The presentation of Russian “National romanticism” on architecture of art Nouveau

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Article

The presentation of Russian “National romanticism” on architecture of art Nouveau

He Luxi, Liu Daping Hkx HIT, China

Abstract

Tided over the long closure of the middle ages, with the reform of Westernization, Russian architecture of Art Nouveau was developing as Russia entered the Westem-European architectural culture because Russian highly openness and the learning initiative of culture. Development of Russian architecture of Art Nouveau widely drew on the experiences of the architectural elements from the Westem-European; at the same time, the birth of “national romanticism” met the exploration of art nouveau architecture by chance, which made Russian architecture of Art Nouveau with both international form and feature, also present the harmonious but different Russian traditional feature. This article will base on the theory and characteristics of Russian National romanticism combined the architects' practices and building examples as a foundation, focusing on the construction of unique Russian national romanticism.

Keywords: Russia; Art Nouveau; National romanticism; Architecture.

With the strengthening of Peter the Great's reform in policies and the implementation of the comprehensive westernization, at the end of 19 century, Russia was back to Europe. As the largest multi-ethnic country in Europe, the complex social features were presented in the conflicts of political, cultural and even in the field of art. This was a new stage, which after the ascension of Russian people's national consciousness in 1820s, the same as the past, all intellectuals began to think about the development of Russia. In field of arts and culture, Russia desired to return Europe and more eager to establish unique cultural characteristics that promote the Russian national historical value and national uniqueness for the Russian people and acceptance of their own culture. If Russia did not restore and strengthen the national cultural tradition, even not strive for the internal unity and spiritual integration that no science and technology can make further development for Russia.

В. V. Mezhuev stressed that the foundation of national consciousness is the individuals can conscious of that they are civilized people with political and spiritual freedom. National consciousness is awakening people the awareness of their own cultural, which is equal to other cultures and unique. Hence, in the new stage of art nouveau movement that Russia created their own unique national romanticism style and presented a significant difference with western European, which also added up the distinct national characteristic in the form of art nouveau movement.

Nationalism in Art Nouveau

Talking about the Art Nouveau movement, France inspired by plants and naturalistic style, Italy sought new artistic spirit to curve shape and natural charm, and Barcelona was full of mystery and made the organic form elements to extreme artistic style, that all of them take delight in talking. Art Nouveau movement lasted only a dozen year but still affect the art form and development of architecture in 21 century.

Art Nouveau movement spread all Europe and influenced over 7 arts field, 11 states and with 4 different trend of development--“Decadent” Style, attempt of geometric language, expression of national culture and new world style. Except the theme of nature, femininity, symbolism and mysticism, nationalism was also an important creation power. Russia, Finland and Catalonian were tendency to the expression of nationalism, which the artists and designers repeatedly created a rich and unique artistic expression with the theme of nationalism.

Finland is definitely one of the most representative countries of the expression in nationalism. Finland ruled for 6 centuries by Sweden then it was annexed by Russia for more than 109 years. It gained independence through the unyielding struggle of the Finland people until 1917. During the Art Nouveau movement, Finland artist began to eager for the real Finland national tradition under the Russian governance that Finland Art Nouveau had thus been by means of their symbolism painters gave nationalism interpretation and traditional aesthetic, which these descriptions greatly inspired the Finland people of the national identity. Whether painting or architecture affected by the Finland tradition and at that time, national romanticism was interpreted the most precise in history. The most prominent work is nation pavilion of Finland that exhibited on the Paris World Expo in 1900, which was based on the traditional form of Finland church, the facade consisted of granite walls and towers; the steep roof paved by flat tiled and decorated by the traditional theme of Finland--squirrel and pine cone. This work combined with traditional and modem elements that brought out the best in each other. Finnish considered the important meaning of pavilion of Finland in Paris World Expo to the Finland nation that utilized the perfect architecture, delicacy potting and furniture design to prove themselves. In the face of Domination, oppression and cultural invasion, Finnish knew very well that only way to save Finland and themselves by upholding their national tradition and culture. Russia was in different situation with Finland, because of the mle by Tatars nearly 200 years and cut off contact with Western Europe until 17 century. The aspiration of returning Europe was reach until the late 19 century. Russia desired to strengthen the identifiable of their culture in the European mainstream culture that nationalism is the priceless treasure held by Russia, which based on the strong national sentiment and democratization tendency. The uniqueness of Russian Art Nouveau opened up a art path that only belonging to Russia.

