Romanticism. Paintings by artists of the Romanticism movement

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, European and, including American, culture experienced a birth that was completely different from the period of reflection and philosophy of the Enlightenment, the stage of Romanticism. Gradually interspersing from Germany into the culture and art of England, France, Russia and other European countries, Romanticism enriched the artistic world with new colors, storylines and the boldness of the nude.

The name of the fresh movement was born from the close interweaving of several meanings of monophonic words from different countries - romantisme (France), romance (Spain), romantic (England). Subsequently, the name of the movement took root and has survived to this day as romantique — something picturesquely strange, fantastically beautiful, existing only in books, but not in reality.

general characteristics

Romanticism replaces the Age of Enlightenment and coincides with the industrial revolution, marked by the appearance of the steam engine, steam locomotive, steamship, photography and factory outskirts. If the Enlightenment is characterized by the cult of reason and civilization based on its principles, then romanticism affirms the cult of nature, feelings and the natural in man.

It was in the era of romanticism that the phenomena of tourism, mountaineering and picnics took shape, designed to restore the unity of man and nature. The image of the “noble savage”, armed with “folk wisdom” and not spoiled by civilization, is in demand. That is, the romanticists wanted to show an unusual person in unusual circumstances. In short, the romanticists opposed progressive civilization.

Romanticism in painting

The depth of their own personal experiences and thoughts — that’s what painters convey through their artistic image, which is made using color, composition and accents. Various European countries had their own characteristics in the interpretation of the romantic image. All this is connected with the philosophical current, as well as the socio-political situation, to which art was the only living response. Painting was no exception.

Germany at that time was fragmented into small duchies and principalities and was experiencing severe public turmoil. The painters did not depict titanic heroes, did not make monumental canvases; in this case, enthusiasm was evoked by the deep spiritual world of man, moral quests, his greatness and beauty. Therefore, romanticism in German painting is represented to the greatest extent in landscapes and portraits.

The traditional standard of this genre is the Works of Otto Runge. In the portraits of this painter, through the treatment of facial features and eyes, through the contrast of shadow and light, the artist’s zeal is conveyed to demonstrate the inconsistency of personality, its depth and power of feeling. Thanks to the landscape, the images of trees, birds and flowers are exaggerated and to a lesser extent mind-blowing. Otto Runge also tried to discover the diversity of the human personality, its similarity with nature, unidentified and different.

Self-portrait "The three of us", 1805, Philipp Otto Runge

In France, romanticism in painting developed according to different principles. Stormy social life, as well as revolutionary upheavals, are manifested in painting by the painters’ inclination to depict mind-blowing and historical subjects, also with “nervous” excitement and pathos, which were achieved by dazzling color contrast, some chaos, expression of movements, as well as spontaneity of compositions.

In the works of T. Gericault, romantic ideas are most clearly represented. The painter created a pulsating depth of emotion, using light and color professionally, depicting a sublime impulse towards freedom and struggle.

"Epsom Derby", 1821, Theodore Géricault

“Officer of the mounted rangers of the imperial guard, going on the attack,” 1812

The era of Romanticism was also reflected in the paintings of artists who exposed inner fears, impulses, love and hatred in clear contrasts of light, shadow and halftones. The whitewashed bodies of G.I. Fusli along with the phantasmagoria of fictional monsters, the naked touching female bodies of E. Delacroix against the backdrop of gloomy debris and smoke, paintings painted with the magical power of the brush of the Spanish painter F. Goya, the freshness of the calm and the gloominess of the storm of I. Aivazovsky — pulled from the depths of the centuries of Gothic and Renaissance brought to the surface what was previously so skillfully masked by generally accepted canons.

Nightmare, 1781, Johann Heinrich Fusli

Liberty Leading the People, 1830, Eugene Delacroix

Rainbow, Ivan Aivazovsky

If the painting of the 13th and 14th centuries was stingy with emotions, and in the subsequent three hundred years of the formation of the art of the Early and High Renaissance, with its overcoming of religiosity and blind faith in something else, or the Enlightenment period, which put an end to the “witch hunt,” then the artistic representation on the canvases of Romanticism allowed look into a world different from the real one.

To convey passions, artists resorted to the use of rich colors, bright strokes and saturation of paintings with “special effects”.

