Алла Миньяр-Белоручева - Западноевропейское искусство от Хогарта до Сальвадора Дали

V. Summarize the text.

VI. Topics for discussion.

1. Gainsborough's portraits.

2. Gainsborough's style.

Unit III Reynolds (1723-1792)

Sir Joshua Reynolds was in his own day a commanding figure, whose authority outlived him and who eventually became a target for Romantic attacks. In Reynolds's day society portraiture had become a monotonous repetition of the same theme. According to the formula, the sitter was to be posed centrally, with the background (curtain, pillar, chair, perhaps a hint of landscape) disposed like a back-drop behind; normally the head was done by the master, the body by a pupil or «drapery assistant», who might serve several painters. Pose and expression tended to be regulated to a standard of polite and inexpressive elegance; the portrait told little about their subjects other than that they were that sort of people who had their portraits painted. They were effigies; life departed.

It was Reynolds who insisted in his practice that a portrait could and should be also full, complex work of art on many levels; he conceived his portraits in terms of history-painting. Each fresh sitter was not just a physical fact to be recorded, but rather a story to be told. His people are no longer static, but caught between one moment and the next. Reynolds was indeed a consummate producer of character, and his production methods reward investigation. For them he called upon the full repertoire of the Old Masters.

Reynolds did the Grand Tour and remained in Rome spellbound by the grandeur of Michelangelo, Raphael, Tintoretto and Titian. He acquired a respectable knowledge of European painting of the preceding two centuries, and gave at the Royal Academy of Arts -which he helped to found in 1768 – the famous Discourses, which in published form, remain a formidable body of Classical doctrine. In his Discourses Reynolds outlined the essence of grandeur in art and suggested the means of achieving it through rigorous academic training and study of the Old Masters. From 1769 nearly all Reynolds's paintings appeared in the Academy. Reynolds's success as a portraitist was so great that he was employing studio assistants to lay out the canvases for him and to do much of the mechanical work. The artist's technique was sound, and many of his works of art suffered as a result. After his visit to the Netherlands where he studied the works of Rubens Reynolds's picture surface became far richer. This is particularly true of his portrait the Duchess of Devonshire and Her Daughter. Reynolds's state portraits of the King and Queen were never successful, and he seldom painted for them. There is inevitably something artificial about the grandiloquence of the Classical or Renaissance poses in which he painted solid English men and women of his own day, investing them with qualities borrowed from a noble past. Nonetheless, we owe our impression of English aristocracy in the eighteenth century to his majestic portraits, with their contrived backgrounds of Classical architecture and landscape. Lady Sara Bun-bury Sacrificing to the Graces, of 1783, speaks eloquently for itself. Among Reynolds's best works are those in which he departs from the tradition of ceremonial portraiture and abandons himself to inspiration, as in The Portrait of Nelly O'Brien, which is aglow with light, warmth and feeling.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:

Joshua Reynolds; Sarah; grandeur; inevitably; majestic; grandiloquence; discourses

I. Read the text. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Reynolds never travelled outside Britain.

2. The Royal Academy of Arts was founded in 1758.

3. Reynolds hired assistants to lay out the canvases for him.

4. Reynolds created state portraits of the King and Queen.

II. How well have you read? Answer the following questions:

1. Who became a target for Romantic attacks? Why?

2. What fascinated Reynolds during the Grand Tour?

3. What remains a formidable body of Classical doctrine?

4. How great was the success of Reynolds as a portraitist?

5. Whom did Reynolds portray? How did he depict them?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

a commanding figure; to speak eloquently; the preceding two centuries; to become a target for smb; the grandiloquence of the poses; the Royal Academy of Arts; to lay out the canvases.

ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

Королевская Академия искусств; готовить холст для к-л; торжественные позы; великолепные портреты; авторитетная фигура; два предшествующих века; стать мишенью для к-л.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases

IV. Here are names of the English painters and the titles of their works of art. Match them up. Describe the paintings.

1. Reynolds

2. Hogarth

3. Gainsborough

a. A Rake's Progress

b. Lady Sarah Bunbury

c. Market Cart

d. Mary Countess Howe

V. Translate the text into English.

Первым президентом Королевской Академии искусства, открытой в 1768, был Джошуа Рейнольдсс. Теоретически он выступал как сторонник классицизма, однако практически выходил за рамки этого направления. В молодости Рейнольдсс посетил Италию, в старости – Голландию и Фландрию. Он восхищался колоритом Тициана и Рубенса и многому научился как у них, так и у Рембрандта. После переезда в Лондон в 1753 г. Рейнольдсс стал самым знаменитым портретистом Британии. Иногда он писал до 150 портретов в год. В форме парадного портрета Рейнольдсс сумел выразить веру в человека. С появлением Рейнольдсса английская живопись получила всеобщее признание.

VI. Summarize the text.

VII. Topics for discussion.

1. Reynolds's portraits.

2. Reynolds's Enlightenment activity.

Unit IV Ingres (1780-1867)

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres remained faithful to Neo-classic ideals to the end of his life, he formed the centre of the conservative group that utilised the Principles of Neo-classicism, forged in the Revolution (1789-1799) as a weapon for reaction. Ingres was an infant prodigy, attending art school at eleven, and a capable performer on the violin. He entered the studio of David at seventeen, but as long as he lived he never accepted the cubic mass of David's mature style preferring curving forms flowing like violin melody. Winner of the Grand Prix de Rome, he remained in that city from 1806 until 1820, and returned there from 1835 to 1841, absorbing not only ancient but also Renaissance art, especially that of Raphael. Ingres stayed four years in Florence (1820-24) where he was one of the first to appreciate the Florentine Mannerists. The first pictures he exhibited at the Salon were almost uniformly ridiculed, accused of being everything from Gothic to Chinese, and his special non-political Neo-classicism was worked out in isolation.

In 1808 Ingres did one of his finest paintings, whose pose he revived again and again in later works, the Valpincon Bather, named after the collection it first adorned. This lovely nude is drawn with a subtle contour line delicately flowing over shoulders, back and legs. The surface is modelled to porcelain smoothness, but is never hard; Ingres was always at his best with delicate flesh and soft fabrics.

Ingres fancied himself a history painter, although his narrative pictures are weakened by his inability to project a dramatic situation. A work that embodies his ideal programme of Neo-classicism is the huge Apotheosis of Homer, painted in 1827 and intended for the ceiling of a room of the Louvre. Ingres made no concessions to the principles of illusionistic ceiling perspective from below. He preferred the High Renaissance tradition, as exemplified by Michelangelo. Before an Ionic temple dedicated to Homer, the blind poet is enthroned, crowned with laurel by the muse of epic poetry. Below him sit two women figures, the one with a sword, representing the Iliad, another with a rudder the Odyssey. The geniuses from antiquity and later times whom Ingres considered truly Classical are grouped around. At the lower right are grouped three French Classical writers. Shakespeare and Corneille make the scene in the lower left-hand corner. The cool light of an ideal realm binds the figures together in the kind of artificial composition that became definitive for muralists even into the twentieth century.

Ingres was financially obliged to accept portrait commissions, which he considered a waste of time, although today his portraits are accepted as his greatest works. He even drew portraits of visitors to Rome, who trooped to his studio. Such pencil studies as the Stamaty Family of 1818, show the exquisite quality of his line.

Ingres's paintings are perfect in colour. All the beauty of his colour and the perfection of his form are seen in the portrait of Comtesse d'Houssonville, painted in 1845. She is posed in a corner of her salon, in an attitude clearly derived from Classical art. No Dutch painter ever produced still lifes more convincing than the vases on the mantle. The reflection in the mirror, going back through Velazquez to van Eyck, reappears again and again in the nineteenth-century art, deeply concerned as it was with the optical phenomena.

