Letter about painting

The letter presented in this publication to St. Philaret of Moscow (Drozdov) addressed to the Moscow Art Society in 1843. The letter was written on the occasion of the opening of the School of Painting and Sculpture. Metropolitan Philaret, citing ill health, expresses regret about the impossibility of personal presence at the celebration. However, he blesses the new endeavor, seeing in it the potential for public benefit and beautification of Moscow, and donates the icon of Christ the Savior. The key idea of ​​the letter is the wish that Russian art, and especially painting, strive for the “ancient sacred character.” The saint proclaims the icon to be the highest principle and goal of Christian painting, emphasizing its special importance. The letter is supplemented by a note written half a century later. The author of the note emphasizes the courage and insight of Metropolitan Philaret, who, in the era of mass enthusiasm for Western art, openly expressed an idea that was opposite to the then dominant artistic views. He notes that the leadership of the Art Society did not attach due importance to this message, perceiving it as a manifestation of “narrow clericalism,” and the ideas of St. Philaret did not find practical implementation in the activities of the school over the next 50 years. Contents Letter from Metropolitan Philaret about painting Notes to the letter from Metropolitan Philaret Letter from Metropolitan Philaret about painting Your Excellency, dear sir! Having gratefully accepted your Excellency’s invitation to be at the opening of the Moscow Art Society, unfortunately I cannot follow this invitation due to the current state of my health, which keeps me in my cell. But, not being indifferent to the undertaking, combined with the hope of public benefit and new decoration of the ancient throne city, I am encouraged to take part in it as much as possible for me, in order to recognize the blessing of God to the new institution, affirming and returning, to the meaning of which I transmit with this the icon of Christ the Savior. I will not hide the fact that in addition to the desire for good success for the Art Society in general, I also have a desire for the arts of the national direction, and especially painting - a direction towards the ancient sacred character. The highest principle and goal of Christian painting and primarily the need of the Orthodox Church in Russia that requires worthy satisfaction from art is represented by the icon. With true respect and devotion, I have the honor to be Your Excellency's most humble servant Note to the letter of Metropolitan Philaret With the permission of the Chairman of the Moscow Art Society, His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, this curious letter from Metropolitan Philaret was extracted from the Society’s archives and published at a significant time for the Society - in the fifty-first year of its official existence. On December 30, 1843, the consecration of the School of Painting and Sculpture, established at this Society, took place (Architecture was added later, when the Palace Architectural School was closed in 1866). Regarding this celebration, to which Metropolitan Philaret was invited and which he could not attend, the above printed letter was written to the assistant to the chairman (the chairman was Prince D.V. Golitsyn, to whom the Society and the School owe their existence mainly), the then Moscow civil governor Ivan Grigorievich Sinyavin. This letter is short, but significant, and perhaps its meaning is now especially important after a whole half century has passed since it was written. This considerable period of time makes it possible to judge to what extent the instructions of the Metropolitan, who blessed the School in absentia, were taken into account by this breeding ground of domestic artists, as well as to impartially discuss (based on everything that has happened since that time in the field of educational arts) the very meaning of the view of the highest task of painting in Russia, expressed in such a categorical form. It took a lot of courage to express fifty years ago, during the hottest era of enthusiasm for the West, such a radically opposite idea to the artistic concepts of that time. From this circumstance it is clear that the writer did not hesitate to go against the views that were rooted in his time when he considered it necessary, and that the extraordinary power of his thought penetrated to the very essence of such issues that, apparently, related only indirectly to his theological activity. However, only at a superficial glance the connection between the thought of God and art may be doubtful or even non-existent; and given such a strong thinker as Metropolitan Philaret, the connection between art and faith seemed undeniable. Delving deeply into the question of the relationship of the latter to the former, he came to the conclusion about the dependence of art on faith, and at the opening of the Art School in Moscow he directly stated that art has its highest sanctification in faith and that only in the desire to express the believer in the visible does it find, so to speak, its justification. At the time when Metropolitan Philaret wrote this letter, our society not only looked at the issue he raised completely differently, but one might even