17th century Dutch culture

The victory of the bourgeois revolution in the Northern Netherlands led to the formation of an independent state - the Republic of the seven united provinces - Holland (by the name of the most significant of these provinces); For the first time, a bourgeois-republican system was established in one of the European countries. The driving forces of the revolution were peasants and the poorest strata of the urban population, but the bourgeoisie, which came to power, took advantage of its gains.
Liberation from the oppression of Spanish absolutism and the Catholic Church, the destruction of a number of feudal restrictions opened the way for the rapid growth of the productive forces of the republic, which, according to Marx, “was an exemplary capitalist country of the 17th century.” Only in Holland at that time did the urban population prevail over the rural, but the main source The profits came not from industry (although textile production and especially shipbuilding were developed here), but from intermediary trade, which expanded thanks to colonial policy. As the ruling classes became richer, the poverty of the working people grew, peasants and artisans went bankrupt, and by the middle of the 17th century class contradictions intensified.
However, in the first decades after the establishment of the republic, the democratic traditions of the revolutionary era were alive. The breadth of the national liberation movement, the rise of the people's self-awareness, and the joy of liberation from foreign yoke united the most diverse segments of the population. The country has created conditions for the development of science and art. Progressive thinkers of the time found refuge here, in particular the French philosopher Descartes, and Spinoza’s fundamentally materialistic philosophical system was formed. The highest achievements were achieved by Dutch artists, such painters as Rembrandt, Ruisdael, Terborch, Hals, Hobbema, Honthorst and many other masters of painting. Dutch artists were the first in Europe to be freed from the oppressive influence of court circles and the Catholic Church and created democratic and realistic art, directly reflecting social reality.

Dutch painting of the 17th century

Distinctive feature The development of Dutch art was a significant predominance among all its types of painting. Paintings decorated the houses of not only representatives of the ruling elite of society, but also poor burghers, artisans, and peasants; they were sold at auctions and fairs; sometimes artists used them as a means of paying bills. The profession of an artist was not rare; there were a lot of painters, and they competed fiercely with each other. Few of them could support themselves by painting; many took on a variety of jobs: Sten was an innkeeper, Hobbema was an excise official, Jacob van Ruisdael was a doctor.
Rapid development Dutch painting in the 17th century was explained not only by the demand for paintings by those who wanted to decorate their homes with them, but also by the view of them as a commodity, as a means of profit, a source of speculation. Having gotten rid of the direct customer - the Catholic Church or an influential feudal philanthropist - the artist found himself entirely dependent on the demands of the market. The tastes of bourgeois society predetermined the development of Dutch art, and artists who opposed them, defending their independence in matters of creativity, found themselves isolated and died untimely in poverty and loneliness. Moreover, these were, as a rule, the most talented masters. It is enough to mention the names of Hals and Rembrandt.
The main object of depiction for Dutch artists was the surrounding reality, which had never before been so fully reflected in the works of painters of other national schools. Appeal to the most diverse aspects of life led to the strengthening of realistic tendencies in painting, the leading place in which was occupied by the everyday genre and portrait, landscape and still life. The more truthfully and deeply the artists reflected the real world opening before them, the more significant their works were.
Each genre had its own branches. So, for example, among the landscape painters there were marine painters (depicting the sea), painters who preferred views of flat places or forest thickets, there were masters who specialized in winter landscapes and landscapes with moonlight: among the genre painters, artists who depicted peasants, burghers, scenes of feasts and domestic life, hunting scenes and markets; there were masters of church interiors and various types of still lifes - “breakfasts”, “desserts”, “benches”, etc. The limitations of Dutch painting had an effect, narrowing the number of tasks to be solved for its creators. But at the same time, the concentration of each artist on a specific genre contributed to the refinement of the painter’s skill. Only the most important Dutch artists worked in various genres.
The formation of realistic Dutch painting took place in the struggle against the Italianizing movement and mannerism. Representatives of these trends, each in their own way, but purely outwardly, borrowed the techniques of Italian artists, deeply alien to the traditions of national Dutch painting. At the early stage of the development of Dutch painting, covering the years 1609-1640, realistic tendencies were more clearly manifested in portraiture and the everyday genre.

Holland landscape

The principles of the Dutch realistic landscape developed during the first third of the 17th century. Instead of conventional canons and idealized, invented nature in the paintings of the masters of the Italianizing movement, the creators of the realistic landscape turned to depicting the real nature of Holland with its dunes and canals, houses and villages. They not only captured the character of the area with all its features, creating typical motifs of the national landscape, but also sought to convey the atmosphere of the season, moist air and space. This contributed to the development of tonal painting, the subordination of all components of the picture to a single tone.
One of the largest representatives of the Dutch realistic landscape was Jan van Goyen (1596-1656). He worked in Leiden and The Hague. Favorite motifs of the artist Jan van Goyen in his small-sized landscapes: valleys and the water surface of wide rivers with cities and villages on their banks on gray, cloudy days. Jan van Goyen left a lot of space (about two-thirds of the picture) to the sky with swirling clouds saturated with moisture. This is the painting “View of the Waal River near Nijmegen” (1649, Moscow, State Museum Fine Arts named after A. S. Pushkin), designed in a subtle brown-gray range of colors.
A special type of landscape depicting animals, pastures with cows and sheep was created by Paul Potter (1625-1654). Having perfectly studied the habits of animals, the artist often gave them close-up, carefully writing out the texture of each material, soft wool, and the smallest details. Such are the paintings “Bull” (1647, The Hague, Mauritshuis), “Dog on a Chain” (St. Petersburg, Hermitage).