Biedermeier

One of the branches of romanticism in painting is the style Biedermeier. The main feature of Biedermeier is idealism. In painting, everyday scenes predominate, while in other genres the paintings are of a chamber nature. Painting seeks to find features of idyllic attractiveness in the world of a small person. This tendency is rooted in the peculiarities of national German life, primarily the burghers.

Bookworm, ok. 1850, K. Spitzweg

One of the most prominent representatives of Biedermeier painting, Carl Spitzweg, painted eccentric philistines, as they were called in Germany, philistines, as he himself was.

Of course, his heroes are limited, these are the little people of the province, watering roses on the balcony, postmen, cooks, clerks. There is humor in Spitzweg's paintings; he laughs at his characters, but without malice.

Gradually, the concept of “Biedermeier” spread to fashion, applied art, graphics, interior design, and furniture. In applied art, painting of porcelain and glass receives the greatest development. By 1900, the word also came to mean "the good old days."

Biedermeier — the style is provincial, although metropolitan artists also worked in this style, in Berlin and Vienna. Biedermeier also penetrated into Russia. His influence is in the works of Russian masters, A. G. Venetsianov and V. A. Tropinin. The expression “Russian Biedermeier” exists, although it sounds ridiculous.

Sleeping shepherd, 1823-24, A. G. Venetsianov

Family portrait of the Counts Morkovs, 1813, V. A. Tropinin

In Russia, Biedermeier is Pushkin's times. Biedermeier fashion — the fashion of Pushkin’s times. This is a jacket, vest and top hat for men, a cane, tight trousers with straps. Sometimes — a tailcoat. Women wore dresses with narrow waists, wide necklines, wide bell-shaped skirts, and hats. Things were simple, without complex decorations.

Interiors in the Biedermeier style are characterized by intimacy, balanced proportions, simplicity of shape and light colors. The premises were light and spacious, which is why the interior was perceived as moderately simple, but psychologically comfortable. The walls of rooms with deep window niches were painted white or other light colors and covered with embossed striped wallpaper. The pattern on the window curtains and furniture upholstery was the same. These fabric interior parts were colored and contained designs depicting flowers.

The concept of a “clean room” appears, that is, a room that was not used on weekdays. This usually closed “Sunday room” served only for receiving guests. Additional comfort to the residential interior was given by furniture painted in warm colors and wall watercolors, engravings, as well as a large number of decorations and souvenirs. As with style preferences, the practical Biedermeier selects only those pieces of furniture that correspond to his idea of ​​functionality and comfort. Never before has furniture so fully met its purpose as in this era - decorativeness fades into the background.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Biedermeier began to be assessed negatively. He was understood as “vulgar, bourgeois.” He really had such features as intimacy, intimacy, sentimentality, poeticization of things, which led to such an assessment.

Romanticism in literature

Romanticism also opposed the Age of Enlightenment in verbal terms: the language of romantic works, striving to be natural, “simple”, accessible to all readers, was something opposite to the classics with its noble, “sublime” themes, characteristic, for example, of classical tragedy.

Romantic hero  - a complex, passionate personality, whose inner world is unusually deep and endless; it is a whole universe full of contradictions. The romantics were interested in all passions, both high and low, which were opposed to each other. High passion — love in all its manifestations, low — greed, ambition, envy. Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

Among the late Western European romantics, pessimism towards society acquires cosmic proportions and becomes the “disease of the century.” The heroes of many romantic works (F.R. Chateaubriand, A. Musset, J. Byron, A. Vigny, A. Lamartine, G. Heine, etc.) are characterized by moods of hopelessness and despair, which acquire a universal human character. Perfection is lost forever, the world is ruled by evil, ancient chaos is resurrected. The theme of the “terrible world”, characteristic of all romantic literature, was most clearly embodied in the so-called “black genre”, as well as in the works of Byron, C. Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffman, E. Poe and N. Hawthorne.

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge the “terrible world”—primarily the ideas of freedom. The disappointment of romanticism is a disappointment in reality, but progress and civilization are only one side of it. Rejection of this side, lack of faith in the possibilities of civilization provide another path, the path to the ideal, to the eternal, to the absolute. This path must resolve all contradictions and completely change life. This is the path to perfection, “towards a goal, the explanation of which must be sought on the other side of the visible” (A. De Vigny).

