Which artists were part of the art world group. Creative art association "the world of art

The Art Association "World of Art" announced itself with the release of the magazine of the same name at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The publication of the first issue of the magazine "World of Art" in St. Petersburg at the end of 1898 was the result of ten years of communication between a group of painters and graphic artists headed by Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960).

The main idea of ​​the unification was expressed in the article “Difficult Questions. Our imaginary decline. " The main goal of artistic creation was declared to be beauty, and beauty in the subjective understanding of each master. This attitude to the tasks of art gave the artist absolute freedom in choosing themes, images and means of expression, which was quite new and unusual for Russia.

The World of Art opened for the Russian public many interesting and previously unknown phenomena of Western culture, in particular Finnish and Scandinavian painting, English Pre-Raphaelite artists and graphic artist Aubrey Beardsley. Collaboration with the Symbolist writers was of great importance for the masters united around Benoit and Diaghilev. In the twelfth issue of the magazine in 1902, the poet Andrei Bely published an article "Forms of Art", and since then the largest Symbolist poets have regularly appeared on its pages. However, the artists of the World of Art did not confine themselves to symbolism. They strove not only for stylistic unity, but also for the formation of a unique, free creative personality.

As an integral literary and artistic association, the "World of Art" did not last long. Disagreements between artists and writers led in 1904 to the fact that the magazine was closed. The resumption of the group's activities in 1910 could no longer restore its former role. But in the history of Russian culture, this association has left a deep mark. It was it that switched the attention of the masters from questions of content to problems of form and pictorial language.

A distinctive feature of the World of Art artists was their versatility. They were engaged in painting, and the design of theatrical performances, and arts and crafts. However, graphics play an important role in their legacy.

The best graphic works of Benoit; especially interesting among them are illustrations to the poem by Alexander Pushkin "The Bronze Horseman" (1903-1922). Petersburg became the main "hero" of the entire cycle: its streets, canals, architectural masterpieces appear either in the cold severity of thin lines, or in the dramatic contrast of bright and dark spots. At the climax of the tragedy, when Eugene runs from the formidable giant, the monument to Peter, galloping behind him, the master paints the city with dark, gloomy colors.

Benoit's work is close to the romantic idea of ​​opposing a lonely suffering hero and the world, indifferent to him and thus killing him.

The design of theatrical performances is the brightest page in the work of Lev Samuilovich Bakst (real name Rosenberg; 1866-1924). His most interesting works are associated with opera and ballet productions of Russian Seasons in Paris 1907-1914. - a kind of festival of Russian art, organized by Diaghilev. Bakst made sketches of scenery and costumes for the opera "Salome" by R. Strauss, the suite "Scheherazade" by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, the ballet "Afternoon of a Faun" to music by C. Debussy and other performances. Especially remarkable are the sketches of costumes, which have become independent graphic works. The artist modeled the costume, focusing on the dancer's system of movements, through lines and color he tried to reveal the pattern of the dance and the nature of the music. In his sketches, the sharpness of the vision of the image, a deep understanding of the nature of ballet movements and amazing grace are striking.

One of the main themes for many masters of the "World of Art" was the appeal to the past, longing for the lost ideal world. Favorite era was the 18th century, and above all the Rococo period. The artists not only tried to revive this time in their work - they drew the public's attention to the genuine art of the 18th century, in fact, rediscovering the work of French painters Antoine Watteau and Honore Fragonard and their compatriots - Fyodor Rokotov and Dmitry Levitsky.

Benois's works are associated with the images of the "gallant age", in which Versailles palaces and parks are presented as a beautiful and harmonious world, but abandoned by people. Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875-1946) preferred to paint pictures of Russian life in the 18th century.

Rococo motifs manifested themselves with particular expressiveness in the works of Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939). He early joined the history of art (father

artist was the curator of the Hermitage collections). After graduating from the Academy of Arts, the young master became an excellent connoisseur of old painting. Somov brilliantly imitated her technique in his paintings. The main genre of his work could be called variations on the theme of the "gallant scene". Indeed, on the artist's canvases, Watteau's characters seem to come to life again - ladies in lush dresses and wigs, actors of comedy masks. They flirt, flirt, sing serenades in the park alleys, surrounded by the caressing glow of the sunset light.

However, all means of Somov's painting are aimed at showing the "gallant scene" as a fantastic vision that flashed for a moment and immediately disappeared. After him, only a painful memory remains. It is no accident that in the midst of light gallant play, the image of death appears, as in the watercolor "Harlequin and Death" (1907). The composition is clearly divided into two planes. In the distance the traditional "set of stamps" of Rococo: the starry sky, couples in love, etc. And in the foreground there are also traditional mask characters: Harlequin in a colorful suit and Death - a skeleton in a black cloak. The silhouettes of both figures are outlined with sharp, broken lines. In a bright palette, in a certain deliberate striving for a template, one feels a gloomy grotesque. Refined grace and horror of death turn out to be two sides of the same coin, and the painter seems to be trying to treat both of them with equal ease.

Somov managed to express his nostalgic admiration for the past in a particularly subtle way through female images. The famous work "Lady in Blue" (1897-1900) is a portrait of a contemporary of the master artist E. Martynova. She is dressed in old fashion and is depicted against the backdrop of a poetic landscape park. The painting brilliantly imitates the Biedermeier style. But the obvious morbidity of the heroine's appearance (Martynova soon died of tuberculosis) evokes a feeling of acute melancholy, and the idyllic softness of the landscape seems unreal, existing only in the artist's imagination.

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957) focused his attention mainly on the urban landscape. His Petersburg, unlike Benois's Petersburg, is devoid of a romantic aura. The artist chooses the most unattractive, "gray" views, showing the city as a huge mechanism that kills the human soul.

The composition of the painting "Man with Spectacles" ("Portrait of K. A. Sunnerberg", 1905-1906) is based on the opposition of the hero and the city, which is visible through a wide window. At first glance, the motley row of houses and the figure of a man with a face immersed in the shadows seem to be isolated from each other. But there is a deep inner connection between these two planes. The "mechanical" dullness of city houses stands behind the brightness of the colors. The hero is detached, immersed in himself, in his face there is nothing but fatigue and emptiness.

"The world of art" "The world of art"

(1898-1904; 1910-1924), an association of St. Petersburg artists and cultural figures (A.N. Benoit, K. A. Somov, L. S. Bakst, M.V. Dobuzhinsky, HER. Lancer, AND I. Golovin, AND I. Bilibin, Z. E. Serebryakova, B. M. Kustodiev, N.K. Roerich, S. P. Diaghilev, D.V. Filosofov, V.F. Nouvel, and others), who published the journal of the same name. Writers and philosophers D. S. Merezhkovsky, N. M. Minsky, L. I. Shestov, V. V. Rozanov collaborated with the magazine. With its programmatic literary and visual material, its desire to lead the artistic movement of the era, the "World of Art" was a new type of periodical for Russia. The first issue was published in November 1898. Each magazine, from the cover to the typeface, was a complete work of art. The publication was subsidized by well-known patrons of the arts S.I. Mamontov and Princess M.K. Tenisheva, his ideological orientation was determined by the articles of Diaghilev and Benois. The magazine was published until 1904. Thanks to the activities of the world of art, the art of book design is also experiencing an unprecedented flourishing.

The commonwealth of artists, who later formed the core of the association, began to take shape at the turn of the 1880s-90s. The World of Art association was officially formed only in the winter of 1900, when its charter was drawn up and a management committee was elected (A.N. Benois, S.P.Dyagilev, V.A. Serov), and existed until 1904. Consciously entrusting themselves with the mission of reformers of artistic life, the World of Artists actively opposed academicism and later Wanderers... However, they always remained close, according to Benoit, "the deposits of genuine idealism" and "humanitarian utopia" of the 19th century. In prior art, the world of art valued tradition above all else. romanticism considering it a logical conclusion symbolism, to the formation of which in Russia they were directly involved.

With their heightened interest in foreign art, many of the world of art have earned a reputation in the literary and artistic environment as Westernizers. The magazine "World of Art" regularly introduced the Russian public to easel and applied types of art by foreign masters, both old and modern (English Pre-Raphaelites, P. Puvis de Chavannes, artists of the group " Nabis" and etc.). In their work, the World of Artists were guided mainly by German artistic culture. In Russian history, they were attracted by the epoch of the 18th century, its customs and mores. In the culture of the 18th - first third of the 19th century. The World of Artists were looking for a poetic key to unraveling the secrets of all subsequent Russian history. They were soon dubbed "retrospective dreamers." Artists possessed a special ability to feel the poetic aroma of bygone eras and to create a dream of the "golden age" of Russian culture. Their works convey to the viewer the exciting charm of festive, theatrical life (court ceremonies, fireworks), accurately recreate the details of toilets, wigs, flies. Artists write scenes in parks where sophisticated ladies and gentlemen coexist with the characters of the Italian comedy del arte - the Harlequins, Columbines and others (K. A. Somov. "Harlequin and Death", 1907). Fascinated by the past, they combine the dream of it with sad melancholy and irony, realizing the impossibility of returning to the past (K. A. Somov. "Evening", 1902). The characters in their paintings do not resemble living people, but dolls playing a historical performance (A. N. Benois. The King's Walk, 1906).