say that almost no one suspected that icon painting could be considered a branch of pure art, and perhaps only applied art. By iconography, of course, we must understand traditional iconography here, of the so-called church style. The need for images in churches, of course, was not rejected even then; but almost everyone was convinced that paintings should be replaced by ancient anti-artistic icons and, if possible, statues should be gradually introduced into church use, starting with the kneeling angels above the iconostasis. Plastic arts failed to spread their use in churches, but painting indeed almost completely replaced icon painting from churches by the second half of the current century. And at this time, at the opening of the School of Painting and Sculpture, the Metropolitan boldly declares that not only icon painting is undoubtedly a branch of painting, but even its form, to which painting should strive as its highest manifestation. We do not know exactly how the then emerging Art Society reacted to this authoritative word. One of its most active members at that time, A. S. Khomyakov, subsequently expressed and developed an opinion completely similar to the opinion of Metropolitan. Philareta; but whether he knew about the existence of the letter itself is difficult to say; for we do not know whether he was present at the celebration at which this letter was read. It is more likely that he came to an identical view of icon painting through his own development of the thought that he expressed in a very young age regarding the connection between art and faith 1 . It is most likely that the founders of the School paid little attention to the letter at that time, seeing in it only the expression of a narrow clerical view, incomprehensible in the official representative (although very wise), clericalism, which was then considered by too many to be identical with churchliness in the Orthodox sense. Brought up in the Western way, with views drawn from the lexicon of European concepts, our society then (and perhaps still often now) was inclined to see in every word of a member of the Orthodox clergy, spoken in the sense of an apology for church customs or rituals, a manifestation of narrow clericalism, aimed only at strengthening the enslavement to the clergy of all manifestations of the mental and spiritual life of the people and society. In the West, indeed, the interests of the clergy (especially among Catholics), understood as synonymous with the Church itself, are not always tinged with class utilitarianism. The elevation of icon painting to a high degree of artistic significance for the Roman hierarch could conceal, for example, the intention to subordinate educational art to the predominant influence of the clergy in order to use this powerful tool for his own purposes. But in the words of Metropolitan Philaret, of course, there was no hidden meaning that was in any way suitable for this. The icon is an object of ordinary religious need that does not yet have to be artificially distributed in Rus' for the benefit of the clergy itself: the demand for the icon is so great that it can barely be satisfied by the increased productivity of the people themselves in the person of their self-taught masters. The question is only in the relation of this branch of art to present art; This is his fundamental resolution, completely alien to any practical background and quite appropriate in the consecration of an institution that must be newly aware of the purpose of art, which it is called to serve. One must think that the leaders of the Society and the School did not share what was said by Met. Philaret's views. During the fifty-year existence of its School of Painting of the Moscow Art Society, it did not at least express its sympathy with the expressed Metropolitan. Philaret of thought. It cannot, however, be said that the practical implementation of this briefly expressed position is indeed not very easy, especially when practical ways to this end are not indicated, and even more so when the very question of how to understand the word icon, what is the relationship of the icon, recognized as the highest form of artistic creativity (if only recognized as such) to other manifestations of art, etc., has not been sufficiently developed and clarified. We don’t know whether Met.’s writings include. Philaret special discussions about the meaning of “icon”; but in his present letter he probably understood this expression in accordance with, for example, the meaning that he gave to the icon in his speech on the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, pronounced in 1846 (works, ed. 1852, vol. IV, p. 457). Regarding the icon of the Assumption, painted by Metropolitan. Peter and located in the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow, he expresses himself this way: “What varied wisdom was contained in the icon image by our godly fathers! They presented us not only with edifying memories of the past and the visible, but also with a mysterious contemplation of the invisible in the region of the coming age.” So, an icon, in his understanding, is not only an image of sacred faces for the prayerful veneration of believers, but also a historical picture with all the elements of artistic idealization of the events depicted. This is a definition of a work of art that