For some romantics, the world is dominated by incomprehensible and mysterious forces that must be obeyed and not try to change fate (poets of the “lake school”, Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, “world evil” caused protest, demanded revenge and struggle. (J. Byron, P. B. Shelley, S. Petofi, A. Mickiewicz, early A. S. Pushkin). What they had in common was that they all saw in man a single essence, whose task is not at all limited to solving everyday problems. On the contrary, without denying everyday life, the romantics sought to unravel the mystery of human existence, turning to nature, trusting their religious and poetic feelings.

By the way, it is thanks to Zhukovsky that Russian literature includes one of the favorite genres of Western European romantics —  ballad. Thanks to Zhukovsky's translations, Russian readers became acquainted with the ballads of Goethe, Schiller, Burger, Southey, and W. Scott. “The translator in prose is a slave, the translator in verse is a rival”, these words belong to Zhukovsky himself and reflect his attitude towards his own translations.

After Zhukovsky, many poets turned to the ballad genre - A.S. Pushkin ( Song about Prophetic Oleg, Drowned), M.Yu. Lermontov ( Airship, Mermaid), A.K. Tolstoy ( Vasily Shibanov) and etc.

Examination essay

Subject:"Romanticism as a movement in art."

Performed student of class 11 "B" of school No. 3

Boyright Anna

World Art Teacher

culture Butsu T.N.

Brest 2002

1. Introduction

2. Reasons for the emergence of romanticism

3. Main features of romanticism

4. Romantic hero

5. Romanticism in Russia

a) Literature

b) Painting

c) Music

6. Western European romanticism

a) Painting

b) Music

7. Conclusion

8. References

1. INTRODUCTION

If you look into the explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, you can find several meanings of the word “romanticism”: 1. A movement in literature and art of the first quarter of the 19th century, characterized by the idealization of the past, isolation from reality, and the cult of personality and man. 2. A movement in literature and art, imbued with optimism and the desire to show in vivid images the high purpose of man. 3. A state of mind imbued with an idealization of reality and dreamy contemplation.

As can be seen from the definition, romanticism is a phenomenon that manifests itself not only in art, but also in behavior, clothing, lifestyle, psychology of people and arises at turning points in life, therefore the topic of romanticism is still relevant today. We live at the turn of the century, we are in a transitional stage. In this regard, in society there is a lack of faith in the future, a loss of faith in ideals, a desire arises to escape from the surrounding reality into the world of one’s own experiences and at the same time to comprehend it. It is these features that are characteristic of romantic art. That’s why I chose the topic “Romanticism as a movement in art” for research.

Romanticism is a very large layer of different types of art. The purpose of my work is to trace the conditions of origin and reasons for the emergence of romanticism in different countries, to explore the development of romanticism in such forms of art as literature, painting and music, and to compare them. The main task for me was to highlight the main features of romanticism, characteristic of all types of art, to determine what influence romanticism had on the development of other movements in art.

When developing the topic, I used textbooks on art, authors such as Filimonova, Vorotnikov and others, encyclopedic publications, monographs dedicated to various authors of the Romantic era, biographical materials of such authors as Aminskaya, Atsarkina, Nekrasova and others.

2. REASONS FOR THE ARISE OF ROMANTICISM

The closer we get to modern times, the shorter the periods of dominance of one style or another become. The time period of the end of the 18th-1st third of the 19th centuries. is considered to be the era of romanticism (from the French Romantique; something mysterious, strange, unreal)

What influenced the emergence of the new style?

These are three main events: the Great French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of the national liberation movement in Europe.

The thunder of Paris echoed throughout Europe. The slogan “Freedom, equality, brotherhood!” had enormous attractive power for all European peoples. As bourgeois societies formed, the working class began to act against the feudal order as an independent force. The opposing struggle of three classes - the nobility, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat formed the basis of the historical development of the 19th century.

The fate of Napoleon and his role in European history for 2 decades, 1796-1815, occupied the minds of his contemporaries. “The ruler of thoughts,” A.S. said about him. Pushkin.

For France, these were years of greatness and glory, albeit at the cost of the lives of thousands of Frenchmen. Italy saw Napoleon as its liberator. The Poles had great hopes for him.

Napoleon acted as a conqueror acting in the interests of the French bourgeoisie. For European monarchs, he was not only a military opponent, but also a representative of the alien world of the bourgeoisie. They hated him. At the beginning of the Napoleonic wars, his “Great Army” included many direct participants in the revolution.

The personality of Napoleon himself was phenomenal. The young man Lermontov responded to the 10th anniversary of Napoleon’s death:

He is alien to the world. Everything about him was a secret

The day of exaltation - and the hour of fall!

