The quiet life of things. Bringing a still life to life

Types and genres visual arts
a little theory​

Types of fine arts:

• Architecture
• Painting
• Graphic arts
• Sculpture
• Arts and crafts
• Theatrical and decorative arts
• Design

Genres of fine art:

Portrait(portrait - French older - portraire - means to depict) - this is a type of fine art dedicated to the depiction of a specific person or group of people - an outwardly individually similar representation of a person on canvas or paper, with the purpose of presenting him to others, showing character, inner world, life the value of what is depicted.

Scenery(French Paysage, from pays - country, area), in painting and photography - a type of picture depicting nature or some area (forest, field, mountains, grove, village, city). Landscape (French paysage, from pays - country, locality) is a genre of fine art in which the main subject of the image is the terrain, natural or man-transformed nature: urban and rural landscapes, views of cities, buildings.

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Still life(French nature morte - lit. “dead nature”) - the image of inanimate objects in the fine arts, in contrast to portrait, genre, historical and landscape themes.

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Historical genre works of art that reflect real historical characters or events.

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Mythological genre(from the gr. muthos - legend) - a genre of fine art dedicated to events and heroes about which the myths of ancient peoples tell. All peoples of the world have myths, legends, and traditions, and they constitute the most important source artistic creativity.

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Battle genre works of art that reflect military episodes. An artist who writes on battle themes is called a battle painter.

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Everyday genre works that reflect episodes from Everyday life of people.

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Marina works of art that depict the sea. An artist who paints the sea is called a marine painter.

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Animalistic genre works of art that depict animals.

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Composition(Latin compositio - compilation, composition) - compilation, connection, combination various parts into a single whole in accordance with some idea. In the visual arts, composition is the construction work of art, determined by its content, nature and purpose, the need to convey the main idea, the idea of ​​the work as clearly and convincingly as possible.

What types and genres of fine art do you like? ​

It seems that distinguishing between animate and inanimate objects is indecently simple: it’s like a game of animate and inanimate. But those who are guided by this principle are very mistaken. Animacy, as, accordingly, inanimateness - separate category in the characteristics has nothing to do with external signs some object. How can we explain the fact that, according to the rules, the word “corpse” is considered inanimate, and “dead” is considered animate? Acting at random? In no case! We'll figure out.

For the little ones

Let's start with the very basics. Animate and inanimate objects answer different questions - "who" and "what" respectively. We can say that asking a question is the most primitive, albeit very unreliable, way of defining this category. Usually children are introduced to it in the first or second grade. To practice this method, you can fill in the gaps in the following text with your students:

« The great (what?) flows in sleepy oblivion. Around (what?) and (what?). (Who?) slowly moved his skis, shook (what?) his hats from his ears. (Who?) quickly made a hole, and (what?) began. Soon he pulled out a huge one (who?). His mirror (what?) glittered brightly in the sun" Words to be inserted: ice, scales, fisherman, frost, river, carp, snow, fishing. One word is repeated twice.

Grammar explanation

But it's worth moving on, right? How can you determine whether an object is animate or inanimate based on rules rather than intuition? The difference between these two categories lies in the different case forms of the nouns. Inanimate nouns have the same nominative and plural form, while animate nouns have the same genitive and accusative form in the same number. Of course, it will be much easier to understand with specific examples.

Let's take the noun " cat" We put it in plural“cats” and begin to decline: nominative - “ cats", genitive - " cats", accusative - " cats" - as you can see, the forms of the genitive and accusative cases coincide. Whereas for the noun " table", which to define this category turns into " tables" when declension " tables-tables-tables» the accusative and the accusative are the same

Thus, the rule allows dividing an animate and an inanimate object only by placing them in the plural and subsequent declension. And then, based on the coincidence of case forms, this category is determined.

Exceptions

But, as you know, there are very few rules in the Russian language that do not have any exceptions. Thus, it is sometimes possible to separate animate and inanimate objects logically. Yes, all living beings will be animate, but at the same time mythical creatures belong to the same category ( goblin-goblin-goblin-goblin) and names of toys ( matryoshka-matryoshka-matryoshka) - here you can still find a logical explanation. As well as card and chess suits ( pike-pike-pike, pawns-pawns-pawns), which even in their shapes do not fit this category.