Exhibiting works of old masters at their exhibitions, the world of art at the same time tried to attract to them those painters, sculptors and graphic artists who had a reputation as pioneers of new paths in art. Five exhibitions of the World of Art magazine took place in St. Petersburg in 1899-1903. In addition to painting and graphics of the world of art, the expositions presented the works of the greatest Russian masters of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. (M. A. Vrubel, V. A. Serova, K. A. Korovin, F. A. Malyavina and etc.). A special place at exhibitions was given to products arts and crafts, in the works of which the members of the association saw a manifestation of "pure" beauty. A significant event in artistic life was the grandiose Historical and Art Exhibition of Russian Portraits (1905) organized by Diaghilev in the halls of the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg.
In 1910, exhibitions under the title "The World of Art" reappeared (they continued in Russia until 1924; the last exhibition under this name was held in 1927 in Paris, where many of the World of Artists emigrated after the revolution). However, they were united with the previous exhibitions only by the name. The founders of the association ceded their leading role in the artistic life to the next generation of painters. Many people of the world of art have joined the new organization - Union of Russian Artists, created on the initiative of Muscovites.

(Source: "Art. Modern Illustrated Encyclopedia." Edited by Prof. AP Gorkin; Moscow: Rosmen; 2007.)

See what the "World of Art" "is in other dictionaries:

"World of Art"- "World of Art", art association. It took shape in the late 1890s. (the charter was approved in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists, art critics and art lovers ("society of self-education"), headed by A. N. Benois and ... ...

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1) art association. It took shape in the late 1890s. (the charter was approved in 1900) on the basis of a circle of young artists, art critics and art lovers ("society of self-education"), headed by A. N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev. How … Saint Petersburg (encyclopedia)

"World of Art"- "World of Art", illustrated literary and art magazine of the association "World of Art" and (until 1903) Symbolist writers. It was published in 1899-1904 (up to 1901, once every 2 weeks, from 1901 on a monthly basis). Publisher M. K. Tenisheva and S. I. Mamontov (in ... Encyclopedic reference book "St. Petersburg"

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Literary and art illustrated magazine, organ of the World of Art and (until 1903) Symbolist writers. It was published in 1898/99 1904 in St. Petersburg. Publishers M. K. Tenisheva and S. I. Mamontov (in 1899), then S. P. Diaghilev (chief ... ... Art encyclopedia

- "WORLD OF ART", a Russian art association (1898 1924), created in St. Petersburg by A. N. Benois (see BENOIS Alexander Nikolaevich) and S. P. Diaghilev (see DYAGILEV Sergey Pavlovich). Putting forward the slogans of "pure" art and "transformation" ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Russian Art Association (1898 1924), founded in St. Petersburg by A. N. Benois and S. P. Diaghilev. Putting forward the slogans of pure art and the transformation of life with art, representatives of the World of Art rejected both academicism and ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

- "WORLD ISKUSSTVA" art illustrated magazine, published in St. Petersburg from 1899 to 1904. In 1899, the publishers of the magazine were Prince. M. K. Tenisheva and S. I. Mamontov, editor S. P. Diaghilev. The latter, starting from 1900, becomes the only one ... ... Literary encyclopedia

Books

• World of Art. 1898-1927, GB Romanov, This publication is dedicated to the 30-year period in the history of the "World of Art" association. The publication contains portraits, biographies and works of artists. When preparing this encyclopedia for ... Category: History of Russian art Publisher:

The World of Art Association, which embodied the artistic ideals of Symbolism and Art Nouveau, played, contrary to its own aspirations, a significant role in the formation of the avant-garde. Despite the opposition that existed between the world of art and the avant-garde (the most vivid example is the newspaper polemics of A.N. Benois and D.D. Burliuk), the relationship between the two phenomena at the historical and artistic level is obvious.

The acquaintance of Russia with contemporary Western art was carried out thanks to the activities of the world of art. The process began back in 1897-1898, when SP Diaghilev organized exhibitions of English, German, Scandinavian and Finnish artists.

The next step of the World of Art was more daring. In 1899, the first international exhibition of the editorial office of the magazine was held, at which works of famous European artists appeared. Although the organizers of the exhibition continued to take a half-hearted position in relation to contemporary world painting, the general composition of invited foreign artists turned out to be quite diverse. From the French impressionists, the choice fell on Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas; there were also other masters, in one way or another close to modernism, academism and realism. There were no works by Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin at the exhibition. The English group was represented by Frank Brangwin and American James Whistler. There were works by German (Franz von Lenbach and Max Liebermann), Swiss (Arnold Böcklin) and Italian (Giovanni Boldini) artists. Despite the well-known one-sidedness of the selection, dictated by a certain orientation of the "World of Art", whose members - by their own admission - "overlooked" the Impressionists, Cézanne, Gauguin and other most significant masters of the late 19th century, this exhibition marked a decisive breakthrough into the territory of new European art.

As for the masters of the "World of Art" themselves, they just at the same time began to win certain positions on European exhibition grounds. In the mid-1890s, Benoit received an offer from one of the leaders of the Munich Secession to organize a special Russian section at one of the exhibitions. Throughout the 1900s, the process of penetration of Russian artists to foreign exhibitions took place. In Germany, KASomov became one of the most popular Russian artists, who exhibited at the Vienna and Berlin Secessions in 1901-1902, his personal exhibition took place in Hamburg in 1903, and the first monograph about him was published in 1907 in Berlin. Another leader of the "World of Art", LS Bakst, since the end of the 1890s took part in the Munich Secession, in 1904 he exhibited in Paris, showing his work at the Grand Palais; success came to him in the 1910s, after participating in the Diaghilev enterprise and personal exhibitions in Paris and London.

At the same time, along with the world of art, works by artists of the latest trends began to appear at their exhibitions. In February – March 1906, even before the official creation of the World of Art society in 1910, Diaghilev organized an exhibition under the same name. It was attended by M.F. Larionov, brothers V.D. and N.D. Milioti, N.N. Sapunov, A.G. Yavlensky.

In the early 1910s, World of Art demonstrates a certain openness to new art. So, after the success of the Jack of Diamonds in 1910, some of its representatives turned out to be exhibitors of the World of Art exhibitions (P.P. Konchalovsky, A.V.Lentulov, I.I.Mashkov, A.A. Morgunov, V.V. Rozhdestvensky , R.R. Falk, Burliuk brothers). In 1910–1911, the participants in the World of Art exhibitions were N.S. Goncharova, Larionov, P.V. Kuznetsov, M.S. Saryan, G.B. Yakulov. The press was indignant about this. “Having declared themselves leftists and raising the Diaghilev banner of the“ World of Art ”, the participants of the reporting exhibition… invited…“ anarchists ”” (Early morning. 1911. No. 47. February 27, p.5). There is no “World of Art”, but instead of it there is “Jack of Diamonds” with a tiny pale branch “World of Art”. Guests<...>settled down as at home, with such a swagger that the owners almost did not have a place "(S. Glagol. World of art // Capital rumor. 1911. No. 217. December 5. P.3).

Only Goncharova, Larionov and Yakulov participated in the Moscow exhibition "The World of Art" (November – December 1912) (they were also exhibited at the St. Petersburg exhibition in January – February 1913). Diamonds Mashkov and Lentulov refused to participate by the decision of the general meeting of the "Jack of Diamonds". The Moscow exhibition "The World of Art" (December 1913 - January 1914) brought together a greater number of left-wing artists: NI Altman and AV Shevchenko were added to Goncharova, Larionov and Yakulov. VE Tatlin exhibited "Picturesque Relief" without agreement with the organizers.

The composition of the futurists (as the criticism of the left artists called it) at the exhibitions of the "World of Art" in 1915-1916 changed somewhat: in 1915 the left were represented by the names of L.A. Bruni, P.V. Miturich and N.A. Tyrsa, and in 1916 - K.L.Boguslavskaya, Konchalovsky, Mashkov, V.M. Khodasevich and Yakulova.

In March 1916 Konchalovsky and Mashkov left the Jack of Diamonds and became members of the World of Art society. In the same year, Goncharova joined the society. These facts testified to the assimilation of the once opposing artistic directions. The process continued throughout the next two exhibition seasons (1917-1918): apart from Konchalovsky and Mashkov, works by S.I. Dymshits-Tolstoy, L.M. Lisitsky, S.A. Nagubnikov, A. F. Sofronova.

