Realism as an independent direction established itself in the 40s of the 19th century, later turning into the form of critical realism (the highest point of realism - exposing the vices of society). The development of realism was accompanied by the development of the capitalist mode of production, and, consequently, the growth of social contradictions, which was reflected in the art of this time.
Realism in 19th century art. combines with romanticism
Disappointment with the results of revolutions
Negative attitude towards bourgeois reality
Appeal to the spiritual world of man
The struggle for personal self-affirmation
The theme of nationality is close
However, unlike the romantics, who flee from reality, considering emergency situations, extraordinary personalities, heroic situations, life of stormy passions, realism penetrates deeply into reality, into public life.
New approaches of realist artists of the 19th century. is to reflect what is really happening “here and now.” The artists were convinced of the possibility of understanding the objectively existing world through art. They turned to scenes of bourgeois life, illuminated the life of peasants, and the everyday work of the urban lower classes.
One of the first realists in French painting was Gustave Courbet, who addressed the theme of labor (“Stone Crusher”), wrote social canvases based on real motives (“Funeral in Ornans”). Courbet's “prosaism” is an open challenge to official criticism.
Francois Millet- peasant genre, without melodramatic and ethnographic shades, but through the transmission of poses, gestures, body movements, revealed the nature of the labor process, the strength and dexterity of the peasants (“Peasant Women with Twigs”, “Gatherers of Ears”) - epically monumental canvases full of vitality and truth .
Honoré Daumier is an artist of critical realism who, like O. Balzac, created the “Human Comedy” of the era in thousands of lithographs, drawings and paintings - caricatures of King Louis Philippe in the satirical magazines “Caricature” and “Charivari” (“Down the Curtain” ), its main genre is the satire of morals: the philistine world of swindlers, fools, provincials in the capital (“Leaders of Justice”). “The Laundress” is not a portrait, but a collective image of all Parisian laundresses; a portrait in which the author expressed all his love for the people. A series of illustrations for “Don Quixote”, where in the image of the main character the artist tried to reflect his own position in society, the theme of human suffering. The social relevance of his stories is a counterbalance to the prohibited censorship.
French national landscape:
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot– poetic spirituality of nature; favorite motif – “after the rain”, i.e. changing state of nature; the silvery tonality of his painting is “Coro’s gray haze”.
Barbizon School– main goal: depicting the uniqueness of the national landscape, conveying the changing states of nature, rejecting compositional canons. Theodore Rousseau– “Landscape with a Bridge” is a landscape from life, special attention to form, all the trees are individual, the picturesque modeling makes them voluminous and almost sculptural, their monumentality is emphasized by the low horizon.
Jules Dupre– “Autumn landscape” - the effect of the setting sun emphasizes the contrast of colors of the autumn landscape after the rain, the trees dominating the composition are especially solemn.
Charles Daubigny– river landscapes (“Banks of the Oise River”), the desire to capture the slightest changes in the state of nature, subtle picturesque transmission of light enveloping objects.
Realism emerged as a powerful artistic movement in the mid-19th century. Of course, Homer and Shakespeare, Cervantes and Goethe, Michelangelo, Rembrandt or Rubens were the greatest realists. When talking about realism in the mid-19th century, they mean a certain artistic system. In France, realism is associated primarily with the name of Courbet, who, however, refused to be called a realist. Realism in art is undoubtedly associated with the victory of pragmatism in the public consciousness, the predominance of materialistic views, and the dominant role of science. An appeal to modernity in all its manifestations with reliance, as Emile Zola proclaimed, on exact science became the main requirement of this artistic movement. The realists spoke in a clear, clear language, which replaced the “musical”, but unsteady and vague language of the romantics.
The revolution of 1848 dispelled all the romantic illusions of the French intelligentsia and in this sense was a very important stage in the development of not only France, but also the whole of Europe. The events of 1848 had a direct impact on art. First of all, art became more widely used as a means of agitation and propaganda. Hence the development of the most mobile form of art - easel and illustrative-magazine graphics, graphics as the main element of the satirical press. Artists are actively involved in the turbulent course of social life.
