ИСТИНА

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tea party was a common topic of the Russian paintings. This fact is explicable as tea is a one of the symbols of Russian Culture and the major element of the national way of life. When analysing the most well known Russian paintings of genre art of the second half of the nineteenth century (V. Perov, A. Korzukhin, M. Makovskiy, V. Vasnetsov) as well as the works of not very famous regional painters, one can easily trace the existence of two key tendencies in reflecting realities. One group of artists used depiction of tea parties to illustrate social injustice whereas the other group preferred to monitor social and cultural aspects of reality: presenting scenes from daily life of the representatives of different social groups (peasants, bourgeoisie and nobility). In parallel there certainly existed one more way to illustrate the topic: tea party as a space of family pleasures. Moreover, depicting tea parties the artist emphasised historical aspects behind everyday life issues. Economic problems, social and cultural transformations, ugliness of everyday existence became the main heroes of the canvases. Due to the peculiarities of the Russian national character it was impossible for Russian painters of that age to reflect on the pleasant or family aspects of everyday life as they were considered to be insignificant, trivial and banal. Each topic, even the most routine one, had to make people contemplate about global historical problems. And only in this way it could be valuable for arts.