“Enslavement” and “liberation” art in nicolay aksharumov'es aesthetic criticism

The article analyzes the key papers and referents of the critic and writer Nicolay Akhsharumov, who appeared in the Russian press as one of the first theoreticians of “enslaved art”. The research concludes tracing the evolution of his views from the “program” article “On the enslavement of art” (1857) to art criticism and abstracts written specifically for the periodical edition of the “Vestnik of Arts” (1884-1885). At the same time, the descriptive-interpretation method, chosen by the critic, is closely connected with Sh. Sainte-Beuve and I. Taine (on whom, in particular, his contemporary, P.D. Boborykin was oriented), but also to F. Schleiermacher, who put forward the idea of the hermeneutic circle, built on a constant return from part to the whole, from the whole to a part. A special attention is paid to the article “ The Tasks of Painting in the Period of the Formation of the Russian National School”. Based on his own memories, testimonies of contemporaries and program articles published earlier in the “Bulletin of Europe”, Akhsharumov recreates the evolution of plastic art in Russia in the XIX century. Following V.V. Stasov, he connects the first triumph of Russian painting - the art paintings of Bryullov - with “blossoming time” A.S. Pushkin, “the first significant successes” Lermontov and Gogol. Talking about the false path of the artist Fedotov and the catastrophe, which, in the opinion of the critic, befell Ivanov'es picture, Akhsharumov draws a parallel with Gogol, recalling the “glory and sense of friends about his great significance,” who so quickly managed to “turn his head”. Akhsharumov shows how literature “outstripped painting” by solving the question of depicting Russian life through the works of Gogol, Ostrovsky, Turgenev and Saltykov-Shchedrin. The central subject of the study is the interpretation by Ahsharumov of N. Ge's “The Last Supper” (1863). Highlighting the canvas Ge in a note reflecting the impressions of 1863, among other paintings of his contemporaries, Akhsharumov differently estimates the picture in the 1880th. In both cases, referring to the meaning of the picture, the critic carries out a revision of his own views, constantly conceptualizing and clarifying the essence of the “enslaved” and “liberated art”. Thus, the Aksharumov'es aesthetic criticism his articles on the history of Russian painting, on the whole correlating with similar works of V.V. Stasova, A.I. Somova, P.D. Boborykin, etc., constitute not only an important testimony of his literary and critical activity spanning more than 30 years, but also open a forgotten page in the history of Russian art criticism. Of course, Akhsharumov was not alone in his aesthetic search. The description of new figures and the reconstruction of a number of articles by critics and art historians constitutes a perspective of interdisciplinary studies that unite the history of Russian criticism and art history.