Dutch still life

Along with landscape painting, still life, which was distinguished by its intimate character, became widespread in 17th-century Holland. Dutch artists chose a wide variety of objects for their still lifes, knew how to arrange them perfectly, and reveal the characteristics of each object and its inner life, inextricably linked with human life.
The 17th century Dutch painters Pieter Claes (c. 1597 - 1661) and Willem Heda (1594-1680/1682) painted numerous versions of “breakfasts”, depicting hams, ruddy buns, blackberry pies, fragile glass glasses half filled with wine on the table, with amazing masterfully conveying the color, volume, texture of each item. The recent presence of a person is noticeable in the disorder, the randomness of the arrangement of things that have just served him. But this disorder is only apparent, since the composition of each still life is strictly thought out and found. A restrained grayish-golden, olive tonal palette unites objects and gives a special sonority to those pure colors that emphasize the freshness of a freshly cut lemon or the soft silk of a blue ribbon.
Over time, the “breakfasts” of the still life masters, painters Claes and Heda give way to the “desserts” of the Dutch artists Abraham van Beyeren (1620/1621-1690) and Willem Kalf (1622-1693). Beyeren's still lifes are strict in composition, emotionally rich, and colorful. Throughout his life, Willem Kalf painted in a free manner and democratic “kitchens” - pots, vegetables and aristocratic still lifes in the selection of exquisite precious objects, full of restrained nobility, like silver vessels, cups, shells saturated with the internal combustion of colors.
IN further development still life follows the same path as all Dutch art, losing its democracy, its spirituality and poetry, its charm. Still life turns into decoration for the home of high-ranking customers. For all their decorativeness and skillful execution, the late still lifes anticipate the decline of Dutch painting.
Social degeneration and the well-known aristocratization of the Dutch bourgeoisie in the last third of the 17th century gave rise to a tendency towards convergence with the aesthetic views of the French nobility, leading to the idealization of artistic images and their reduction. Art is losing connections with the democratic tradition, losing its realistic basis and entering a period of long-term decline. Severely exhausted in the wars with England, Holland is losing its position as a great trading power and a major artistic center.

17th century French art

In French art of the 17th century, ideas about man and his place in society, generated by the time of the formation of centralized monarchies in Europe, were most fully reflected. A classic country of absolutism, which ensured the growth of bourgeois relations, France experienced economic growth and became a powerful European power. The struggle for national unification against feudal self-will and anarchy contributed to the strengthening of high discipline of the mind, a sense of individual responsibility for one’s actions, and interest in state problems. The philosopher Descartes developed a theory of will, proclaiming the dominance of human reason. He called for self-knowledge and the conquest of nature, viewing the world as a rationally organized mechanism. Rationalism became a characteristic feature of French culture. By the middle of the 17th century, a national literary language had emerged - it affirmed the principles of logical clarity, accuracy and a sense of proportion. In the works of Corneille and Racine, French classical tragedy reached its apogee. In his dramas, Moliere recreated the “human comedy”. France was booming national culture It is no coincidence that Voltaire called the 17th century “great.”
French culture of the 17th century was formed under the conditions of the establishment of absolutism. However, its diversity and inconsistency determined the broad movement for national unification. It found vivid responses to the acute social conflicts that accompanied the birth of a new society. Peasant and urban uprisings and a major democratic movement of the parliamentary Fronde shook the foundations of the state in the first half of the 17th century. On this basis, utopias, dreams of an ideal society based on the laws of reason and justice, and free-thinking criticism of absolutism were born. The development of French art in the 17th century went through two stages, coinciding with the first and second half of the century.

Art Western Europe 18th century

The eighteenth century in Western Europe is the last stage of a long transition from feudalism to capitalism. In the middle of the century, the process of primitive accumulation of capital was completed, struggle was waged in all spheres of social consciousness, and a revolutionary situation was maturing. Later it led to the dominance of classical forms of developed capitalism. Over the course of a century, a gigantic breakdown of all social and state foundations, concepts and criteria for assessing the old society took place. A civilized society arose, periodicals appeared, political parties, there was a struggle for the emancipation of man from the shackles of the feudal-religious worldview.
IN fine arts The importance of directly realistic depiction of life increased. The sphere of art expanded, it became an active exponent of liberation ideas, filled with topicality, fighting spirit, and exposed the vices and absurdities of not only feudal, but also the emerging bourgeois society. It also put forward a new positive ideal of the unfettered personality of a person, free from hierarchical ideas, developing individual abilities and at the same time endowed with a noble sense of citizenship. Art became national, appealing not only to a circle of refined connoisseurs, but to a broad democratic environment.

Fine art of the 18th century best works characterized by analysis of the subtlest human experiences, reproduction of the nuances of feelings and moods. Intimacy, lyricism of images, but also analytical observation (sometimes merciless) are characteristic features of the art of the 18th century. both in the genre of portraiture and in everyday painting. These features of the artistic perception of life are the contribution of the 18th century to the development of world artistic culture, although it should be recognized that this was achieved at the cost of the loss of universal completeness in the depiction of spiritual life, integrity in the embodiment of the aesthetic views of society, characteristic of the painting of Rubens, Velazquez, Rembrandt, Poussin.