This mystery especially attracted the attention of romantics.

In connection with the Napoleonic wars and the maturation of national self-awareness, this period was characterized by the rise of the national liberation movement. Germany, Austria, Spain fought against the Napoleonic occupation, Italy - against the Austrian yoke, Greece - against Turkey, in Poland they fought against Russian tsarism, Ireland - against the British.

Amazing changes have taken place before the eyes of one generation.

France was seething most of all: the stormy five years of the French Revolution, the rise and fall of Robespierre, Napoleonic campaigns, Napoleon’s first abdication, his return from the island of Elba (“one hundred days”) and the final

the defeat at Waterloo, the gloomy 15th anniversary of the restoration regime, the July Revolution of 1860, the February Revolution of 1848 in Paris, which caused a revolutionary wave in other countries.

In England, as a result of the industrial revolution in the 2nd half of the 19th century. machine production and capitalist relations were established. The parliamentary reform of 1832 cleared the path for the bourgeoisie to state power.

In the lands of Germany and Austria, feudal rulers retained power. After the fall of Napoleon, they dealt harshly with the opposition. But even on German soil, the steam locomotive, brought from England in 1831, became a factor in bourgeois progress.

Industrial revolutions and political revolutions changed the face of Europe. “The bourgeoisie, in less than a hundred years of its class rule, has created more numerous and colossal productive forces than all previous generations combined,” wrote the German scientists Marx and Engels in 1848.

So, the Great French Revolution (1789-1794) marked a special milestone separating the new era from the Age of Enlightenment. Not only the forms of the state, the social structure of society, and the arrangement of classes changed. The entire system of ideas, illuminated for centuries, was shaken. The Enlighteners ideologically prepared the revolution. But they could not foresee all its consequences. The “kingdom of reason” did not take place. The revolution, which proclaimed individual freedom, gave rise to the bourgeois order, the spirit of acquisition and selfishness. Such was the historical basis for the development of artistic culture, which put forward a new direction - romanticism.

3. MAIN FEATURES OF ROMANTICism

Romanticism as a method and direction in artistic culture was a complex and contradictory phenomenon. In every country it had a strong national expression. In literature, music, painting and theater it is not easy to find features that unite Chateaubriand and Delacroix, Mickiewicz and Chopin, Lermontov and Kiprensky.

Romantics occupied different social and political positions in society. They all rebelled against the results of the bourgeois revolution, but they rebelled in different ways, since each had their own ideal. But for all its many faces and diversity, romanticism has stable features.

Disillusionment with modernity gave rise to a special interest in the past: to pre-bourgeois social formations, to patriarchal antiquity. Many romantics had the idea that the picturesque exoticism of the countries of the south and east - Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey - was a poetic contrast to the boring bourgeois everyday life. In these countries, then little touched by civilization, romantics looked for bright, strong characters, an original, colorful way of life. Interest in the national past has given rise to a lot of historical works.

Striving to rise above the prose of existence, to liberate the diverse abilities of the individual, to achieve maximum self-realization in creativity, the romantics opposed the formalization of art and the straightforward and reasonable approach to it, characteristic of classicism. They all came from denial of the Enlightenment and the rationalistic canons of classicism, which fettered the artist’s creative initiative. And if classicism divides everything in a straight line, into good and bad, into black and white, then romanticism divides nothing in a straight line. Classicism is a system, but romanticism is not. Romanticism advanced the advancement of modern times from classicism to sentimentalism, which shows the inner life of man in harmony with the wider world. And romanticism contrasts harmony with the inner world. It is with romanticism that real psychologism begins to appear.

The main goal of romanticism was image of the inner world, spiritual life, and this could be done on the material of stories, mysticism, etc. It was necessary to show the paradox of this inner life, its irrationality.

In their imagination, romantics transformed the unsightly reality or retreated into the world of their experiences. The gap between dream and reality, the opposition of beautiful fiction to objective reality, lay at the heart of the entire romantic movement.

Romanticism first raised the problem of the language of art. “Art is a language of a completely different kind than nature; but it also contains the same miraculous power, which equally secretly and incomprehensibly affects the human soul” (Wackenroder and Tieck). The artist is an interpreter of the language of nature, a mediator between the world of spirit and people. “Thanks to artists, humanity emerges as a complete individuality. Through modernity, artists unite the world of the past with the world of the future. They are the highest spiritual organ in which the vital forces of their outer humanity meet each other and where the inner humanity manifests itself first of all” (F. Schlegel).

