Топик: Arts

- What can you tell us about Karl Bryullov's paintings?

- Karl Bryullov is celebrated for the unusual breadth of his artistic talent. He was a perfect historical painter, portraitist, and genre painter. He made the most notable contribution to the Ro mantic spirit having combined technical proficiency and classical academic training with a Romantic impulsiveness to produce some of the liveliest examples of Russian art of the period.

- Where did Karl Bryullov study?

- Bryullov was educated at the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. He studied in Italy from 1823.

- What is Bryullov's greatest work?

- Bryullov's monumental painting the "Last Day of Pompeii" is his greatest work. It brought him an international reputation. Russia greeted him as a hero who had glorified the Motherland. Alexander Pushkin, Vassily Zhukovsky and Nikolay Gogol all warmly welcomed the artist.

- Were Bryullov's other paintings also popular?

- Though he painted other monumental historical canvases, none was as successful as the "Last Day of Pompeii". Much of his reputation rests on his more intimate portraits, water-colours, and travel sketches. Bryullov succeeded in asserting something new in everything he created. During his long stay in Italy he was charmed by the life and customs of the Italians, their humour and lyricism. In Italy Bryullov created a series of small genre paintings.

- Is Karl Bryullov your favourite Russian painter?

- Karl Bryullov is one of my favourite Russian painters.

- Whose works art do you also admire?

- I am fond of genre scenes. I like Pavel Fedotov's works of art very much. He was a great master of genre painting. The painter elevated the household theme to the level of drama. He understood his task in raising the moral standards of the people by unmasking the vices of the society in his art. Fedotov was a prolific painter. For nine years he created a great number of perfect works of art, such as "A Newly Awarded Officer", "The Fastidious Bride", "The Aristocrat's Breakfast", two versions of the "Mayor's Proposal", three versions of "The Young Widow", "Encore, Once more Encore", "The Gamblers". The movement initiated by Fedotov soon became known as Critical Realism. It laid the foundation for the democratic painting of the "Wanderers" in the second half of the 19-th century.

- What do you know about the "Wanderers"?

- A truly national realistic tradition began with the appearance of the "Wanderers". Kramskoy organized a protest against prescribed mythological themes in the competition for the Great Gold Medal that gave a six-year scholarship to study abroad. This action marked a break with the Academy's outdated form of Neoclassicism patterned on Western models which lost popularity with the educated public but continued to be taught and favoured at the official level. After the break with the Academy Kramskoy sustained a group of thirteen independent painters both organizationally and intellectually in keeping with the spirit of the reform and renovation that swept Russia during the 1860s after the emancipation of the serfs. He set up a communal workshop (artel), the "Wanderers". At the same time Kramskoy defined ideological underpinnings of the new art: a combination of civic, moral and national goals, which infused Russian realism with its crystal-clear ideal of service. He asserted that as painters in Russia were not free they had to take the most urgent problems of the day as the subjects of their works of art. The most prominent Russian artists of the 1870s and '80s, including Ivan Kramskoy, Il'ya Repin, Vassily Surikov, Vassily Perov, and Vassily Vereshchagin, belonged to this group. The "Wanderers" attached much importance to the moral and literary aspects of art than to aesthetics. Their artistic creed was realism, national feeling, and social consciousness. The influence of the "Wanderers" spread throughout Russia. This group was dominant for nearly 30 years.

- Can you tell us about one of the painters who sympathized with the "Wanderers"?

- I shall tell you about Vassily Vereshchagin. He was a naval officer, and on board the frigate "Kamchatka" he sailed to Den mark, France and Egypt. In 1860 having abandoned his naval officer career, Vereshchagin entered the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. But dissatisfied with the conservatism and idealistic conventions of the academic system, he left the Academy in 1863. The critical realism of the "Wanderers" always evoke Vereshchagin's sympathy. He participated in some of their exhibitions.

- What is Vereshchagin's best-known work of art?

- The best-known work of Vereshchagin's Turkish series is the "Apotheosis of War". It shows a pile of skulls against the devastated city. On the frame there is an inscription: "Dedicated to all great conqueror: past, present, future." The subject of the painting, distinguished for anti-war symbolism, was repeated numerously in the 20th century anti-war poster. Vereshchagin appealed for pacifism and his social concern attracted the sympathy of the liberally minded circles.

- What other Vereshchagin's works of art were are popular?

- Vereshchagin's anti-Napoleonic series were very popular. The huge paintings of the series are not entirely free from the theatrical effects and the pomposity, but certain images are memorable because of their dramatism. "Keep away I'll Take Care of Him", of 1888-95, depicts the Russian partisans in an ambush, surrounded by the branches of a snow-covered forest.

- Are you fond of portraiture?

- Yes, I do. I like the portraits created by the Russian painters of the 18th century such as Vladimir Borovikovsky, Fyodor Rokotov, and Vladimir Dmitry Levitsky. The painters tried to render the richness of the spiritual life of their models. They endowed them with the nobility of the human countenance and form. Karl Bryullov was an excellent portraitist too. Even in the ceremonial portraits he managed to attach something new and turn the piece into a genre painting. Bryullov's supreme achievements in portraiture are intimate, small-scale portraits, in which the artist was not restricted by academic tradition. Bryullov's self-portrait is one of his best works of art. The members of the "World of Art" group also produced remarkable portraits of renowned Russian writers and artists. For example, Somov made a number of portraits of out standing Russian people, including Alexander Blok.

- What English painters can you name?

- William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, John Constable are outstanding English painters. One of the greatest painters of Britain is Joseph Mallord William Turner. He often painted historical subjects, involving violence as well as shipwrecks and conflagrations, in which the individual figures appear as scarcely more than spots in a seething tide of humanity. He liked to accompany his works with the labels with quotations from poetry, often his own. Turner was fond of painting the pure movement of masses of colour - a kind of colour music, strikingly relevant to Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s. Turner's masterpieces are "The Slave Ship" and the "Rain, Steam and Speed". In the former the painter represented an incident common in the days of slavery, when entire human cargoes were thrown into the sea, either because of epidemics or to avoid arrest. The latter is one of the first paintings of a railway train, and its Romantic idealization of "progress" - man conquering nature by utilizing its force. It should be said that Turner's colour sense provided a revelation to the French Impressionists.

- Is the English school of painting proud of its portraitists?

- Yes, certainly. The greatest of them are Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. They created the portraits of celebrated lords and ladies. Their works are full of charm and elegance. Throughout the 18th century, portraiture was the most important genre of British painting. In portraiture an interest in extremes of mood found most eloquent expression in the work of Sir Thomas Lawrence. In the portraits "Richard Payne Knight" and "Pope Pius VII" the artist combined brilliant freedom of handling with dramatic expression and setting.

- Do you like American art?

- Yes, I do.

- How did it develop in the 20th century?