Although many of his subjects are drawn from the medieval history and poetry, dear to the Romanticists, Ingres was resolutely opposed to their abandonment to emotion and to the artistic sources on which they drew. Yet, the influence of Ingres later in the nineteenth century was very great.

Make sure you know how to pronounce the foallowing words:

Dominique Ingres; Athens; Salon; Delacroix; Velazquez; Odyssey; Iliad; Eyck; genius; Romanticists; Louvre; exquisite; Shakespeare; Corneille; Renaissance; prodigy; apotheosis; Gothic; laurel; Chinese; phenomena; violin; perspective

Vcdpinqon Bather – «Купальщица Вальпинсон»

Apotheosis of Homer – «Апофеоз Гомеру»

Stamaty Family – «Семья Стамати»

Comtesse d'Houssonville – «Портрет графини Луизы д'Oссонвиль»

Iliad – 'Илиада»

Odyssey – «Одиссея»

rudder – руль

I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.

1. Ingres remained faithful to Romantic ideals to the end of his life.

2. Ingres was a talented pianist.

3. The Grand Prix de Rome was won by Ingres.

4. Ingres fancied himself a mythological painter.

5. Ingres was fond of portrait painting.

6. Ingres drew subjects from contemporary poetry.

II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?

1. What did Ingres form? Did Ingres accept the cubic mass of David's mature style? What forms did Ingres prefer?

2. What did Ingres study in Italy? How did the public accept Ingres's first paintings? What are the drawbacks of Ingres's narrative pictures? What is one of Ingres's finest paintings?

3. What work embodies the ideal programme of Neo-classicism? Did Ingres make any concessions to the principles of illusionistic ceiling perspective from below? What tradition did Ingres prefer?

4. What is represented in the Apotheosis of Homer? How did Ingres arrange the figures? What binds the figures together? How are the Iliad and the Odyssey depicted?

5. What makes the portrait of Comtesse d'Houssonville world-known?

6. What was Ingres's attitude to other painters? What impact did Ingres make on other painters?

III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:

to utilise the principles of Neo-classicism; an infant prodigy; to prefer curving form; a history painter; narrative pictures; an Ionic temple; to be crowned with laurel; the muse of epic poetry; geniuses from antiquity and later times; an artificial composition; muralists; pencil studies; perfect in colour; the perfection of the form; the artistic sources; to derive from Classical art; subjects drawn from medieval history; to bind the figures together; an ideal realm; a subtle contour line; an exquisite quality of the line; optical phenomena.

iii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:

муза эпической поэзии; принципы неоклассицизма; вундеркинд; связать фигуры воедино; предпочитать изогнутые линии; тематические картины; ионический храм; увенчать лавровым венком; гении античности и более поздних времен; идеальное царство; искусственная композиция; заимствовать из классического искусства; изысканность линии; карандашные наброски; совершенные по цвету работы; изящество линии; творческий источник; слегка намеченный контур; совершенство формы; сюжеты из средневековой истории.

iii. Make up sentences of your own with the given phrases.

iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:

a) artificial; artistic; perfection; to derive; reflection; phe nomenon; subject; abandonment; laurel; brand;

b) excellence; to obtain; wreath; creative; image; cession; mark of ownership; event; theme; unnatural.

IV. Here are descriptions of some of Ingres's works of art. Match them up to the titles given below.

1. She is posed in a comer of her salon.

2. The surface is modelled to porcelain smoothness.

3. The cool light of an ideal realm binds the figures together in the kind of artificial composition.

a) Apotheosis of Homer

b) Comtesse d'Houssonville

c) Valpinson Bather

V. Translate the text into English.

Жан Огюст Доменик Энгр, превративший давидовский классицизм в академическое искусство и вступивший в противоборство с романтиками, в семнадцатилетнем возрасте приехал в Париж в ателье Давида. Усвоив классическую систему с ее культом античного классицизма, Энгр отказался от революционности стиля своего учителя и стремился уйти от реальной жизни в мир идеального.