In May 1917 "World of Art" entered the central federation of the Trade Union of Artists-Painters of Moscow. In 1918 the society enlarged its ranks with the former tambourists A.V. Kuprin, Lentulov, A.I. Milman, Rozhdestvensky, Falk and practically became the center of Moscow Sezannism. P. Kuznetsov was elected chairman of the World of Art in 1918, and Mashkov, Milman and Lentulov were included in the leadership of the society.

In the summer of 1921, the Diamonds reunited under the banners of the "World of Art" - the exhibition of the society was open until November and brought together artists of various trends. In addition to the traditional Diamonds nucleus, the Inkhukovites A.A. Vesnin, A.D. Drevin and N.A. Udaltsova, as well as V.V. Kandinsky and Shevchenko were exhibited.

On this occasion, Falk wrote to Kuprin: “Much has changed in our society [The World of Art”]. Thanks to the efforts of Ilya Ivanovich [Mashkov] and [PV] Kuznetsov, it lost its intended appearance. A lot of new members entered, held by them fuchs, like various students of Kuznetsov, Bebutov, etc. Mashkov wants to become a member of his wife, etc. In general, the atmosphere begins to deteriorate greatly "(RGALI. F.3018. Op.1. Unit. Xr. 147. L. 6).

The next Moscow exhibition (January 1922) testified to the crisis state of the World of Art. Falk informed the same addressee: “I have a melancholy feeling from the exhibition. It seems to me that pathos is necessary in art, but this is not. Everything<...>we are some kind of sweet and sour, not hot and not cold. The revolution reacted very hard on us, very much pressed us to the ground and made us everyday ”(RGALI. F.3018. Op. 1. Unit. 147. L. 10-11).

In the last exhibition of the society, which opened in Paris in June 1927, none of the avant-garde artists participated.

---> "World of Art": stages and nature of activity. Easel and theatrical decorative arts, magazine graphics and literary illustrations. A.A. Benois is the leader of the artistic association. The "older" generation of organizers of the "World of Art" at the turn of the 1890s -

In 1898 a new artistic association was founded in St. Petersburg, which was named "The World of Art". The formed circle was headed by the artist A.N. Benois and the patron S.P. Diaghilev. The main core of the association was L.S. Bakst, E.E. Lansere, K.A. Somov. The World of Art organized exhibitions and published a magazine under the same name. The association included many artists: M.A. Vrubel, V. A. Serov, I. I. Levitan, M. V. Nesterov, A. P. Ryabushkin, N. K. Roerich, B. M. Kustodiev, ZE . Serebryakova, K.S. Petrov-Vodkin.

The "classic" period of the "World of Art" activity - 1898-1904; during this time 6 exhibitions were organized. The last, sixth exhibition was an attempt by SP Diaghilev to prevent the active demarcation of creative forces within the World of Art (in 1901 a number of Moscow artists left the society and organized an Exhibition of 36 Artists, in 1903 the Union of Russian Artists appeared).

The aesthetics of the majority of the World of Art representatives is a Russian version of Art Nouveau. The Mirisks defended the freedom of individual creativity. Beauty was recognized as the main source of inspiration. The modern world, in their opinion, is devoid of beauty and therefore is not worthy of attention. In search of the beautiful, the World of Art artists often turn to the monuments of the past in their works. For artists of the early twentieth century, social problems in history are losing paramount importance, the leading place in their work is the image of the beauty of ancient life, the reconstruction of historical landscapes, the creation of a poeticized romantic image of "bygone centuries." Sharp collisions and significant historical figures interested them much less than the originality of the costume, the unique flavor of antiquity. The genre of history became the leading one in the works of many artists who were part of the "World of Art".

The classic period in the life of the association fell on 1900-1904 - at this time the group was characterized by a special unity of aesthetic and ideological principles. The artists organized exhibitions under the auspices of the World of Art magazine.

Artistic orientation of the "World of Art" was associated with modernity and symbolism. In contrast to the ideas of the Wanderers, the artists of the World of Art proclaimed the priority of the aesthetic principle in art. Members of the "World of Art" argued that art is primarily an expression of the artist's personality. In one of the first issues of the magazine, S. Diaghilev wrote: "A work of art is important not in itself, but only as an expression of the personality of the creator." Believing that modern civilization is antagonistic to culture, the "world of art" sought the ideal in the art of the past. Artists and writers, in their paintings and on magazine pages, revealed to Russian society the then little-appreciated beauty of medieval architecture and ancient Russian icon painting, the elegance of classical Petersburg and the palaces surrounding it, made them think about the modern sound of ancient civilizations and re-evaluate their own artistic and literary heritage.

In the history of theatrical and decorative painting of the 20th century, the masters of the "World of Art" played an outstanding role, the value of which is not limited by the limits of the national visual culture. It is not only about the broad European recognition of Russian theater artists, but also about the direct impact of the latter on the world theatrical and decorative painting. By this time, Russian theatrical and decorative painting, which once knew periods of high prosperity, had managed to fall into miserable decline, because it had largely lost its connection with the advanced phenomena of contemporary national art. From the hands of great artists, it passed into the hands of "professionals" who could do nothing outside of their narrow specialty, and even in it, they rarely rose above the craft level. In the Mamontov Opera, this practice was dropped. Great painters again turned to theatrical work - first the Itinerants V.M. Vasnetsov and V.D. Polenov, and after them the masters of the younger generation - M. Vrubel and K. Korovin. As a result of their activities, the role of the artist in the theater increased again, and the confidence in the creative community that the scenery and costumes were an integral element of the artistic image created by the performance was strengthened. The work of M. Vrubel, A. Golovin and K. Korovin had another meaning: overcoming the "everyday life" of impersonal standard decorations, they created on the stage an atmosphere of a special "theatrical reality", poetically elevated above everyday life.

Certain artists of the World of Art were involved in theatrical life at a time when such productions as the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan set by Vrubel (1900), the ballet The Little Humpbacked Horse set by K. Korovin (1901) and the opera "The Woman of Pskov" set by Golovin (1901). A new stage in the development of Russian decorative painting began.

In 1898, the first issue of the monthly illustrated art magazine "The World of Arts" was published in St. Petersburg, which came out until 1904. The magazine was the organ of the art association "World of Art" and Symbolist writers.

From the first issue, the artists rallied around S.P. Diaghilev, they not only participated in the creation of the magazine, making covers, preparing illustrations, splash screens and vignettes, but formed a new idea of ​​popular and artistic publications. They drew attention to the meaning of font and format, the relationship between text and illustrations.

The Bronze Horseman with illustrations by A. Benois and White Nights designed by M.V. Dobuzhinsky. In emigration, the "world of art" continued to create illustrated editions, which were published in Paris, Berlin, Rome and New York. A.N. Benois illustrated "The Captain's Daughter" by A.S. Pushkin, "The Sinner" by Henri de Rainier. I.Ya.Bilibin made drawings for Russian folk tales and French medieval ballads. BD Grigoriev performed 60 illustrations for “The Brothers Karamazov” by F.M. Dostoevsky, designed "First Love" by I.S. Turgenev, "Childhood" A.M. Gorky and "Children's Island" by S. Cherny.

The World of Art is an organization that emerged in 1898 and brought together masters of the highest artistic culture, the artistic elite of Russia in those years. The "World of Art" began with evenings at A. Benois's house dedicated to art, literature and music. The people who gathered there were united by love for beauty and the confidence that it can only be found in art, since reality is ugly. Having arisen, as well as a reaction to the petty themes of the "late" Wanderers, the "World of Art" soon turned into one of the major phenomena of Russian artistic culture. Almost all famous artists participated in this association - Benoit, Somov, Bakst, Lancere, Golovin, Dobuzhinsky, Vrubel, Serov, Korovin, Levitan, Nesterov, Ryabushkin, Roerich, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Malyavin, even Larionov and Goncharova. The personality of Diaghilev, a philanthropist and organizer of exhibitions, and later impresario of Russian ballet and opera tours abroad (Russian Seasons, which introduced Europe to the works of Chaliapin, Pavlova, Fokin, Nizhinsky, etc.), was of great importance for the formation of this association. ). At the initial stage of the existence of the "World of Art" Diaghilev arranged an exhibition of English and German watercolors in St. Petersburg in 1897 and an exhibition of Russian and Finnish artists in 1898. From 1899 to 1904 he edited a magazine under the same name, consisting of two departments: artistic and literary (the latter is of a religious and philosophical plan, D. Merezhkovsky and Z. Gippius collaborated in it before the opening of their journal Novy Put in 1902. the place of the theory of aesthetics, and the journal in this part of it became the tribune of the Symbolists headed by A. Bely and V. Bryusov). The magazine had the profile of a literary and artistic almanac. Abundantly supplied with illustrations, he at the same time was one of the first examples of the art of book design - a field of artistic activity in which the "world of art" were true innovators. The drawing of the font, the composition of the page, the splash screen, the endings in the form of vignettes - everything was carefully thought out.