Go ahead. Inanimate nouns, in turn, include large groups of people ( crowd-crowd-crowd) and some living organisms ( germs-germs-germs; microbes-germs-germs) - it is impossible to explain this phenomenon, you just have to accept and remember.

More difficulties

I would also like to add that animate and inanimate objects in the grammatical sense have their own characteristics. So, for example, for animate nouns male the forms of the genitive and accusative cases coincide and in singular: Anton-Anton-Anton, accountant-accountant-accountant However, this phenomenon is observed only in second declension nouns (compare: Dima-Dima-Dima, although this is also an animate masculine noun). So, in principle, this pattern can be used as another simple, albeit not very well-known, way of determining the category of animation in nouns.

I want to confuse

It is worth noting that in the Russian language there is an image of an inanimate object as an animate one. This is usually associated with the use of the word as an analogy to a living being: There is a mattress in the barn - Yes, it is a weak-willed mattress! or The Russian language is great and powerful! - This tongue (=captive) will tell us everything.

Exactly the same phenomenon occurs with the use of animate nouns as inanimate ones: IN blue sky a kite soars; The fighter began to descend. Here the category of animate and inanimate is determined based on the semantic content of the noun.

It is worth noting that, despite all the teachers’ demands to use the rules, most students continue to rely on intuition. As the above examples show, inner instinct is not always a reliable assistant in matters of philology. We can definitely say that names of professions, names of people by family affiliation, nationality and other groups will always be animate, and this also includes the names of animals. By the way, among the animate nouns, as some researchers believe, there are only masculine and female, whereas neuter gender- these are already inanimate, like all names of natural objects and other objects.

Practice for the little ones

Now that we have figured out how to distinguish one category of nouns from another, it is worth summarizing all of the above. Animate and inanimate objects for preschoolers, who still have no idea what cases are, differ in the questions of “who” and “what,” respectively. For practice, you can play “living-non-living” with your kids, where a word is called, and the child must determine what this object is.

Or another interesting task for junior schoolchildren- offer a number of animate nouns that can be turned into inanimate by replacing one letter: fox (linden), goat (braid), heron (drop).

I would like to finish the article on how to distinguish between animate and inanimate objects by saying that, no matter how simple this topic may seem, it is better not to tempt fate and not act at random, trusting your intuition. Taking a minute to check the category of a noun can sometimes change the way you think about it. So spare no effort and practice the great and mighty Russian language.

Still life(French nature morte - “dead nature”) - the image of inanimate objects in the fine arts, in contrast to portrait, genre, historical and landscape themes.

The starting point of early still life can be found in the 15th-16th centuries, when it was considered as part of a historical or genre composition. For a long time the still life maintained a connection with the religious painting, framing the figures of the Mother of God and Christ with garlands of flowers, and often located on the reverse side of the altar image (as in the “Triptych of the Marriage Family” by Rogier van der Weyden). Also in the 16th century, there was a widespread tradition of creating portraits with the image of a skull, for example, the portrait of Jean Carondel by Jan Gossaert (see vanitas). Early still lifes often served a utilitarian function, for example, as a decoration for cabinet doors or to disguise a wall niche.

Still life finally took shape as an independent genre of painting in the works of Dutch and Flemish artists of the 17th century. Objects in still life painting of this period often contain a hidden allegory - either of the transience of all earthly things and the inevitability of death (Vanitas), or, in a broader sense, of the Passion of Christ and the Resurrection. This meaning is conveyed through the use of objects - in most cases familiar and encountered in everyday life - which are endowed with additional symbolic meaning.

Dutch still life from the 17th century

The Dutch still life was a unique cultural phenomenon of the 17th century that influenced further development all European painting. “Little Dutchmen” reflected in their works the world of objects living their own quiet, frozen life. The term “frozen life” (German stilleven, German stilleben, English still-life) began to be used to designate the genre in the mid-17th century, initially in the Netherlands. Before this, artists called similar paintings, describing the plot: “Little Breakfast”, “Bouquet of Flowers”, “Hunting Trophy”, “Vanity of Vanities”. The main translation of this term found in the literature is “quiet, motionless life.”