The art of the period of romanticism, at its core, has the spiritual and creative value of the individual, as the main theme for philosophy and reflection. It appeared at the end of the 18th century and is characterized by romantic motifs associated with various oddities and picturesque events or landscapes. At its core, the emergence of this trend was in opposition to classicism, and the harbinger of its appearance was sentimentalism, which was quite clearly expressed in the literature of that time.

By the beginning of the 19th century, Romanticism blossomed and became completely immersed in sensual and emotional imagery. In addition, a very important fact was the rethinking of the attitude towards religion in this era, as well as the emergence of atheism expressed in creativity. The values ​​of feelings and heartfelt experiences are put at the forefront, and there is also a gradual public recognition of the presence of intuition in a person.

Romanticism in painting

The direction is characterized by the emphasis on sublime themes, which is fundamental to this style in any creative activity. Sensuality is expressed in any possible and acceptable ways, and this is the most important difference of this direction.

(Christiano Banti "Galileo before the Roman Inquisition")

Among the founders of philosophical romanticism, Novalis and Schleiermacher can be distinguished, but Theodore Gericault distinguished himself in painting in this regard. In literature, we can note particularly bright writers of the romanticism period - the brothers Grimm, Hoffmann and Heine. In many European countries this style developed under strong German influence.

The main features are:

• romantic notes clearly expressed in the work;
• fairy-tale and mythological notes even in completely non-fairytale prose;
• philosophical reflections on the meaning of human life;
• deepening into the topic of personality development.

(Friedrich Caspar David "Moonrise over the sea")

We can say that romanticism is characterized by notes of the cultivation of nature and the naturalness of human nature, and natural sensuality. The unity of man with nature is also glorified, and images of the knightly era, surrounded by an aura of nobility and honor, as well as travelers who easily embark on romantic journeys, are also very popular.

(John Martin "Macbeth")

Events in literature or painting develop around the strongest passions experienced by the characters. Heroes have always been individuals prone to adventurism, playing with fate and predetermination of fate. In painting, romanticism is perfectly characterized by fantastic phenomena that demonstrate the process of personality formation and spiritual development of a person.

Romanticism in Russian art

In Russian culture, romanticism was especially pronounced in literature, and it is believed that the first manifestations of this trend are expressed in the romantic poetry of Zhukovsky, although some experts believe that his works are close to classical sentimentalism.

(V. M. Vasnetsov "Alyonushka")

Russian romanticism is characterized by freedom from classical conventions, and this movement is characterized by romantic dramatic plots and long ballads. In fact, this is the latest idea about the essence of man, as well as the importance of poetry and creativity in people's lives. In this regard, the same poetry acquires a more serious, meaningful meaning, although previously writing poetry was considered ordinary empty fun.

(Fedor Aleksandrovich Vasiliev "Thaw")

Most often in Russian romanticism, the image of the main character is created as a lonely and deeply suffering person. It is suffering and emotional experiences that authors pay the greatest attention to, both in literature and in painting. In essence, this is an eternal movement along with various thoughts and reflections, and a person’s struggle with constant changes in the world that surrounds him.

(Orest Kiprensky "Portrait of Life Hussar Colonel E.V. Davydov")

The hero is usually quite self-centered and constantly rebels against the vulgar and material goals and values ​​of people. Getting rid of material values ​​in favor of spiritual and personal ones is promoted. Among the Russian most popular and colorful characters created within the framework of this creative direction, one can single out the main character from the novel “A Hero of Our Time.” It is this novel that very clearly demonstrates the motives and notes of romanticism in that period.

(Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky "Fishermen on the seashore")

The painting is characterized by fairy-tale and folklore motifs, romantic and full of various dreams. All works are as aesthetically pleasing as possible and have correct, beautiful structures and forms. In this direction there is no place for hard lines and geometric shapes, as well as overly bright and contrasting shades. In this case, complex structures and many small, very important details in the picture are used.

Romanticism in architecture

The architecture of the Romantic era is similar in itself to fairytale castles, and is incredibly luxurious.

(Blenheim Palace, England)

The most striking and famous buildings of this time are characterized by:

• the use of metal structures, which were a new invention during this period, and represented a rather unique innovation;
• complex silhouettes and designs that involve incredible combinations of beautiful elements, including turrets and bay windows;
• richness and variety of architectural forms, abundance of different combinations of technologies for using iron alloys with stone and glass;
• the building acquires visual lightness; thin forms make it possible to create even very large buildings with minimal bulkiness.