Life puts forward a new hero, who will soon become the main hero of art - the working man. In art, the search begins for a generalized, monumental image of it, and not an anecdotal genre image, as has been the case until now. The life, life, and work of this new hero will become a new theme in art. A new hero and new themes will give rise to a critical attitude towards existing orders; in art the beginning will be laid of what has already been formed in literature as critical realism. In France, critical realism took shape in the 40s and 50s, in Russia in the 60s. Finally, with realism in art, national liberation ideas that excite the whole world, interest in which was shown by the romantics led by Delacroix, are also reflected in art.
In French painting, realism declared itself first of all in the landscape, at first glance the most distant from the social storms and tendentious orientation of the genre. Realism in landscape begins with the so-called Barbizon school, with artists who received this name in the history of art after the village of Barbizon near Paris. Actually, Barbizonians are not so much a geographical concept as a historical and artistic one. Some of the painters, for example Daubigny, did not come to Barbizon at all, but belonged to their group due to their interest in the national French landscape. This was a group of young painters - Theodore Rousseau, Diaz della Pena, Jules Dupre, Constant Troyon and others - who came to Barbizon to paint sketches from life. They completed the paintings in the studio based on sketches, hence the completeness and generalization in composition and color. But the living sense of nature always remained in them. All of them were united by the desire to carefully study nature and depict it truthfully, but this did not prevent each of them from maintaining their creative individuality. Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867) tends to emphasize the eternal in nature. In his depiction of trees, meadows, and plains we see the materiality of the world, materiality, volume, which makes Rousseau’s works similar to the landscapes of the great Dutch master Ruisdael. But in Rousseau’s paintings (“Oaks”, 1852) there is excessive detail, a somewhat monotonous coloring, in contrast to Jules Dupre (1811-1889), for example, who painted broadly and boldly, loved black and white contrasts and with their help created tension, conveyed anxiety sensation and lighting effects, or Diaz della Peña (1807-1876), a Spaniard by birth, in whose landscapes sunlight is so skillfully conveyed, the rays of the sun penetrating through the foliage and crushing on the grass. Constant Troyon (1810-- 1865) liked to introduce animal motifs into his depictions of nature, thus combining landscape and animalistic genres (“Departure to Market,” 1859). Of the younger artists of the Barbizon school, Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878) deserves special attention. His paintings are always designed in a lightened palette, which brings him closer to the impressionists: calm valleys, quiet rivers, tall grasses; his landscapes are filled with great lyrical feeling (“Village on the banks of the Oise”, 1868).
French realism.
Realism of the 30-40s
Realism is a truthful, objective reflection of reality. Realism arose in France and England in conditions of the triumph of bourgeois orders. Social antagonisms and shortcomings of the capitalist system determined the sharply critical attitude of realist writers towards it. They denounced money-grubbing, blatant social inequality, selfishness, and hypocrisy. In its ideological purposefulness it becomes critical realism. Along with the ideas of humanism and social justice. In France, in the 30s and 40s, Opore de Balzac created his best realistic works, who wrote the 95-volume “Human Comedy”; Victor Hugo - “Notre Dame de Paris”, “The Ninety-Third Year”, “Les Miserables”, etc.
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Gustave Flaubert - “Madame Bovary”, “Education of the Senses”, “Salambo” Prosper Merimo - master of short stories “Mateo Falcone”, “Colomba”, “Carmen”, author of plays, historical chronicles “Chronicle of the Times” ʼʼ, etc.
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In the 30s and 40s in England. Charles Dickens is an outstanding satirist and humorist, his works “Dombey and Son”, “Hard Times”, “Great Expectations”, which are the pinnacle of realism. William Makepeace Thackeray in the novel “Vanity Fair”, in the historical work “The History of Henry Esmond”, and in the collection of satirical essays “The Book of Snobs”, figuratively showed the vices inherent in bourgeois society. In the last third of the 19th century. The literature of the Scandinavian countries acquires a global resonance. These are, first of all, the works of Norwegian writers: Heinrich Ibsen - the dramas “A Doll’s House” (“Nora”), “Ghosts”, “Enemy of the People” called for the emancipation of the human personality from hypocritical bourgeois morality. Bjornson dramas “Bankruptcy”, “Beyond Our Strength”, and poetry. Knut Hamsun - psychological novels “Hunger”, “Mysteries”, “Pan”, “Victoria”, which depict the rebellion of the individual against the philistine environment.