The editorial articles of the first issues of the magazine clearly formulated the main provisions of the "world of art" about the autonomy of art, that the problems of modern culture are exclusively problems of the artistic form and that the main task of art is to educate the aesthetic tastes of Russian society, primarily through acquaintance with the works world art. We must pay tribute to them: thanks to the "world of art", English and German art was really appreciated in a new way, and most importantly, the painting of the Russian 18th century and the architecture of St. Petersburg classicism became a discovery for many. "Miriskusniki" fought for "criticism as art", proclaiming the ideal not of a scientist-art critic, but of a critic-artist with a high professional culture and erudition. The type of such a critic was embodied by one of the founders of the "World of Art" A.N. Benoit.

One of the main places in the journal's activities was occupied by the propaganda of the achievements of the latest Russian and especially Western European art. Parallel to this, "World of Art" introduces the practice of joint exhibitions of Russian and Western European artists. The first exhibition of the "world of art" united, in addition to Russians, artists from France, England, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Norway, Finland, etc. Both St. Petersburg and Moscow painters and graphic artists took part in it. But the crack between these two schools - St. Petersburg and Moscow - has been outlined almost from the first day. In March 1903, the last, fifth exhibition of the "World of Art" was closed, in December 1904 the last issue of the magazine "World of Art" was published. Most of the artists moved to the organized "Union of Russian Artists", writers - and the magazine "New Way" opened by Merezhkovsky's group, Moscow Symbolists united around the magazine "Vesy", musicians organized "Evenings of Contemporary Music", Diaghilev went entirely to ballet and theater. His last significant work in the visual arts was a grandiose historical exhibition of Russian painting from icon painting to modern times in the Paris Autumn Salon of 1906, then exhibited in Berlin and Venice (1906 - 1907). In the section of contemporary painting, the main place was occupied by the "world of art". This was the first act of all-European recognition of the "World of Art", as well as the discovery of Russian painting of the 18th - early 20th centuries. in general for Western criticism and a real triumph of Russian art.

In 1910, an attempt was made to breathe life into the "World of Art" again. At this time, a demarcation took place among painters. Benoit and his supporters break with the "Union of Russian Artists", with Muscovites, and leave this organization, but they understand that the secondary association called "World of Art" has nothing to do with the first. Benoit sadly states that "not reconciliation under the banner of beauty has now become a slogan in all spheres of life, but a fierce struggle." Glory came to the "World of Artists", but the "World of Arts", in fact, no longer existed, although formally the association existed until the beginning of the 20s - with a complete lack of integrity, on boundless tolerance and flexibility of positions, reconciling artists from Rylov to Tatlin, from Grabar to Chagall. How not to remember the Impressionists here? The Commonwealth, which had once been born in the workshop of Gleyre, in the Salon of the Outcast, at the tables of the Herbois cafe and which was to have a huge impact on all European painting, also disintegrated on the threshold of its recognition. The second generation of the "world of art" is less occupied with the problems of easel painting, their interests lie in graphics, mainly books, and theatrical and decorative arts, in both areas they have made a real artistic reform. In the second generation of the "World of Art" there were also large individuals (Kustodiev, Sudeikin, Serebryakova, Chekhonin, Grigoriev, etc.), but there were no innovators at all, for since the 10s the "World of Art" has been overwhelmed by a wave of epigonism. Therefore, when characterizing the "World of Art", we will mainly talk about the first stage of the existence of this association and its core - Benoit, Somov, Bakst.

Polemising with academic salon art, on the one hand, and with late Wanderers, on the other, Mir Iskusstvo proclaims the rejection of direct social tendentiousness as something that allegedly fetters the freedom of individual creative self-expression in art and infringes upon the rights of the artistic form. Subsequently, in 1906, the leading artist and ideologist of the group A. Benois announced the slogan of individualism, with which the "World of Art" came out at the beginning, "artistic heresy." The individualism that was proclaimed by the "World of Art" at the beginning of its performances was nothing more than a defense of the rights of freedom of creative play. "Miriskusniki" were not satisfied with the one-sided specialization inherent in the fine arts of the second half of the 19th century in only one area of ​​easel painting, and within it - on certain genres and on certain (actual) subjects "with a tendency." Everything that the artist loves and worships in the past and present has the right to be embodied in art regardless of the spite of the day - this was the creative program of the World of Art. But this seemingly broad program had a significant limitation. Since, as the “world of art” believed, only admiration for beauty generates genuine creative enthusiasm, and immediate reality, they believed, is alien to beauty, the only pure source of beauty, and, therefore, inspiration is art itself, as a sphere of beauty par excellence. Thus, art becomes a kind of prism through which the "world of art" view the past, present and future. Life interests them only insofar as it has already expressed itself in art. Therefore, in their work, they act as interpreters of already perfect, ready-made beauty. Hence the primary interest of the World of Art artists to the past, especially to the epochs of the dominance of a single style, which makes it possible to single out the main, dominant and expressing the spirit of the era, the “line of beauty” - the geometric schematics of classicism, the whimsical curl of Rococo, the luscious forms and chiaroscuro of the Baroque, etc.

The leading master and aesthetic legislator of the "World of Art" was Alexander Nikolaevich Benois (1870-1960). The talent of this artist was distinguished by an extraordinary versatility, and the volume of professional knowledge and the level of general culture were unmatched in the highly educated circle of the World of Art figures. Painter and graphic easel painter, illustrator and book designer, master of theatrical scenery, director, author of ballet librettos, Benoit was at the same time an outstanding historian of Russian and Western European art, theorist and keen publicist, an astute critic, a major museum figure, an incomparable connoisseur of theater, music and choreography ... However, just listing the spheres of culture, deeply studied by Alexander Benois, does not yet give a correct idea of ​​the spiritual image of the artist. Significantly, there was nothing pedantic about his amazing erudition. The main feature of his character should be called an all-consuming love of art; versatility of knowledge served only as an expression of this love. In all his activities, in science, art criticism, in every movement of his thought, Benoit always remained an artist. Contemporaries saw in him a living embodiment of the spirit of artistry.

But there was one more peculiarity in Benois's appearance, sharply noted in the memoirs of Andrei Bely, who sensed in the artist, first of all, “a diplomat of the responsible party of the World of Art, conducting a great cultural cause and sacrificing many for the sake of the whole; A.N. Benoit was the main politician in it; Diaghilev was an impresario, entrepreneur, director; Benoit gave, so to speak, the staged text ... ". Benois's artistic policy united around him all the figures of the "World of Art". He was not only a theorist, but also the inspirer of the tactics of the "World of Art", the creator of its changing aesthetic programs. The inconsistency and inconsistency of the journal's ideological positions is largely due to the inconsistency and inconsistency of Benoit's aesthetic views at that stage. However, this very inconsistency, reflecting the contradictions of the era, gives the artist a special historical interest.

In addition, Benoit possessed a remarkable pedagogical talent and generously shared his spiritual wealth not only with friends, but also with “everyone who wanted to listen to him. It is this circumstance that determines the strength of Benois's influence on the entire circle of artists of the World of Art, who, according to the correct remark of A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedeva, passed "with him, imperceptibly for themselves, the school of artistic taste, culture and knowledge."

By birth and upbringing, Benoit belonged to the Petersburg artistic intelligentsia. For generations, art has been a hereditary profession in his family. Benois maternal great-grandfather K.A. Kavos was a composer and conductor, his grandfather was an architect who built a lot in St. Petersburg and Moscow; the artist's father was also a major architect, his older brother was famous as a watercolor painter. The mind of young Benoit developed in an atmosphere of art and artistic interests.

Subsequently, recalling his childhood, the artist especially persistently emphasized two spiritual streams, two categories of experiences that powerfully influenced the formation of his views and, in a sense, determined the direction of all his future activities. The first and most powerful of these relates to theatrical experience. From his earliest years and throughout his life, Benoit experienced a feeling that can hardly be called anything other than the cult of the theater. Benois always associated the concept of "artistry" with the concept of "theatricality"; it was in the art of theater that he saw the only opportunity to create in modern conditions a creative synthesis of painting, architecture, music, plastics and poetry, to realize that organic fusion of the arts, which seemed to him to be the highest goal of artistic culture.