The most famous bridge of this period was created in 1779 in England, and was thrown over the Severn River. It is quite short in length, just over 30 meters, but it was the first such structure. Later, bridges of more than 70 meters were created, and after a few years, cast iron structures began to be used in the construction of buildings.

The buildings had up to 4-5 floors, and the interior layouts were characterized by asymmetrical shapes. Asymmetry is also visible in the facades of this era, and forged bars on the windows help emphasize the corresponding mood. You can also use stained glass windows, which is especially important for churches and cathedrals.

1.1 Main features of romanticism

Romanticism - (French romantisme, from the medieval French romant - novel) is a direction in art that was formed within the framework of a general literary movement at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. in Germany. It has become widespread in all countries of Europe and America. The highest peak of romanticism occurred in the first quarter of the 19th century.

The French word romantisme goes back to the Spanish romance (in the Middle Ages, this was the name for Spanish romances, and then a chivalric romance), the English romantic, which turned into 18th century. in romantique and then meaning “strange”, “fantastic”, “picturesque”. At the beginning of the 19th century. Romanticism becomes the designation of a new direction, opposite to classicism.

Entering into the antithesis of “classicism” - “romanticism,” the movement suggested the opposition of the classicist demand for rules to romantic freedom from rules. The center of the artistic system of romanticism is the individual, and its main conflict is the individual and society. The decisive prerequisite for the development of romanticism were the events of the Great French Revolution. The emergence of romanticism is associated with the anti-Enlightenment movement, the reasons for which lie in disappointment in civilization, in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, the result of which was new contrasts and contradictions, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual.

The Enlightenment preached the new society as the most “natural” and “reasonable”. The best minds of Europe substantiated and foreshadowed this society of the future, but reality turned out to be beyond the control of “reason,” the future became unpredictable, irrational, and the modern social order began to threaten human nature and his personal freedom. Rejection of this society, protest against lack of spirituality and selfishness is already reflected in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism. Romanticism expresses this rejection most acutely. Romanticism also opposed the Age of Enlightenment in verbal terms: the language of romantic works, striving to be natural, “simple”, accessible to all readers, was something opposite to the classics with its noble, “sublime” themes, characteristic, for example, of classical tragedy.

Among the late Western European romantics, pessimism towards society acquires cosmic proportions and becomes the “disease of the century.” The heroes of many romantic works are characterized by moods of hopelessness and despair, which acquire a universal human character. Perfection is lost forever, the world is ruled by evil, ancient chaos is resurrected. The theme of the “terrible world”, characteristic of all romantic literature, was most clearly embodied in the so-called “black genre” (in the pre-romantic “Gothic novel” - A. Radcliffe, C. Maturin, in the “drama of rock”, or “tragedy of rock” - Z. Werner, G. Kleist, F. Grillparzer), as well as in the works of Byron, C. Brentano, E. T. A. Hoffmann, E. Poe and N. Hawthorne.

At the same time, romanticism is based on ideas that challenge the “terrible world” - above all, the ideas of freedom. The disappointment of romanticism is a disappointment in reality, but progress and civilization are only one side of it. Rejection of this side, lack of faith in the possibilities of civilization provide another path, the path to the ideal, to the eternal, to the absolute. This path must resolve all contradictions and completely change life. This is the path to perfection, “towards a goal, the explanation of which must be sought on the other side of the visible” (A. De Vigny). For some romantics, the world is dominated by incomprehensible and mysterious forces that must be obeyed and not try to change fate (Chateaubriand, V.A. Zhukovsky). For others, “world evil” caused protest, demanded revenge and struggle (early A.S. Pushkin). What they had in common was that they all saw in man a single essence, whose task is not at all limited to solving everyday problems. On the contrary, without denying everyday life, the romantics sought to unravel the mystery of human existence, turning to nature, trusting their religious and poetic feelings.

A romantic hero is a complex, passionate personality, whose inner world is unusually deep and endless; it is a whole universe full of contradictions. The romantics were interested in all passions, both high and low, which were opposed to each other. High passion is love in all its manifestations, low passion is greed, ambition, envy. The romantics contrasted the life of the spirit, especially religion, art, and philosophy, with the base material practice. Interest in strong and vivid feelings, all-consuming passions, and secret movements of the soul are characteristic features of romanticism.

