Post-Romanticism (the second half of the 19th century). The area of positivism

This essay concludes the examination of the Classical Era by addressing its final period – Post-Romanticism (the second half of the 19th century). Although the entire 19th century is often called the Age of Romanticism, it was in the second half that the emphasis shifted towards realism: objectivity, restraint, and harmony became priorities in artistic creation. Without disappearing completely, Romantic sentiment and imagery took on a softened, episodic character, now perceived more as an anomaly than the norm, as had been typical of the previous period. The essay highlights the most important features that characterized the artistic process during Post-Romanticism: the self-affirmation of new forces, the struggle for the renewal of the world order; realism demanding ideational content, accuracy in depicting man and the world; the spread of critical realism (particularly in Russia) – denunciation of social evil, pain for the people, attention to everyday life, national self-analysis; the “Golden Age” of Russian literature, painting, and music; the democratization of art – turning to the life of broad segments of society, especially lower-class folk life; the prosaicization of literature, the retreat of poetry to the background; the emergence of new genres and forms: historicism in painting, symphonies-romances and concertos-romances in music, and the flourishing of the great novel; in architecture – the return to various styles (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism), a mixing of styles – eclecticism; a return to the traditions of national architecture; the formation of a kind of “façade”, the development of ceremonial and representational aspects of artistic creation (imposing architectural structures, formal portraits), as well as the celebration of the joys and lightness of life, beauty in the mundane, and pleasant leisure (Impressionism, the depiction of secular life in novels, the flourishing of ballet and operetta, and the waltz).