The second category of adolescent experiences, which left an indelible imprint on Benois's aesthetic views, arose from the impressions of country residences and St. Petersburg suburbs - Pavlovsk, the old Kushelev-Bezborodko dacha on the right bank of the Neva and, above all, from Peterhof, and its many art monuments. “These ... Peterhof impressions ... probably gave rise to my entire further cult of Peterhof, Tsarskoe Selo, Versailles,” the artist later recalled. The early impressions and experiences of Alexander Benois go back to the origins of that bold reappraisal of the art of the 18th century, which, as already mentioned above, is one of the greatest achievements of the "World of Art".

Young Benoit's artistic tastes and views were formed in opposition to his family, which adhered to conservative "academic" views. The decision to become an artist was ripe for him very early; but after a short stay at the Academy of Arts, which brought only disappointment, Benoit chose to receive a law degree at St. Petersburg University, and undergo professional artistic training on his own, according to his own program.

Subsequently, hostile criticism has repeatedly called Benoit an amateur. This was hardly fair: the daily stubborn study, constant training in drawing from life, the exercise of imagination in working on compositions in combination with an in-depth study of art history gave the artist a confident skill, not inferior to the skill of his peers who studied at the Academy. With the same persistence Benoit prepared for the activity of an art historian, studying the Hermitage, studying special literature, traveling to historical cities and museums in Germany, Italy and France.

Alexander Benois's painting "The King's Walk" (1906, State Tretyakov Gallery) is one of the most striking and typical examples of painting in the "World of Art". This work is included in a cycle of paintings that revive scenes of the Versailles life of the era of the "Sun King". The cycle of 1905-1906, in turn, is a continuation of the earlier Versailles suite of 1897-1898, entitled "The Last Walks of Louis XIV", begun in Paris under the impression of the memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. Benois's Versailles landscapes merged the historical reconstruction of the 17th century, the artist's modern impressions, his perception of French classicism, French engraving. Hence the clear composition, clear spatiality, grandeur and cold severity of rhythms, the contrast between the grandeur of the monuments of art and the smallness of human figures, which are only staffage among them - the first series entitled “The Last Walks of Louis XIV”.

Versailles at Benois is a kind of landscape elegy, a beautiful world that appears to the eyes of a modern person in the form of a desolate scene with dilapidated scenery of a long-performed performance. Formerly magnificent, full of sounds and colors, this world now seems a little ghostly, shaded by cemetery silence. It is no coincidence that in The King's Walk, Benoit depicts a Versailles park in autumn and at the hour of light evening twilight, when the leafless “architecture” of a regular French garden against the background of a bright sky turns into a see-through, ephemeral arrangement. The effect of this picture is similar to that if we saw a real big scene at a sharp distance from the balcony of the last tier, and then, having examined this reduced to doll-size world through binoculars, we would combine these two impressions into a single spectacle. The distant, thus, approaches and comes to life, remaining distant, the size of a toy theater. As in romantic fairy tales, at the appointed hour, a certain action is played out on this stage: the king in the center talks with the maid of honor, accompanied by the courtiers marching at precisely specified intervals behind them and in front of them. All of them, like figurines of an old winding clock, glide along the edge of the reservoir to the light sounds of a forgotten minuet. The theatrical nature of this retrospective fantasy is subtly revealed by the artist himself: he revives the figures of the frisky cupids inhabiting the fountain - they comically portray themselves as a noisy audience, freely sitting at the foot of the stage and gazing at the puppet show played by people.

The motive of solemn exits, trips, walks, as a characteristic feature of the everyday ritual of bygone times, was one of the favorite among the "world of art". We also meet with a peculiar variation of this motive in "Peter I" by V.A. Serov, and in the painting by G.E. Lanceray "Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in Tsarskoe Selo" (1905, GGT). Unlike Benois with his aestheticization of the rationalist geometry of classicism, Lanceray is more attracted by the sensual pathos of the Russian Baroque, the sculptural materiality of forms. The portrayal of portly Elizabeth and her rosy-cheeked courtiers, dressed with rude pomp, is devoid of that tinge of theatrical mystification that is characteristic of Benois's Walk of the King.

Benois turned into a semi-fabulous, toy king none other than Louis XIV, whose reign was distinguished by incredible splendor and splendor, and was the era of the heyday of French statehood. This deliberate reduction of the past greatness contains a kind of philosophical program - everything serious and great in its turn is destined to become a comedy and a farce. But the irony of the "World of Artists" does not mean only nihilistic skepticism. The purpose of this irony is not at all to discredit the past, but just the opposite - to rehabilitate the past in the face of the possibility of a nihilistic attitude towards it through an artistic demonstration that the autumn of bygone cultures is beautiful in its own way, like their spring and summer. But, thus, the special melancholic charm, which marked the phenomenon of beauty among the "artisans", was purchased at the cost of depriving this beauty of its connection with those periods when it appeared in the fullness of vital power and greatness. The categories of the great, the sublime, the beautiful are alien to the aesthetics of the "World of Art"; beautiful, graceful, graceful are more akin to her. In their extreme expression, both of these moments - sober irony, bordering on naked skepticism, and aestheticism, bordering on sensitive exaltation, are combined in the work of the most complex of the group's masters - K.A. Somova.

The activity of Benois, an art critic and art historian, who, together with Grabar, updated the methods, techniques and themes of Russian art history, is a whole stage in the history of art history science (see "History of 19th century painting" by R. Muter - volume "Russian painting", 1901-1902; "Russian School of Painting", published in 1904; "Tsarskoe Selo during the reign of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna", 1910; articles in the magazines "World of Art" and "Old Years", "Artistic Treasures of Russia" and etc.).

According to the unanimous recognition of his closest associates, as well as the evidence of later criticism, Somov was the central figure among the artists of the World of Art in the first period of the history of this association. Representatives of the World of Art circle saw him as a great master. “The name of Somov is known to every educated person not only in Russia, but all over the world. This is a world value ... For a long time already he went beyond the boundaries of schools, epochs, and even Russia, and entered the world arena of genius, "wrote the poet M. Kuzmin about him. And this is far from an isolated and not even the most enthusiastic review. If Diaghilev should be called the organizer and leader, and Benois should be called the ideological leader and the main theoretician of the new artistic movement, then Somov at first belonged to the role of the leading artist. The admiration of his contemporaries is explained by the fact that it was in the work of Somov that the basic pictorial principles were born and formed, which later became guiding for the entire group of the "World of Art".

The biography of this master is very typical for the "World of Art" circle. Konstantin Andreevich Somov (1869-1939) was the son of the curator of the Hermitage, a famous art figure and collector. The atmosphere of art has surrounded him since childhood. Somov's interest in painting, theater, literature and music arose very early and passed through his entire life. After leaving the gymnasium (1888), where his friendship with Alexander Benois and Filosofov began, young Somov entered the Academy of Arts and, in contrast to all the other founders of the World of Art, spent almost eight years there (1889-1897). He undertook a number of trips abroad - to Italy, France and Germany (1890, 1894, 1897-1898, 1899, 1905).

Unlike most of his companions in the "World of Art" Somov never taught, did not write articles, did not try to play any role in public circles. The artist's life was closed and secluded, among the few friends - artists, devoted only to work, reading, music and collecting antiques.

Two characteristic features distinguish Somov's artistic personality. One of them is determined by his relatively early creative maturity. Somov was a skilled craftsman and a completely original artist when his peers Bakst and Benoit were just beginning to look for an independent path in art. But this advantage soon turned into a disadvantage. Even the most sensitive contemporaries felt something painful in Somov's premature maturity. The second feature of Somov was vigilantly noticed by his friend and admirer S. Yaremich: “... Somov is by nature a powerful realist, akin to Vermeer-van-Delft or Pieter de Russian painter. On the one hand, he is attracted and attracted by life ..., on the other hand, the discrepancy between the general life and the artist's life distracts him from the present ... There is hardly another artist so gifted with the ability of the most acute and penetrating observation, as our Somov, who would devote there is so much space in my work for purely decorative tasks and the past. " One could assume that the works of Somov are the more significant, the closer they remain to the living, concretely seen nature and the less the split and isolation from real life, which the critic speaks of, is felt in them. However, it is not. The very duality of the artist's consciousness, so typical of his era, becomes a source of sharp and original creative ideas.

One of the most famous portraits of Somov is “Lady in Blue. Portrait of Elizaveta Mikhailovna Martynova "(1897-1900, State Tretyakov Gallery), is a programmatic work of the artist. Dressed in an old dress, evoking the memory of Pushkin's Tatiana "with a sad thought in her eyes, with a French book in her hands," the heroine of the Somov portrait, with an expression of fatigue, longing, inability to fight in life, all the more betrays her dissimilarity with her poetic prototype, forcing mentally feel the depth of the abyss separating the past from the present. It is in this work of Somov, where the artificial bizarrely intertwined with the genuine, the game - with seriousness, where a living person looks bewilderedly inquiring, helpless and abandoned among fake gardens, with emphasized frankness is expressed the pessimistic background of the worldly “abandonment of the past” and impossibility for a modern person to find there salvation from oneself, from one's real, not ghostly sorrows.

