XIX century in European art Automatic translate

The formation of the bourgeois system led to the emergence of a new hero - a man of the third estate. According to Emil Zola, “the tendency of art to naturalism” began to express itself more and more clearly. Art of the 1830-1850s "Reduced" the world to ordinaryness, concreteness instead of magnifying the surrounding reality. Therefore, a new style has arisen - realism was far from immediately accepted by society. The concept of realism was formulated by J. Chanfleury in literature, and by Gustave Courbet, famous for his paintings “Stone Crushers”, “Funeral in Ornan”, “Hello, Mr. Courbet!”, In the fine arts. The leading principles of realism are the objective reflection of the essential aspects of life, the reproduction of typical characters and situations, the prevailing interest in the problem of the individual and society. Moreover, preference is given to the forms of life itself.

The theme of the “little man,” his suffering and misery, which was already reflected in the work of sentimentalists, was picked up by realist writers. This topic captures all of European literature: (Charles Dickens in England, Georges Sand, Stendhal, Honore de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert in France). On the pages of novels and poems, a series of princes and kings is replaced by a destitute class. The contrast between the rich and the poor as the greatest social evil of the century has become the subject of the image of realists. We can say that all thirty volumes of the works of C. Dickens (1812-1870) are devoted to the description of social contrasts. In his novels, in fact, there are only two categories of people: villains and good people. The former, as a rule, belong to the rich, and the latter to the poor. “The mind and the nobility of feelings are crushed by the pursuit of profit and profit,” the writer states. An oppressive feeling is caused by the appearance of industrial cities, described by Dickens ("Cold House").

Marriage and the status of women in the family is the main theme of the novels of the writer Aurora Dupin, who performed under the male pseudonym George Sand (1804-1876). The tragic fate of women deprived of any rights and forced to obey the laws of public morality (Indiana, Valentina, Lelia, Consuelo, etc.) aroused the sympathy of contemporaries. The women’s issue as an important social phenomenon has been updated and posed to the European public.

V. Hugo (1802-1885) was a convinced democrat and in his works he fought with any form of violation of human rights. “I hate all oppression, and nations moan on the earth under a heavy yoke. When I see how Greece suffers under the heel of Turkey, how bloodied Ireland dies, how Austria breaks the wing of the Venetian lion with its stick, shameful and heavy scepter, how Vienna holds Milan in its claws - oh, then I curse all tyrants, I feel that the poet is their judge. Then I drop tender songs and tie a copper string to my lyre. ” The rebellion against tyranny was expressed in his plays Marion Delorm and Hernani. Hugo’s historical novel “Notre Dame de Paris” penetrates the anti-clerical and anti-monarchist moods. Democratic ideals are reflected in his novels Les Miserables, Workers of the Sea, and The Man Who Laughs.

Contemporaries did not recognize Stendhal (1783-1842), although, as the press subsequently wrote, “no one has so sharply and bluntly told the whole truth about the French like Henri Marie Beil (real name of Stendhal). The bitter truth of his speeches did not appeal to readers, and his writings diverged rather tightly. ” In the novels “Red and Black”, “Parma Monastery”, the writer tried to reproduce, without embellishing, the real facts of life. Stendhal noted that “a novel is a mirror that you point to a long road. It reflects either sky blue, or the mud of road puddles. "

Residents of the XIX century had the opportunity to enjoy objects of art and musical works of contemporaries only being physically close to them. We were lucky a little more, we have the opportunity to contemplate thousands of paintings in online galleries, we can buy a player, download and listen to music for free in a comfortable home environment without attending a concert or museum.

Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) in "The Human Comedy" - a prosaic epic consisting of 90 novels and short stories, presented a panoramic picture of the life of France of the XIX century. The writer set himself a daunting task - “to give all social reality without going around a single position in human life, not a single type, not a single male or female character, not a single profession, not a single everyday form, not a single social group…”. Balzac was equally able to show how bourgeois society breaks people’s destinies, how souls grind in pursuit of profit; and the moral victory of individuals who managed to remain people among money-grubbing, self-interest, selfish calculations and political ambition.

G. Flaubert (1821-1880) in the novels "Madame Bovary" and "Education of feelings" stunned the audience with cruel truth. Society saw in him an indifferent life-painter trampling moral principles. But the realism of his work was so striking that even in cartoons he was portrayed with an armed saw, scissors and a magnifying glass, paying tribute to his tendency to “anatomize” his modern life. G. Flaubert all his life dreamed of the beautiful, but, not believing in happiness, with cruel tenacity forced himself to describe vulgarity and filth, so despised and hated by him.

The eldest contemporary of the realists was the brilliant artist Jean Ingres (1780-1867). A representative of academism, he considered Raphael as his teacher and even sincerely believed that he lived three centuries later than he should. J. Ingres was an unsurpassed master of composition, strict and delicate drawing, truthful, striking portraits.

The prose of life becomes part of the visual arts. Honore Daumier (1808-1879) became famous not only for his satirical lithographs and sharp-grotesque caricatures of the ruling bourgeois elite and philistinism, but also as a talented artist who was the founder of critical realism in the fine arts of France (Don Quixote, French Justice). Realism Daumier painted in satirical tones, the artist sought to accurately convey the events of today in satirical plots and images. He was one of the first artists who made his hero a man of the people (“Third Class Carriage”, “Laundress”).

Gradually, the landscape begins to dominate the rest of the genres, contrasting the philistine world with the world of poetry of the surrounding nature - simple and natural. In the traditions of this genre K. Koro, T. Russo, H. Michel worked.

Text writer: M.V.Sokolova