The Metamorphoses of Impressionism at the Turn of the Centuries

Abstract

The concept of the “Silver Age” is usually
correlated with certain phenomena
of the Russian artistic culture of the turn
of the 19th and 20th centuries. However,
it is absolutely clear that this was not a purely
national phenomenon and it is appropriate
to spread its “geography” onto analogous
artefacts of the entire European space
of that time. Upon close examination it turns
out that many aesthetic components
of the late 19th and early 20th century
developed under the auspices of the “Silver
Age”: late Romanticism, Symbolism,
the so-called Decadence, the Moderne Style,
etc., — everything which were characterized
with brightly expressed personalized accents,
individual-subjective predilections
and various degrees of aesthetization
of artistic creativity.
The author of the article considers
that similar assertions are also applicable
in regard to many sides of Impressionism —
one of the most influential artistic directions
of these years, especially in its late stage.
But first of all the article specifies certain
questions of evolution of this direction
and its substance, since we must frequently
confront with an excessively expansive
understanding of this conception.