Artistic images. Artistic image in art
the method and form of mastering reality in art, a universal category of art. creativity. Among other aesthetic categories category X. o. – of relatively late origin. In ancient and middle ages. aesthetics that did not highlight the artistic in special area(the whole world, space is an artistic work of the highest order), art was characterized primarily. canon - a set of technological recommendations that ensure imitation (mimesis) of the arts. the beginning of existence itself. To anthropocentric. The aesthetics of the Renaissance goes back to (but was later fixed in terminology - in classicism) the category of style associated with the idea of the active side of art, the right of the artist to shape the work in accordance with his creativity. initiative and immanent laws of a particular type of art or genre. When, following the deaestheticization of being, the deaestheticization of practicality revealed itself. activity, a natural reaction to utilitarianism gave a specific. understanding of the arts. forms as organization according to the principle of internal purpose, and not external use (beautiful, according to Kant). Finally, in connection with the process of “theorizing” the lawsuit will end. separating it from the dying arts. crafts, pushing architecture and sculpture to the periphery of the art system and pushing into the center more “spiritual” arts in painting, literature, music (“romantic forms”, according to Hegel), the need arose to compare the arts. creativity with the sphere of scientific and conceptual thinking to understand the specifics of both. Category X. o. took shape in Hegel’s aesthetics precisely as an answer to this question: the image “... puts before our gaze, instead of an abstract essence, its concrete reality...” (Soch., vol. 14, M., 1958, p. 194). In his doctrine of forms (symbolic, classical, romantic) and types of art, Hegel outlined various principles for the construction of art. How Various types the relationship "between image and idea" in their historical. and logical sequences. The definition of art, going back to Hegelian aesthetics, as “thinking in images” was subsequently vulgarized into a one-sided intellectualism. and positivist-psychological. concepts of X. o. end 19 – beginning 20th centuries In Hegel, who interpreted the entire evolution of being as a process of self-knowledge, self-thinking, abs. spirit, just when understanding the specifics of art, the emphasis was not on “thinking”, but on “image”. In the vulgarized understanding of X. o. came down to a visual representation of a general idea, to a special cognizance. a technique based on demonstration, showing (instead of scientific proof): an example-image leads from the particulars of one circle to the particulars of another circle (to its “applications”), bypassing abstract generalization. From this point of view, art. the idea (or rather, the multiplicity of ideas) lives separately from the image - in the head of the artist and in the head of the consumer, who finds one of the possible uses for the image. Hegel saw knowledge. side X. o. in his ability to be a bearer of specific art. ideas, positivists - in the explanatory power of his depiction. At the same time aesthetic. pleasure was characterized as a type of intellectual satisfaction, and the entire sphere cannot be depicted. the claim was automatically excluded from consideration, which called into question the universality of the category “X. o.” (for example, Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky divided art into “figurative” and “emotional”, i.e. without? figurative). As a protest against intellectualism in the beginning. 20th century ugly theories of art arose (B. Christiansen, Wölfflin, Russian formalists, partly L. Vygotsky). If positivism is already intellectualistic. sense, taking the idea, the meaning out of brackets X. o. - in psychology area of “applications” and interpretations, identified the content of the image with its thematic. filling (despite the promising doctrine of internal form, developed by Potebnya in line with the ideas of V. Humboldt), then the formalists and “emotionalists” actually took a further step in the same direction: they identified the content with the “material”, and dissolved the concept of image in the concept form (or design, technique). To answer the question for what purpose the material is processed by form, it was necessary - in a hidden or overt form - to attribute to the work of art an external purpose, in relation to its integral structure: art began to be considered in some cases as hedonistic-individual, in others – as a social “technique of feelings”. Cognizant. utilitarianism was replaced by educational-"emotional" utilitarianism. Modern aesthetics (Soviet and partly foreign) returned to the figurative concept of art. creativity, extending it to the non-depicted. claim and thereby overcoming the original. intuition of “visibility”, “vision” in letters. in the sense of these words, it was included in the concept of "X. o." under the influence of antiquity. aesthetics with her plastic experience. claim-in (Greek ????? - image, image, statue). Russian semantics the word “image” successfully indicates a) the imaginary existence of art. fact, b) its objective existence, the fact that it exists as a certain integral formation, c) its meaningfulness (an “image” of what?, i.e. the image presupposes its own semantic prototype). X. o. as a fact of imaginary existence. Each work of art has its own material and physical. the basis, which is, however, directly bearer of non-arts. meaning, but only an image of this meaning. Potebnya with his characteristic psychologism in the understanding of X. o. comes from the fact that X. o. there is a process (energy), the crossing of creative and co-creative (perceiving) imagination. The image exists in the soul of the creator and in the soul of the perceiver, but objectively existing arts. an object is only a material means of exciting fantasy. In contrast, objectivist formalism considers