Musicality of visual arts is one of the most attractive art criticism subjects, which touches upon the problem of synthesis and interaction of arts. Being already shown de facto in compositions by baroque artists, musicality was comprehended as an aesthetical and philosophical category during the Romantic era, and, as we know, first of all by German thinkers. Nevertheless, the French romanticism gave not less convincing variants of interpretation of this phenomenon: both in the theory (Charles Baudelaire), and in practice (Eugène Delacroix). In spite of the fact that, according to the standard representations, Delacroix didn’t create own school, his innovations affected his contemporary masters and artists of the subsequent generation.
The present article is devoted, firstly, to the aesthetic and philosophical principles which were formulated by Baudelaire and Delacroix in connection with painting of the latter and which constitute existence of the phenomenon of musicality in painting. Secondly, in focus of attention there is a special technique of painting, which helps the romantic to achieve the feature of musicality in his art. The components of this technique are the following: the innovative understanding of function of touche and brush stroke; the work with tone; the special methods of disclosure of compositional, structural and expressional opportunities of color. Each of the listed means of expression is interpreted in the dialectics of its constructive and spontaneous intensions allowing Delacroix his peculiar forming of the recipient’s viewing time. The feeling of mutual overflowing and dissolution of lines and color areas, their vector tendency to each other forces the view to follow gradually their passing in the determined direction; thereby the psychological effect of duration, formation, which is usual during music listening, is actualized. In Baudelaire’s texts similar effect gets the metaphoric name of a color melody, whereas the touches, strokes, lines and blurs are understood as the articulated integrity and deserve comparison with notes and chords “gravitating” to each other by the principle of complementary colors and “the rule of three tones”, which was opened by Delacroix.
Searches of the romantic artist in the sphere of musicality of painting were continued by two different masters: Vincent Van Gogh, who aggravated an expression of directed-beam touches, and Odilon Redon, whose works were born spontaneously, like musical improvisations. The article reveals the features of interpretation of Delacroix’s style musicality by Van Gogh and Redon. Both artists called Delacroix’s pictures symphonies, meaning the harmonious whole, which is built under the rules of color harmony, like some kind of con-sounding of colors. The author of the article tries to show, by what means Van Gogh and Redon create such symphonies.