The main trends in the social and ideological development of Western Europe in the 18th century manifested themselves unevenly in different countries. If in England the industrial revolution, which took place in the mid-18th century, consolidated the compromise between the bourgeoisie and the nobility, then in France the anti-feudal movement was more widespread and prepared the bourgeois revolution. Common to all countries was the crisis of feudalism, its ideology, the formation of a broad social movement - the Enlightenment, with its cult of the primary untouched Nature and Reason, which protects it, with its criticism of modern corrupt civilization and the dream of the harmony of benign nature and a new democratic civilization gravitating towards the natural condition.
The eighteenth century is the century of Reason, all-destroying skepticism and irony, the century of philosophers, sociologists, economists; The exact natural sciences, geography, archeology, history, and materialist philosophy related to technology developed. Invading the mental everyday life of the era, scientific knowledge created the foundation for accurate observation and analysis of reality for art. The Enlightenment declared the purpose of art to be the imitation of nature, but ordered, improved nature (Diderot, A. Pop), purified by reason from the harmful effects of man-made civilization created by an absolutist regime, social inequality, idleness and luxury. The rationalism of philosophical and aesthetic thought of the 18th century, however, did not suppress the freshness and sincerity of feeling, but gave rise to a striving for proportionality, grace, and harmonious completeness of artistic phenomena, from architectural ensembles to applied art. The Enlightenmentists attached great importance in life and art to feeling - the focus of the noblest aspirations of humanity, a feeling thirsting for purposeful action that contains the power that revolutionizes life, a feeling capable of reviving the primordial virtues of the “natural man” (Defoe, Rousseau, Mercier), following natural laws nature.
Rousseau's aphorism “Man is great only by his feelings” expressed one of the remarkable aspects of social life of the 18th century, which gave rise to an in-depth, sophisticated psychological analysis in the realistic portrait and genre, the poetry of feelings permeates the lyrical landscape (Gainsborough, Watteau, Berne, Robert) “lyrical novel”, “prose poems” (Rousseau, Prevost, Marivaux, Fielding, Stern, Richardson), it reaches its highest expression in the rise music (Handel, Bach, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, opera composers of Italy). Heroes works of art painting, graphics, literature and theater of the 18th century became, on the one hand, “small people” - people, like everyone else, placed in the usual conditions of the era, not spoiled by wealth and privileges, subject to ordinary natural movements of the soul, content with modest happiness. Artists and writers admired their sincerity, naive spontaneity of soul, close to nature. On the other hand, the focus is on the ideal of an emancipated civilized intelligent person, generated by educational culture, analysis of his individual psychology, contradictory states of mind and feelings with their subtle shades, unexpected impulses and reflective moods.
Keen observation and a refined culture of thought and feeling are characteristic of all artistic genres of the 18th century. Artists sought to capture everyday life situations of varied shades, original individual images, gravitated towards entertaining narratives and enchanting spectacle, acute conflict actions, dramatic intrigues and comedic plots, sophisticated grotesque, buffoonery, graceful pastorals, gallant festivities.
New problems were also raised in architecture. The importance of church construction decreased, and the role of civil architecture increased, exquisitely simple, updated, freed from excessive imposingness. In some countries (France, Russia, partly Germany) the problems of planning cities of the future were being solved. Architectural utopias were born (graphic architectural landscapes- Giovanni Battista Piranesi and the so-called “paper architecture”). The type of private, usually intimate residential building and urban ensembles of public buildings became characteristic. At the same time, in the art of the 18th century, compared to previous eras, the synthetic perception and fullness of life coverage decreased. The former connection between monumental painting and sculpture and architecture was broken; the features of easel painting and decorativeness intensified in them. The art of everyday life and decorative forms became the subject of a special cult. At the same time, the interaction and mutual enrichment of various types of art increased; the achievements gained by one type of art were more freely used by others. Thus, the influence of theater on painting and music was very fruitful.
The art of the 18th century went through two stages. The first lasted until 1740-1760. It is characterized by the modification of late Baroque forms into the decorative Rococo style. The originality of the art of the first half of the 18th century lies in the combination of witty and mocking skepticism and sophistication. This art, on the one hand, is refined, analyzing the nuances of feelings and moods, striving for graceful intimacy, restrained lyricism, on the other hand, gravitating towards the “philosophy of pleasure”, towards fabulous images of the East - Arabs, Chinese, Persians. Simultaneously with Rococo, the realistic direction developed - among some masters it acquired an acutely accusatory character (Hogarth, Swift). The struggle was open artistic directions within national schools. The second stage is associated with the deepening of ideological contradictions, the growth of self-awareness, and political activity of the bourgeoisie and the masses. At the turn of the 1760-1770s. The Royal Academy in France opposed Rococo art and tried to revive the ceremonial, idealizing style of academic art of the late 17th century. The gallant and mythological genres gave way to the historical with plots borrowed from Roman history. They were designed to emphasize the greatness of the monarchy, which had lost its authority, in accordance with the reactionary interpretation of the ideas of “enlightened absolutism.” Representatives of progressive thought turned to the heritage of antiquity. In France, Count de Queylus opened a scientific era of research in this area (Collected Antiquities, 7 volumes, 1752-1767). In the mid-18th century, the German archaeologist and art historian Winckelmann (History of the Art of Antiquity, 1764) called on artists to return to “noble simplicity and calm grandeur ancient art, bearing in itself a reflection of the freedom of the Greeks and Romans of the era of the republic." The French philosopher Diderot found stories in ancient history that denounced tyrants and called for an uprising against them. Classicism arose, contrasting the decorativeness of Rococo with natural simplicity, the subjective arbitrariness of passions - knowledge of the laws of the real world, a sense of proportion, nobility of thought and action. For the first time, artists studied ancient Greek art at newly discovered monuments. Proclamation of the ideal harmonious society, the primacy of duty over feeling, the pathos of reason - common features classicism of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, the classicism of the 17th century, which arose on the basis of national unification, developed in the context of the flourishing of noble society. Classicism of the 18th century is characterized by anti-feudal revolutionary orientation. It was called upon to unite the progressive forces of the nation to fight absolutism. Outside France, classicism did not have the revolutionary character that characterized it in the early years of the French Revolution.
Simultaneously with classicism, experiencing its influence, the realistic movement continued to live. Rationalistic tendencies emerged in it: artists sought to generalize life phenomena.
In the second half of the 18th century, sentimentalism arose with its cult of feeling and passion, admiration for everything simple, naive, and sincere. A related pre-romantic movement in art arose, and interest in the Middle Ages and folk art forms arose. Representatives of these movements affirmed the value of man’s noble and active feelings, revealed the drama of his conflicts with environment, encouraging intervention in real public affairs in the name of the triumph of justice. They paved the way “to the knowledge of the human heart and the magical art of presenting to the eyes the origin, development and collapse of a great passion” (Lessing) and expressed the emerging need for an excited, pathetic art.

19th century art

Throughout the 19th century, capitalism became the dominant formation not only in Europe, but also on other continents. It was during this period that the struggle between two cultures sharply intensified - the progressive democratic and the reactionary bourgeois. Expressing the advanced ideas of the time, realistic art of the 19th century asserted aesthetic values in reality, glorified the beauty of real nature and working people. The realism of the 19th century differed from previous centuries in that it directly reflected in art the main contradictions of the era and the social conditions of people's lives. Critical positions determined the basis of the method of realistic art of the 19th century. Its most consistent embodiment was the art of critical realism - the most valuable contribution to artistic culture era.
Various areas of culture in the 19th century developed unevenly. Reaches the highest peaks world literature(Victor Hugo, Honore Balzac, Henri Stendhal, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy), music (Johann Beethoven, Frederic Chopin, Richard Wagner). Regarding architecture and applied arts, then after the rise that defined the Empire style, both of these types of art are experiencing a crisis. There is a collapse of monumental forms, stylistic unity as a holistic artistic system, covering all types of art. The most complete development is achieved by easel forms of painting, graphics and partly sculpture, which in its best manifestations tends towards monumental forms.