the arts. a work as a made thing, which has an existence independent of the intentions of the creator and the impressions of the perceiver. Having studied objectively and analytically. through material senses. the elements of which this thing consists, and their relationships, one can exhaust its design and explain how it is made. The difficulty, however, is that the arts. a work as an image is both a given and a process, it both abides and lasts, it is both an objective fact and an intersubjective procedural connection between the creator and the perceiver. Classical German aesthetics viewed art as a certain middle sphere between the sensual and the spiritual. “In contrast to the direct existence of objects of nature, the sensuous in a work of art is elevated by contemplation into pure visibility, and the work of art is in the middle between direct sensuality and thought belonging to the realm of the ideal” (Hegel W. F., Aesthetics, volume 1, M., 1968, p. 44). The very material of X. o. already to a certain extent dematerialized, ideal (see Ideal), and natural material here plays the role of material for material. For example, White color marble statue acts not on its own, but as a sign of a certain figurative quality; we should see in the statue not a “white” man, but an image of a man in his abstract physicality. The image is both embodied in the material and, as it were, under-embodied in it, because it is indifferent to the properties of its material basis as such and uses them only as signs of its own. nature. Therefore, the existence of the image, fixed in its material basis, is always realized in perception, addressed to it: until a person is seen in the statue, it remains a piece of stone, until a melody or harmony is heard in a combination of sounds, it does not realize its figurative quality. The image is imposed on consciousness as an object given outside of it and at the same time given freely, non-violently, because a certain initiative of the subject is required in order this item became just an image. (The more idealized the material of the image, the less unique and easier to copy its physical basis - the material of the material. Typography and sound recording cope with this task for literature and music almost without loss; copying works of painting and sculpture already encounters serious difficulties, and architectural structure hardly suitable for copying, because the image here is so closely fused with its material basis that the very natural environment of the latter becomes a unique figurative quality.) This appeal of X. o. to the perceiving consciousness is an important condition of its historical. life, its potential infinity. In X. o. There is always an area of the unspoken, and understanding-interpretation is therefore preceded by understanding-reproduction, a certain free imitation of internal. the artist’s facial expressions, creatively voluntary following her along the “grooves” of the figurative scheme (to this, in the most general outline , the doctrine of internal form as an “algorithm” of the image, developed by the Humboldtian-Potebnian school). Consequently, the image is revealed in each understanding-reproduction, but at the same time remains itself, because all realized and many unrealized interpretations are contained as intended creative work. an act of possibility, in the very structure of X. o. X. o. as individual integrity. Similarity of arts. works for a living organism were outlined by Aristotle, according to whom poetry should “...produce its characteristic pleasure, like a single and integral living being” (“On the Art of Poetry,” M., 1957, p. 118). It is noteworthy that the aesthetic. pleasure (“pleasure”) is considered here as a consequence of the organic nature of the arts. works. The idea of X. o. as an organic whole played a prominent role in later aesthetics. concepts (especially in German romanticism, in Schelling, in Russia - in A. Grigoriev). With this approach, the expediency of X. o. acts as its integrity: every detail lives thanks to its connection with the whole. However, any other integral structure (for example, a machine) determines the function of each of its parts, thereby leading them to a coherent unity. Hegel, as if anticipating criticism of later primitive functionalism, sees the difference. features of living integrity, animated beauty are that unity does not appear here as abstract expediency: “... members of a living organism receive... the appearance of randomness, that is, together with one member it is not given also the certainty of the other" ("Aesthetics", vol. 1, M., 1968, p. 135). Like this, arts. the work is organic and individual, i.e. all its parts are individuals, combining dependence on the whole with self-sufficiency, for the whole does not simply subjugate the parts, but endows each of them with a modification of its completeness. The hand on the portrait, the fragment of the statue produce independent art. impression precisely due to this presence of the whole in them. This is especially clear in the case of lit. characters who have the ability to live outside of their art. context. The "formalists" rightly pointed out that lit. the hero acts as a sign of plot unity. However, this does not prevent him from maintaining his individual independence from the plot and other components of the work. On the inadmissibility of dividing works of art into technically auxiliary and independent ones. moments spoke to many. Russian critics formalism (P. Medvedev, M. Grigoriev). In arts. the work has a constructive framework: modulations, symmetry, repetitions, contrasts, carried out differently at each level. But this framework is, as it were, dissolved and overcome in the dialogically free, ambiguous communication of the parts of the X. o.: in the light of the whole, they themselves become sources of luminosity, throwing reflexes at each other, the inexhaustible play of which gives rise to internal. the life of figurative unity, its animation and actual infinity. In X. o. there is nothing accidental (i.e., extraneous to its integrity), but there is also nothing uniquely necessary; the antithesis of freedom and necessity is “removed” here in the harmony inherent in X. o. even when he reproduces the tragic, cruel, terrible, absurd. And since the image is ultimately fixed in the “dead”, inorganic. material - there is a visible revival of inanimate matter (the exception is the theater, which deals with living “material” and all the time strives, as it were, to go beyond the scope of art and become a vital “action”). The effect of “transforming” inanimate into animate, mechanical into organic - Ch. source of aesthetic the pleasure delivered by art, and the prerequisite for its humanity. Some thinkers believed that the essence of creativity lies in the destruction, overcoming the material with form (F. Schiller), in the violence of the artist over the material (Ortega y Gaset). L. Vygotsky in the spirit of the influential in the 1920s. Constructivism compares a work of art with a flyer. apparatus heavier than air (see “Psychology of Art”, M., 1968, p. 288): the artist conveys what is moving through what is at rest, what is airy through what is ponderous, what is visible through what is audible, or what is beautiful through what is terrible, what is high through what is low, etc. Meanwhile, the artist’s “violence” over his material consists in liberating this material from mechanical external relations and clutches. The freedom of the artist is consistent with the nature of the material so that the nature of the material becomes free, and the freedom of the artist is involuntary. As has been noted many times, in perfect poetic works the verse reveals in the alternation of vowels such an immutable inner. compulsion, edge makes it similar to natural phenomena. those. in general language phonetic. In the material, the poet releases such an opportunity, forcing him to follow him. According to Aristotle, the realm of claim is not the realm of the factual and not the realm of the natural, but the realm of the possible. Art understands the world in its semantic perspective, re-creating it through the prism of the arts inherent in it. opportunities. It gives specificity. arts reality. Time and space in art, in contrast to empirical. time and space, do not represent cuts from a homogeneous time or space. continuum. Arts time slows down or speeds up depending on its content, each time moment of the work has a special significance depending on its correlation with the “beginning”, “middle” and “end”, so that it is assessed both retrospectively and prospectively. Thus the arts. time is experienced not only as fluid, but also as spatially closed, visible in its completeness. Arts space (in spatial science) is also formed, regrouped (condensed in some parts, sparse in others) by its filling and therefore coordinated within itself. The frame of the picture, the pedestal of the statue do not create, but only emphasize the autonomy of the artistic architect. space, being an auxiliary means of perception. Arts space seems to be fraught with temporal dynamics: its pulsation can be revealed only by moving from general view to a gradual multi-phase consideration in order to then return to holistic coverage. In arts. phenomenon, the characteristics of real being (time and space, rest and movement, object and event) form such a mutually justified synthesis that they do not need any motivations or additions from the outside. Arts idea (meaning X. o.). The analogy between X. o. and a living organism has its own limit: X. o. as organic integrity is, first of all, something significant, formed by its meaning. Art, being image-making, necessarily acts as meaning-making, as the constant naming and renaming of everything that a person finds around and within himself. In art, the artist always deals with expressive, intelligible existence and is in a state of dialogue with it; “For a still life to be created, the painter and the apple must collide with each other and correct each other.” But for this, the apple must become a “talking” apple for the painter: many threads must extend from it, weaving it into a holistic world. Every work of art is allegorical, since it speaks about the world as a whole; it does not “investigate” s.-l. one aspect of reality, and specifically represents on its behalf in its universality. In this it is close to philosophy, which also, unlike science, is not of a sectoral nature. But, unlike philosophy, art is not systemic in nature; in particular and specific. in the material it gives a personified Universe, which at the same time is the artist’s personal Universe. It cannot be said that the artist depicts the world and, “in addition,” expresses his attitude towards it. In such a case, one would be an annoying hindrance to the other; we would be interested in either the fidelity of the image (naturalistic concept of art), or the meaning of the individual (psychological approach) or ideological (vulgar sociological approach) “gesture” of the author. Rather, it’s the other way around: the artist (in sounds, movements, object forms) gives expression. being, on which his personality was inscribed and depicted. How the expression will express. being X. o. there is allegory and knowledge through allegory. But as an image of the personal “handwriting” of the artist X. o. there is a tautology, a complete and only possible correspondence with the unique experience of the world that gave birth to this image. As the personified Universe, the image has many meanings, for it is the living focus of many positions, both one and the other, and the third at once. As a personal Universe, the image has a strictly defined evaluative meaning. X. o. – the identity of allegory and tautology, ambiguity and certainty, knowledge and evaluation. The meaning of the image, the arts. An idea is not an abstract proposition, but it has become concrete, embodied in organized feelings. material. On the way from concept to embodiment of art. an idea never goes through the stage of abstraction: as a plan, it is a concrete