2015 Western Art ca. 1600–1900

The report analyses the perception of ideas of Andrea Palladio in the architecture of classicism. The field of private residential and civil construction is one of the key matters in infiltration of the master’s creative heritage in the architectural language of the Enlightenment. The search for a new type of organization of space can be traced both in suburban palaces and in town hotels. Achievements of the French classicist architectural school in this area must be examined on the material of both realized and unrealized projects.
A rotunda gradually became a mandatory element in residential buildings. In French architecture central circular space of the edifice was called “Italian salon”. However, in Russia such salons were called “Halls of Louis XVI”. Numerous reproductions of examples of French neoclassicism in Russian architecture were accompanied by duplication of the construction of round salons. The report discusses the examples of the most significant projects in this area. The study of theoretical works, treatises, educational projects and certain buildings explains the evolution of the character and causes of the spread of these forms and structures in the architecture of French neoclassicism. This demonstrates the mechanism of infiltration of such planning ideas in Russian architecture of the Age of Enligh­tenment.

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By the middle of the 18th century works of Italian architects had been increasingly exposed to classical influence. The 1732 competition for the facade construction of the Sun Giovanni basilica in Late­rano in Rome is recognized as the conditional starting point for the dissemination of neoclassicist trends in the architecture of Italy.
Recognition of ideal in antiquity, interest in studying it and its emulation became the basis of neo-­classicism ideology formation for Europe. But for Italy the antiquity was one of the components of the unique heritage, but not a single dominant prototype.
For this reason masters of the second half of the 18th century who were educated in the Academy of S. Luca in Rome and acquainted themselves with monuments of the city, more often gave their preference to research into the Renaissance architecture. Regarding monuments of the Renaissance as a source for borrowing of constructions, plans of compositions and decorative elements, the architects processed the collected material again, and it was spread on all the territory of Italy as well as abroad.
Perception of the Renaissance heritage by architects followed several directions. The first one was determined by the origin of separate masters. In the middle of the 18th century among the cultural figures in Rome the so-called “Florentine party” was formed which united the architects Alessandro Galilei and Ferdinando Fuga from Tuscany. All their works were labeled by traits of influence of the late stage in the Renaissance in Florence, namely mannerism. In particular, it refers to the presentation of the palazzo facade as a theatrical scenery as it was in  the works of mannerist architect Bartolomeo Ammanati.
Another direction represents the reelaboration of Renaissance church architecture. Such masters as Luigi Vanvitelli and again Alessandro Galilei turned to the centric building in their works, borrowing the majority of ideas from Michelangelo’s project for the Sun Giovanni dei Fiorentini church in Rome. Vanvitelli and Galilei cited even architecture of the earlier Renaissance architects. Creating projects for churches in England, Galilei used images of Filippo Brunelleschi and Vanvitelli in secular buildings in Naples, reworking ideas of Donato Bramante’s centric space.
Renaissance traditions of Italian architects of the second half of the 18th century give the clearest understanding of neoclassicism in Italy.

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The report focuses on the subject that seems to be insufficiently studied, in our opinion, in both Russian and foreign historiography — the influence of the Italian monuments on the Victorian country house architecture. The British architectural heritage of the period is rightly regarded by researchers as the part of the European historicism. In this regard, there is nothing surprising in the fact that it is by its very nature polystylistic. As a rule, the focus is on learning how the national heritage was reinterpreted in this period, whether it were Gothic monuments or Tudor architecture. However, it should be noted that the interest in the architectural heritage of other European countries remained consistently high. Monuments of Italy in this respect played a special role. There are several reasons for this. Firstly, the Palladian tradition left its mark in Britain. Secondly, under the influence of travelling to the Continent and due to the books of J. Ruskin, the British discovered new layers in the architectural heritage of Italy: medieval and early Renaissance.

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Stowe, Richard Temple’s estate at Buckinghamshire, became a model of the landscape garden style as early as in the mid-18th century. It was frequented and studied from books (Benton Seeley’s Description was first published in 1744 as first garden guidebook ever), its scenes and farbiques were varied in a number of European gardens, from Merevilles to Tsarskoye Selo (“Russian Stowe” topic was investigated by Hayden and Shvidkovsky). It was there that the main ideas of the English style were fulfilled, namely 1) improvement conception, realized in four building stages, 2) unbroken landscape without borders and fences, 3) its scenes, having their own characters, and 4) a sequence of farbiques, showing the shades of this character.
The paper presents materials of the four building periods of Stowe, that is the first layout of the late 17th century, the Italianate park by Charles Bridgeman (1710s–1720s), landscaping by William Kent (1730s–1740s) and, the last word in Stowe and the first in the new school, Grecian Valley by Lancelot Brown. The span of the place, therefore, stretches up from the beginning of the landscape style toward the final, Brownian type of the Enlightenment garden.
Aesthetic qualities and universal landscape of Stowe brought to life numerous texts. This variety includes tourist pamphlets by Seeley and Gilpin, memoires by Defoe and de Ligne, a description by Latapie, added to the French translation of Whately’s book. Two crucial theoretical texts (Epistle to Lord Burlington by Pope and Observations on the Modern Gardening by Whately) will be analyzed at length; the Epistle, beside the praise toward Stowe, coins the expression “Consult the Genius of the Place in all”, and explains its garden implications. The author of the paper has been studying English garden history for 25 years (ca. 50 publications, see http://www.gardenhistory.ru/page.php?pageid=421; http://www.gardenhistory.ru/page.php?pageid=130) and has visited Stowe four times (1994–2011). The paper will be illustrated by historical engravings, the author’s photos and the author’s complete translations of all the texts mentioned above.