With national identity in the art of any capitalist country, common features are strengthened: Critical Assessment phenomena of life, historicism of thinking, that is, a deeper objective understanding of the driving forces of social development of both past historical stages and the present. One of the main achievements of 19th-century art was the development of historical themes, in which for the first time the role of not only individual heroes, but also the masses was revealed, and the historical environment was more specifically recreated. All types of portraits, everyday genres, landscapes with a pronounced national character. Satirical graphics are flourishing.
With the victory of capitalism, the main force interested in limiting and suppressing the realistic and democratic tendencies of art becomes the big bourgeoisie. Creations of leading figures European culture Constable, Goya, Géricault, Delacroix, Daumier, Courbet, Manet were often persecuted. Exhibitions were filled with polished works by the so-called salon artists, that is, those who dominated the art salons. To please the tastes and demands of bourgeois customers, they cultivated superficial descriptions, erotic and entertainment motives, and a spirit of apologetics for bourgeois principles and militarism.
Back in the 1860s, Karl Marx noted that “capitalist production is hostile to certain branches of spiritual production, such as art and poetry.” The bourgeoisie is interested in art mainly either as a profitable investment (collecting) or as a luxury item. Of course, there were collectors with a true understanding of art and its purpose, but these were a few exceptions to the rule. In general, acting as a tastemaker and the main consumer of art, the bourgeoisie imposed its limited understanding of art on artists. The development of mass widespread production with its impersonality and reliance on the market entailed the suppression creativity. The division of labor in capitalist production cultivates one-sided development of the individual and deprives labor itself of creative integrity. When speaking about capitalism’s hostility to art, Marx and Engels did not mean the general impossibility of artistic progress in the 19th and 20th centuries. The founders of scientific communism in their works highly appreciated the achievements of, for example, critical realism of the 19th century.
The democratic line of art, revealing the role of the people as driving force history and affirming the aesthetic values ​​of the democratic culture of the nation, goes through a number of stages of development. At the first stage, from the Great French Revolution From 1789-1794 until 1815 (the time of the national liberation struggle of peoples against Napoleonic aggression), the exploitative essence of bourgeois society was not yet fully realized. Democratic art is formed in the fight against the remnants of noble artistic culture, as well as manifestations of the limitations of bourgeois ideology. The highest achievements of art at this time were associated with the revolutionary pathos of the masses, who believed in the victory of the ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity. This is the heyday of revolutionary classicism and the emergence of romantic and realistic art.
The second stage, from 1815 to 1849, coincides with the establishment of the capitalist system in most European countries. In the advanced democratic art of this stage, a transition is made to a decisive criticism of the exploitative essence of bourgeois society. This is the period of the highest flowering of revolutionary romanticism and the formation of the art of critical realism.
With the intensification of class contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, reaching their apogee during the Paris Commune (1871), the antagonism between the reactionary bourgeois and democratic cultures became even more pronounced. At the end of the 19th century, criticism of the capitalist system, both in literature and in works of fine art, was carried out from the position of the strengthening worldview of the revolutionary proletariat.

Related information.

The Golden Age of Dutch painting is one of the most outstanding eras in the history of all world painting. The Golden Age of Dutch painting is considered 17th century. It was at this time that they created their immortal works the most talented artists and painters. Their paintings are still considered unsurpassed masterpieces, which are kept in famous museums world and are considered an invaluable asset to humanity.

At first 17th century In Holland, a rather primitive art still flourished, which was justified by the mundane tastes and preferences of rich and powerful people. As a result of political, geopolitical and religious changes, Dutch art changed dramatically. If before this, artists tried to pander to the Dutch burghers, depicting their life and way of life, devoid of any lofty and poetic language, and also worked for the church, which commissioned artists to work in a rather primitive genre with long-worn subjects, then the beginning of the 17th century was a real breakthrough. In Holland, the dominance of Protestants reigned, who practically stopped ordering paintings from artists. religious themes. Holland became independent from Spain and asserted itself on the historical podium. Artists moved from previously familiar themes to depicting everyday scenes, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and so on. Here, in a new field, the artists of the golden age seemed to have opened a new breath and real geniuses of art began to appear in the world.

Dutch artists of the 17th century introduced realism in painting into fashion. Stunning in composition, in realism, in depth and unusualness, the paintings began to enjoy enormous success. The demand for paintings increased sharply. As a result, more and more new artists began to appear, who at an amazingly fast pace developed the fundamentals of painting, developed new techniques, styles and genres. Some of the most famous artists of the Golden Age were: Jan Vermeer, Cornelis Trost, Matthias Stom, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Esaias van de Velde, Frans Hals, Adrian Brouwer, Cornelis de Man, Anthony van Dyck and many others.

Paintings by Dutch painters

Cornelis de Man - Whale Oil Manufactory

Cornelis Trost - Fun in the Park

Ludolf Backhuizen - East India Campaign Dock in Amsterdam

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Alchemist's Catastrophe

In the 17th century Holland has become a model capitalist country. It conducted extensive colonial trade, had a powerful fleet, and shipbuilding was one of the leading industries.

History of Dutch painting of the 17th century. perfectly demonstrates the evolution of the work of one of the largest portrait painters in Holland Frans Hals(around 1580-1666). In the 10-30s, Hals worked a lot in the genre of group portraits. This is basically a depiction of rifle guilds - corporations of officers for the defense and protection of cities. The burghers wanted to be immortalized on canvas, they paid a certain fee for the right to be depicted, and the artist was obliged to remember to pay equal attention to each model. But it is not the portrait resemblance that captivates us in these works by Hals. They express the ideals of the young republic, feelings of freedom, equality, and camaraderie. From the canvases of these years, cheerful, energetic, enterprising people look out, confident in their abilities and in the future (“Rifle Guild of St. Adrian”, 1627 and 1633; “Rifle Guild of St. George”, 1627). Hale usually depicts them in a friendly feast, in a cheerful feast. The large size of the composition, elongated horizontally, wide confident writing, intense, saturated colors (yellow, red, blue, etc.) create the monumental character of the image. The artist acts as a historiographer of an entire era.m

The heyday of landscape painting in the Dutch school dates back to the middle of the 17th century. The greatest master The realist landscape painter was Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/29-1682), an artist of inexhaustible imagination. His works are usually full of deep drama, whether he depicts forest thickets (“Forest Swamp”), landscapes with waterfalls (“Waterfall”) or romantic landscape with a cemetery (“Jewish Cemetery”). Ruisdael's nature appears in dynamics, in eternal renewal. Even the simplest motifs of nature acquire a monumental character under the artist’s brush. Ruisdael tends to combine careful depiction with great vital integrity, with a synthetic image.