could be applied to many works by the greatest artists, such as, for example, many paintings by Raphael, Michel Angelo and others. The outline of their frame can accommodate the creativity of the world's scope, and it is clear that, setting the icon as the highest goal of educational art, he does not mean to constrain its tasks, to narrow its limits. Those to whom his letter was addressed did not take the trouble to find out the real meaning of the expression he used. Instead of asking the Metropolitan out of curiosity how he actually understood the goal he was blessing them to strive for, they handed over the letter to the archives along with the question that was raised in it; and only now, fifty years later, is this letter coming out again. At present, it is no longer possible to treat the thoughts expressed in this letter the way they treated it half a century ago. You can, of course, disagree with it and prove it wrong; but it undoubtedly has to be taken into account, because now the question of the purposes of art more than ever begs for resolution. This occurs mainly from the fact that in the era of all kinds of speculation (19th century), direct creativity is almost impossible, and at the same time the need for artistic activity cannot completely dry up; there may even be a pressing need for it, as well as for counteraction to this very excess of intellectualism. The obvious sterility of artificial art involuntarily leads to the need to at least figure out what real art is, in order to lead art along this far-fetched but correct path until the time when it again begins to naturally bloom. It is with particular interest that in our time we can dwell on the significant words written by Metropolitan Philaret and try to understand their meaning. Considering that the West has created so many great things in the field of art and that Western science has worked so much in the field of aesthetics and philosophy of art, we are unlikely to find in the literature of the West any materials for defining the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe “school”, and, consequently, for resolving the question of the meaning of the school in the field of educational arts. Of course, the question of the relationship of art to faith arose and was resolved in various ways; but the very concept of an icon, as something different from a historical picture of religious content on the one hand, and from a naive-traditional image of a sacred object on the other hand, hardly ever existed in the West. If, however, we admit that the icon is the highest degree of artistic creativity, then we will hardly have to admit that its meaning should be common to all peoples, and that in the West and here, in an environment brought up on exclusively Western concepts, they just did not think of this idea, even though they were essentially subject to the law itself, which is contained in it. This is how, one must think, A. S. Khomyakov, one of the most zealous supporters of what was said by Metropolitan, looked at this question. Filaret thought about the meaning of the icon in art, consistently and comprehensively developing it in many of his articles. Later we will return to his views on this essential question in the matter of art, and at present we will only point out that, having defined the “icon” as art in its highest meaning, he admits in his article about Ivanov’s painting that the highest of all works of painting is the Sistine Madonna - therefore, in it, icon painting should, it seems, find its completion. From a comparison of thoughts about the meaning of Khomyakov’s icon with the words of Met. Filaret, one can, in any case, come to the conclusion that the task that Filaret proposed to the nascent Moscow School of Painting cannot be considered narrow; but the question of whether this is true remains open. It is not easy to resolve it comprehensively within the confines of a short note; It still seems to us both possible and desirable to try to clearly state it and thereby contribute to its correct resolution. But for the simple reproduction of impressions received through our senses, there is an art 2. It has its basis in the need to express those aspects of our spiritual life that cannot be simply conveyed by word, by this instrument of logical thinking alone. 3 The quality of a work of art is thus determined by the quality of the feeling for which the artist serves as an exponent, and not by the quality of expression, which can sometimes be inversely proportional to the dignity of what is expressed. The subjects of artistic creation are endless, or at least as varied as the feelings of which the human soul is capable. The most insignificant thing can evoke a feeling in the soul, which, once expressed by the artist, will be understood and shared by others. But art can also express the highest spiritual ideals by which an entire society and an entire people live; and the higher this ideal is, the more it expresses the very essence of the faith of those people to whose society the artist belongs, the higher becomes the work of art that expresses it, since it is no longer the work of one person, but of a whole society and, perhaps, of the whole world, if this world recognizes in this artistic creation a kind of crystallization of its faith, its ideal. The expression of this invisible