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The paper is dedicated to the problems of European portrait painting at the turn of 18th–19th centuries and formation of romantic portrait concept.
The portrait became the main genre in that period. Acute interest to the neo-classical historical painting gave way to romanticism desire for expressing model’s individualism and new artistic methods in portrait genre.
At the turn of the century there were two schools which better reflected tendencies of the period. France tended to the classical tradition of the 18th century, while England adhered to traditions of sentimentalism, as the Royal Academy of Arts was established later, in 1768 only.
To make such research, paintings which mostly reflect main trends in art around 1800 as well as paintings of the middle of the 18th century by well-known artists were analysed.
The aim of the study was to identify distinctive trends of each school and common features of European portrait art of the 18th–19th centuries.
The conclusion of the research is that the concept of romantic portrait was identified by cre­ation of a unique image by means of portrait. It was expressed by the choice of unusual compositions, si­zes, background, making more nuanced colors. Most of paintings were filled with air and natural light.
It should be noted that there is a lot of literature devoted to European art of early Romanticism but none of the authors singles out the phenomenon of portraiture around 1800 as a particular problem. However, in our view, this problem is interesting for future researches.

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This study analyzes the concept of Athens developed by German and Greek architects in the 1830s and its implementation as well as contemporary Greek socio-political primary sources.
In 1834 the Greek government decided to transfer the capital of the country from Nafplion to Athens. But the famous ancient polis of Athens was only a small village at the beginning of the 19th century. It had to be revived and rebuilt. Was it necessary to transfer the capital city and why? What was the conception of the new capital? Was there any interaction between an architectural concept and socio-political life in Greece?
The very idea of the capital city transfer had nothing to do with economic and military state needs. It was born as a product of an idealistic thesis that the ancient glory of Athens could be restored. But the Greek polity had no resources to embody the luxurious projects suggested by German architects. It was a difficult task to reduce the price of the Athens development plan and to retain its main idea simultaneously. Implementation of this plan was a slow process that could be finished only with the influx of diaspora investments. Meanwhile the concept of the Greek capital was changing and finally supplemented with Neo-Byzantine architecture. This modification indicates a significant change in Greek national self-identification. More realistic understanding of national history came to take place of dictated by foreigners’ attempts to revive Ancient Greece. The new concept postulated temporal and spatial unity of national history, so Athens could become a real center of modern Hellenic world instead of Constantinople.

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The crisis of the 80s of the 19th century in painting meant something more than just figuring out which of the artists were in the vanguard. Clearly what is vital is the fact that in the development of the language of painting refers to subjective content. Not so much new motives, new approaches, perceived through new formal methods, “inspire” new values. The projection of thoughts and feelings bring the artwork to this perfect goal, entails perhaps illustrating examples, which are now perceived as commonplace so that the modern viewer doesn’t understand where the novelty is.
The works of Puvis de Chavannes(1824–1898) are at the origins of symbolism.
The ancient stories (“Orpheus”) the artist turned to linked him with the writers — symbolists, namely with the poet Charles Leconte de Lisle and critic Théophile Gautier.
“Sacred grove” is an ode to antiquity.
Since Puvis, the symbolists perceive with understanding the connection of allegory with the mood in painting, choosing the most congenial to their own purposes: privacy. They concluded that well-laid out, the style corresponded to their own ideas of synthetism, and that for its reductive classical idylls there is truly a symbolic meaning.
Gustave Moreau (1826–1898) was also an admirer of the art of antiquity.
Despite confusing iconography of Moreau, his writings (or, on the contrary, thanks to this rebus), since the message could be read (and solved verbally, in detail), critics and writers began to perceive Moreau as he presented himself. Namely, the idealist, the creator of the “art of the spirit, heart and imagination” whose goal was “through line, arabesque and plastic possibilities to resurrect the idea”.
Elusive references of Moreau to the legends of antiquity were equal with the easiness of original perception, with the various “paths” leading from reality to ideas: “Apollo and the nine muses”, “Jupiter and Semele”, “Phaeton”, “Oedipus and the Sphinx”, “Orpheus at the tomb of Eurydice”. For Moreau, for example, the original meaning of the word “Sphinx” is lost. The word meant less than the mystery of life which is accepted as a material existence (sinful, hostile to the spirit). Moreau was passionate about art theory outlined in philosophical essays by M. Maeterlinck. And Moreau’s symbolism of color anticipated the experiments of abstractionists.
Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes were never members of the Association of the symbolists, but were their idols.

