Comparing Literary Criticism and Art History: The Problem of Sentimentalism in Russian Historiography

Supporters of the rapprochement of sentimentalism with romanticism attributed both directions to those who reinterpreted the tradition of the 18^th century and thereby expressed the creative quest inherent in the new art. V. S. Turchin wrote that sentimentalism acted as an opposition to classicism: based on the principles of Enlightenment, it strengthened feelings and developed Rococo stylistics [1, p. 50-1]. The connection of these trends is also due to the birth of romanticism in the depths of sentimentalism, which determined the commonality of important themes: “the cult of virgin nature, interest in the individualization of feelings, emphasis on human existence, subjectivization of the artistic form” [3, p. 376]. It is curious that even the “English factor” gets a different reading:

O.S. Evangulova believed that the fascination with England and sentimentalism can be assessed as a kind of Fronde and a claim to exclusivity in the noble environment with the existing pro-French orientation of culture [55, p. 195-6].

The less convincing expression of the inner state of the model in sentimentalism explains its association with pre-romanticism existing in the scientific literature, which forms one common stage of art for the development of the romantic movement in the early 19^th century [56, p. 130], although there has long been a position separating these two phenomena [46, p. 251-2]. The desire to see pre-romanticism in the art of sentimentalism can be explained by the influence of the aesthetic views of the romantic era, which perceived earlier works as its own prehistory, demonstrating stylistic continuity: “the facts preceding this system, described in its terms, can naturally lead only to it and only in it find unity and certainty” [57, p. 95].

Nevertheless, the presence of separate features that demonstrate the commonality between sentimentalism and romanticism does not negate their fundamental differences in some important aspects. Firstly, a characteristic feature of romanticism is the creation of works against the background of great social upheavals [3, p. 36], as well as their increased internal dynamics, contributing to the fixation of the brightest moment of the internal state of the model [58, p. 194]. Secondly, sentimentalist portraiture is characterized by naturalness in depicting a person in a landscape [58, p. 185], whereas in romantic art, the relationship between the model and nature in the space of the work is expressed through the opposition of a person and the world around him [3, p.245]. Thirdly, these trends relate differently to allegory, which occupies a significant place in the artistic system of classicism: if in sentimentalism it receives a more intimate meaning, then in romanticism it is absent as a technique used [3, p. 252].

In other words, the desire to explain the specifics of sentimentalism through comparison with classicism or romanticism inevitably turns out to be unsuccessful, being based on the idea of the initial dependence of this phenomenon on more well-known trends. Moreover, this approach does not imply a careful study of the artistic features of sentimentalism portraiture, which does not allow determining its place in the Russian visual culture of the late 18^th -- early 19^th century. All of the above is confirmed by the characteristic of sentimentalism painting, which has established itself in the Russian scientific literature. So, T. V. Alekseeva expressed the idea of combining increased emotionality with the ideality of artistic language, which causes some restraint of images [58, p. 185]. The most general idea of sentimentalism in painting was formulated by V. S. Turchin, who attributed to his typical features “interest in the emotional world of man, the motives of nature, the difference in the interpretation of male and female images, the rejection of the representative form” [3, p. 131] and wrote about their further development in the era of romanticism.

Such abstraction of ideas about sentimentalism painting in the modern historiography of Russian art, which is characterized by an insignificant number of unlit subjects, demonstrates the obvious complexity of studying this phenomenon in accordance with the scientific approaches of the previous time. Moreover, it allows us to conclude that the difficulties of the Soviet scientific school were due to the methodological principles used in the study of sentimentalism. Already in the first half of the 20^th century, the idea of sentimentalism as an antisocial movement was widespread [51, p. 234], which was associated with the inclusion of A. N. Radishchev and N. M. Karamzin in this direction (without sufficient differentiation of their views that currently exists) and determined a weak interest in its study. However, the works of T. V. Alekseeva and V. S. Turchin had a greater influence on the degree and nature of the study of sentimentalism.