Only seascape(marina) was occupied by Jan Porcellis (circa 1584-1632). Along with the realistic, purely Dutch landscape, there was another direction at that time: landscapes of an Italian character, animated by mythological characters, figures of people and animals.

Dutch still life is one of the artistic realizations of the important topic Dutch art - themes of the private life of an ordinary person. This theme is fully embodied in the genre film. In the 20-30s of the 17th century. The Dutch created a special type of small small-figure painting. The 40-60s were the heyday of painting, glorifying the calm burgher life of Holland, measured everyday existence.

The 40s and 50s are a time of creative maturity. Not only external life has changed Rembrandt, First of all, he himself changed. This is the time of formation of his creative system, from which much will become a thing of the past and in which other, invaluable qualities will be acquired. During this period, he often turns to previous works in order to remake them in a new way. This was the case, for example, with “Danae,” which he wrote back in 1636. Even then, the main thing was expressed in this image: the sensual principle, pagan, to some extent “Titian” was in it only part of the general in the expression of complex emotional experiences, a single emotional impulse. The classic, beautiful, but also abstract in its beauty ideal was replaced by the expression life truth, bright individuality of physical warehouse. This ugly body was conveyed extremely realistically. But Rembrandt was not satisfied with the external truth. By turning to the painting in the 40s, the artist intensified his emotional state. He rewrote the central part with the heroine and the maid.

Portraits of late Rembrandt are very different from portraits of the 30s and even 40s. These extremely simple (half-length or generational) images of people close to the artist in their internal structure are always a figurative expression of a multifaceted human personality, which amazes with the master’s ability to convey unsteady, elusive emotional movements.

Rembrandt knew how to create a biographical portrait; highlighting only the face and hands, he expressed the whole story of life

Art of France 17th century.

French art of the 15th century. is based on the traditions of the French Renaissance. The paintings and graphics of Fouquet and Clouet, the sculptures of Goujon and Pilon, the castles of the time of Francis I, the Fontainebleau palace and the Louvre, the poetry of Ronsard and the prose of Rabelais, the philosophical experiments of Montaigne, all of this bears the stamp of a classicist understanding of form, strict logic, rationalism, a developed sense of grace - those. which is destined to be fully realized in the 15th century. in the philosophy of Descartes, in the dramaturgy of Corneille and Racine, in the painting of Poussin and Lorrain.

In the field of fine arts, the process of formation of classicism was not so uniform.

In the first architecture, the features of a new style are outlined, although they do not take shape completely. In the Luxembourg Palace, built for the widow of Henry IV, regent Marie de Medici, by Salomon de Brosse, much was taken from Gothic and Renaissance, but the facade is already divided into an order, which would be characteristic of classicism. "Maison-Lafitte" by Francois Mansart, with all the complexity of its volumes, is a single whole, a clear design that gravitates towards classicist norms.

In painting, the situation was more complicated, because the influences of Mannerism, Flemish and Italian Baroque were intertwined here. On French painting In the first half of the century, both Caravaggism and the realistic art of Holland were influential. In any case, these influences can be clearly seen in the work of the Lenain brothers. In the paintings of Louis Le Nain there is no narrative or illustrative nature; the composition is strictly thought out and static, the details are carefully verified and selected in order to reveal, first of all, the ethical and moral basis of the work. Landscape is of great importance in Lenain's paintings.

IN Lately Increasingly, in art history literature, the name of the movement to which Louis Le Nain belongs is defined by the term “painting of the real world.” The work of the artist Georges de La Tour belongs to the same direction. In his first works on genre themes, Latour appears as an artist close to Caravaggio. Already in Latour’s early works one of the most important qualities is manifested: the inexhaustible variety of his images, the splendor of color, the ability to create monumentally significant images in genre painting.

The second half of the 30s - 40s was the time of Latour's creative maturity. During this period, he turned less to genre subjects and painted mainly religious paintings. Latour's artistic language is a harbinger of the classicist style: rigor, constructive clarity, clarity of composition, plastic balance of generalized forms, impeccable integrity of the silhouette, statics. An example is one of his later works “St. Sebastian and the Holy Wives” with an ideally beautiful figure of Sebastian in the foreground, reminiscent of an antique sculpture, in whose body - as a symbol of martyrdom - the artist depicts only one pierced arrow.

Classicism arose at the crest of the social upsurge of the French nation and the French state. The basis of the theory of classicism was rationalism, based on the philosophical system of Descartes, the subject of art of classicism was proclaimed only the beautiful and sublime, and antiquity served as the ethical and aesthetic ideal. The creator of the classicist movement in French painting in the 15th century. became Nicolas Poussin. The themes of Poussin's paintings are varied: mythology, history, New and Old Testament. Poussin's heroes are people of strong characters and majestic actions, high feeling debt to society and the state. The social purpose of art was very important to Poussin. All these features are included in the emerging program of classicism. The art of significant thought and clear spirit also develops a certain language. Measure and order, compositional balance become the basis of a pictorial work of classicism. Smooth and clear linear rhythm and statuary plasticity perfectly convey the severity and majesty of ideas and characters. The coloring is based on the consonance of strong, deep tones. This is a harmonious world in itself that does not go beyond the boundaries of the picturesque space, as in the Baroque.

Poussin's work falls on the first half of the century, marked by the rise of social and artistic life in France and active social struggle. Hence the general progressive orientation of his art, the richness of its content. A different situation developed in the last decades of the 17th century, during the period of greatest strengthening of absolutist oppression and suppression of progressive phenomena of social thought, when centralization spread to artists united in the Royal Academy and forced to serve with their art the glorification of the monarchy. Under these conditions, their art lost its deep social content, and the weak, limited features of the classicist method came to the fore.

