Russian Animalism in Relation to Other Genres of Fine Art in the History of Russian Culture of the 18th—19th Centuries

Abstract

The article deals with the historical-cultural topic of relations of the Russian animalism with other genres of fine art of the 18th and 19th centuries. When the features of animalistic art were identified as a peculiar and characteristic phenomenon open to interaction, animalism became an original page of Russian culture. The author refers to this topic in connection with the small number of complex studies in the field of animalism. The purpose of the article is to consider the specific features of animalism, as a characteristic original phenomenon of Russian artistic culture, in the context of the existing genre system of the two designated periods. The relevance of the article lies in the fact that the issues of interaction and integration are very significant in historical and modern artistic practice. The demonstration of such “communications” on the example of Russian animalistic painting, graphics, and sculpture further enriches and diversifies the sphere of Russian art, giving it the character of integrity and national color.The article presents a review of Russian and foreign literature on this topic, indicates that animalism entered the system of genres of Russian art of the 18th—19th centuries as a special “genus” of it, showing an independent status. For two centuries, artists set their task to create an animal’s image in the sphere of the natural reality they observed. The nature they perceived and the animals in it were reflected in different genres of fine art. In the 18th century, when the Academy of Arts and related classes were organized in Russia, animals and birds began to be depicted in historical, battle, landscape paintings, and still lifes. Wild and domestic animals appeared in paintings by foreign and Russian masters. In the 19th century, the horse became one of the most preferred characters in portraiture and sculpture (along with the historical and landscape genre). The author concludes that the historical realities of that time highlighted that image and determined the formation of a separate “hippic genre”.