point of dialogue. the artist's encounter with existence, i.e. prototype (sometimes a visible imprint of this initial image is preserved in the finished work, for example, the prototype of the “cherry orchard” left in the title of Chekhov’s play; sometimes the prototype-plan is dissolved in the completed creation and is only perceptible indirectly). In arts. In a plan, thought loses its abstraction, and reality loses its silent indifference to people. "opinion" about her. From the very beginning, this grain of the image is not only subjective, but subjective-objective and vital-structural, and therefore has the ability to spontaneously develop, to self-clarify (as evidenced by the numerous confessions of people of art). The prototype as a “formative form” draws into its orbit all new layers of material and shapes them through the style it sets. The author's conscious and volitional control is to protect this process from random and opportunistic moments. The author, as it were, compares the work he is creating with a certain standard and removes the unnecessary, fills the voids, and eliminates the gaps. We usually acutely feel the presence of such a “standard” “by contradiction” when we assert that in such and such a place or in such and such a detail the artist did not remain faithful to his plan. But at the same time, as a result of creativity, a truly new thing arises, something that has never happened before, and therefore. There is essentially no “standard” for the work being created. Contrary to Plato’s view, sometimes popular among the artists themselves (“It’s in vain, artist, you imagine that you are the creator of your own creations...” - A.K. Tolstoy), the author does not simply reveal art in the image. idea, but creates it. The prototype-plan is not a formalized reality that accumulates material shells on itself, but rather a channel of imagination, " magic crystal", through which the distance of the future creation is "vaguely" distinguished. Only upon completion of the artistic work, the uncertainty of the plan turns into a multi-valued certainty of meaning. Thus, at the stage of the concept of the artistic idea appears as a certain concrete impulse that arose from " collisions" of the artist with the world, at the stage of embodiment - as a regulatory principle, at the stage of completion - as a semantic "facial expression" of the microcosm created by the artist, his living face, which at the same time is the face of the artist himself. Varying degrees of regulatory power of artistic ideas in combination With different materials gives various types of X. o. A particularly energetic idea can, as it were, subjugate its own art. realization, to “acquaint” it to such an extent that the objective forms will be barely outlined, as is inherent in certain varieties of symbolism. A meaning that is too abstract or indefinite can only conditionally come into contact with objective forms, without transforming them, as is the case in naturalistic literature. allegories, or mechanically connecting them, as is typical of allegorical-magic. fantasy of ancient mythologies. The meaning is typical. the image is specific, but limited by specificity; a characteristic feature of an object or person here becomes a regulatory principle for constructing an image that fully contains its meaning and exhausts it (the meaning of Oblomov’s image is “Oblomovism”). At the same time, a characteristic feature can subjugate and “signify” all the others to such an extent that the type develops into a fantastic one. grotesque. In general, the diverse types of X. o. depend on the arts. self-awareness of the era and are modified internally. laws of each claim. Lit.: Schiller F., Articles on Aesthetics, trans. [from German], [M.–L.], 1935; Goethe V., Articles and thoughts about art, [M.–L.], 1936; Belinsky V.G., The idea of art, Complete. collection soch., vol. 4, M., 1954; Lessing G.E., Laocoon..., M., 1957; Herder I. G., Izbr. op., [trans. from German], M.–L., 1959, p. 157–90; Schelling F.V., Philosophy of Art, [trans. from German], M., 1966; Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky D., Language and Art, St. Petersburg, 1895; ?fucking?. ?., From notes on the theory of literature, X., 1905; his, Thought and Language, 3rd ed., X., 1913; by him, From lectures on the theory of literature, 3rd ed., X., 1930; Grigoriev M. S. Form and content of literary art. proizv., M., 1929; Medvedev P.N., Formalism and formalists, [L., 1934]; Dmitrieva N., Image and Word, [M., 1962]; Ingarden R., Studies in Aesthetics, trans. from Polish, M., 1962; Theory of literature. Basic problems in history lighting, book 1, M., 1962; ?Alievsky P.V., Arts. prod., in the same place, book. 3, M., 1965; Zaretsky V., Image as information, "Vopr. Literary", 1963, No. 2; Ilyenkov E., About aesthetics. the nature of fantasy, in: Vopr. aesthetics, vol. 6, M., 1964; Losev?., Artistic canons as a problem of style, ibid.; Word and image. Sat. Art., M., 1964; Intonation and music. image. Sat. Art., M., 1965; Gachev G.D., Content of the artist. forms Epic. Lyrics. Theater, M., 1968; Panofsky E., "Idea". Ein Beitrag zur Begriffsgeschichte der ?lteren Kunsttheorie, Lpz.–V., 1924; his, Meaning in the visual arts, . Garden City (N.Y.), 1957; Richards?. ?., Science and poetry, N. Y., ; Pongs H., Das Bild in der Dichtung, Bd 1–2, Marburg, 1927–39; Jonas O., Das Wesen des musikalischen Kunstwerks, W., 1934; Souriau E., La correspondance des arts, P., ; Staiger E., Grundbegriffe der Poetik, ; his, Die Kunst der Interpretation, ; Heidegger M., Der Ursprung des Kunstwerkes, in his book: Holzwege, , Fr./M., ; Langer S. K., Feeling and form. A theory of art developed from philosophy in a new key, ?. Y., 1953; hers, Problems of art, ?. Y., ; Hamburger K., Die Logik der Dichtung, Stuttg., ; Empson W., Seven types of ambiguity, 3 ed., N. Y., ; Kuhn H., Wesen und Wirken des Kunstwerks, M?nch., ; Sedlmayr H., Kunst und Wahrheit, , 1961; Lewis C. D., The poetic image, L., 1965; Dittmann L., Stil. Symbol. Struktur, M?nch., 1967. I. Rodnyanskaya. Moscow.