Still life in Russian painting of the 18th-20th centuries

Still life as an independent genre of painting appeared in Russia in early XVIII century. The idea of ​​him was originally associated with the image of the gifts of the earth and sea, diverse world things surrounding a person. Until the end of the 19th century, still life, in contrast to portraits and historical paintings, was considered as a “lower” genre. It existed mainly as an educational production and was accepted only in a limited understanding as painting of flowers and fruits.

The beginning of the twentieth century was marked by the heyday of Russian still life painting, which for the first time gained equality among other genres. The desire of artists to expand the possibilities of visual language was accompanied by active searches in the field of color, form, and composition. All this was especially clearly manifested in still life. Enriched with new themes, images and artistic techniques, Russian still life developed unusually rapidly: in a decade and a half it goes from impressionism to abstract form-making.

In the 30-40s of the twentieth century, this development stopped, but since the mid-50s, still life has experienced a new rise in Soviet painting and from that time on it finally and firmly stands on a par with other genres.

Russian still life painters

• Khrutsky Ivan Fomich (1810-1885)
• Grabar Igor Emmanuilovich (1871-1960)
• Petrov-Vodkin Kuzma Sergeevich (1878-1939)
• Konchalovsky Pyotr Petrovich (1876-1956)
• Alberti Petr Filippovich (1913-1994)
• Antipova Evgenia Petrovna (1917-2009)
• Zakharov Sergey Efimovich (1900-1993)
• Kopytseva Maya Kuzminichna (1924-2005)
• Kotyants Gevork Vartanovich (1906-1996)
• Krestovsky Yaroslav Igorevich (1925-2003)
• Osipov Sergei Ivanovich (1915-1985)
• Pozdneev Nikolay Matveevich (1930-1978)
• Rumyantseva Kapitolina Alekseevna (1925-2002)
• Skuin Elena Petrovna (1909-1986)
• Teterin Viktor Kuzmich (1922-1991)
• Shamanov Boris Ivanovich (1931-2008)

Gianni Rodari and his “Cippolino” can be called a classic of “animating” objects. An outstanding project of our time is the program on the NTV channel “Culinary Stories”. By means of cinema, or, more simply, a moving picture, it is quite easy to evoke the necessary associations in the viewer. Still life is another matter. This is a static image of inanimate objects; we are not talking about movement here. Moreover, for the purity of the genre, it is extremely undesirable to add eyes, mouths, arms, legs to objects... How can you animate the inanimate?

And now about how I fell ill with the “animation” of objects. Creative people They usually say: “I can’t remember how it started...”. It all started for me with an acquaintance with the work of photographer Anatoly Kirillov from Samara. I liked his photography and asked him to talk about the technique of shooting using the “light brush”. Thus began our correspondence and my correspondence distance learning. Almost all of my subsequent still lifes were shot using a “light brush”. To put it briefly, this is a method of lighting, the essence of which is one flashlight with a narrow beam of light. When the camera is mounted on a tripod, focus is achieved with the general light turned on, then in complete darkness, each object is illuminated with a flashlight for 10 seconds or more. This method of setting light has become especially popular recently, when multiple exposures were replaced by adding layers of several takes in a graphics editor (in one of the next issues of the magazine we will talk about the light brush in more detail. - Ed.).
The idea to revive objects did not come immediately. At first there were various experiments with light, shooting techniques and staging. For example, this is how the work “Black Cherry” was born. In this work I used one wax candle as a light source. I poured the cherries onto a sheet of whatman paper and arranged them in a vertical “order” to obtain the effect of depth. The original photo was processed in a graphics editor: one red channel was taken and the contrast was increased.
In January 2004, I had the opportunity to look at still lifes by artists Alexander Buganin from Ufa and Dmitry Mikhailov from Tomsk in the Alla Bulyanskaya Gallery.
I really liked the way they depicted fruits, namely pears. So I decided to try shooting still lifes with pears. The varieties “Duchess” and “Conference” seemed to me the most interesting in form. Having bought pears at the nearest market, I started filming the first night. At night, in the kitchen, when the whole family was asleep, unaware of my nightly experiments, I composed compositions from fruits on a stool. First job worthy of attention viewer, which opened the series, was “Portrait of the Duchess Family.” Under the influence of A. Buganin’s painting “Letters to an Angel 7,” I came up with the idea of ​​​​building a non-standard panoramic composition for a still life. I arranged seven pears in one row, placing them on a meter-long piece of wood. The shot was deliberately framed as a panorama, with the fruits positioned in different positions to enhance the rhythm and follow the lines of the golden ratio.