T. V. Alekseeva was the main specialist in the work of V. L. Borovikovsky and largely determined the scientific approach applied to the whole direction. From a methodological point of view, the scientist's concept had internal contradictions: calling for seeing in individual creativity the features of the historically natural and thoughtfully using generalizing definitions when considering individual works [58, p. 197], she at the same time considered the expansion of factual material to be the main condition for enriching theoretical thought [53, p. 17]. In addition, the actual material meant a database of sources, and not a collection of works of art, which was not subjected to a formal description, “replacing a genuine insight into artistic features, into the meaning of the monument” [53, p. 7]. In other words, the portrait of sentimentalism, characterized by a variety of picturesque shades in the works of different masters, turned out to be devoid of an attentive art history description due to prejudice against the formal method of H. Wolfflin, which was generally characteristic of the Soviet scientific tradition.

The approach of V.S. Turchin seemed potentially more promising. In his numerous works he aspired to a problematic consideration of art at the turn of the 18^th and 19^th centuries as an integral epoch, which is especially interesting in the context of the research topic, taking into account the convergence of romanticism and sentimentalism as trends of new art. Nevertheless, the scientist considered these phenomena quite generically, justifying this by the elusiveness of romanticism for historical analysis. Turchin proposed to study the art of the romantic era on a large scale, which meant attracting a literary context, since “the descriptive method of characterizing romanticism, no matter how detailed, is now failing” [3, p. 11]. It is curious that such a panoramic approach was applied not only to paintings, but also to aesthetic texts [3, p. 48], as well as to legends about artists [3, p. 87]. As a result, the scientist contradicted himself: the era of romanticism made a great contribution to the analysis of the artistic form and the development of formal categories [3, p. 49], but at the same time it cannot be studied by means of its own methodology.

So, the historiographical review demonstrates that, the consideration of sentimentalism in the history of Russian art is characterized by generalization of ideas and a small number of scientific approaches, in comparison with literary studies. On the one hand, in the scientific literature, portrait painting of sentimentalism is understood as an important and self-sufficient phenomenon in the artistic situation at the turn of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, possessing a certain ethical program. On the other hand, the statement about the existence of stable artistic features that distinguish sentimentalism from classicism and romanticism often remains declarative and devoid of the necessary specifics, which determines the lack of knowledge of this phenomenon at the present stage. This state of affairs can be explained by the specifics of the scientific tradition used in Soviet times to study sentimentalism. Firstly, consideration of this phenomenon in the context of trends with more pronounced features (classicism and romanticism) is difficult, due to both the variety of artistic trends in painting of the 1790s, and a certain independence of the portrait genre from stylistic categories in general. Secondly, the main methodological attitudes peculiar to scientists of the past are characterized either by the denial of the formal method, or by the recognition of its uselessness in the study of art at the turn of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

All of the above gives the author the opportunity to conclude that a more attentive attitude to the artistic features of the works will potentially allow us to determine the pictorial system and the portrait concept of sentimentalism, and furthermore we can concretize its features in comparison with works defined as classicism or romanticism. Moreover, the works of some modern authors testify to the rehabilitation of formal analysis in the visual arts after the Soviet period [59, p. 8], which corresponds to the latest studies of sentimentalism in literary criticism (works by A. N. Pashkurov). Nevertheless, close attention to the issues of art form is far from the only method for studying portraiture at the turn of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Firstly, a rather promising direction is the consideration of the metamorphoses of the portrait genre in typological terms for the study of how the techniques of ceremonial and chamber images are combined in the works of this time, which also correlates with the genre-thematic study of the literature of sentimentalism (works by S. E. Pavlovich). Secondly, another relevant approach is the research of the Russian portrait of the 1790s in close relationship with European artistic processes, which not only corresponds to works dedicated to sentimentalism on literary studies, but also implies the development of the concept of D. V. Sarabyanov, applied to the art of the 19^th century [60], for an earlier period. Thirdly, turning to modern concepts of sentimentalism in the field of literary studies for the history of art seems to be a logical step to update approaches. Thus, Kochetkova's historical and aesthetic approach allows reconstructing the ideological principles of sentimentalism, and Ivanov's non-historical approach makes it possible to comprehend it as a universal phenomenon in the history of world culture. These ideas have a high scientific potential for the study of portraiture, which not only reflects the attitude of the individual, but also gives an idea of the ideological foundations in the culture of sentimentalism (understanding of beauty, nature and man).

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