Close to "The Lady in Blue" is the portrait-painting "Echo of the Past Tense" (1903, paper on cardboard, watercolor, gouache, State Tretyakov Gallery), where Somov creates a poetic description of a fragile, anemic female beauty of a decadent pattern, refusing to convey real everyday signs of our time. He dresses the models in old costumes, gives their appearance the features of secret suffering, sadness and dreaminess, painful brokenness.

A brilliant portrait painter, Somov in the second half of the 1900s creates a suite of pencil and watercolor portraits, which present us an artistic and artistic environment, well known to the artist and deeply studied by him, the intellectual elite of his time - V. Ivanov, Blok, Kuzmin, Sollogub, Lancere , Dobuzhinsky and others. In his portraits, he uses one general technique: on a white background - in a certain timeless sphere - he draws a face, the resemblance in which is achieved not through naturalization, but by bold generalizations and accurate selection of characteristic details. This absence of signs of time creates the impression of static, stiffness, coldness, almost tragic loneliness.

Somov's later works are pastoral and gallant festivities ("Laughed Kiss", 1908, State Russian Museum; "Walk of the Marquise", 1909, State Russian Museum), "Columbine's Tongue" (1913-1915), full of caustic irony, spiritual devastation, even hopelessness. Love scenes from the 18th - early 19th centuries. are always given with a touch of eroticism. The latter was especially evident in his porcelain figurines dedicated to the ghostly pursuit of pleasure.

A game of love - dating, notes, kissing in alleys, gazebos, trellises of regular gardens or in luxuriously tiled boudoirs - is a common pastime of Somov heroes, who appear in powdered wigs, high hairstyles, embroidered camisoles and dresses with crinolines. But there is no genuine cheerfulness in the merriment of the Somov paintings; people rejoice not because of the fullness of life, but because they do not know anything else, sublime, serious and strict. This is not a cheerful world, but a world doomed to fun, to an exhausting eternal holiday that turns people into puppets, a phantom pursuit of the pleasures of life.

Earlier than anyone else in The World of Art, Somov turned to the themes of the past, to the interpretation of the 18th century. ("Letter", 1896; "Confidentiality", 1897), being the predecessor of the Versailles landscapes of Benoit. He was the first to create an unreal world, woven from the motives of the noble estate and court culture and his own purely subjective artistic sensations, permeated with irony. The historicism of the "World of Artists" was an escape from reality. Not the past, but its dramatization, longing for its irrevocability - this is their main motive. Not true fun, but playing fun with kisses in the alleys - this is Somov.

The theme of the artificial world, a false life, in which there is nothing significant and important, is the leading one in Somov's work. It has as its prerequisite the artist's deeply pessimistic assessment of the morals of modern bourgeois-aristocratic society, although it was Somov who was the most vivid exponent of the hedonistic tastes of this circle. The Somov farce is the wrong side of the tragic attitude, which, however, rarely manifests itself in the choice of specially tragic subjects.

The techniques of Somov painting ensure the consistent isolation of the world he depicts from the simple, artless. Somov's man is fenced off from natural nature by the props of artificial gardens, walls upholstered with damask, silk screens, soft sofas. It is no coincidence that Somov is also especially willing to use motives of artificial lighting (a series of "Fireworks" of the early 1910s). An unexpected flash of fireworks lights finds people in risky, randomly absurd, angular poses, plotting the symbolic assimilation of life to a puppet theater.

Somov worked a lot as a graphic artist, he designed a monograph by S. Diaghilev about Levitsky, a work by A. Benois about Tsarskoe Selo. The book as a single organism with its rhythmic and stylistic unity was raised by him to an extraordinary height. Somov is not an illustrator, he “illustrates not a text, but an era, using a literary device as a springboard,” wrote the art critic A.A. Sidorov.

The role of M.V. Dobuzhinsky in the history of the "World of Art" in its importance is not inferior to the role of senior masters of this group, although he did not belong to the number of its founders and was not a member of the youth circle of A.I. Benoit. Only in 1902, Dobuzhinsky's graphics appeared on the pages of the magazine "World of Art", and only in 1903 he began to take part in exhibitions under the same name. But, perhaps, none of the artists who joined the named group in the first period of its activity came as close as Dobuzhinsky to understanding the ideas and principles of the new creative movement, and none of them made such a significant and original contribution to the development of the artistic method of the "World of Art".

Mstislav Valerianovich Dobuzhinsky (1875-1957) was a man with a university education and broad cultural interests. He became addicted to drawing as a child and early began to prepare for the work of an artist. Along with the visual arts, he was attracted by literature and history; he read a lot and used to illustrate what he read. The earliest artistic impressions, forever engraved in his memory, were gleaned from children's books with illustrations by Berthal, G. Dore and W. Bush.

Graphics have always been easier for Dobuzhinsky than painting. In his student years, he studied under the guidance of the itinerant G. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky, who, however, did not have any influence on him. “Fortunately,” as the artist said, he did not get into the Academy of Arts and did not experience its impact at all. After graduating from the university, he went to study art in Munich and for three years (1899-1901) studied in the workshops of A. Ashbe and S. Holloshi, where I. Grabar, D. Kardovsky and some other Russian artists also worked. Here Dobuzhinsky's artistic education was completed and his aesthetic tastes were formed: he highly appreciated Manet and Degas, fell in love with the Pre-Raphaelites forever, but the German landscape painters of the late 19th century and the Simplicissimus artists had the strongest influence on him. The preparation and creative formation of the young Dobuzhinsky quite organically led him to contact with the "World of Art". Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Dobuzhinsky met with active support from Grabar and Benois, who highly appreciated his talent. In the early drawings of Dobuzhinsky (1902-1905), reminiscences of the Munich school are intertwined with the quite obvious influence of the senior masters of the World of Art, primarily Somov and Benois.

Dobuzhinsky stands out among the artists of the "World of Art" by the thematic repertoire-aroma of works dedicated to the modern city. But just as in Somov and Benois the “spirit of the past” is expressed through the artistic handwriting of the era, embodied in architecture, furniture, costumes, ornamentation, so in Dobuzhinsky, modern urban civilization expresses itself not in the actions and actions of people, but through the appearance of modern urban buildings , in dense rows closing the horizon, blocking the sky, crossed out by factory chimneys, stunning with countless rows of windows. Dobuzhinsky sees the modern city as a kingdom of monotony and standard that erases and absorbs human individuality.

Just as programmatic as for Somov "The Lady in Blue" is for Dobuzhinsky's picture "The Man with Glasses. Portrait of Konstantin Alexandrovich Sunnerberg "(1905-1906, State Tretyakov Gallery). Against the background of a window, behind which, at some distance in front of an abandoned wasteland, the city block is piled up, depicted from the back, unpresentable side, where factory chimneys and the bare firewalls of large apartment buildings rise above the old houses, the figure of a thin man in a jacket sagging on hunched shoulders looms. The shimmering lenses of his spectacles, matching the outline of the eye sockets, give the impression of empty eye sockets. In the black and white modeling of the head, the construction of a naked skull is exposed - a frightening ghost of death appears in the outlines of a human face. In the affected frontality, the accentuated verticalism of the figure, the immobility of the posture, a person is likened to a mannequin, a lifeless automaton - so, in relation to the modern era, Dobuzhinsky transformed the theme of the “puppet show” performed in retrospect by Somov and Benoit on the stage of the past. There is something "demonic" and pitiful at the same time in the ghostly man of Dobuzhinsky. He is a terrible creature and at the same time a victim of the modern city.

Dobuzhinsky also worked a lot in illustration, where the most remarkable can be considered his cycle of ink drawings for Dostoevsky's White Nights (1922). Dobuzhinsky also worked in the theater, designed for Nemirovich-Danchenko's Nikolai Stavrogin (staging of Dostoevsky's Demons), Turgenev's plays A Month in the Country and Freeloader.

The sophistication of fantasy aimed at reuniting and interpreting the language, stylistic handwriting of foreign cultures, in general “foreign language” in a broad sense, has found its most natural organic application in the area where this quality is not only desirable, but necessary - in the field of book illustration. Almost all of the World of Art artists were excellent illustrators. The largest and most outstanding in artistic terms illustrative cycles of the era, when the "Miriskusnicheskoe" direction in this area was dominant, are the illustrations by A. Benois to The Bronze Horseman (1903-1905) and E. Lancer to Hadji Murad (1912- 1915).