faith, which lives in the collective unit of a people, society, the Church, is the finding of a visible image of an icon (which in Greek literally means an image) for this faith, for this common feeling. An icon is therefore an expression, understandable to everyone, of what people believe in, but being able, without the mediation of an artist, to express their beliefs in images, sounds, lines (architecture) or poetic words. Thus, we can perhaps say that in all arts there is a kind of icon painting and that this form of artistic creativity is the highest; for it requires the participation of everyone in the artistic work, the exponent of which is one artist, 5 inspired by the common feelings of other people who are unanimous with him. At all times, such a higher form of artistic creativity has existed and more or less manifested itself; but since not all times in history show us the same intensity of living faith in any ideals (in religious ones, even less), there is no doubt that art in this highest form does not always stand at the same height. The main enemy of art par excellence is the decline of belief and the inextricably linked development of subjectivism; subjectivism in itself is not anti-art in general, 6 but it, both in everything and in art, is only capable of petty matters; in the field of art, for the most part, it appears under the stereotyped guise of talent of any kind, producing things that are sometimes very, very fascinating and especially valuable when they are clothed in the form of so-called virtuosity. Virtuosity is the last word of art, exchanging decadence, which has lost its fundamental foundations in a general feeling and developed the individual mood of the artist to the point of sophistication, which without a corresponding sophistication of technique could not be appreciated. Under the condition of virtuosity, its sensual expression turns into a delicacy for lovers of such eras, when art from an urgent, healthy need turned into an object of only luxury. No matter how beliefs weaken in certain eras, until they finally die out, a vague consciousness lives in society that there were, however, times when these weakening beliefs were the living heritage of everyone, and when this universality of faith found expression in the creations of the artists of that time, that is, the ancients. From there, all peoples have a common feature of venerating ancient art as sacred. This is the basis of so-called traditionalism, which, on the one hand, constitutes an essential feature of icon painting in general, but on the other, easily turns into an instrument of its decline and finally its artistic death, relegating the icon to the level of an almost handicraft work 7 . All types of human beliefs of every name (for example, political) had their own icon painting in all types of art, and its development corresponds to the most flourishing era of these beliefs. India, Assyria, Babylon and Egypt give us an infinite amount of evidence confirming this position; but we draw the most eloquent evidence for the non-Christian world in the Hellenic world, which gave us in the works of Phidias the images of the highest artistic iconography in plastic, the creation of those types of deities that the Greeks did not cease to worship throughout their centuries-old history. The need and ability to express in an artistic image even the most abstract teachings and beliefs have never manifested themselves so strikingly anywhere as in pantheistic or almost atheistic Buddhism, which created such a highly artistic “icon” of the Buddha, which even to those not involved in his teaching immediately reveals the whole essence of him, and for his followers to such an extent serves as his crystallization that they carried it with them to the extreme limits of their distribution, where 8 colossal statues of Buddha, absorbed in self-contemplation, adorn many temples of his cult. The Christian world faced a more difficult, but also much more rewarding task in the field of its icon painting, as in the entire field of art in general. Only this alone could enable a person to develop all his spiritual powers in the light of the highest revelation illuminating faith in him, that is, that side of mental life, which, according to A. S. Khomyakov, is the only factor of fruitful activity. If Christian art is inferior to ancient art in terms of the perfection of plasticity, then it more than compensates for this apparent loss by introducing into its domain an abundance of the highest motives of artistic creativity, completely unknown to antiquity, the comparative scarcity of which ancient man covered up with the perfection of form - plasticity. That is why among the ancients the icon could only be in embryo, just as faith itself was in embryo, creating art in general and the icon (its highest manifestation) in particular. Completely objective art is possible only where completely objective faith is possible, or more precisely, completely positive faith. Where it is impossible (as, for example, among Christian peoples, who allow only subjective principles), completely objective art is impossible there, and only the penetration of the artist with a subjective feeling is possible, giving his works that inner transparency that makes them understandable and obligatory for everyone connected with the artist