Andrey G. Bogomolov

This article deals with the most significant aesthetic concepts and theoretical research in the field of art sciences developed during the first half of the XIX century by graduates and professors of the Imperial Moscow University. The main purpose of this paper is to introduce to those representatives of Moscow university scientific environment whose research actually laid the foundations of the national art science and aesthetics. This article pays attention only to the most significant representatives in the scientific sense and significant in the context of subsequent research.

During the first half of the XIX century Russian aesthetic thought followed the line of Western European concepts and theories. First of all it is about French classicism and its main follower at the Moscow University A.F. Merzlyakov. Since the 10s, at Imperial Moscow University the romantic theory of art and the "philosophy of identity" by Friedrich Schelling, a representative of German idealism, have been gaining popularity. Russian Schellingianism and Russian Romanticism in the person of such representatives as D.V. Venevitinov, N.I. Nadezhdin, S.P. Shevyrev have become the main source of reasoning about the nature of art and the essence of creativity for several decades. It is within the boundaries of the Romantic-Schellingian tradition that the idea of the specificity of Russian aesthetics path begins to form. The main method on the basis of which the national science of art begins to form is proclaimed the "historical method" (S.P. Shevyrev), and at the same time a gradual rejection of the theoretical and speculative idealistic approach begins.

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.

Last year, the collection of books on art studies in Russian was enriched by an important scientific research work: the monograph by Professor Alexander P. Lobodanov, Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Lomonosov Moscow State University, titled "Leonardo da Vinci: Set Designer, Musician, Artifex".

This paper outlines this work, serving both as a detailed commentary and a personal reflection on the insights derived from the study. The author of the article intentionally avoids the term 'review', as the idea and intent of the paper is not to review and critique, but to respond to the significant research, which offers a fresh perspective on the image of the great Italian master, which remains largely unknown to the Russian-speaking audience.

The purpose of the paper is not to clarify or expand upon the ideas presented in the monograph, but rather to broaden the discussion of specific topics raised within it. Due to the limited scope of this paper, only a few key issues will be selected, those that seemed major to the author's viewpoint.