Evgeny Evgenievich Lanceray (1875-1946) in his work touched upon all the main problems of book graphics at the beginning of the 20th century. (see his illustrations for the book "Legends of the Ancient Castles of Brittany", for Lermontov, the cover for "Nevsky Prospekt" by Bozheryanov, etc.), Lanceray created a number of watercolors and lithographs of St. Petersburg ("Kalinkin Bridge", "Nikolsky Market", etc. ). Architecture occupies a huge place in his historical compositions ("Empress Elizaveta Petrovna in Tsarskoe Selo", 1905, State Tretyakov Gallery). We can say that a new type of historical picture was created in the works of Serov, Benoit, Lanceray - it is devoid of a plot, but at the same time it perfectly recreates the appearance of the era, evokes many historical, literary and aesthetic associations. One of the best creations of Lanceray - 70 drawings and watercolors for the story by L.N. Tolstoy's "Hadji Murad" (1912-1915), which Benoit considered "an independent song, perfectly engaging in the mighty music of Tolstoy."

Benois the illustrator is a whole page in the history of the book. Unlike Somov, Benoit creates a narrative illustration. The plane of the page is not an end in itself for him. The illustrations for "The Queen of Spades" were more likely complete independent works, not so much "book art", according to A.A. Sidorov, how much "art is in the book." A masterpiece of book illustration was the graphic design of The Bronze Horseman (1903, 1905, 1916, 1921-1922, ink and watercolor imitating color woodcut).

Petersburg - the city "beautiful and terrible" - the protagonist of Benois's illustrations. In the style of these illustrations, a typical for "world of art" in general, but in this case a rather complex "system of prisms", in which images and pictures of Pushkin's Petersburg story were refracted many times, makes itself felt - here is a reminder of the landscapes of the first singer of "Northern Venice "In painting - F. Alekseev (in the illustrations accompanying the odic introduction of the story), and the poetic charm of the interiors of the Venetian school in interior scenes, and the graphics of the first third of the 19th century, and not only Pushkin's Petersburg, but also Dostoevsky's Petersburg, for example, in famous scene of the night chase. The central theme of Pushkin's St. Petersburg story - the conflict between a private person and the state power personified in the image of the Bronze Horseman, acting for the individual in the form of ominous fate - found its lofty artistic expression in the frontispiece, made in 1905. In this watercolor drawing, Benoit managed to achieve amazing simplicity and clarity in expressing a complex idea, that is, the quality that is akin to Pushkin's great simplicity. But the shade of gloomy "demonism" in the image of the Bronze Horseman, as well as assimilation of the persecuted Eugene to the image of an "insignificant worm" ready to mingle with dust, not only indicates the presence of another "prism" that is quite characteristic of the "World of Artists" - Hoffmann's fantasy, but also means a shift from Pushkin's objectivity towards a purely individualistic in nature feeling of horror at the dispassionateness of historical necessity - a feeling that Pushkin did not have.

Theatrical decoration, akin to the art of book illustration as it is also associated with the interpretation of someone else's design, was another area where the World of Art was destined to bring about a major artistic reform. It consisted of rethinking the old role of the theater artist. Now he is no longer the artist-designer of the action and the inventor of comfortable stage enclosures, but the same interpreter of music and drama, the same equal creator of the performance as the director and actors. Thus, in the process of composing music for the ballet “Petrushka” by I. Stravinsky, A. Benois unfolded before him visual images of the future performance.

The scenery of "Petrushka", this, in the words of the artist, "ballet of the street", revived the spirit of the fairground festivity.

The flourishing of the activities of the "world of art" in the field of theatrical and decorative art dates back to the 1910s and is associated with the organized by S.P. Diaghilev (the idea belonged to A. Benois) "Russian Seasons" in Paris, which included a whole series of symphony concerts, opera and ballet performances. It was in the performances of "Russian Seasons" that the European public first heard F. Chaliapin, saw A. Pavlova, and got acquainted with M. Fokine's choreography. It was here that the talent of L.S. Bakst, an artist who belonged to the main core of the "World of Art".

Together with Benoit and Somov, Lev Samoilovich Bakst (1866-1924) is one of the central figures in the history of the World of Art. He was a member of the youth circle, in which the ideological and creative tendencies of this direction were born; he was among the founders and most active employees of the magazine, which was carrying out a new aesthetic program; he, together with Diaghilev, "exported" Russian art to Western Europe and achieved its recognition; The world fame of Russian theatrical and decorative painting "The World of Art" fell primarily to Bakst.

Meanwhile, in the system of development of ideas and principles of the "World of Art" Bakst belongs to a completely separate and independent place. While actively supporting the tactics of unification and sharing, on the whole, his basic aesthetic positions, Bakst, at the same time, followed a completely independent path. His painting is not like the painting of Somov and Benoit, Lanceray and Dobuzhinsky; it comes from other traditions, relies on a different mental and life experience, turns to other themes and images.

The path of the artist was more complex and winding than the smooth and consistent evolution, characteristic of the work of many of his friends and associates. There is a shade of paradox in Bakst's quests and throwings; the line of its development is drawn with steep zigzags. Bakst came to the "World of Art" as if "from the right"; he brought with him the skills of the old academic school and reverence for the traditions of the nineteenth century. But very little time passed, and Bakst became the most "leftist" among the participants in the "World of Art"; he was more active than others in getting closer to Western European art nouveau painting and organically assimilated its techniques. Western viewers found it easier to recognize Bakst as theirs than any other artist of the World of Art.

Bakst was three years older than Somov, Benoit four years older, and Diaghilev six years older. The age difference, in itself insignificant, had a certain significance at the time when the figures of the "World of Art" were young men. Among the young amateurs who grouped around Benoit and formed his circle. Bakst was the only artist with some professional experience. For four years (1883-1887) he studied at the Academy of Arts, sometimes made portraits to order and acted as an illustrator in the so-called "thin magazines". The Russian Museum contains several landscape and portrait sketches by Bakst, painted in the first half of the 1890s. They are not of high artistic quality, but they are quite professional. They already show the decorative flair characteristic of Bakst; but according to their principles, they do not go beyond the limits of late academic painting.

Soon, however, Bakst's work took on a different character. At the first exhibitions of the World of Art, Bakst acted primarily as a portrait painter. It is enough to take a closer look at the series of portraits he created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries to understand from which concepts Bakst's painting originated at the beginning of his career and in what direction it developed in the future.

One of the artist's most famous works is the portrait of Alexander Benois (1898, State Russian Museum). In this early, pastel-filled work, still imperfect and unfamiliar with illusionistic tendencies, one can discern a whole complex of creative ideas that then determined the task and meaning of portrait painting for Bakst. Nature is taken here in the stream of its living states, in all the variability of its concrete, precisely noted qualities. The main role is played by the desire to reveal the character, to reveal the individual psychological characteristics of the person being portrayed. This tendency directly goes back to the creative principles of Russian realistic painting. As with the portrait painters of the second half of the 19th century, the artist's task here is to capture a moment of flowing reality, a certain fragment of real life. From here comes the plot idea - to portray Benoit as if taken by surprise, without any thought of posing; hence the compositional structure of the portrait, emphasizing the ease, as it were, the randomness of the pose and expression of the model; from here, finally, comes the interest in everyday characteristics, in the introduction of interior elements and still life into the portrait.

Another, somewhat later work of the artist is based on similar principles - a portrait of the writer V.V. Rozanov (pastel, 1901, State Tretyakov Gallery). However, here one can already see the guiding tendency in the development of Bakst's portrait painting, an attempt to free oneself from the traditions of psychological realism of the 19th century.

In the portrait of Rozanov, a striving for psychological and everyday characteristics is also manifested, and in the interpretation of the form it is easy to notice the features of illusionism. And yet, in comparison with the portrait of Benoit, different, new qualities are immediately evident here. The format of the picture, narrow and elongated, is deliberately emphasized by the vertical lines of the door and bookshelves. Against a white background, which occupies almost the entire plane of the canvas, a dark silhouette of the portrait is outlined, encircled by a rigid line of the contour. The figure is shifted from the central axis of the picture and no longer merges with the interior, but is sharply opposed to it. The intimacy characteristic of Benoit's portrait disappears.

Refusing to understand the portrait as a moment of flowing reality fixed on the canvas, Bakst - almost simultaneously with Somov - now begins to build his work on different foundations. Reflection prevails in Bakst over direct observation, generalization prevails over elements of analysis.