Revolution of 1789ᴦ., a time of intense political struggle. In France, five political regimes change: 1.) 1795 - 1799 period of the Directory, 2.) 1799 - 1804 period of Napoleon's consulate. 3) 1804 - 1814 - the period of the Napoleonic Empire and wars. 4) 1815 - 1830 - the period of restoration. 5) 1830 - 1848 the period of the July Monarchy, 6) the revolution of 1848, strengthening of the bourgeoisie. Realism in France took shape theoretically and as a word. Literature is divided into two stages: Balzacian and Flaubertian. I) 30-year, realism means the reproduction of various natural phenomena. 40s, realism - a setting for the depiction of modern life, based not only on imagination, but also on direct observation. Features: 1) analysis of life, 2) the principle of typification is affirmed 3) the principle of cyclization 4) orientation towards science 5) manifestation of psychologism. The leading genre is the novel. II) 50s A turning point in the concept of realism, which was associated with the pictorial work of Courbet, he and Chanfleury formulated a new program. Prose, sincerity, objectivity in what is observed.
BERANGE Pierre-Jean- French songwriter. B.'s first significant works of this kind are his pamphlets on Napoleon I: ʼʼKing Ivetoʼʼ, ʼʼPolitical treatiseʼʼ. But the heyday of B.'s satire falls on the era of restoration. The return to power of the Bourbons, and with them the emigrant aristocrats, who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing during the years of the revolution, evokes in B. a long series of songs and pamphlets, in which the entire social and political system of the era finds a brilliant satirical reflection. They are continued by pamphlet songs directed against Louis Philippe as the representative of the financial bourgeoisie on the throne. In these songs, which B. himself called the arrows shot at the throne, the church, the bureaucracy, the bourgeoisie, the poet appears as a political tribune, through poetic creativity defending the interests of the working philistinism, which played a revolutionary role in B.'s era, which later finally passed to the proletariat. Being in opposition to Napoleon during his reign, B. asserts the cult of his memory during the Bourbons and Louis Philippe. In the songs of this cycle, Napoleon is idealized as a representative of revolutionary power associated with the masses. The main motives of this cycle: faith in the power of ideas, freedom as a kind of abstract good, and not as a real result of class struggle, which is extremely important associated with violence ("Idea", "Thought"). In one of the songs in this cycle, B. calls his teachers: Owen, La Fontaine, Fourier. We thus have before us a follower of utopian pre-Marxian socialism. The first collection of poems deprives him of the favor of his superiors at the university where he then served. The second collection subjects B. to prosecution, ending in three months' imprisonment, for insulting morality, the church and royal authority. The fourth collection resulted in a second prison sentence for the author, this time for 9 months. With all that, B.'s participation in political life in the proper sense of the word (if we do not concern the revolutionary effect of songs) resulted in rather moderate forms, for example.
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in the form of support for liberals in the revolution of 1830. In recent years, B. withdrew from public life, settling near Paris, moved in his work from political to social motives, developing them in the spirit of populism ("Red Jeanne", "Tramp", "Jacques", etc.) .
BALZAC, ONORE(Balzac, Honoré de) (1799–1850), French writer who recreated a complete picture of the social life of his time. An attempt to make a fortune in the publishing and printing business (1826–1828) involved Balzac in large debts. Turning again to writing, he published a novel in 1829 The Last Shuang. This was the first book to be published under his own name, along with a humorous guide for husbands Physiology of marriage 1829) she attracted public attention to the new author. Then the main work of his life began: in 1830 the first Scenes of private life, an undoubted masterpiece House of a cat playing ball, in 1831 the first Philosophical novels and stories. For several more years, Balzac worked as a freelance journalist, but from 1830 to 1848 his main efforts were devoted to an extensive series of novels and stories, known to the world as Human comedy. In 1834, Balzac had the idea to connect the works written since 1829 and future ones with common characters and combine them into an epic, later called the “Human Comedy”. Embodying the idea of universal interdependence in the world, Balzac conceived a comprehensive artistic study of French society and man. The philosophical framework of this artistic building is 18th-century materialism, natural science theories contemporary to Balzac, and peculiarly melted down elements of mystical teachings. The Human Comedy has three sections. I. Sketches of manners: 1) scenes of private life; 2) scenes of provincial life; 3) scenes of Parisian life; 4) scenes of political life; 5) scenes of military life; 6) scenes of rural life. II. Philosophical studies. III. Analytical studies. These are, as it were, three circles of a spiral ascending from facts to causes and foundations (see Preface to The Human Comedy, Collected.
