ISSN 2411-0795
ISSN 2411-0795
Keywords: Soloviev V.S., Imperial Moscow University, V.G. Belinsky, N.G. Chernyshevsky, Moscow University, Russian aesthetics, idealism, positivism, theurgy, idealistic aesthetics, natural school, beauty
Bogomolov A.G. Positivism and Idealism: Two Tendecies in Russian Aesthetics in the Second Half of the 19th Century. // Theory and History of Art. 2024. N 3/4, p.159–182
This article focuses on two aesthetic schools, which produced the most significant impact on the development of aesthetics in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. During this period in Russia aesthetics was being actively formed based on a national foundation; the tendency to be developed as a separate tradition, different from the Western European one. In this regard, it is usually noted that a heated discussion took place between the Slavophiles and Westerners, who were ideologically opposed. Among such issues were the attitude to national aesthetics and the viewpoint on art theory. Professors and graduates of Imperial Moscow University took an active part in this discussion.
This article proposes to look at the history of Russian aesthetic thought through the prism of two directions: positivism (positive aesthetics) and idealism. Within the framework of this task, an overview mainly of two representatives of both positions is given. On the one hand, the ideas of N.G. Chernyshevsky, set out in his dissertation "Aesthetic relations of art to reality", on the other — the views of V.S. Solovyov, a graduate and associate professor of Moscow University, expressed in several late texts on aesthetics of the late 80s — early 90s of the XIX century. The article used a historical and comparative method.
As a result, the article concludes that, despite a number of externally obvious fundamental ideological differences characterizing both directions, in Russian aesthetic thought one can find examples of their convergence on the basis of the goals and objectives that Russian philosophers set for art as a social practice. The same time, it is concluded that almost all aesthetic trends of the second half of the 19th century were generally critical towards German philosophy idealism, which used to be popular in Russia in the 1820s and 1830s.