Flemish art of the 17th century.

Flemish art is, first of all, Rubens and again Rubens. Although there were others in Flanders at the same time outstanding artists, they are all thought of as a “Rubens circle”, a “Rubens school”, like planets revolving around Rubens’ sun.

The seventeenth century was the time of the creation of the national art school of painting in Flanders. As in Italy, Baroque became the official dominant movement here. However, Flemish Baroque differs significantly from Italian in many ways. Baroque forms are filled here with a feeling of bubbling life and the colorful richness of the world, a feeling of the spontaneous power of growth of man and nature. Within the framework of the Baroque, realistic features were developed to a greater extent than in Italy.

The basis of the artistic culture of Flanders - realism, nationalism, bright cheerfulness, solemn festivity - was most fully expressed in painting. Flemish painters captured in their canvases the poeticized sensual beauty of the world and the image of a person full of health and inexhaustible energy.

The task of decorating family castles, palaces of the aristocracy, and Catholic churches contributed to the widespread use of powerful decorative art based on coloristic effects in painting.

The head of the Flemish school of painting was Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640). Comprehensively gifted and brilliantly educated, Rubens was an artist of enormous creative scope and stormy temperament. A born muralist, a talented diplomat, fluent in several languages, a scientist and humanist, he was held in high esteem at the princely and royal courts of Mantua, Madrid, Paris, and London. An artist of vigorous imagination, Rubens was the creator of colossal, pathetic compositions. The dynamism of forms, the power of plastic imagination, the triumph of the decorative principle form the basis of his work. At the same time, Rubens' art is fundamentally realistic. The freshness of his perception of life and the desire to give everything depicted the conviction of truth constitute the essence of his works.

Flemish still life. In the 17th century still life is established as an independent genre. It reflects the interest in the material world, which originated in the “painting of things” in Dutch art of the early 15th century, and the cult of private life. Flemish “livestock shops” amaze with their noisy cheerfulness and festive decorativeness. The canvases, large in size and bright in color, serve as decoration for the walls of the spacious palaces of the Flemish nobility, glorifying the beauty of earthly existence, the richness of rural life, the fruits of the earth, sea, and rivers.

Antonis (Anton, Anthony) van Dyck Flemish painter and graphic artist, master of court portraits and religious subjects in the style baroque.

Van Dyck early showed himself to be a master of portraiture and painting of religious and mythological subjects. WITH 1618 By 1620 g. he worked in the workshop Rubens. He creates works on religious themes, often in several versions: “ Crowning with a crown of thorns» « Kiss of Judas"Carrying the Cross" "St. Martin and the Beggars", "Martyrdom of St. Sebastian"

Jacob Jordaens ( Netherlands Jacob Jordaens) ( May 19, 1593, Antwerp - October 18, 1678, Antwerp) - Flemish artist. From 1607 he studied with Adam van Noort. In 1616 he married his daughter. Lived all his life in Southern Netherlands, only in 1641 he worked briefly in England. His paintings can be found in any church in Antwerp. Even after he contacted Calvinism in 1645 the Catholic Church continued to commission works from him. Jordaens is considered, especially after death Rubens, who had a great influence on him, one of the outstanding representatives of the Flemish baroque.

19th century French painting

20s XIX century were for France the time of formation of romantic art. Young artists declared real war on their teachers. Historians called their performance a “romantic battle,” and its hero was the painter Eugene Ferdinand Victor Delacroix. Delacroix - French painter And schedule, leader romantic trends in European painting. Romantic artists, regardless of the canons that existed in the fine arts of previous eras, willingly turned to unusual subjects associated with madness, supernatural phenomena, violence or exoticism (that is, going beyond the “normal”). Delacroix in France was the leader of this trend . Eugene Delacroix was born in the town of Charenton-Saint-Maurice near Paris. The future artist was orphaned early. In 1815, he became an apprentice in the workshop of Pierre Narcisse Guerin (1774-1833), with whom Theodore Gericault had recently studied. Delacroix's contemporaries closely followed the progress of the liberation revolution in Greece in 1821-1829. (since the 15th century, Greece was under Turkish rule). Delacroix chose perhaps the most tragic page of the Greek epic. In September 1821, Turkish punitive forces destroyed the civilian population of Chios, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, off the coast of Asia Minor. More than forty thousand Greeks were killed and about twenty thousand were enslaved. The artist’s response to these events was the painting “The Chios Massacre” (1824). In the foreground of the painting are figures of doomed Chios in colorful rags; the background is the dark silhouettes of armed Turks. Most of the captives are indifferent to their fate, only children vainly beg their parents to protect them. Delacroix felt an interest in modernity and created the painting “Liberty Leading the People (July 28, 1830)” in 1830. The artist gave a simple episode of street fighting a timeless, epic sound. In 1832, Delacroix accompanied a diplomatic mission to Algeria and Morocco. Immediately upon returning to Paris, the artist began painting “Algerian Women in Their Chambers” (1833). Since the late 20s. XIX century the painter created a number of battle paintings dedicated to the medieval French history. In the “Battle of Nancy” (1828-1834), the troops - gray, united masses with multi-colored spots of faces and banners - move clumsily across a snowy plain under a dull yellow sunset sky. Eugene Delacroix - the most independent painter in France first half of the 19th century V.

JACQUES LOUIS DAVID(1748-1825) K early XIX V. universally recognized leader among French artists was Jacques Louis David - the most consistent representative of neoclassicism in painting and a sensitive chronicler of his turbulent times. David was born in Paris into a wealthy bourgeois family. In 1766 he entered the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Characteristic feature French culture of those years had a general fascination with antiquity. In 1781, David was accepted as a member of the Royal Academy and received the right to participate in its exhibitions - the Louvre Salons. As early as 1776, a government program was developed that encouraged the creation of large paintings “designed to enliven the virtues and patriotic feelings" David was offered a plot from early Roman history - the feat of three brothers from the noble Horatii family. To work on the painting “The Oath of the Horatii” (1784), David went to Rome. When the canvas was completed and the artist exhibited it to the public, the basis of the entire composition is the number three: three arches, three groups of characters, three swords, three hands, readily extended to weapons. In 1795-1799 David and his students worked on the painting “The Sabine Women Stopping the Battle between the Romans and the Sabines.” According to him, he wanted to “depict ancient customs with such accuracy that the Greeks and Romans, if they had a chance to see my work, would not consider me alien to their customs.” In 1799, as a result of another coup d'etat, Napoleon Bonaparte came to power. David, like many former revolutionaries, joyfully welcomed this event. In the grandiose painting “The Coronation of Napoleon I and Empress Josephine in the Cathedral Notre Dame of Paris December 2, 1804" (1807) David created another myth - the splendor of the altar and the splendor of the clothes of the courtiers affect the viewer no worse than the wretched furniture and old sheets of Marat. After the defeat of Napoleon, David, who at one time voted in the Convention for the death sentence of Louis XVI, was forced leave France. The artist went to Brussels (which then belonged to the Kingdom of the Netherlands), where he lived until his death. He continued to work: diligently, but without enthusiasm, he painted portraits of exiles like himself and works on ancient subjects.