In the process of composing the still life, I fell more and more in love with pears. I admired the variety of their forms, interesting, unique texture. While photographing them, I never ceased to be amazed at how photogenic these fruits are! Their matte surface conveyed transitions of light and shade, richness of texture, shape and volume like nothing else. The more I looked at the pears, the more convinced I became that they were perfect for being parodies of people. They are just as diverse in their shapes, they have an amazing resemblance to the figure of a full person: the same steep hips and narrow shoulders, the same beer belly and voluminous butt! And even each has its own character, just like people. And sometimes they pretend to be unique and individual. So pears became my favorite characters in creating a whole series of photographs.
The next work to be born was “Portrait of the Duchess couple and a girl playing with a wheel.” In this production, the main task for me was to convey the texture and shape of the pears as much as possible, and also, in conditions of compressed space and perspective, to evoke in the viewer a feeling of volume and depth. The idea was inspired by D. Mikhailov’s painting “Pear, Quince, Inkwell”. While working on my still life, I came up with a name for it. So I came up with the idea to animate the pears and make a series of photographs telling the story of the Duchess family as if it were an ordinary human family. Everything happened spontaneously, at the level of improvisation, and then grew into a long hobby.
From the very beginning, I decided to abandon the banal puppet theater with sewing on button eyes, attaching wire arms and matchstick legs.
I still had at my disposal a sufficient number of means of reviving any object. The main one is form. If you give free rein to your imagination and don’t set boundaries for your imagination, you can very successfully use light and shadow, texture, composition and color. More precisely, the absence of color.
Initially, I was faced with the problem of suppressing and removing colored digital noise. A simple solution came naturally: no color - no noise! The original was converted to monochrome by the channel mixer. The black and white image was then tinted to sepia. This way I was able to kill a whole boatload of birds with one stone! Removed the hated color noise, turning it into eye-pleasing graininess. It added expressiveness to the texture and focused the viewer’s attention on the shape of the pears, since the color distracted from the very essence: the character and “soul” of the object-character, which was expressed mainly through its shape. I also created the most suitable stylization of still lifes for photographs from the beginning of the last century or for silent films. In fact, the entire series with pears is a silent performance or a genre still life.
After such conclusions, I began to create a humorous mise-en-scene “How Mr. Duchess flirted with Mrs. Duchess. He really wanted to go fishing.”
Here everything was already like in the theater. First the idea for the scene was born. Then I selected the props and costumes. I chose the main characters. I thought about the composition. During the shooting process, I improvised with the light, initially deciding to achieve the effect of the rays of the morning sun falling on the scene. To convey the atmosphere of lightness and morning coolness, I draped the background with a gauze bandage. Fruits and other objects were illuminated by a flashlight - each individually. The background and gauze were illuminated with an off-camera flash installed parallel to the backdrop. Spoons and knitting needles played the role of props, supporting the semantic part. Thus, a scene familiar to everyone was staged, when a husband flirts with his wife and tries in every possible way to get permission to go fishing.
My passion found understanding among my loved ones, which could not be said about others. Sometimes it came to very ambiguous situations. How do you usually buy fruits at the market? “Please weigh me a kilo of pears. Just put the good ones on the table for me,” you say. But before I buy pears, I arrange a real casting. I rummage through the box for several minutes, choosing the most suitable character for the next production. As a result, instead of a kilogram, after a long and careful examination, I buy only 2 - 3 fruits. Of course, these manipulations cause, to put it mildly, great surprise, and sometimes even indignation, among fruit sellers. We had to change casting locations frequently so as not to increase their desire to call “03”.
The next task for me was to minimize the objects in the frame. So that unnecessary details do not distract the viewer or scatter his attention.
The most successful, in my opinion, is the work “The Mourners”.

