Abstract: Among the representatives of the French artistic community in the second half of the 17th and 18th centuries, it became established tradition to complete one's education with a trip to Italy. The Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture sent its scholars to Rome, while French patrons could send young painters to the Eternal City at their own expense, which was especially relevant for provincial masters. Such was the case for the Provençal landscape painter Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789). However, he did not limit himself to the traditional educational voyage and spent nineteen years in Italy. The subject of this study is Vernet's work in relation to the characteristics of the development of the landscape genre in the Italian artistic environment. This includes his apprenticeship with masters living in Rome, his impressions from the works of past painters, and the professional environment of contemporary masters. Of course, the international nature of this environment is taken into account: the formation of the landscape genre in Italy was influenced not only by local, but primarily by French and also Flemish masters. The methodology of the research involves a combination of various methods used in art history and a sociological approach relevant to modern science. Although there are some studies in foreign scholarship dedicated to Vernet's time in Italy, they are not comprehensive. In the Russian-language academic space, works on Vernet's art in general are extremely rare, and regarding the Italian period, it remains almost completely overlooked by domestic researchers. This determines the relevance of this article, which is conceived as part of a two-part cycle that thoroughly investigates Vernet's stay and activities in Italy. The presented section examines for the first time in Russian how Vernet's dialogue was built with his predecessors and contemporaries, how professional experience was accumulated both in purely artistic and practical terms through familiarity with past works and personal communication with colleagues. The article reveals how Vernet's creative manner and career developed, as it was in Italy that his genre preferences were fully formed, his specialization in marine landscapes took shape, an individual style was established, and a circle of favored techniques and subjects was developed.

Abstract: The Age of Enlightenment was characterized by passionate scientific discussions, which involved not only scientists, but also representatives of various social circles. Sciences such as physics and astronomy are becoming a hobby and entertainment, scientific experiments are being conducted at home, friends and acquaintances are invited to conduct them, and amateur scientific courses are being organized. The article highlights how these processes were reflected in the painting of the XVIII century. Science is considered not only as a widespread subject in works of fine art, but also as a force capable of influencing artistic theory and practice. The author also studied the coexistence of scientific, religious and "mythological" thinking, since in this era all these forms remained relevant. A wide range of visual material is used, allowing us to see fascination and even admiration for science as a pan-European trend, to which Russia was also attached. The research methodology involves a combination of a sociological approach, as well as a variety of methods used in art criticism. The need to work with the original tests of the 18th century implied the use of source analysis. Researchers, especially foreign ones, have shown interest in the topic of interaction between art and science, but a full-scale study on this topic has not yet been carried out. Although this article does not pretend to be complete, it nevertheless touches on very significant and little-studied topics. The author managed to show the variety of aspects of reflecting the scientific sphere of the Enlightenment in the mirror of painting. It demonstrates how interest in science placed the painter in the context of constant searches and led to unexpected discoveries and results. For the first time, attention is drawn to the fact that many masters of that time were involved in the dialogue between art and science, much more numerous than it seems at first glance, and understanding scientific issues became a sign of the artist's integration into the European cultural environment, a symptom of his successful socialization.

Abstract: The article is dedicated to the problem of church patronage of fine arts in the 18th-century Paris. The predominance of secular art at the time did not lead to withdrawal between the Church and the artists who kept interacting with each other in the area of patronage, mainly of fine arts. In tracing documents and sources for this research the author deals with many academic aims, as follows: to classify church orders for the painters, to define its peculiarities, to value the meaning of church patronage for a painter at that time, to find a point of intersection of secular and religious artistic orders in the circumstances of a perpetual stream of luxurious secular orders. Meanwhile the author aims to distinguish different kinds of church assignments, such as small works for poor congregations, great altarpieces for Parisian cathedrals, paintings for monasteries usually based on sophisticated inventions (programs) understandable only by the ‘devoted’, and portraits of church leaders. Academic novelty of the article is determined by the exiguity of publications on the topic written by recent Russian researchers. In the meantime, French art historians are continually working with these problems and offer some of its solutions well-known to article’s author. The total investigation progress in this area is exemplified in the text by typical but semantically complicated works of art. The author of the article is led to a conclusion that church patronage took a considerable part of a Parisian artist’s carrier though church orders were not the main mover of artistic life of the time. Nevertheless religious painting was still an integral part of French fine art. During the 18th century the Church had been remaining to be a perpetual customer and a partner of painters settled in Paris who could fulfil a request for all kinds of high quality artistic production.

Abstract: The subject of the study is the issue of interaction between the artist – J.O. Fragonard - and an influential official institution, such as the Paris Academy of Painting and Sculpture in the XVIII century. From the standpoint of historical sociology and psychology, the author discusses why, having achieved significant success, won the Rome Prize and received the title of appointed, the artist preferred to move away from the Academy and deliberately refused to build an academic career. Analyzing the reasons for such a decision, the author draws on historical sources that allow to obtain data on the private life of the master, his relations with teachers, academic authorities, customers of various categories. Reconstructing the artistic environment of Paris of the period under consideration, the author places his hero in a broad cultural context, without which it is impossible to understand Fragonard's place among his predecessors and contemporaries. Of course, the author constantly checks with scientific works, where the problems of interest to him are touched upon.     For the first time in Russian historiography, the author examines in detail the main facts of the biography of J.O. Fragonard in the context of his relations with the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. However, the principal novelty of the study lies in the attention to how a new type of personality is formed in the French artistic environment of the middle of the XVIII century, unlike the type prevailing at the end of the previous century. Artists from the time of the foundation of the Royal Academy sought first of all to separate themselves from the craft environment, to prove their belonging to the creative elite and their equality with the advanced Italian masters. Now, the defense of creative freedom, including from the Royal Academy, comes to the fore, the search for one's own path, which is not always compatible with an academic career. According to the author, the experience of creative freedom gained by such Rococo masters as J.-O. Fragonard turned out to be especially important for the further development of French art.