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soch., vol. 1, M., I960). The “Human Comedy” included 90 works. Balzac b was the first great writer to pay close attention to the material background and “appearance” of his characters; before him, no one had portrayed acquisitiveness and ruthless careerism as the main motivations in life. Gobsek 1830), in An unknown masterpiece (1831), Evgenia Grande, Letters to a stranger about love for the Polish countess.
The French art school at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries can be called the leading European school; it was in France at that time that such art styles as Rococo, Romanticism, Classicism, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism originated.
Rococo (French rococo, from rocaille - a decorative motif in the shape of a shell) - a style in European art of the 1st half of the 18th century. Rococo is characterized by hedonism, a retreat into the world of idyllic theatrical play, and a predilection for pastoral and sensual-erotic subjects. The character of Rococo decor acquired emphatically elegant, sophisticated forms.François Boucher, Antoine Watteau, and Jean Honoré Fragonard worked in the Rococo style.
Classicism - a style in European art of the 17th - early 19th centuries, a characteristic feature of which was an appeal to the forms of ancient art as an ideal aesthetic and ethical standard.Jean Baptiste Greuze, Nicolas Poussin, Jean Baptiste Chardin, Jean Dominique Ingres, and Jacques-Louis David worked in the style of classicism.
Romanticism - a style of European art in the 18th-19th centuries, the characteristic features of which were the affirmation of the intrinsic value of the spiritual and creative life of the individual, the depiction of strong and often rebellious passions and characters.Francisco de Goya, Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Gericault, and William Blake worked in the style of romanticism.
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Edouard Manet. Breakfast in the workshop. 1868 |
The birth of realism in painting is most often associated with the work of the French artist Gustave Courbet, who opened his personal exhibition “Pavilion of Realism” in Paris in 1855, although even before him, artists of the Barbizon school Theodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, and Jules Breton worked in a realistic manner . In the 1870s. realism was divided into two main directions - naturalism and impressionism.
Realistic painting has become widespread throughout the world. The Itinerants worked in the style of realism with a strong social orientation in Russia in the 19th century.
Impressionism (from the French impression - impression) - a style in art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, a characteristic feature of which was the desire to most naturally capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey one’s fleeting impressions. Impressionism did not raise philosophical issues, but focused on the fluidity of the moment, mood and lighting. The subjects of the impressionists become life itself, as a series of small holidays, parties, pleasant picnics in nature in a friendly environment. The Impressionists were among the first to paint en plein air, without finishing their work in the studio.Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat, Alfred Sisley and others worked in the style of impressionism.
Post-Impressionism is an art style that emerged in the late 19th century. Post-Impressionists sought to freely and generally convey the materiality of the world, resorting to decorative stylization.Post-Impressionism gave rise to such art movements as expressionism, symbolism and modernism.
Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, and Toulouse-Lautrec worked in the post-impressionist style.
Let's take a closer look at impressionism and post-impressionism using the example of the work of individual masters of France in the 19th century.
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Edgar Degas. Self-portrait. 1854-1855 |
Starting with historical paintings and portraits that were strict in composition, in the 1870s Degas became close to representatives of impressionism and turned to depicting modern city life - streets, cafes, theatrical performances.
In Degas's paintings, a dynamic, often asymmetrical composition, precise flexible drawing, unexpected angles, and active interaction between figure and space are carefully thought out and verified.
