicism understands how important intuitive insight is for a writer, poet, and forgives talent for deviation from the rules if it is appropriate and artistically effective (“The least that should be looked for in a poet is the ability to subordinate words and syllables to certain laws and write poetry. A poet must be...a person with a rich imagination, with an inventive fantasy" - Opitz M. A book about German poetry). Permanent subject discussions in the theory of Classicism, especially in the second half of the 17th century, is the category of “good taste,” which was interpreted not as an individual preference, but as a collective aesthetic norm developed by a “good society.” The taste of Classicism prefers simplicity and clarity to verbosity, laconicism, vagueness and complexity of expression, and decency to striking, extravagant. Its main law is artistic verisimilitude, which is fundamentally different from an artlessly truthful reflection of life, from historical or private truth. Plausibility depicts things and people as they should be, and is associated with the concept of moral norm, psychological probability, decency. Characters in Classicism are built on the identification of one dominant trait, which contributes to their transformation into universal human types. His poetics in its original principles is opposed to the Baroque, which does not exclude the interaction of both literary movements not only within the framework of one national literature, but also in the work of the same writer (J. Milton).

In the Age of Enlightenment, the civil and intellectual nature of the conflict in the works of Classicism, its didactic-moralistic pathos, received special significance. Enlightenment Classicism comes into contact even more actively with other literary movements of its era, is no longer based on “rules”, but on the “enlightened taste” of the public, gives rise to various variants of Classicism (“Weimar classicism” by J.V. Goethe and F. Schiller) . Developing the ideas of “true art,” Classicism of the 18th century, more than other literary movements, lays the foundations of aesthetics as a science of beauty, which received both its development and its very terminological designation precisely in the Age of Enlightenment. The demands put forward by Classicism for clarity of style, semantic content of images, a sense of proportion and norms in the structure and plot of works retain their aesthetic relevance today.

The word classicism comes from Latin classicus, which means exemplary, first-class.