Art of the 1860s
The sixties formed a special and very important chapter in the history of Russian art and became the time when its main features were formed for many years to come, which was clearly manifested in the everyday genre. It not only experienced unprecedented flourishing, but defined its tasks with extraordinary clarity, challenged the basic canons of official academic painting and won wide recognition. Its essence was determined by the pathos of denunciation and direct criticism of the surrounding reality. The best artists practically carried out the main provisions of the aesthetic teaching of N.G. Chernyshevsky, who believed that art was designed to truthfully reflect life and pass judgment on its negative phenomena. All this naturally led to the spread of genre paintings, which received mainly civil, socially oriented content.