In terms of the structure of a literary creation, the artistic image is the most important compound element its forms. An image is a pattern on the “body” of an aesthetic object; the main “transmitting” gear of the artistic mechanism, without which the development of action and understanding of meaning is impossible. If a work of art is the basic unit of literature, then an artistic image is the basic unit of a literary creation. Using artistic images, the object of reflection is modeled. The image expresses landscape and interior objects, events and actions of the characters. The author's intention appears in the images; the main, general idea is embodied.
Thus, in A. Green’s extravaganza “Scarlet Sails,” the main theme of love in the work is reflected in the central artistic image - scarlet sails, meaning a sublime romantic feeling. The artistic image is the sea, into which Assol peers, waiting for a white ship; the neglected, uncomfortable Menners tavern; a green bug crawling along a line with the word “look”. The artistic image (the image of betrothal) is Gray's first meeting with Assol, when the young captain puts his betrothed's ring on his finger; Gray's ship equipment scarlet sails; drinking wine that no one should have drunk, etc.
The artistic images we have highlighted: the sea, a ship, scarlet sails, a tavern, a bug, wine - these are the most important details of the form of the extravaganza. Thanks to these details, A. Green’s work begins to “live.” It gets the main ones characters(Assol and Gray), the place of their meeting (the sea), as well as its condition (a ship with scarlet sails), the means (a look with the help of a bug), the result (betrothal, wedding).
With the help of images, the writer affirms one simple truth. It is about “doing so-called miracles with your own hands.”
In the aspect of literature as an art form, the artistic image is the central category (as well as a symbol) of literary creativity. It acts as a universal form of mastering life and at the same time a method of comprehending it. In artistic images it is comprehended social activity, specific historical cataclysms, human feelings and characters, spiritual aspirations. In this aspect, an artistic image does not simply replace the phenomenon it denotes or generalize its characteristic features. It tells about the real facts of life; knows them in all their diversity; reveals their essence. Models of existence are drawn artistically, unconscious intuitions and insights are verbalized. It becomes epistemological; paves the way to the truth, the prototype (in this sense, we are talking about the image of something: the world, the sun, the soul, God).
At the level of origin, two large groups of artistic images are distinguished: original and traditional.
Author's images, as the name itself suggests, are born in creative laboratory the author “for the needs of the day”, “here and now”. They grow from the artist’s subjective vision of the world, from his personal assessment of the events, phenomena or facts depicted. The author's images are specific, emotional and individual. They are close to the reader in their reality, human nature. Anyone can say: “Yes, I saw (experienced, “felt”) something similar.” At the same time, the author's images are ontological (that is, they have a close connection with existence, grow out of it), typical and therefore always relevant. On the one hand, these images embody the history of states and peoples, comprehend socio-political cataclysms (such as Gorky's petrel, which predicts and at the same time calls for revolution). On the other hand, they create a gallery of inimitable artistic types that remain in the memory of mankind as real models of existence.
So, for example, the image of Prince Igor from “The Lay” models the spiritual path of a warrior who is freed from base vices and passions. Image Pushkinsky Evgeniy Onegin discovers the “idea” of the nobility disappointed in life. But the image of Ostap Bender from the works of I. Ilf and E. Petrov personifies the path of a person obsessed with an elementary thirst for material wealth.
