Landscape as a genre of modern painting in A. N. Maikov's art criticism

The article presents the first attempt of learning the concept of landscape as an important genre of modern painting in A.N. Maikov's cycle of articles about the Imperial Academy of Arts exhibitions. The uniqueness of Maikov as a modern pictorial art theorist and critic is connected with the fact that he does not look at painting as an outside observer, but from inside, relying on his own experience of creating fine art paintings and in formulating his ideas - on the experience of Russian philosophic and aesthetic criticism he was well-acquainted with. His comprehension of the landscape is consistently presented in his debut article “Exhibition of Aivazovsky's pictures”. The peculiarities of the content of Maikov's article about Aivazovsky and the problems set in it are defined by his personal acquaintance with the landscapist. On the background of the traditional exhibition reviews, it is evident that the critic does not speak about the definite pictures, but sets the question of the nature of Aivazovsky's talent and of landscape as a special genre with its inner complications and specific requirements to the creator. The critic defines the nature of Aivazovsky's talent in the context of topical aesthetic problems of the time: authentic portraying of life or “fidelity to nature”, the essence of inspiration, the artist's view on the object portrayed, the choice of the object, etc. In the article about 1849 exhibition the critic develops the topic he started in the debut review of Aivazovsky's exhibition and explains the reasons for topicality of landscape and genre painting in modern art and connects it with the change of social procurement. This thesis speaks for his understanding of the deep dependence of the object of art on the social needs and makes one of the contradictions to Maikov's belonging to the “art for art's sake” representatives. The author of the article elicits in the landscape importance of panhuman and emotional content, interpreted by the artist. For the first time in Russian art criticism he established and justifies anthropocentric approach to interpretation of timely “modern” issues in the art of every historical period. Thus, Maikov undertakes one of the first attempts of scientific interpretation of landscape in the history of European aesthetic thought, establishing in such a way the traditions of artistic genres reflection that will get a comprehensive development in the context of Russian lore culture in terms of literary and art criticism, as well as in the work of the outstanding representatives of Russian literature and painting of XIX century.

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