We can talk about romance as a special type of personality - a person of strong passions and high aspirations, incompatible with the everyday world. Exceptional circumstances accompany this nature. Fantasy, folk music, poetry, legends become attractive to romantics - everything that for a century and a half was considered as minor genres, not worthy of attention. Romanticism is characterized by the affirmation of freedom, the sovereignty of the individual, increased attention to the individual, the unique in man, and the cult of the individual. Confidence in the self-worth of man turns into a protest against the fate of history. Often the hero of a romantic work becomes an artist who is capable of creatively perceiving reality. The classicist “imitation of nature” is contrasted with the creative energy of the artist who transforms reality. A special world is created, more beautiful and real than the empirically perceived reality. It is creativity that is the meaning of existence; it represents the highest value of the universe. Romantics passionately defended the creative freedom of the artist, his imagination, believing that the genius of the artist does not obey the rules, but creates them.

Romantics turned to various historical eras, they were attracted by their originality, attracted by exotic and mysterious countries and circumstances. Interest in history became one of the enduring achievements of the artistic system of romanticism. He expressed himself in the creation of the genre of the historical novel, the founder of which is considered to be W. Scott, and the novel in general, which acquired a leading position in the era under consideration. Romantics reproduce in detail and accurately the historical details, background, and flavor of a particular era, but romantic characters are given outside of history; they, as a rule, are above circumstances and do not depend on them. At the same time, the romantics perceived the novel as a means of comprehending history, and from history they went to penetrate into the secrets of psychology, and, accordingly, of modernity. Interest in history was also reflected in the works of historians of the French romantic school (A. Thierry, F. Guizot, F. O. Meunier).

It was in the era of Romanticism that the discovery of the culture of the Middle Ages took place, and the admiration for antiquity, characteristic of the previous era, also did not weaken at the end of the 18th - beginning of the century. XIX centuries The diversity of national, historical, and individual characteristics also had a philosophical meaning: the wealth of a single world whole consists of the combination of these individual features, and the study of the history of each people separately makes it possible to trace, as Burke put it, uninterrupted life through new generations succeeding one after another.

The era of Romanticism was marked by the flourishing of literature, one of the distinctive properties of which was a passion for social and political problems. Trying to comprehend the role of man in ongoing historical events, romantic writers gravitated toward accuracy, specificity, and authenticity. At the same time, the action of their works often takes place in settings that are unusual for a European - for example, in the East and America, or, for Russians, in the Caucasus or Crimea. Thus, romantic poets are primarily lyricists and poets of nature, and therefore in their work (as well as in many prose writers), landscape occupies a significant place - first of all, the sea, mountains, sky, stormy elements with which the hero is associated complex relationships. Nature can be akin to the passionate nature of a romantic hero, but it can also resist him, turn out to be a hostile force with which he is forced to fight.

Unusual and vivid pictures of nature, life, way of life and customs of distant countries and peoples also inspired the romantics. They were looking for the traits that constitute the fundamental basis of the national spirit. National identity is manifested primarily in oral folk art. Hence the interest in folklore, the processing of folklore works, the creation of their own works based on folk art.

The development of the genres of the historical novel, fantastic story, lyric-epic poem, ballad is the merit of the romantics. Their innovation was also manifested in lyrics, in particular, in the use of polysemy of words, the development of associativity, metaphor, and discoveries in the field of versification, meter, and rhythm.

Romanticism is characterized by a synthesis of genders and genres, their interpenetration. The romantic art system was based on a synthesis of art, philosophy, and religion. For example, for a thinker like Herder, linguistic research, philosophical doctrines, and travel notes serve the search for ways of revolutionary renewal of culture. Much of the achievements of romanticism were inherited by realism of the 19th century. – a penchant for fantasy, the grotesque, a mixture of high and low, tragic and comic, the discovery of “subjective man.”

In the era of romanticism, not only literature, but also many sciences flourished: sociology, history, political science, chemistry, biology, evolutionary doctrine, philosophy (Hegel, D. Hume, I. Kant, Fichte, natural philosophy, the essence of which boils down to the fact that nature - one of the garments of God, “the living garment of the Divine”).

Romanticism is a cultural phenomenon in Europe and America. In different countries, his fate had its own characteristics.