Traditional images borrowed from the treasury of world culture. They reflect the eternal truths of the collective experience of people in various spheres of life (religious, philosophical, social). Traditional images are static, hermetic and therefore universal. They are used by writers for an artistic and aesthetic “breakthrough” into the transcendental and transsubjective. The main goal of traditional images is a radical spiritual and moral restructuring of the reader’s consciousness according to the “heavenly” model. Numerous archetypes and symbols serve this purpose.
G. Sienkiewicz uses the traditional image (symbol) very revealingly in the novel “Quo wadis”. This symbol is a fish, which in Christianity represents God, Jesus Christ and Christians themselves. The fish is drawn on the sand by Lygia, a beautiful Pole with whom the main character, Marcus Vinicius, falls in love. The fish is drawn first by the spy and then by the martyr Chilon Chilonides, looking for Christians.
Ancient christian symbol fish gives the writer’s narrative not only a special historical flavor. The reader, following the heroes, also begins to think about the meaning of this symbol and mysteriously comprehend Christian theology.
In terms of functional purpose, there are images of heroes, images (pictures) of nature, images of things and images of details.
Finally, in the aspect of construction (rules of allegory, transfer of meanings), artistic images-symbols and tropes are distinguished.
Related information.
Poetic art is thinking in images. The image is the most important and directly perceived element of a literary work. The image is the focus of ideological and aesthetic content and verbal form its incarnation.
The term “artistic image” is of relatively recent origin. It was first used by J. V. Goethe. However, the problem of the image itself is one of the ancient ones. The beginning of the theory of artistic image is found in Aristotle’s teaching on “mimesis”. The term “image” received wide literary use after the publication of the works of G. W. F. Hegel. The philosopher wrote: “We can designate a poetic representation as figurative, since it puts before our gaze, instead of an abstract essence, its concrete reality.”
G. W. F. Hegel, reflecting on the connection between art and the ideal, addressed the issue of the transformative impact of artistic creativity on the life of society. “Lectures on Aesthetics” contains a detailed theory of the artistic image: aesthetic reality, artistic measure, ideological, originality, uniqueness, universal significance, dialectic of content and form.
In modern literary criticism, the artistic image is understood as the reproduction of life phenomena in a specific individual form. The purpose and purpose of the image is to convey the general through the individual, not by imitating reality, but by reproducing it.
The word is the main means of creation poetic image in literature. Artistic image reveals the clarity of an object or phenomenon.
The image has the following parameters: objectivity, semantic generality, structure. Subject images are static and descriptive. These include images of details and circumstances. Semantic images are divided into two groups: individual - created by the talent and imagination of the author, reflecting the patterns of life in a certain era and in a certain environment; and images that transcend the boundaries of their era and acquire universal significance.
Images that go beyond the work and often beyond the work of one writer include images that are repeated in a number of works by one or more authors. Images characteristic of an entire era or nations, and archetype images, contain the most stable “formulas” of human imagination and self-knowledge.
The artistic image is associated with the problem of artistic consciousness. When analyzing an artistic image, it should be taken into account that literature is one of the forms public consciousness and a variety of practical-spiritual human activity.
An artistic image is not something static; it is distinguished by its procedural nature. IN different eras the image is subject to certain specific and genre requirements that develop artistic traditions. At the same time, the image is a sign of unique creative individuality.
An artistic image is a generalization of elements of reality, objectified in sensory-perceptible forms, which are created according to the laws of the type and genre of a given art, in a certain individual creative manner.
The subjective, individual and objective are present in the image in an inextricable unity. Reality is a material that is subject to knowledge, a source of facts and sensations, exploring which creative person studies himself and the world, embodies in his work his ideological and moral ideas about the real and the proper.
An artistic image, reflecting life trends, is at the same time an original discovery and creation of new meanings that did not exist before. Literary image correlates with life phenomena, and the generalization contained in it becomes a kind of model for the reader’s understanding of his own problems and conflicts of reality.
A holistic artistic image also determines the originality of the work. Characters, events, actions, metaphors are subordinated in accordance with the original intention of the author and in the plot, composition, main conflicts, theme, and idea of the work they express the nature of the artist’s aesthetic attitude to reality.
The process of creating an artistic image, first of all, is a strict selection of material: the artist takes the most characteristic features of what is depicted, discards everything random, giving development, enlarging and sharpening certain features to complete clarity.
V. G. Belinsky wrote in the article “Russian Literature in 1842”: “Now by “ideal” we mean not an exaggeration, not a lie, not a childish fantasy, but a fact of reality, such as it is; but a fact not copied from reality, but carried through the poet’s fantasy, illuminated by the light of general (and not exclusive, particular and accidental) meaning, elevated to the pearl of consciousness and therefore more similar to itself, more true to itself, than the most slavish copy with really true to its original. Thus, in a portrait made by a great painter, a person looks more like himself than even his reflection in a daguerreotype, because great painter sharp features brought to light everything that is hidden inside such a person and that, perhaps, is a secret for this person himself.”