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E. Degas. Bathroom. 1885 |
The favorite pastel technique allowed Edgar Degas to fully demonstrate his talent as a draftsman. Rich tones and “shimmering” strokes of pastel helped the artist create that special colorful atmosphere, that iridescent airiness that so distinguishes all his works.
In his mature years, Degas often turned to the theme of ballet. Fragile and weightless figures of ballerinas appear before the viewer either in the twilight of dance classes, or in the spotlight on the stage, or in short minutes of rest. The apparent randomness of the composition and the impartial position of the author create the impression of spying on someone else's life; the artist shows us a world of grace and beauty, without falling into excessive sentimentality.Edgar Degas can be called a subtle colorist; his pastels are surprisingly harmonious, sometimes gentle and light, sometimes built on sharp color contrasts. Degas's style was remarkable for its amazing freedom; he applied pastels with bold, broken strokes, sometimes leaving the tone of the paper showing through the pastel or adding strokes in oil or watercolor. Color in Degas's paintings arises from an iridescent radiance, from a flowing stream of rainbow lines that give birth to form.
Degas's late works are distinguished by the intensity and richness of color, which are complemented by the effects of artificial lighting, enlarged, almost flat forms, and cramped space, giving them an intensely dramatic character. In that
period Degas wrote one of his best works - “The Blue Dancers”. The artist works here with large patches of color, giving primary importance to the decorative organization of the surface of the painting. In terms of the beauty of color harmony and compositional design, the painting “Blue Dancers” can be considered the best embodiment of the theme of ballet by Degas, who achieved in this painting the utmost richness of texture and color combinations.|
P. O. Renoir. Self-portrait. 1875 |
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P.O. Renoir. |
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Like most impressionists, Renoir chooses fleeting episodes of life as the subjects of his paintings, giving preference to festive city scenes - balls, dances, walks (“New Bridge”, “Splash Pool”, “Moulin da la Galette” and others). On these canvases we will not see either black or dark brown. Only a range of clear and bright colors that merge together when you look at the paintings from a certain distance. The human figures in these paintings are painted in the same impressionistic technique as the landscape around them, with which they often merge. P. O. Renoir. |
It should be noted that the use of green, yellow, ocher, pink and red tones to depict skin shocked the public of that time, unprepared to perceive the fact that shadows should be colored, filled with light.
In the 1880s, the so-called “Ingres period” began in Renoir’s work. The most famous work of this period is “The Great Bathers.” To build a composition, Renoir began to use sketches and sketches for the first time, the lines of the drawing became clear and defined, the colors lost their former brightness and saturation, the painting as a whole began to look more restrained and colder.
In the early 1890s, new changes took place in Renoir's art. In a painterly manner, an iridescence of color appears, which is why this period is sometimes called “pearl”, then this period gives way to “red”, so named because of the preference for shades of reddish and pink colors.
Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin (life 1848-1903) - French painter, sculptor and graphic artist. Along with Cezanne and Van Gogh, he was the largest representative of post-impressionism. He began painting in adulthood; his early period of creativity is associated with impressionism. Gauguin's best works were written on the islands of Tahiti and Hiva Oa in Oceania, where Gauguin left the “vicious civilization.” The characteristic features of Gauguin's style include the creation on large flat canvases of static and contrasting color compositions, deeply emotional and at the same time decorative.In the painting “Yellow Christ,” Gauguin depicted the crucifixion against the background of a typical French rural landscape, the suffering Jesus is surrounded by three Breton peasant women. The peace in the air, the calm submissive poses of women, the landscape saturated with sunny yellow color with trees in red autumn foliage, the peasant busy with his business in the distance, cannot but come into conflict with what is happening on the cross. The environment is in sharp contrast to Jesus, whose face displays that stage of suffering that borders on apathy, indifference to everything around him. The contradiction between the boundless torments accepted by Christ and the “unnoticed” nature of this sacrifice by people is the main theme of this work by Gauguin.
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P. Gauguin. Are you jealous? 1892 |
on the shore, two sisters - they have just swam, and now their bodies are stretched out on the sand in casual voluptuous poses - talking about love, one memory causes discord: “How? Are you jealous!".