Through the artistic and cultural practices in Finland and Russian Art Nouveau, which proved that “the nation is the world. Find the national identity, approve, use and carry forward it that is important to prominent the status of their country in the international stage.

Russian “National Romanticism” and Art Nouveau movement

Russian Art Nouveau was same as many European countries, there was a large influence of Art Nouveau trend on Russian design and ideological trend. It was not hard to find out there were many similarities between Russian and European works, which had a close relationship with French, Germany and Mackintosh style; Different to many European countries, Russia accepted the ideological trend of Art Nouveau and borrowed the characteristic of from form other countries and retained their national features. The strong sense of roots seek in Russian culture decided that Russian Art Nouveau not only fused European international features and also appeared its unique national romanticism on the basis of their strong national sense.

“National romanticism” as a creative method and style that present on reality, which emphasized subjectivity. Both the using of lights and color, component and decoration management conducted the rich imagination of artists. It is commendable that their romantic imagination was basing on in-depth understanding of the reality, which the unrestrained passion displayed was combined with the positive national ideal and that was why it as a powerful art force that could root in people's heart deeply.

Since ancient times, there were pure fantasies in Russian arts. Russian believes in supernatural, so both ritual works in prehistoric times and metallic objects had natural worship elements. Russian simple and unadorned world of thought expressed pure folklore and epic. Russian arts reflected the fantasy theme linking the ancient and modem life theme vividly, which used romantic thought of the dual nature - the spirit and reality to show the isolated individual that struggling for the ideal. As the fantasy theme widely used in works and the birth of new romanticism thought, Russian artists organized and established the “Art World” magazine that they tried to use the achievement of world culture to revive the national art and provided new ideas to fill the existing contents then creative a totally new trend of thought onto the meaning. At the same time, they often put art to the past and depicted the soul of people and social connotation that made the Russian Art Nouveau has distinctive utopian thought, which the utopian thought closely related to the pure fantasy. The works by Russian artists based on imagination but also built on the tradition and daring insight of future. Therefore, its obvious retro tendency is contrary to the Art Nouveau principles.

On the other hand, Russian plain folk art and poetic tradition show the national features of the pursuit of freedom, individuality and universality. These unique “Russian National romanticism” provided the creative power and fountain dining re-excavating and recreation for the national heritages and folk arts by the artists. With the regression concept of art happened to hold the same view with the concept of Art Nouveau--pursue the universal beauty.

Nothing else than this contradiction inspired and accomplished the Russian Art Nouveau style with the features of national tradition.

Interweaving of Art Nouveau and “National romanticism” in Russian architecture

At the end of 19 century, accompanied by actively expression and exploration of the national tradition culture that the romantic style produced in the field of architecture, which known as “New Russian Style” and also “National romanticism”. Its birth synchronized with the thinking and exploration of new architectural form in new era, which included the exploration of Art Nouveau. Therefore, interweaving of Art Nouveau and “National romanticism” was sustaining the progress of the Russian architectural modernization.

Regional of Russian Art Nouveau Architecture in “National romanticism”

Russia is a vast territory country and the development of Art Nouveau referred to a number of areas, which Moscow and St. Petersburg were two of the most prominent areas that there were quite numbers of Art Nouveau buildings in late 19 century and early 20 century, but the style of Art Nouveau architecture in these two cities were quite different. In 19 century, the Russian classical writer descripted Moscow and St. Petersburg in opposition as “A tale of Two Cities”, which is a unique and important phenomenon in Russian culture. The famous writer--Herzen considered the largest difference between Moscow and St. Petersburg was that Moscow has the sacred memories of Russian centuries and close blood relationship with the nation; and St. Petersburg pursuit modernization and has close relationship with Europe. In the Russian Art Nouveau exploration, it was obvious to find the differences of the cultural and artistic between these two cities.

The works of Art Nouveau in St. Petersburg almost imitated the classic architectures of city space, and the architecture of Art Nouveau in Moscow was from the traditional Russian folk arts and influenced by the Old Russian Church. Art Nouveau architecture in Moscow highly integrated the features of Western Europe and “National romanticism,” which developed the unique characteristics of its own. Therefore, in terms of regional, Art Nouveau architecture in Moscow suited more in the exploration of “National romanticism.”