The persuasiveness of a literary work is not limited and not limited to the fidelity of the reproduction of reality and the so-called “truth of life.” It is determined by the originality of creative interpretation, the modeling of the world in forms, the perception of which creates the illusion of comprehension of the human phenomenon.
The artistic images created by D. Joyce and I. Kafka are not identical to the reader’s life experience; they are difficult to read as complete coincidence with the phenomena of reality. This “non-identity” does not mean a lack of correspondence between the content and structure of the writers’ works and allows us to say that the artistic image is not a living original of reality, but represents a philosophical and aesthetic model of the world and man.
In characterizing the elements of an image, their expressive and visual capabilities are essential. By “expressiveness” we should mean the ideological and emotional orientation of the image, and by “pictoriality” its sensory existence, which turns the subjective state and assessment of the artist into artistic reality. The expressiveness of an artistic image cannot be reduced to the transfer of the subjective experiences of the artist or hero. It expresses the meaning of certain psychological states or relationships. The figurativeness of the artistic image allows you to recreate objects or events in visual clarity. The expressiveness and figurativeness of an artistic image are inseparable at all stages of its existence - from the initial concept to the perception of the completed work. The organic unity of figurativeness and expressiveness relates fully to the holistic image-system; individual image-elements are not always bearers of such unity.
It is worth noting the socio-genetic and epistemological approaches to the study of the image. The first establishes the social needs and reasons that give rise to certain contents and functions of the image, and the second analyzes the correspondence of the image to reality and is associated with the criteria of truth and veracity.
IN literary text the concept of “author” is expressed in three main aspects: the biographical author, whom the reader knows about as a writer and person; the author “as the embodiment of the essence of the work”; the image of the author, similar to other images-characters of the work, is a subject of personal generalization for each reader.
The definition of the artistic function of the image of the author was given by V. V. Vinogradov: “The image of the author is not just a subject of speech, most often it is not even named in the structure of the work. This is a concentrated embodiment of the essence of the work, uniting the entire system of speech structures of the characters in their relationship with the narrator, storyteller or storytellers and through them being the ideological and stylistic concentration, the focus of the whole.”
It is necessary to distinguish between the image of the author and the narrator. The narrator is a special artistic image, invented by the author, like everyone else. He has the same degree artistic convention, which is why it is unacceptable to identify the narrator with the author. There may be several narrators in a work, and this once again proves that the author is free to hide “under the mask” of one or another narrator (for example, several narrators in “Belkin’s Tales”, in “Hero of Our Time”). The image of the narrator in F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “Demons” is complex and multifaceted.
The narrative style and specificity of the genre also determine the image of the author in the work. As Yu. V. Mann writes, “each author shines in the rays of his genre.” In classicism, the author of a satirical ode is an accuser, and in an elegy, he is a sad singer, and in the life of a saint, he is a hagiographer. When the so-called period of “genre poetics” ends, the image of the author takes on realistic features, receives expanded emotional and semantic meaning. “Instead of one, two, or several colors, there is a variegated multicolor, and iridescent,” says Yu. Mann. Author's digressions appear - this is how direct communication between the creator of the work and the reader is expressed.
The formation of the novel genre contributed to the development of the narrator image. In a baroque novel, the narrator acts anonymously and does not seek contact with the reader; in a realistic novel, the author-narrator is a full-fledged hero of the work. In many ways, the main characters of the works express the author’s concept of the world and embody the writer’s experiences. M. Cervantes, for example, wrote: “Idle reader! You can believe without an oath how I would like this book, the fruit of my understanding, to represent the height of beauty, grace and profundity. But it is not in my power to abolish the law of nature, according to which every living creature gives birth to its own kind.”
And yet, even when the heroes of a work are personifications of the author’s ideas, they are not identical to the author. Even in the genres of confession, diary, and notes, one should not look for the adequacy of the author and the hero. Conviction of J.-J. Rousseau's point is that autobiography is perfect shape introspection and exploration of the world has been questioned literature of the 19th century century.
Already M. Yu. Lermontov doubted the sincerity of the confessions expressed in confession. In the preface to Pechorin’s Journal, Lermontov wrote: “Rousseau’s confession already has the drawback that he read it to his friends.” Without a doubt, every artist strives to make the image vivid and the subject fascinating, and therefore pursues the “vainglorious desire to arouse participation and surprise.”