In painting the lush full-blooded beauty of tropical nature, natural people unspoiled by civilization, Gauguin depicted a utopian dream of an earthly paradise, of human life in harmony with nature. Gauguin's Polynesian paintings resemble panels in their decorative color, flatness and monumentality of composition, and generality of the stylized design.
P. Gauguin. Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? 1897-1898
The painting “Where did we come from? Who are we? Where are we going?" Gauguin considered it the sublime culmination of his reflections. According to the artist’s plan, the painting should be read from right to left: three main groups of figures illustrate the questions posed in the title. The group of women with a child on the right side of the picture represents the beginning of life; the middle group symbolizes the daily existence of maturity; in the extreme left group, Gauguin depicted human old age, approaching death; the blue idol in the background symbolizes the other world. This painting is the pinnacle of Gauguin's innovative post-impressionist style; his style combined a clear use of colors, decorative color and composition, flatness and monumentality of the image with emotional expressiveness.
Gauguin's work anticipated many features of the Art Nouveau style that was emerging during this period and influenced the development of the masters of the “Nabi” group and other painters of the early 20th century.
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V. Van Gogh. Self-portrait. 1889 |
In 1888, Van Gogh moved to Arles, where the originality of his creative style was finally determined. Fiery artistic temperament, a painful impulse towards harmony, beauty and happiness and, at the same time, fear of forces hostile to man, are embodied either in landscapes shining with sunny colors of the south (“The Yellow House”, “The Harvest. La Croe Valley”), or in ominous , images reminiscent of a nightmare (“Cafe Terrace at Night”); dynamics of color and brushstroke
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V. Van Gogh. Night cafe terrace. 1888 |
Van Gogh's intense work in recent years was accompanied by bouts of mental illness, which led him to a mental hospital in Arles, then to Saint-Rémy (1889–1890) and to Auvers-sur-Oise (1890), where he committed suicide. The work of the last two years of the artist’s life is marked by ecstatic obsession, extremely heightened expression of color combinations, sudden changes in mood - from frenzied despair and gloomy visionary (“Road with Cypresses and Stars”) to a tremulous feeling of enlightenment and peace (“Landscape in Auvers after the rain”) .
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V. Van Gogh. Irises. 1889 |
V. Van Gogh. Wheat field with crows. 1890
“Wheat Field with Crows” is a painting by Van Gogh, painted by the artist in July 1890 and is one of his most famous works. The painting was supposedly completed on July 10, 1890, 19 days before his death in Auvers-sur-Oise. There is a version that Van Gogh committed suicide in the process of painting this painting (going out into the open air with materials for painting, he shot himself in the heart area with a pistol purchased to scare away flocks of birds, then independently reached the hospital, where he died from the loss blood).
French realism of the 19th century goes through two stages in its development. The first stage - the formation and establishment of realism as a leading trend in literature (late 20s - 40s) - is represented by the works of Beranger, Merimee, Stendhal, Balzac. The second (50-70s) is associated with the name of Flaubert - the heir to realism of the Balzac-Stendhal type and the predecessor of the “naturalistic realism” of the Zola school.
The history of realism in France begins with Beranger’s songwriting, which is quite natural and logical. The song is a small and therefore the most mobile genre of literature, instantly reacting to all the remarkable phenomena of our time. During the period of the formation of realism, the song gives way to the social novel. It is this genre, due to its specificity, that opens up rich opportunities for the writer for a broad depiction and in-depth analysis of reality, allowing Balzac and Stendhal to solve their main creative task - to capture in their creations the living image of contemporary France in all its completeness and historical uniqueness. A more modest, but also very significant place in the general hierarchy of realistic genres is occupied by the short story, of which Merimee is rightfully considered an unsurpassed master in those years.
