THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL REALISM IN RUSSIA

The sixties of the XIX century saw a great change in Russian art. The new trend in art, critical realism, had as its basis the spirit of democracy. Those were years of struggle against serfdom, for the rights of the Common man, for everything that represented progress, culture and enlightenment.

The struggle for realistic and national art was the cause that united the foremost Russian writers, composers and artists. Their art reflected the thoughts and feelings of common people, the language of their art was realistic and understandable to all.

The painters portrayed the Russian people and the landscape with intensity and great depth of feeling, depicting the strength, the wisdom and the broad nature of the people. In the portraits of their outstanding contemporaries they disclosed the many-sided spiritual life of the country.

Chernishevsky wrote that art must not only reflect reality, it must also explain this reality and criticize it, if necessary. His thesis “the beautiful is life” became a guiding light for many artists.

The further development of realism in Russia is connected with the activities of the peredvizhniki (Itinerants, Wanderers), members of the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions (1870-1923).

The artistic life of the country was then entirely controlled by the Academy of Fine Arts (established in 1754). In the XIX century the Academy cultivated a conventional pseudo classicist art. Works produced within its walls or with its approval were for the most part episodes from the Bible, classical or European history and mythology, Greek or Italian landscapes, formal portraits or scenes from the life of members of the royal family, the aristocracy, high-ranking clergymen or rich merchants. Even Russian history and historical figures were often treated idealistically. The heroes and events of antiquity were viewed in academic circles as a kind of aesthetic ideal and were therefore devoid of any sense of actuality. By the 1850s the role of the Academy had become deeply conservative.

Dissatisfaction with the academic system gradually gained hold both in the public and among the Academy’s students. Inspired by the ideas of “bringing art to the people” 14 most illustrious undergraduates led by Ivan Kramskoy left the Academy without graduating in 1863 in protest against the old Academic canons when they were denied a free choice of the subject matter for their graduation canvases. It was what is known in the history of art as the “Rebellion of the Fourteen”.

Shortly after that they organized the Petersburg Association (Artel) of Artists, a kind of commune, which broke up several years later, to give rise to a second and more powerful democratic union of artists, independent of the Academy – the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions. The society’s charter was adopted in 1870 and a year later the first traveling exhibition was held. Since then exhibitions were held in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Nizhni-Novgorod and in smaller cities and were of great importance to Russian people. Many of those who came to the shows saw easel painting for the first time. And they found them interesting, for instead of cold religious or mythological subjects that were hard to understand, the Itinerants depicted town and country life in their own time. But the exhibitions were more than just useful in an artistically educational sense. The pictures were realistic in treatment and often political in purpose, they awakened in their spectators a feeling of protest against the existing order and quick sympathy with the oppressed masses. The art of the Itinerants was inspired by a great love for their country and it contributed to the strengthening of people’s pride in their native land and the growth of their self-consciousness. They spoke to their public in a readily understandable and highly expressive artistic idiom, often about the most burning issues of the day. It is only natural therefore, that their art should have a tremendous impact on people.

In the history of Russian art it is the Itinerants to whom belongs the honour of making the reality of daily life the prime subject of an art work, the social issue of the day, the social analysis of the world around them – this was their main task and their main achievement.

Behind the Itinerants’ departure from the canons and norms of academism lay their loyalty to the best traditions of Russian and European realistic art. The Itinerants painstakingly studied the Old Masters and contemporary European artists, frequently visited the most famous museums of the continent, world exhibitions and the studios of prominent foreign artists.

The Society existed for half a century. Myasoyedov and Kramskoy, organizers of the Society, exhibited their works there, as did Perov, Savitzky, Klodt, Ghay, Shishkin, Savrasov, Makovsky, Vasnetsov, Pryanishnikov and others. Repin and Surikov, who joined the Society later on, were also among its foremost members.

The fresh innovatory approach of the Itinerants raised Russian art to a much higher level and enriched all of its numerous genres: historical paintings and portraits, landscape and genre painting. The Itinerants’ works were continuously enriched by innovations in the field of composition, colouring, chiaroscuro and draftsmanship.

The atmosphere that reigned in the Society contributed greatly to the success of the Itinerants. They would often argue and disagree and be dissatisfied with each other but the overall moral climate was one of good will and cooperation, sincerity and mutual respect. There were frank discussions of each other’s works and critical comments were accepted with due regard.

The Itinerants did not limit themselves to easel and monumental art alone. They worked for the theatre too. Vasnetsov, Polenov, Korovin, Golovin opened a new chapter in the field of stage design.

The Itinerants worked in difficult conditions imposed by political reaction, police repression and tsarist despotism. Their art, directed against the existing social order for freedom and democracy was received with contempt and hostility by the authorities. The Society members were subjected to administrative persecution, strict censorship and vicious attacks in the reactionary press. On the other hand, well aware of the Academy’s diminishing prestige and erosion of its principles, the government tried to subordinate the Society to the Academy and managed to induce some of the most talented Itinerants, among them Repin, Makovsky and Shishkin, to join the Academy, which led to the weakening of their ties with the Society and in some instances to a complete breach with it. But the Society did not disintegrate, it stuck to its democratic ideals and continued to develop the art of critical realism.

The peak of the Itinerants’ creative activities was the 1870s and 1880s. In 1923 the Society of Travelling Art Exhibitions and the Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia, the largest and most influential organization of Soviet artists of the 1920s merged into one. The traditions of the Itinerants are an important element of the creative credo professed by artists today.