1.2 Romanticism in Russia

By the beginning of the second decade of the 19th century, romanticism occupied a key place in Russian art, revealing more or less fully its national identity. It is extremely risky to reduce this uniqueness to any trait or even a sum of traits; What we see is rather the direction of the process, as well as its pace, its acceleration - if we compare Russian romanticism with the older “romanticisms” of European literature.

We have already observed this acceleration of development in the prehistory of Russian romanticism - in the last decade of the 18th century. - in the first years of the 19th century, when there was an unusually close interweaving of pre-romantic and sentimental tendencies with the tendencies of classicism.

The revaluation of reason, hypertrophy of sensitivity, the cult of nature and natural man, elegiac melancholy and epicureanism were combined with moments of systematism and rationality, especially manifested in the field of poetics. Styles and genres were streamlined (mainly through the efforts of Karamzin and his followers), and there was a struggle against excessive metaphor and floridity of speech for the sake of its “harmonic accuracy” (Pushkin’s definition of the distinctive feature of the school founded by Zhukovsky and Batyushkov).

The speed of development also left its mark on the more mature stage of Russian romanticism. The density of artistic evolution also explains the fact that in Russian romanticism it is difficult to recognize clear chronological stages. Literary historians divide Russian romanticism into the following periods: the initial period (1801 - 1815), the period of maturity (1816 - 1825) and the period of its post-October development. This is an approximate diagram, because at least two of these periods (the first and third) are qualitatively heterogeneous and they are not characterized by at least a relative unity of principles that distinguished, for example, the periods of Jena and Heidelberg romanticism in Germany.

The romantic movement in Western Europe - primarily in German literature - began under the sign of completeness and integrity. Everything that was separated strived for synthesis: in natural philosophy, and in sociology, and in the theory of knowledge, and in psychology - personal and social, and, of course, in artistic thought, which united all these impulses and, as it were, gave them new life .

Man sought to merge with nature; personality, individual - with the whole, with the people; intuitive knowledge - with logical; the subconscious elements of the human spirit - with the highest spheres of reflection and reason. Although the relationship between opposing moments sometimes seemed conflicting, the tendency towards unification gave rise to a special emotional spectrum of romanticism, multi-colored and variegated, with a predominance of a bright, major tone.

Only gradually did the conflicting elements develop into their antinomy; the idea of ​​the desired synthesis dissolved in the idea of ​​alienation and confrontation, the optimistic mood gave way to a feeling of disappointment and pessimism.

Russian romanticism is familiar with both stages of the process - both the initial and the final; however, at the same time he forced the general movement. The final forms appeared before the initial forms reached their peak; the intermediate ones crumpled or fell off. Compared to the background of Western European literature, Russian romanticism looked at the same time both less and more romantic: it was inferior to them in richness, ramifications, and breadth of the overall picture, but superior to them in the certainty of some final results.

The most important socio-political factor that influenced the formation of romanticism is Decembrism. The refraction of Decembrist ideology into the plane of artistic creativity is an extremely complex and lengthy process. Let us not, however, lose sight of the fact that it acquired precisely artistic expression; that Decembrist impulses were clothed in very specific literary forms.

Often “literary Decembrism” was identified with a certain imperative external to artistic creativity, when all artistic means were subordinated to an extra-literary goal, which, in turn, stemmed from Decembrist ideology. This goal, this “task” was allegedly leveled or even pushed aside “syllable features or genre features.” In reality, everything was much more complicated.

The specific character of Russian romanticism is clearly visible in the lyrics of this time, i.e. in the lyrical attitude to the world, in the basic tone and perspective of the author’s position, in what is commonly called the “image of the author.” Let's look at Russian poetry from this angle in order to get at least a quick idea of ​​its diversity and unity.

Russian romantic poetry has revealed a fairly wide range of “images of the author,” sometimes converging, sometimes, on the contrary, polemicizing and contrasting with each other. But always the “image of the author” is such a condensation of emotions, moods, thoughts, or everyday and biographical details (the lyrical work seems to contain “scraps” of the author’s line of alienation, more fully represented in the poem), which stems from opposition to the environment. The connection between the individual and the whole has broken down. The spirit of confrontation and disharmony blows over the author's image even when in itself it seems uncloudedly clear and whole.

Pre-romanticism knew mainly two forms of expressing conflict in lyrics, which can be called lyrical oppositions - the elegiac and epicurean form. Romantic poetry developed them into a series of more complex, deep and individually differentiated ones.

But, no matter how important the above forms are in themselves, they, of course, do not exhaust the entire wealth of Russian romanticism.