A.S. Pushkin generally denied the need for confession in prose. In a letter to P. A. Vyazemsky regarding Byron’s lost notes, the poet wrote: “He (Byron) confessed to his poems, involuntarily, carried away by the delight of poetry. In cold-blooded prose, he would lie and deceive, sometimes trying to show off his sincerity, sometimes sullying his enemies. He would have been caught, just as Rousseau was caught, and then malice and slander would have triumphed again... You don’t love anyone as much, you don’t know anyone as well as yourself. The subject is inexhaustible. But it's difficult. It’s possible not to lie, but to be sincere is a physical impossibility.”
Introduction to literary criticism (N.L. Vershinina, E.V. Volkova, A.A. Ilyushin, etc.) / Ed. L.M. Krupchanov. - M, 2005
Artistic image- a generalized reflection of reality in the form of a specific individual phenomenon.
For example, in such vivid artistic images of world literature as Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet, Gobsek, Faust, etc., the typical features of a person, his feelings, passions, desires are conveyed in a generalized form.
The artistic image is visual, i.e. accessible to, and sensual, i.e. directly affecting human feelings. Therefore, we can say that the image acts as a visual-figurative recreation real life. At the same time, it is necessary to keep in mind that the author of an artistic image - a writer, poet, painter or performer - is not simply trying to repeat, to “double” life. He complements it, conjectures it according to artistic laws.
Unlike scientific activity artistic creativity deep subjectively and is of an author's nature. Therefore, in every picture, in every verse, in every role, the personality of the creator is imprinted. A particularly significant role imagination, fantasy, fiction, which is unacceptable in science. However, in some cases, reality can be reproduced much more adequately by means of art than by using strict scientific methods. For example, human feelings - love, hatred, affection - cannot be recorded in strict scientific concepts, and masterpieces of classical literature or music successfully cope with this task.
Plays an important role in art freedom of creativity— the opportunity to conduct artistic experiments and model life situations, without limiting oneself to the accepted framework of prevailing scientific theories or everyday ideas about the world. In this regard, the fantasy genre is especially indicative, offering the most unexpected models of reality. Some science fiction writers of the past, such as Jules Verne (1828-1905) and Karel Capek (1890-1938), were able to predict many of the achievements of our time.
Finally, if we look at it from different angles (his psyche, language, social behavior), then the artistic image represents an indissoluble integrity. A person in art is presented as a whole in all the diversity of his characteristics.
The most striking artistic images replenish the treasury cultural heritage humanity, influencing the consciousness of humanity.
In the generally accepted understanding, an artistic image is a sensory expression of a term that defines reality, the reflection of which is in the form of a specific life phenomenon. An artistic image is born in the imagination of a person involved in art. The sensual expression of any idea is the fruit of hard work, creative fantasies and thinking based only on your life experience. The artist creates a certain image, which is an imprint in his consciousness of a real object, and embodies everything in paintings, books or films, reflects the creator’s own vision of an idea.
An artistic image can only be born when the author knows how to operate with his impressions, which will form the basis of his work.
The psychological process of sensually expressing an idea is the imagination final result labor even before the creative process begins. Operating with fictitious images helps, even in the absence of the necessary completeness of knowledge, to realize your dream in the created work.
Artistic image created creative person, characterized by sincerity and reality. Characteristic feature art is skill. It is this that allows you to say something new, and this is only possible through experiences. Creation must go through the feelings of the author and be suffered by him.
The artistic image in each field of art has its own structure. It is determined by the criteria expressed in the work spiritual origin, as well as the specifics of the material that is used to create the creation. Thus, the artistic image in music is intonational, in architecture - static, in painting - pictorial, and in literary genre- dynamic. In one it is embodied in the image of a person, in another - in nature, in the third - in an object, in the fourth it appears as a combination of connections between the actions of people and their environment.
The artistic representation of reality lies in the unity of the rational and emotional sides. The ancient Indians believed that art owes its birth to those feelings that a person could not keep within himself. However, not every image can be classified as artistic. Sensual expressions must carry specific aesthetic purposes. They reflect beauty surrounding nature and the animal world, capture the perfection of man and his existence. An artistic image should testify to beauty and affirm the harmony of the world.
The sensual incarnations are a symbol of creativity. Artistic images act as a universal category for understanding life, and also contribute to its comprehension. They have properties that are unique to them. These include:
Typicality arising from a close relationship with life;
Liveliness or organicity;
Holistic orientation;
Understatement.
The building materials of the image are the following: the personality of the artist himself and the realities of the surrounding world. The sensual expression of reality combines the subjective and objective principles. It consists of reality, which is processed by the creative thought of the artist, reflecting his attitude to what is depicted.
