«Вечные фламандцы»: язык описания фламандской живописи в 1830–1850-е гг.

Словесность и история. 2024. № 1. С. 54–79.

Вожик Е. И.

The article deals with the pragmatics of references to the Flemish (Dutch) school of painting that pervaded the literature of the 1830s–1850s; it also considers how speculations about the aesthetic quality of Flemish art eventually turned out to be a linguistic and mental cliche. By reconstructing the practices that accompanied the perception of a painting in the first half of the XIX century, the author shows that although Flemish art was well represented in private and imperial collections, knowledge of this art was primarily obtained from various publications (catalogues of paintings, lithographs and polytypes, domestic and foreign periodicals, encyclopedias and art criticism). These iconographic and mainly textual sources formed both a visual and a verbal narrative about the Flemish painting style and therefore considerably influenced the way this style was represented. The author demonstrates that the Flemish school of the 1830s–1850s is most often characterized in general terms — frequently through a short verbal formula. Although they usually lacked in formal consistency, such formulas nevertheless contained a stable set of meanings. This set of meanings corresponded with the problem of the correlation between art and reality, which was actively discussed in the press at that time.

Keywords: Г. В. Ф. Гегель, фламандская школа живописи, эстетический канон, критическая программа