The emergence of realism as a method occurred in the second half of the 20s, i.e., during the period when the romantics played a leading role in the literary process. Next to them, in the mainstream of romanticism, Merimee, Stendhal, and Balzac began their writing journey. All of them are close to the creative associations of the romantics and actively participate in their struggle with the classicists. It was the classicists of the first decades of the 19th century, protected by the monarchical Bourbon government, who were the main opponents of the emerging realistic art in these years. Almost simultaneously published, the manifesto of the French romantics - the preface to Hugo's drama "Cromwell" and Stendhal's aesthetic treatise "Racine and Shakespeare" - have a common critical focus, being two decisive blows to the code of laws of classicist art that has long since become obsolete. In these most important historical and literary documents, both Hugo and Stendhal, rejecting the aesthetics of classicism, advocated for the expansion of the subject of depiction in art, for the abolition of forbidden subjects and themes, for the presentation of life in all its fullness and contradictions. Moreover, for both, the highest example that should be oriented towards when creating new art is the great Renaissance master Shakespeare. Finally, the first realists of France and the romantics of the 20s are also brought together by a common socio-political orientation, revealed not only in the opposition to the Bourbon monarchy, but also in the acutely critical perception of the bourgeois relations that were establishing themselves before their eyes.
After the revolution of 1830, which was a significant milestone in the history of France, the paths of realists and romantics diverged, which, in particular, would be reflected in their polemics in the early 30s. Romanticism will be forced to give up its primacy in the literary process to realism as a direction that most fully meets the requirements of the new time. However, even after 1830, contacts between yesterday’s allies in the fight against the classicists will continue. Remaining true to the fundamental principles of their aesthetics, the romantics will successfully master the experience of the artistic discoveries of the realists, supporting them in almost all the most important creative endeavors
Realists of the second half of the 19th century. will reproach their predecessors for the “residual romanticism” found in Mérimée, for example, in his cult of exoticism (the so-called exotic short stories like “Mateo Falcone”, “Colomba” or “Carmen”). Stendhal has a passion for depicting bright individuals and exceptionally strong passions (“The Parma Monastery”, “Italian Chronicles”), Balzac has a craving for adventurous plots (“The History of the Thirteen”) and the use of fantasy techniques in philosophical stories and novels "Shagreen skin." These reproaches are not without foundation. The fact is that between French realism of the first period - and this is one of its specific features - and romanticism there is a complex “family” connection, which is revealed, in particular, in the inheritance of techniques and even individual themes and motifs characteristic of romantic art (the theme of lost illusions, motive of disappointment, etc.).
Note that in those days there was no demarcation between the terms “romanticism” and “realism”. Throughout the first half of the 19th century. realists were almost invariably called romantics. Only in the 50s - after the death of Stendhal and Balzac - did the French writers Chanfleury and Duranty propose the term “realism” in special declarations. However, it is important to emphasize that the method, to the theoretical substantiation of which they devoted many works, was already significantly different from the method of Stendhal, Balzac, Merimee, which bears the imprint of its historical origin and the dialectical connection with the art of romanticism conditioned by it.
The importance of romanticism as the forerunner of realistic art in France can hardly be overestimated. It was the romantics who were the first critics of bourgeois society. They are also credited with discovering a new type of hero who enters into confrontation with this society. Consistent, uncompromising criticism of bourgeois relations from the high positions of humanism will be the strongest side of the French realists, who expanded and enriched the experience of their predecessors in this direction and, most importantly, gave anti-bourgeois criticism a new, social character.
One of the most significant achievements of the romantics is rightfully seen in their art of psychological analysis, in their discovery of the inexhaustible depth and complexity of the individual personality. With this achievement, the romantics also served the realists, paving the way for them to new heights in understanding the inner world of man. Special discoveries in this direction were to be made by Stendhal, who, relying on the experience of contemporary medicine (in particular, psychiatry), would significantly clarify the knowledge of literature about the spiritual side of human life and connect the psychology of the individual with his social existence, and present the inner world of man in dynamics, in evolution caused by the active influence on the personality of the complex environment in which this personality resides.