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Fernand Khnopff’s art, like the Belgian symbolism as a whole, has been little studied in Russia. Except for some modest references in several monographs on the West European art of the second half of the 19th century, we can name only one recent article by I. E. Svetlov devoted to a brief analysis of the Belgian master’s iconographic features. Such a situation in the assessment of Khnopff’s creativity should be regarded as historiographical injustice, the correction of which would allow us to estimate the role of Belgium in the Western European avant-garde formation of the 19th–20th centuries more accurately.
Named after the apt expression by Hermann Bahr, Khnopff’s logogriphic method is being studied on the basis of a detailed analysis of the artist’s masterpiece “I lock the door upon myself” (1891. Munich, Neue Pinakothek), better known in Russia as “The hermit”. The reduced Russian translation of the title, which distorts the meaning, the perception and the importance of the painting, is avoided in the report for a variety of reasons, and the authentic English version is preferred.
The report raises such important for understanding of Fernand Khnopff’s creativity problems as: Anglophile and James Whistler’s influence on the Belgian art in the first half of the 1880s, the peculiarities of visual perception of Classical Antiquity art by the artists who worked in Brussels in the second half of the 19th century, the problem of the representation of hypnotic trance in art and culture of the 1890s, and the spatial construction features of the Khnopff’s works. The other significant issue is the influence of art of the Northern Renaissance on Belgian masters. The analysis of the “sensualistic technique” of Fernand Khnopff, who was also called “modern Memling” by his contemporaries, provides additional clues to master’s artistic method.

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The roots of the inspirations with the Renaissance painting in Polish art are related to the activities of the artistic colony in Rome formed around 1820. In the center of interest was mainly the work of Raphael, to which Wojciech Korneli Stattler referred when he created The Maccabees (1830–1842), the most important patriotic and symbolic painting of Polish Romanticism. In the next generation,
Henryk Rodakowski alluded in historical scenes and portraits (e.g. Portrait of Leonia Bluhdorn) to the Venetian Renaissance (Titian and Veronese), creating an idealistic concept of beauty, expressed in the style defined as “a sense of grandeur combined with simplicity”. Jan Matejko chose a different way to hark back to the Renaissance, presenting “focal” moments of the Polish history in the 16th century (Prussian homage), symbolically reaching for the splendor of the forms of Venetian painting. A strong trend of the inspiration with the Renaissance developed around 1870 in the circle of the Polish colony in Munich. A mood of poetic dream, combined with the motifs of the Renaissance architecture and costumes appeared in the painting of Adam Chmielowski, whose attention was drawn to BÖcklin and Feuerbach (The Italian siesta). Similarly, with Aleksander Gierymski, the inspiration with Titian (in The Italian siesta) led to a new color structure of the painting, with an analogy to Impressionism. In the early 20th century, the work of classicizing artists like Eugeniusz Zak drew on Leonardo (portraits), Botticelli (idyllic scenes, like The Bather). Quattrocento appealed to Waclaw Borowski in the polychromy in the church in Miloslaw. These artists formed an interwar group “Rhythm”, which was the last major one to reveal links with the art of the Renaissance. One of its members was Ludomir Slendzinski, a graduate of the Academy of St. Petersburg, whose official propaganda works reflected the reference to the patterns of the early Renaissance and Roman motifs of that time.

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A new type of history painting emerges in the 19th century France due to the unprecedented development of historical consciousness.
On the thematic level this type is distinguished by a focus on the historical material proper as opposed to the mythological and religious one and by the preference for themes from postclassical history since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Paul Delaroche became a leader of this new direction in historical painting.
I will consider the works of Delaroche that were originally purchased by Anatoly Demidov, a first Russian collector of the new historical painting: “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” (1833, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London) and “The Assassination of the Duke of Guise” (1832, watercolor on paper, Wallace Collection, London). These compositions of Delaroche have drawn my attention for the following reasons:
• They are interesting examples of the representation of history and the “reformation” of historical painting in the 19th century.
• They clearly reflect a new principle of dealing with the artistic heritage, in this case the Renaissance one: Delaroche uses the Renaissance art works as the historical evidences rather than as artistic models.
• Finally, these compositions of Delaroche became widely known, and found an echo in the work of other artists, including Russian masters of historical genre. My particular attention will be paid to the little-studied Russian interpretations of the French models.

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