The content of the portrait characteristic is no longer nature in the stream of her living states, but a certain, peculiarly idealized idea of ​​the person being portrayed. Bakst does not abandon the task of revealing the inner world of this particular person in his individual uniqueness, but at the same time he seeks to sharpen in the appearance of the portrayed typical features characteristic of people of the cool "World of Art", realizes the image of a "positive hero" of his era and his close ideological environment. These features have acquired a quite distinct and complete form in the portrait of S.P. Diaghilev with a nanny (1906, State Russian Museum). Varying the same theme of the human figure in the interior, the artist, as it were, rearranges the accents, reinterprets the previous methods in a new way, brings them into a coherent, consistent system and subordinates them to the intended image. There is no longer any trace of the illusionism and naturalistic thoroughness of the earlier portraits. Compositional rhythms are based on sharp asymmetry. The masses of painting do not balance each other: the right half of the picture seems overloaded, the left is almost empty. With this technique, the artist creates an atmosphere of special tension in the portrait, which is necessary to characterize the image. Diaghilev's pose is given a ceremonial imposingness. The interior, together with the image of a seated old woman, a nanny, becomes, as it were, a commentary that complements the portrait characterization.

It would be a mistake to assert that the image of Diaghilev in this portrait is outside the psychological. On the contrary, Bakst puts into the image a whole set of sharp and apt psychological definitions, but there he deliberately limits them: we have a portrait of a posing person. The moment of posing is the most important part of the concept, in which there is not even a hint of everyday intimacy; posing is emphasized by the whole structure of the picture: the outlines of Diaghilev's silhouette, and his expression, and the spatial construction of the composition, and all the details of the situation.

There are no motives of the 18th century in Bakst's graphics. and manor themes. He gravitates towards antiquity, and towards the Greek archaic, interpreted symbolically. His painting "Terroantiquus" (tempera, 1908, State Russian Museum) enjoyed particular success among the Symbolists. A terrible stormy sky, lightning that illuminates the abyss of the sea and the ancient city - and over this entire universal catastrophe, an archaic statue of a goddess dominates with a mysterious frozen smile.

Subsequently, Bakst completely went into theatrical and decorative work, and his scenery and costumes for the ballets of Diaghilev's entreprise, performed with extraordinary brilliance, masterly, artistically, brought him world fame. It was designed for performances with Anna Pavlova, Fokine's ballets.

The exotic, spicy East, on the one hand, the Aegean art and the Greek archaic, on the other, are two themes and two stylistic layers that were the subject of Bakst's artistic hobbies and formed his individual style.

He designs mainly ballet performances, among which his masterpieces are the sets and costumes for "Scheherazade" to the music of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (1910), "The Firebird" by I.F. Stravinsky (1910), "Daphnis and Chloe" by M. Ravel (1912) and directed by V.F. Nijinsky to music by K. Debussy for the ballet "Afternoon of a Faun" (1912). In a paradoxical combination of opposing principles: bacchanalistic vibrant color, sensual astringency of color and lazy grace of a weak-willed flowing line of drawing, which retains a connection with the ornamentation of early modernism, is the originality of Bakst's individual style. Performing sketches of costumes, the artist conveys character, color image-mood, plastic drawing of the role, combining the generality of the contour and color spot with jewelry-careful finishing of details - jewelry, patterns on fabrics, etc. That is why his sketches can least of all be called drafts, but are complete works of art in themselves.

A.Ya. Golovin - one of the largest theater artists of the first quarter of the XX century, I. Ya. Bilibin, A.P. Ostroumova-Lebedev and others.

Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947) occupies a special place in the "World of Art". An expert in the philosophy and ethnography of the East, an archaeologist-scientist, Roerich received an excellent education first at home, then at the Faculty of Law and History and Philology, then at the Academy of Arts, in Kuindzhi's workshop, and in Paris at F. Cormon's studio. He early acquired the authority of a scientist. He was related to the "world of art" by the same love of retrospection, only not the 17th-18th centuries, but pagan Slavic and Scandinavian antiquity and Ancient Russia, stylistic tendencies, theatrical decorativeness ("The Messenger", 1897, State Tretyakov Gallery; "The Elders Are Converging" , 1898, State Russian Museum; "Sinister", 1901, State Russian Museum). Roerich was most closely associated with the philosophy and aesthetics of Russian symbolism, but his art did not fit into the framework of the existing trends, because in accordance with the artist's worldview and worldview it appealed, as it were, to all mankind with an appeal for a friendly union of all peoples. Hence the special monumentalism and epic character of his canvases. After 1905, the mood of pantheistic mysticism grew in Roerich's work. Historical themes give way to religious legends ("Heavenly Battle", 1912, State Russian Museum). The Russian icon had a huge influence on Roerich: his decorative panel Cutting at Kerzhenets (1911) was exhibited while performing a fragment of the same title from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia in the Parisian Russian Seasons.

Due to the evolution of the initial aesthetic attitudes, the split within the editorial office of the magazine, the branch of the Moscow group of artists "World of Art" by 1905 ceased its exhibition and publishing activities. In 1910, the "World of Art" was renewed, but it functions exclusively as an exhibition organization, not fastened, as before, by the unity of creative tasks and stylistic orientation, uniting artists of various directions.

However, there was a number of artists of the world of art of the "second wave", in whose work the artistic principles of the senior masters of the "World of Art" are further developed. Among them was B.M. Kustodiev.

Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927) was born in Astrakhan in the family of a teacher. He studied drawing and painting from the artist P.A. Vlasov in Astrakhan (1893-1896) and at the Higher Art School at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg (1896-1503), since 1898 - in the workshop of Professor I.E. Repin. In 1902-1903 he was attracted by Repin to joint work on the painting “Solemn meeting of the State Council. As a student of the Academy of Arts, on vacation he traveled across the Caucasus and the Crimea, and then annually (since 1900) spent the summer in the Kostroma province; in 1903 he made a trip along the Volga and with D.S. Stellets-kim to Novgorod.

In 1903, Kustodiev received the title of artist and the right to travel abroad for the painting "Bazaar in the Village" (which was in the Novgorod Historical and Art Museum until 1941). At the end of the same year, as a pensioner of the Academy, he left for Paris, where he worked for a short time in the workshop of R. Menard and at the same time got acquainted with contemporary art, visited museums and exhibitions. In April 1904 he left Paris for Spain to study the old masters; at the beginning of summer he returned to Russia. In 1909 he was awarded the title of academician.

Kustodiev subsequently made several trips abroad: in 1907, together with D.S. Stelletsky, - to Italy; in 1909 - to Austria, Italy, France and Germany; in 1911 and 1912 - to Switzerland; in 1913 - to the south of France and to Italy. He spent the summer of 1917 in Finland.

Genre painter and portrait painter in painting, easel painter and illustrator in graphics, theater decorator, Kustodiev also worked as a sculptor. He made a number of portrait busts and compositions. In 1904, Kustodiev became a member of the New Society of Artists; he has been a member of the World of Art since 1911.

The object of Kustodiev's refined stylizations in the spirit of painted toys and popular prints is patriarchal Russia, the customs of the posad and merchants, from which the artist borrows a special aesthetic code - a taste for everything colorful, overly colorful, intricate ornamental. Hence the bright festive "Fairs", "Maslenitsa", "Balagany", hence his paintings from the bourgeois and merchant life, conveyed with caustic irony, but not without admiration for these red-cheeked, half-asleep beauties at the samovar and with saucers in plump fingers ("Merchant", 1915, State Russian Museum; "Merchant's wife at tea", 1918, State Russian Museum).

The Beauty (1915, State Tretyakov Gallery) is a perfect example of Kustodiev's stylization in the spirit of the merchant's "aesthetics of quantity", expressed by the hyperbolic forcing of this quantity - body, fluff, atlas, ornaments. A pearl pink beauty in the kingdom of duvets, pillows, featherbeds and mahogany is a goddess, an idol of merchant life. The artist makes one feel the typically “worldly” ironic distance in relation to the values ​​of this life, cleverly intertwining delight with a gentle grin.

The World of Art was a major aesthetic movement at the turn of the century that overestimated the entire modern artistic culture, approved new tastes and problems, returned to art - at the highest professional level - the lost forms of book graphics and theatrical and decorative painting, which, through their efforts, received all European recognition. -nie, who created a new art criticism, promoted Russian art abroad, in fact, even opened some of its stages, like the Russian XVIII century. "Miriskusniki" created a new type of historical painting, portrait, landscape with their own stylistic features (distinct stylistic tendencies, the predominance of graphic techniques over painting, purely decorative understanding of color, etc.). This determines their importance for Russian art.

The weaknesses of the "World of Art" are reflected primarily in the variegation and inconsistency of the program, proclaiming a model of "now Boecklin, now Manet"; in idealistic views on art, affected by indifference to the civic tasks of art, in programmatic apoliticality, in the loss of the social significance of the picture. The intimacy of the World of Art, the features of its original limitation, determined the short historical period of its life in the era of formidable foreshadowings of the impending proletarian revolution. These were only the first steps on the path of creative pursuits, and very soon the "World of Art" were overtaken by the young.