only by humanity in the broad sense, and not by a close connection of spiritual communication. A. S. Khomyakov divides the arts into two categories (in his article about Humboldt). To the first of them he includes all possible types of personal artistic creativity and calls it everyday plasticity; to the second he classifies that art, which, although the work of one person, serves as an expression of all people living by one spiritual principle, and calls it icon sculpture. If we accept this division, then we can say with it that an icon in the true sense of the word is possible only in the unity of church contemplation. “That is why, says the same writer, it stands (in its ideal) so much above any other work of art - the limit to which art must certainly strive if it is still capable of any development.” What has been said is probably enough to understand the meaning of the short aphorism expressed by Met. Filaret in a letter on the occasion of the consecration of the Moscow School of Painting. We only wanted to frame his words with an explanation that would show them in the present light, and not to prove the absolute correctness of his views. For this, some weighty treatise is not enough, since one cannot help but admit that one can argue quite a bit against it, despite the fact that for us personally its faithfulness is not subject to the slightest doubt. It is only necessary to add a few explanatory words regarding the question that involuntarily arises: what significance can be attached to the works of Western artists in the field of church painting? Is it possible to admit that there, too, art reached the practical realization of its highest task, even if it did not have the completely solid support of a conscious understanding of the tasks of icon painting? This question was very thoroughly raised regarding the paintings of the famous Fra Angelico by F.V. Chizhov on the pages of “Russian Conversation” (1856). IV), in his interesting biography of this supreme representative of Western icon painting. Chizhov very convincingly rejects the absolute iconicity of Fra Angelico’s works, pointing out the excessive development of subjectivity in him, although this manifests itself in the most charming form. Western formal iconography has indeed never reached the degree of objectivity that we consider, according to our concepts, to be the measure of true iconography: this cannot be doubted; and one cannot be surprised at this, since a formal icon satisfies only what the society that needs it requires of it. The Western Christian church principle could never eliminate the element of individualism from its everyday life (in teaching, in authority, in the personal passion of faith); therefore, art, to the extent that it served as its expression, had to reflect its one-sidedness. But where a Western artist, by the power of personal genius, reached the highest point of artistic contemplation, to that point, upon reaching which he turned from a Western Christian (perhaps only for a minute) into a Christian as such, he sometimes created works in the field of all arts and painting in particular, which completely resolved the most strict, highest task of icon painting, even if this work was not distinguished by the official name of an icon. Looking at some works of Western brush or chisel, listening to some melodies of Western origin, entering some buildings erected by believing architects of the same West, every Orthodox Christian involuntarily crosses himself, and therefore recognizes as his own that which, apparently, was born in an environment alien to him... “The Sistine Madonna is the supreme work of art.” We have already cited this saying of A. S. Khomyakov above. If this is so, then it is clear that in his opinion and, let us add, in ours, it is also the highest icon, and its example sufficiently resolves the ways in which its short-sighted zealots or its inveterate opponents would like to restrict icon painting. Wed. excerpts from an article on architecture (“Russian Archive” 1893, II, 106). Wed. Hegel. Preface to aesthetics. In poetry (art in words), the lexical meaning of words receives a special, as it were, conventional meaning, in which their exact meaning is colored by something special, forcing their usual exact meaning. This idea is very well developed in some of the works of the famous English writer Ruskin, who, unfortunately, is too little known among us. One of the greatest Western writers of our time expressed a completely similar view, speaking about art through the lips of the hero of one of his stories: “If I were in a communion of faith and sympathy with the people of the same confession (culte) with me and would seek, in contact with these souls, filled with the same religious self-consciousness, that inspiration that until now I had sought only in solitude, and therefore found only in a very insufficient degree.” G.-Sand, Consuelo, part 2, page 107. A. S. Khomyakov highly valued this writer as an artist, although he strictly condemned the direction of which he was a representative. Wed. Letter to T.I. Filippov in the 1st volume of the Works of A.S. Khomyakov. The artist himself introduces an element of subjectivity. Historical traditionalism should not be mixed with artistic traditionalism. It is clear that any portraiture makes it obligatory for the artist.