Of particular importance in connection with the problem of literary continuity is the most important of the principles of romantic aesthetics, inherited by realists - the principle of historicism. It is known that this principle presupposes consideration of the life of mankind as a continuous process in which all its stages are dialectically interconnected, each of which has its own specifics. It was this, called historical coloring by the romantics, that word artists were called upon to reveal in their works. However, the principle of historicism among the romantics, which was formed in a fierce polemic with the classicists, had an idealistic basis. It acquires a fundamentally different content from the realists. Based on the discoveries of the school of contemporary historians (Thierry, Michelet, Guizot), who proved that the main engine of history is the struggle of classes, and the force that decides the outcome of this struggle is the people, the realists proposed a new, materialist reading of history. This is what stimulated their special interest both in the economic structures of society and in the social psychology of the broad masses. Finally, speaking about the complex transformation of the principle of historicism discovered by the romantics in realistic art, it is necessary to emphasize that this principle is put into practice by the realists when depicting recently passed eras (which is typical for the romantics), and modern bourgeois reality, shown in their works as a certain stage in the historical development of France.
The heyday of French realism, represented by the works of Balzac, Stendhal and Mérimée, occurred in the 1830s and 1840s. This was the period of the so-called July Monarchy, when France, having put an end to feudalism, established, in the words of Engels, “the pure rule of the bourgeoisie with such classical clarity as no other European country. And the struggle of the rising proletariat against the ruling bourgeoisie also appears here in such an acute form that is unknown in other countries.” The “classical clarity” of bourgeois relations, the particularly “acute form” of the antagonistic contradictions that emerged in them, prepares for the exceptional accuracy and depth of social analysis in the works of the great realists. A sober view of modern France is a characteristic feature of Balzac, Stendhal, and Merimee.
Great realists see their main task in the artistic reproduction of reality as it is, in the knowledge of the internal laws of this reality that determine its dialectics and diversity of forms. “French society itself was supposed to be the historian; I could only be its secretary,” Balzac states in the Preface to The Human Comedy, proclaiming the principle of objectivity in the approach to depicting reality as the most important principle of realistic art. But an objective reflection of the world as it is is in the understanding of the realists of the first half of the 19th century. - not a passive mirror reflection of this world. For sometimes, Stendhal notes, “nature reveals unusual spectacles, sublime contrasts; they may remain incomprehensible to the mirror, which unconsciously reproduces them.” And, as if picking up Stendhal’s thought, Balzac continues: “The task of art is not to copy nature, but to express it!” A categorical rejection of flat empiricism (which some realists of the second half of the 19th century would be guilty of) is one of the remarkable features of classical realism of the 1830-1840s. That is why the most important of the principles - the recreation of life in the forms of life itself - does not at all exclude for Balzac, Stendhal, Mérimée such romantic techniques as fantasy, grotesque, symbol, allegory, subordinated, however, to the realistic basis of their works.
The realism of the second half of the 19th century, represented by the work of Flaubert, differs from the realism of the first stage. There is a final break with the romantic tradition, officially declared already in the novel Madame Bovary (1856). And although the main object of depiction in art remains bourgeois reality, the scale and principles of its depiction are changing. The bright individualities of the heroes of the realistic novel of the 30s and 40s are being replaced by ordinary, unremarkable people. The multicolored world of truly Shakespearean passions, cruel fights, heartbreaking dramas, captured in Balzac’s “Human Comedy”, the works of Stendhal and Mérimée, gives way to a “mold-colored world”, the most remarkable event in which is adultery, vulgar adultery.
Fundamental changes are noted, in comparison with the realism of the first stage, in the artist’s relationship with the world in which he lives and which is the object of his image. If Balzac, Stendhal, Merimee showed an ardent interest in the destinies of this world and constantly, according to Balzac, “felt the pulse of their era, felt its illnesses, observed its physiognomy,” i.e. felt themselves to be artists deeply involved in the life of modernity, then Flaubert declares a fundamental detachment from the bourgeois reality unacceptable to him. However, obsessed with the dream of breaking all the threads connecting him with the “mildew-colored world”, and taking refuge in the “ivory tower”, devoting himself to the service of high art, Flaubert is almost fatally chained to his modernity, remaining its strict analyst and objective judge all his life. Brings him closer to the realists of the first half of the 19th century. and the anti-bourgeois orientation of creativity.
It is the deep, uncompromising criticism of the inhumane and socially unjust foundations of the bourgeois system, established on the ruins of the feudal monarchy, that constitutes the main strength of realism of the 19th century.