It was not come unexpectedly of the integration and development between Art Nouveau and “National romanticism” that it was for a reason. It is well known that Moscow is that with characteristics of patriarchal family, natural and comfortable, friendly and local Russian city. Gogol said: “Russia is impossible to without Moscow.” Moscow is city with very deep traditional medieval culture of Russia, which affected by the Russian medieval culture profound and that is why the appearance of the abramstsevo artists group at the turn of century as well as the exploration of “National romanticism”. These explorations deeply affected the architectures of Art Nouveau in Moscow that the Art Nouveau architecture in Moscow had both Art Nouveau architectural languages of Western Europe and Art Nouveau forms of traditional Russian national features, which was also the key for Russia to consolidated its cultural status among the European countries through Art Nouveau movement.

The features of “National romanticism” in Russian Art Nouveau architecture

The feature of “National romanticism” in Russian Art Nouveau architecture presents as the unique of the faзade design that same as the thought tendency of Art Nouveau, the faзade design in architecture of “National romanticism” tried to be different, which appeared as the reasonable organization of various materials; the application of reinforced concrete, iron, glass and ceramic decoration used widely that used curve and aesthetic perception (embossment and sculpture) as faзade modeling. (Figure 1) The interaction between interior and outdoor design was also notably. Both the unity of interior and outdoors and the totally different but complementary decorative design interior and outdoor are the features, which the “National romanticism” architects focused on. The Ryabushinsky house designed by Fyodor Shekhtel is the most typical representative (fig- 1).

The representation of Russian traditional folk culture took the Russian folk tales as starting point and reproduced the Russian traditional culture through the application of color and decoration in architectural design. Maliutin designed the teramok in 1901 was the best example, (fig. 1) The reproduced of Russian traditional architectural style based on the distinct Russian national features, which inspired by the medieval Russian church architecture and created the architecture with Russian characteristic - dome and minaret. The Yaroslavsky train station is representation work that combined the Russian traditional architectural style and the Art Nouveau architectural languages, (fig. 1)

Flower theme, picture decoration and colorful tiles are the decorative forms and features of “National romanticism” style on Russian Art Nouveau architecture, (fig. 2) The flower theme happened to have the same view with the trend of Art Nouveau and it also the theme of Russian Art Nouveau architectural decoration. And the “National romanticism” usually used porcelain, mosaics and inlay painting to pre-sent flower image. The residential style of iris pattern with mosaic made the faзade of Ryabushinsky housemore elegant. There is a long history of the use of picture decoration in Russian architectural design that the meanings of it are beauty, elegance and love. Willian Valkot was good at using the lady picture as a voucher heart stone deco-ration, which became one of the recognizable Russian Art Nouveau architectural languages. (fig. 2) Finally, color tiles were usually used as the indoor floor, upper and lower part decoration of the faзade molding. The floor of main hall used the natural color tiles in Ryabushinsky house.

At the end of 19 century, “New Wooden Art” that combined the traditional handicraft techniques and modem architectural form emerged in the cities. The universal application of wooden materials and wooden forms was the unique contribution to the world Art Nouveau architecture by the regional of Russian Art Nouveau architecture. The Russian craft museum of Paris World Expo in 1900 was a wooden building, which was a combination of Russian national traditional elements and pure Art Nouveau language (fig- 2).

Figure 1 - The features of “National romanticism” in Russian Art Nouveau architecture

Figure 2 - The features of "National romanticism ” in Russian Art Nouveau architecture

The exploration of “National romanticism” in Art Nouveau architecture by Russian Architects and the analysis of works.

On the whole, Russian national traditional architecture concentrated on presentation of wooden architecture and the architectural decoration, which widely adopted and inspired by the international languages from the Western Art Nouveau and formed the combination of international architectural and national traditional languages. The exploration of “National romanticism” on Art Nouveau was benefit by excavated and creativity of Russian architects.

Alexander Golovin

The most representative artist was Alexander Golovin. He was a painter and stage designer who was good at color using and a profound perception, with a precise grasp of the logic of fusion of artistic beauty and technical beauty of architecture. His works were fantastic, especially the elegant line processing and rich decorative elements. The mostfamous work was the craft museum of Paris World Expo in 1900 that he worked with Konstantin Korovin, which was the first wooden architecture that combined the “National romanticism” and pure Art Nouveau language.(fig. 3) The architecture was with high slope roof, slender log lines, small decorative windows and the blocks strewed at random that all of them were the Russian folk architectural language. At the same time, the bright and peculiar using of color, the decorative patterns with mysterious national tradition and dynamic lines that attracted the people among many excellent architectures in the World Expo. Design of the museum that not only made the pioneer artists' artistic ideas and exploration be-come an architectural reality, also achieved the synchronization between the explora-tion of Russian Art Nouveau and other European countries.