The seventeenth century was the “golden age of painting” in Europe. Significant art schools have developed in Italy, Holland, Flanders, Spain and France. Among them, Dutch art occupies a special place. The seven northern Dutch provinces, united around the largest of them, Holland, defeated the Spaniards. The historical destinies of these lands were determined after the conclusion of the Union of Utrecht in 1579, which gave legislative power to the States General, declared religious toleration, and provided special political and economic conditions to the rich provinces of Holland and Zealand. This laid the foundations for the future republic, which received state status in 1609 after the conclusion of a truce with Spain.

The United Provinces became the world's first bourgeois state, the power of the stadtholder here was nominal, and representatives of the House of Orange were primarily commanders. Their court in The Hague was not particularly splendid and did not have a noticeable influence on the development of culture in the country. The rule in Holland is that the burghers are enterprising, prudent, and practical. It invested capital in trade and shipbuilding, paved routes to distant countries in Asia and America and founded colonies there. “This handful of people,” wrote the head of the royal council of France, Cardinal Richelieu, “owning a piece of land consisting of water and pastures, supplies the European peoples with most of the goods they need.”

Calvinism, the most radical direction in the reform movement of the 16th-17th centuries, became the dominant religion in the country. The Calvinist Church was “republican” in nature. Its main features were the doctrine of absolute predestination, an apology for entrepreneurship and professional success, and a demand for worldly asceticism - prudent bourgeois frugality. Relative religious tolerance in the initial period of the republic’s life created a favorable atmosphere for scientific and philosophical creativity. The country became famous for its naturalists and produced famous lawyers and historians. The famous philosopher Rene Descartes emigrated here from France, and Spinoza’s materialistic views took shape here. Holland's contribution to European literature was more modest; there were no major architects or sculptors here. The main successes fell to the lot of painters of the small northern country. She created a vibrant national school of painting, which, with its themes, painting style, and ideological aspirations, represented a special chapter in art XVII century, left an indelible mark on world artistic culture.

The Dutch Church expelled the magnificent cult from its temples, which did not have sacred images - Catholic churches were few in number. Works of art were intended mainly for public secular buildings and private homes; their themes, although reflecting Protestant morality, were secular in nature. Paintings with biblical and ancient subjects were perceived as historical. Easel painting became the true calling of Dutch artists. There were many artists. They rarely painted to order; most of the paintings were sold in markets. “The fair in Rotterdam,” wrote an English traveler of the 17th century, “was overloaded with paintings (especially landscapes and genre scenes) ... All the houses are crammed with paintings, and the Dutch sell them at a great profit.”

By the 20s of the 17th century, the formation of the genres of Dutch painting was basically completed. The specialization of artists by genre is typical for Holland. At the beginning of the 17th century, the portrait genre became the most popular in Holland; the national theme was widely heard in the Dutch landscape; in the 1630s, the peasant genre also took shape. One of the most characteristic genres of Dutch painting was still life. By the middle of the 17th century, the domestic genre occupied a dominant position in Dutch painting.

The formation of Dutch art took place in several centers, which, competing with each other, different time At first it was Haarlem, from the thirties, after Rembrandt moved there, Amsterdam began to gain its leading position, then university Leiden and calm aristocratic Delft followed. The Hague stood apart, where the stadtholder's court was located.

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Plan:

1. General position painting at the beginning of the 17th century

2. Portraiture. Frans Hals

3. Landscapes. Jan van Goyen

4. Still life. Peter Claes and Willem Heda

5. Genre painting

1. General situation of painting at the beginning of the 17th century

Deprived of such powerful customers as the court, the nobility and the church, Dutch painters mainly worked for sale - they often sold their paintings at fairs, and their works were purchased by merchants and manufactory owners, artisans and wealthy peasants.

The paintings were painted in a small format, taking into account the modest-sized interiors of Dutch houses. Easel painting became the favorite art of the Dutch, as it was capable of reflecting reality with great reliability and diversity. The Dutch wanted to see in their paintings what was familiar to them - the nature of their country, the sea and ships, their life and home, the things that surround them. The desire to understand the world manifested itself in Dutch painting in such direct forms and with such consistency as nowhere else in European art of this era. The breadth of her range is also connected with this: portrait and landscape, still life and everyday genres developed here. Some of them (still life, everyday painting) first took shape in Holland in their mature forms and reached such a peak that they became a kind of standard for this genre.

Already in the first two decades, the main direction of the search for advanced Dutch masters, opposing conservative artistic trends, was clearly revealed - the desire for a truthful reflection of reality, for the concreteness of its embodiment. It is no coincidence that Dutch painters were attracted to the art of Caravaggio. The work of the so-called Utrecht Caravaggists - G. Honthorst, H. Terbruggen, D. Van Baburen - influenced Dutch artistic culture.

2. Portraiture. Frans Hals

The 1920s became a turning point in the evolution of Dutch painting: new democratic and realistic trends achieved final victory; the main range of motifs of Dutch painting is determined, the process of differentiation of genres is completed, their principles and specificity are approved. The decisive role in the formation of national art at the early stage of development of the Dutch art school was played by the work of Frans Hals (circa 1580-1666), its first great master.

Hals was almost exclusively a portrait painter, but his art meant a lot not only to Dutch portraiture, but also to the formation of other genres. In Hals’s work, three types of portrait compositions can be distinguished: a group portrait, a commissioned individual portrait, and a special type of portrait images, similar in nature to genre painting, which he cultivated mainly in the 20s – 30s.

