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The Arts Of Russia

Дата публикации: 01 сентября 2007
Публикатор: Научная библиотека Порталус
Рубрика: RUSSIA (TOPICS) CULTURE →
Источник: (c) http://russia.by
Номер публикации: №1188645271


The arts in Russia date back to the earliest days of the country. But Russian artists did not produce internationally recognized works in many fields until the early 1800's. Throughout much of the 1800's and the early 1900's, Russia became an international leader in classical music, ballet, drama, and literature. Several Russian painters and sculptors also gained worldwide fame.

This section discusses Russian architecture, music, ballet, painting, and sculpture.

Architecture in Russia has been shaped by religious and Western influences combined with local traditions. About 988, Grand Prince Vladimir I, ruler of the state of Kievan Rus, was converted to the Byzantine (Eastern Orthodox Christian) faith. For hundreds of years, Russian architecture reflected the influence of the Byzantine style. The most important structures were churches, which had distinctive onion-shaped domes. The best-known Byzantine church is St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow, built by Czar Ivan IV (also called Ivan the Terrible), from 1555 to 1560.

In 1682, Peter I, also known as Peter the Great, became czar. Peter introduced Western European artistic styles into Russia. He founded the city of St. Petersburg in 1703 and brought Western European architects and artists to help design it. Many of the buildings dating from his reign and through the mid-1700's were designed in the Western European baroque style by Italian and French architects. A famous example is the Great Palace, which was begun in the early 1700's at Peterhof (now Petrodvorets), near St. Petersburg.

Among the most widely recognized architectural works in Russia are the buildings within the enclosed fortress in Moscow called the Kremlin. The Kremlin includes churches, palaces, and other buildings erected from the late 1400's to the mid-1900's. Some Kremlin buildings house Russia's government, and others serve as museums.

Music. Until the mid-1700's, Russian music consisted almost entirely of vocal music sung in church worship services and of folk music, which was also mainly vocal. Nonreligious music began to flower during the reign of Elizabeth, the empress of Russia from 1741 to 1762. She established the Academy of Arts in 1757, which taught music. Italian opera became popular during her reign. The popularity of music in Russia expanded further during the reign of Catherine II, known as Catherine the Great, who ruled from 1762 to 1796. The earliest written collection of Russian folk songs appeared in four volumes published between 1776 and 1795.

Mikhail Glinka is credited with founding a distinctively Russian school of classical music in the early and middle 1800's. He blended folk songs and religious music into his works and also introduced subjects from Russian history. His most influential work is probably his second opera, Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842), based on a fairy tale written by the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

By the late 1800's, Russian music flourished. Such composers as Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Borodin wrote operas and instrumental music. Much of their work was based on Russian history and folklore. In the early 1900's, Sergei Rachmaninoff and Igor Stravinsky gained international fame for their musical compositions. Stravinsky wrote several influential ballet scores, including The Firebird (1910), Petrouchka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913).

Ballet. Russian ballet became internationally famous starting in the mid-1800's. The leading ballet companies, which continue to perform today, are the Kirov Ballet (formerly the Russian Imperial Ballet) of St. Petersburg and the Bolshoi Ballet of Moscow.

Painting and sculpture. Until the early 1900's, the most important Russian paintings were created for religious purposes. Russian artists decorated the interiors of churches with wallpaintings and mosaics. Stylized paintings called icons were produced for many centuries. An icon is a religious painting considered sacred in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Icons were produced according to strict rules established by the church, and their style changed little over the years.

By the mid-1800's, Moscow and St. Petersburg had busy art schools. Russian artists also began to create paintings and sculptures on more varied subjects.

A burst of creativity in Russian art exploded during the years before the start of World War I in 1914. Russian artists were strongly influenced by the modern art movements emerging in Western Europe. The painters Marc Chagall, Alexei von Jawlensky, and Wassily Kandinsky eventually settled in Western Europe.

Artists who remained in Russia developed two major art movements, suprematism and constructivism. Both movements produced paintings that were abstract--that is, they had no recognizable subject matter. The leading suprematist was Kasimir Malevich. The major constructivists included Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner, and Vladimir Tatlin.

Опубликовано на Порталусе 01 сентября 2007 года

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