Golovin's works could be seen as an extension of his scenery works and recreation. The rich imagination and the unique technique of expression on Russian nation-al traditional art that made Golovin developed his own emotional, romantic and delicacy style, which provided a strong example to the early exploration of Russian Art Nouveau style.

Figure 3 - Alexander Golovin and Konstantin Korovin, Russian Craft Museum, Paris, 1900

Sergei Maliutin

In addition to Golovin, Marliutin was as a painter and architect equally note-worthy. He advocated the practice of architecture design similar to decorative panels or scenery, which the Teremokl he designed in 1901 was representative example. Marliutin imitated the Russian Craft Museum of Paris World Expo in 1900 and designed the Teremok in Talashkino. (fig. 4) He retained his strokes as a painter in the deco-rations, which the color and flower patterns on wall were totally different with the nature that full of Russian traditional fairy style and matched the idea of Art from the Russian traditional fairy.

Nouveau--create all new objects as art forms”. Maliutin used the novel peculiar sculpture decoration form in the strecture of the architecture^ faзade, which the strange sun symbol is particularly prominent that presented the illusion from the Russian folk art. (fig- 5)

Figure 4 - Sergei Maliutin, Teremok, Talashkino, 1901

Figure 5 - Sergei Maliutin, National decorations ofTeremok, Talashkino

At that time, Sergei Diagilev very appreciated on Tememok by Maliutin that Diagilev believed that this was the real Russian architecture but not the Western architectural form. As one of the pioneer artists of Russian Art Nouveau, Maliutin's early works retained the integrity of the essence of traditional folk art in Russia. He was in a form of worship to present the Russian folk poetry with his unique application of color, which expressed the magic power of Russian traditional folk crafts.

His work--Pertsov House designed in 1905 in Moscow (Figure 6), which used the bright color on faзade to cover the old ways of design; various forms of balcony and windows, the ingenious application of tiles made the straight and narrow architecture appeared romantic feelings that it was the vivid expression of dramatic of New Russian style.

Figure 6 - Sergei Maliutin, Pertsov House, Moscow, 1905

Fyodor Shekhtel

The architects who worked for the “Russian forgotten class”, Fyodor Shekhtel is undoubtedly the most worthy to praise. Shekhtel loved Russian folk arts and also worked with the artists who had the same interest. His architectural designs appeared the good fusion of Russian national elements and Western Art Nouveau at the turn of the century 19 to 20 that both Ryabushinsky House and Yaroslavsky train station were the most representative work, which in asymmetrical facades and colorful inserts (Figure 7) At the same time, the opposite of religious belief and the commercialization, the conflict disposed between tradition and modem were perfectly appeared in his works. Architecture works designed by Shekhtel could be called a paragon of the Moscow's Art Nouveau architecture because he loved Russian traditional national culture and his adventurous spirit.

Figure 7

Ryabushinsky House was honored as the model of Art Nouveau architecture in Moscow. (Now as the Gorky Museum). It retained the complex block combination, which was the feature of Russian architecture. The concise faзade adjusted by the decorative balconies and porches that appeared plentiful but still abstinence. The iris pattern was as mosaic waistline that presented in painting schema, which added elegant and noble to the faзade. View from a long distance, the rounded railing on the edge of building enhanced the whole, (fig. 8) The appearance of the building presented a good blend of Russian national elements and Art Nouveau that made people acclaim as the peak of its perfection.

Figure 8 - Fyodor Shekhtel, Ryabushinsky House, Moscow, 1902

The interior of the building is more interesting. Inspired by the traditional Russian church architecture, all functional rooms in the flat surface are centered around the huge central stair, (fig.9) Whether the core space under the dome or the small space around it or the windows around the dome can introduce light into the room in those kinds of church, the main hall of Ryabushinsky House made rederence of this form in order to bringing the real sunlight into the unreal dream--amazing interior room.

Figure 9 - Interior decoration of Ryabushinsky House

The famous Russian modernist painter--M. Frobel participated in the interior decoration design, whether the stairs, ceiling, doors and windows and so on are full of modem art style. Especially the 12 meters long central stair that is with perfect organic form and clears up the boundaries between the building and decoration, which likes the wavesrolled on the staircase and eventually becomes calm and disappears. In addition, the decoration of each room is also very interesting, which in strange animal images, distorted interlaced floral patterns, oddly shaped ornament that make the house in a fantasy means, (fig. 9, 10) People seem to be in a environment that totally different from the reality and intoxicated with it for a long time.

nouveau art architecture painter

Figure 10 - Interior decoration of Ryabushinsky House

Conclusion