Group portraits of rifle guilds - burgher associations for the defense and protection of cities - belong to the central creations of the Hals of the late 10s - early 30s and to the most significant works of Dutch painting of the early stage of its development, when the ideals of the revolutionary era were still alive. The group portrait was able to express the sense of freedom and equality, camaraderie and civil solidarity that was dear to the representatives of the young republic. Such, proud of their independence, cheerful and active townspeople, in whom the memory of the joint struggle is still fresh, they appear in the portraits of the officers of the rifle company of St. Hadrian (1627 and 1633) and St. George (1627) (Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem)

Hals achieves a striking naturalness of the composition - it seems unintentional, random, but behind this lies a subtle artistic calculation. The plot outline - a meeting or feast of guild members who have served a three-year term - turns those portrayed into participants in the scene, into its characters. There is no stiffness or deliberate posing in Hals's characters; it seems that it is here, in this familiar and close society that they fully and with all frankness express their character and character. Portraits of Hals give rise to a feeling of mutual connection between people who appreciate and know his strength.

Sweeping, bold, rich writing and a colorful range, in which intense colors predominate - blue, blue, golden yellow, red - reveal the optimistic, life-affirming tone of the portraits, and the large size of the compositions gives them a monumental character.

Hals brilliantly overcomes the difficulties of a group portrait. The genre principle, which contributes to the impression of the vitality of the image, does not deprive the composition of its representative character. Hals masterfully recreates the individuality of the characters - each is presented in a temperamental, close-up manner, and at the same time, artistic unity is preserved.

Hals's work, formed in the atmosphere of the post-revolutionary years, became one of the clearest expressions of the democratic spirit of Dutch bourgeois culture during its formation.

Features of early Khalsa art - the nature of the model’s perception and specific techniques portrait characteristics, - are most clearly revealed in the so-called genre portraits. Hals usually portrayed the model in such a way that the viewer found herself face to face with her, in close and direct communication. His characters stand naturally and freely in the portrait, their posture and gestures seem unstable, and the expression on their faces is about to change; most remarkable feature creative manner Khalsa is the ability to convey character through individual facial expressions and gestures, as if caught on the fly (“The Cheerful Drinking Companion”, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; “Mulatto”, Leipzig; “The Smiling Officer”, London, coll. Wallace). The artist loved emotional states, full of dynamics, they contained for him, as it were, a clot of everything that is most characteristic, individually expressive in the model and a feeling of captured life. But in this instant that Hals captured, the most essential, the core of the image is always captured (“Gypsy”, 1628 – 1630, Paris, Louvre; “Malle Babe”, early 30s, Berlin-Dahlem, Art Gallery).

Hals masterfully knows how to connect the person being portrayed with a specific environment and situation. Thus, when looking at the portrait of Malle Babe, the viewer gets the impression that he sees the interior of a tavern filled with noisy, unceremonious visitors, hears hoarse laughter and the rude words of a slightly intoxicated old woman addressed to its regulars. Portraits of the early Khalsa receive features genre painting.

Internal concentration and self-absorption are alien to Khalsa's characters - they are shown in reactions to the environment, in interaction with it. Hals’s pictorial form itself is also not closed, dynamic: turns of figures in the space of the canvas are typical for him; dynamic silhouette line; volumes that are not isolated from the background, but easily and naturally merge with it; finally, a free brushstroke that does not hide the movements of the artist’s hand.

The specificity of Hals's portrait style consists, on the one hand, in an extremely sharply captured individuality, on the other, in the active vitality of the image and in the sense of spontaneity of its perception, created by an improvisational style of painting.

Hals was the first master of free “sketch” painting in European art. The movement of the brush gives him both design and color, recreates the shape, volume, and character of the surface. The strokes run into each other, collide, diverge into different directions, then they cover the canvas thickly, then they leave the underpainting to show through. Quickly and masterfully placed, they recreate facial expressions and movement, transforming into various, accurately captured and reproduced plastic forms. Each form in Khals receives mobility, and the image as a whole receives internal dynamics and emotional acuity.

The pictorial manner itself received special meaning. The emphasis on one detail or the “understatement” of another, the nature of the stroke and the colorful surface helped create an expressive artistic image from a sometimes unremarkable model. These are the portraits of Claes Van Vorhout, narrow-minded, simple-minded, a little funny and absurd in his claim to appear stately and significant (c. 1635, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art), Nicholas van der Meer (1631, Haarlem, museum) and Pieter van den Brooke (1633, London, Kenwood House) - simple, frank and slightly rude natures, but active and clear-spirited, or a portrait of Jasper Schade, vain, arrogant, narcissistic (c. 1645, Prague, National Gallery). Hals's portrait gallery from the 20s to the 40s is diverse, but at the same time internally unified: it is, as it were, a kind of collective image of the Dutchman of that era. He may be complacent, self-confident and limited, but he almost invariably has energy, a strong grip on life, prowess and a love of life. Hals conveys these qualities of nature with such richness and admiration that all the unattractive traits in the character of his models seem to fade into the background.

However, in the images of Hals from the very end of the 30s and 40s, thoughtfulness and sadness appear, previously completely alien to his characters (portrait of Willem Heythuisen from the Brussels Museum), and sometimes a slight irony slips through in the artist’s attitude towards them. The jubilant acceptance of life and man, which was the leitmotif of his work in previous years, is gradually disappearing from Khalsa’s art. The 40s became a turning point in Khalsa painting. The late period of the artist’s work constituted a special page in his art and in the art of Dutch portraiture.

In the portraits of Hals, painted in the 50s and 60s, in-depth mastery of characterization is combined with a new inner meaning. The unknown man, depicted in a painting from the legendary Hermitage (50s), still feels his strength, his capabilities, but there is no longer any joy or faith in him. Despite the impressive turn of the figure, despite the mocking, slightly contemptuous look, despite the dynamics of the pictorial form, fatigue and skepticism are clearly visible in the entire appearance. In the image of the man in the portrait from the Kassel Gallery (1660-1666) we see not the usual self-affirmation and bravado, but sadness and apathy, as if internal energy it has dried up and he passively follows the flow of life.