Problem of painting genres in Apollon Maikovs artistic criticism

In the evolution of European aesthetic thought of 1840s, a key role is played by ideas on thenew content of traditional categories of historical poetics. In this context, the problem of genre in Apollon Maikov's articles on exhibitionsin the Academy of Art assumes significance and deserves a special attention. When Maikov mentions the traditional system ofpainting genres, which uses a formal approach of outward relation of the depicted subject to the general theme to divide all art worksinto historical, portrait, battle, landscape, marine and genre paintings, he emphasizes the obsolescence of such approach. In the traditionalunderstanding of the content of each definition, which was influenced by the authority of the earlier theoreticians and historians ofart, primarily by R. Mengs, painting genres were divided into worthy and unworthy, or secondary ones, the same way literature genresused to be divided into high and low ones. Quite naturally, historical, mythological, battle paintings and partially portraits referred to theformer category, while landscape and genre painting were attributed to the "low", or unworthy genres. The cultural process of the19th century witnessed a significant rise of "low" genres, i.e. landscape, genre painting and psychological portrait. Academic theoreticiansand critics of art viewed these changes as a sign of extreme eclecticism and, therefore, of decline of painting, of loss of its previousdignity and perfection. In Maikov's opinion, the position of theorists utterly contradicted the reality, where new perfect works of artwere created that attracted widespread attention and demonstrated that art had embarked upon a new stage of development. The criticasks himself about the reasons of such a contradiction. In this context, the problem of re-evaluating the epistemological essence of certaingenres of painting becomes of special importance for Maikov. Upon re-evaluating the ideas of theoreticians about the decline ofcontemporary art, Maikov comes to a conclusion that artistic criticism, unlike literary criticism, lost the link to the present. Theoreticianswere too reverent of the achievements of painting of the precious epochs and thus lost the historic perception of a work of art. Theyfailed to notice that the "spirit of the age", which determined the content of art at all times, had changed. Under its influence humanconsciousness had also changed, together with the system of values and the nature of person's spiritual needs. As a result, in the mid19th century art practice; there was a deep re-evaluation of the traditional genre forms, with landscape and genre painting becoming theleading genres of the time. Maikov develops a new approach to interpreting the category of genre. It is based on understanding the contemporarytrends in art and a subtle connection between the "spirit of the age" and the subject of depiction. In his reviews and articlesMaikov asserts the vital need for the new interpretation of the content of traditional genre forms. It was for the first time in Russian artstudies that the critic established the bases of the new theory of painting genres.

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