Through ordinary objects, in this case fruits, I managed to convey emotions and mood. The photo turned out to be tragicomic. Despite the fact that only four ordinary pears and a candle are visible in the photo, their location, composition, light and long shadows create an atmosphere of mystery and sorrow, and the photograph is no longer perceived as an ordinary still life.
No graphics editor was used to create this photograph. The light of the candle, the role of which was played by a burning match, was filling, and the light of a small flashlight became the drawing light. Next, I decided to make the scene dynamic. Again with the help of the main characters - pears. Several productions were made. The task turned out to be very difficult. More successfully, I was able to convey the tension and dynamics in the work based on the song of the same name by V. Vysotsky “If a friend suddenly turned out to be...”. The background was a piece of black leatherette. The scene is simple: Climbers (or tourists) pull their comrade out of the abyss. No editing, no graphic editor intervention. Pears, clothesline, camera on a tripod, flashlight.
With good humor and a dose of self-irony, my nightly “Theater of Things” staged a production of “The Photographer”. In this still life I tried to convey the spirit of the times when the first Soviet rangefinder camera “Zorkiy” was no less popular than digital compact cameras today.
One day I was lucky to find one amazing one among the pears. Its shape simply perfectly matched the shape of the lower part of the female body. That same evening, a work in the nude style “My Favorite Model” was made, which subsequently caused a lot of controversy and heated discussions on the pages of the internet forum сlub.foto.ru.
This was immediately followed by the work “School Friends Ten Years Later.” It uses two large mother pears and their babies, small wild pears. The plot was conceived as sadly ironic: the years go by, over the years there are more worries, more children, and the figure gets fatter and takes on the shape of a pear.
Little wild pears found their way into another production: Gulliver. The role of Gulliver is played by a small pumpkin. After using it, I started thinking about creating animations for other fruits and vegetables.
If you can revive an object, then you can kill it. As a screenwriter, director, lighting designer and cameraman rolled into one, I had complete freedom actions and could easily stage any plot in his “Theater of Things.” Reflecting on the fact that in our lives there is not only joy, but also suffering, I decided to show one of the problems of our reality in my production “Sect”. The tragedy and torment of sectarians who find themselves at the mercy of fanatics and scammers are shown in this still life. Many people didn’t like the way I pierced the pears with knitting needles, but what to do - “ce la vie”...
In the dacha garden, I came across old huge seed cucumbers. I picked one of them up from the garden bed and was surprised to discover a whole geographical map on its surface. Small veins, cracks, a light brown background and a luxurious yellow varied pattern inspired me to the next experiment. I found a young small cucumber in the same bed and placed them side by side. The plot was born instantly: old and young, experienced and trainee, mature and green. All that remains is to find a “studio” in the village for staging a still life. It became a bathhouse, the bottom shelf played the role of a photo table, and several birch logs became stage decoration. I always had a tripod and a flashlight with me. One problem remains: how to make the cucumbers stand upright. I had to cheat a little. I placed them on several matches, which I then removed from the image in a graphic editor. You can see the result below. On the same day, in the village, the still life “The Gypsies Were Riding...” was staged. Bright zucchini and scarlet tomatoes have become the heroes of the new scene. The red color of the tomatoes reminded me of the scarlet shirts of the gypsies. To give the action dynamism, a zucchini of a certain shape was selected, and the tomatoes were arranged as if they were riding on it.
Look around - there is still so much around us interesting items. In each of them, if you look closely, you can see hidden potential. They all resemble something, can evoke certain emotions or play the desired role. I would like to wish all readers to fantasize more, develop their imagination and, at least sometimes, return to their childhood. May Inspiration never leave you!