MOSCOW, June 7, Anna Nekhaeva.The first big project under the new director of the Pushkin Museum, Elizaveta Likhacheva, is Diderot's Salons. Exhibitions of contemporary art in Paris of the 18th century». The exposition in the main building tells how contemporary art was criticized in the Age of Enlightenment. Why people were sent to the Bastille for satire and what the high society gossiped about — in the material.
Friend Catherine II and contemporary art critic
The main reviewer at the exhibition at the Pushkin Museum is Denis Diderot, a philosopher who helped Catherine II and Russian aristocrats buy the best works of that time for their collections. inferior in price to the masterpieces of the old masters,” says Vadim Sadkov, head of the museum department.
In the era of Rubens and Raphael, there was no concept of a “modern artist” — there was good and bad art.
There are cases when Rubens bought paintings by Dutch, Italian colleagues and retouched them, believing that he was doing better.
In the 18th century, art criticism appeared: at the first public showings of members of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, reviewers honed their mastery of the word. Diderot was one of the main ones — his opinion was listened to.
«Unworthy daub» and «tavern painting»
The exposition is based on Diderot's «Salons» — critical reviews published in the journal «Literary Correspondence». French art from Rococo to Neoclassicism is presented — more than 200 works.
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"Lepissier (Francois Bernard, artist. — Approx. ed.), leave these stories! They demand love for the truth, which you don't have. Better yet, don't write at all! Never have I heard a painting so praised as this nasty Family Portrait. This unworthy daub evoked the approval of the audience, I heard their enthusiastic exclamations every now and then,” Diderot was indignant.
According to Vadim Sadkov, contemporary art has always been criticized. Even Diderot, who tried to remain impartial, had favorite and unloved artists.
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«Sweat drenched in sweat, collapse from fatigue, create poems — and all for whom? For a small handful of tasteful people who will admire you in silence, when the stupid, ignorant crowd, barely having cast a glance at your masterpiece, will go to shrink, admiring the sign for a beer, tavern picture,» the critic wrote.
Carl Vanloo especially got it. About his «Cupid shooting from a bow», the philosopher said that he always shoots ugly, and the victim also has a repulsive appearance: «Forgetting allegory, the artist pierces a person not with a metaphorical, but with a real arrow.»
Well, in «Reading» Diderot walked through the this picture to a young man.
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“He looks simple, looks like a clerk dressed up in a fancy dress,” the critic ironically. “And he has a very heavy jaw. I would rather see here one of those rounded rather than oval faces, alive and spiritual.
The texts of Diderot were distributed among the philosopher's friends, they were recited in the prestigious literary and artistic salons of Paris — at the legendary Madame Geoffrin or Madame Necker. works and ordinary viewers.
Diderot advised attending exhibitions accompanied by a «smart artist» who «from time to time would poke your nose at good paintings that you did not notice, and at bad ones that delighted you.»
Beat the philosopher
The landscape painters also got it. The famous Pierre Demachy once learned from Diderot that he was not a painter at all.
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“Before us are carefully, tastefully, neatly painted prints, so his canvases are always hard and dry in look,” the strict French.
Even sincere admiration for Jean-Baptiste Greuze or Horace Vernet did not prevent Diderot from scolding some of their works.
For art criticism in the XVIII century, one could go to jail: Diderot was imprisoned in the Vincennes castle for the daring «Letter on the blind for the edification of the sighted», which outraged the clergy and high society. And Voltaire visited the Bastille for satirical verses addressed to the regent and his daughter. By the way, later Chevalier de Rogan's lackeys beat the philosopher and publicist on his orders — also for criticism. Voltaire wanted to challenge the aristocrat to a duel, but did not have time: he was again sent to the Bastille.
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"What a miserable Salon we have this year! Diderot wrote in 1769. — Almost not a single historical canvas, a big thing. This does not mean that our artists have been idle. But either their creations got abroad, or amateurs did not let them out of their collections.
It is not surprising that artists and their patrons were often offended by such reviews.
Time Diagnosis
Now contemporary art is blamed either for being primitive or for being difficult to understand. And also in excessive PR or lack of talent. But it has always been like this.
The controversy around the classic work of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin «Dream» is well known.
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» In an open letter, Repin wrote that this was a manifesto of a half-educated person and a diagnosis of time, then Alexander Benois and Lev Bakst defended the painting also in open letters, — says and. O. Deputy Director for Science of the Russian State Art Gallery Victoria Danilyuk. “And just a couple of years later, Benois criticized Malevich.”
According to her, the view from the outside, especially academic circles, was just skeptical for a long time.
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“Criticize — normal, in order to comprehend, — the expert notes. “In the modern world, all processes (including obsolescence) are accelerating, so criticism may not keep pace with the development of art.”
In our time, the lack of clear evaluation criteria deprives reviewers of a base, and it is enough for an artist to become part of a creative environment and be «empathic intuitive» to feel trends and trends.