Aesthetic experience and aesthetic perception in the study of the image of the Russian estate: phenomenological aspects

Kaigorodova Vladislava Sergeevna ORCID: 0000-0003-4411-5101 Postgraduate student, Department of Social Sciences, Gorky Literary Institute 123104, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Tverskoi Bul'var, 25 vla48811781@yandex.ru

A manor in the modern world is both a material building with architectural value, a fact of historical reality with cultural and tourist significance, and an emotionally colored image refracted within the boundaries of fiction and often perceived through it ^[1]. It is not surprising that the theme of estates, thus, seems extensive: it can be talked about within the limits of architecture, art, culture or social history.

Taken in the classical sense, the estate has repeatedly attracted the attention of researchers. Officially, the date of consolidation of scientific interest in the estates can be considered 1922, when the "Society for the Study of the Russian Estate" was formed, but for the first time interest in it manifested much earlier. In letters, memoirs, diaries and works of art, the nobles depicted the estates, their own or the most impressive ones, discussed them among themselves, developed the manor lifestyle – in the future, it was these written testimonies that served as materials for the first studies of the estates ^[2].

One of the most influential researchers (although it would be more accurate to say, the creators of the manor space) among the first were Baron Nikolai Wrangel ^[3] and A.N. Grech ^[4], whose works became decisive for a huge number of literature devoted to the topic of estates. The scale of their role changed only with the publication of the books by Y.M. Lotman, among which are "Conversations about Russian culture. Russian Russian nobility's way of life and traditions (XVIII-early XIX century)" ^[5] generated a surge of new interest in noble culture and laid the foundations for its subsequent study, including on the example of Russian estates.

The works we have named are still the most frequently cited and mentioned – along with them are numerous works by researchers of the "Society for the Study of the Russian Estate", among which there are long-established names (V.S. Turchin, G.Y. Sternin, M.A. Anikst, Yu.A. Vedenin, V.A. Gorokhov, A.V. Grigoriev, G.A. Novitsky, etc.), and newer ones (G.D. Zlochevsky, L.V. Ivanova, Polyakova M.A., Nashchokina M.V. and others). Their works are sources of valuable information about the number of Russian estates, their condition and history, the experience of studying them and their role in the landscape of Russia, but they are mainly devoted to specific and historically verifiable data.

In the presentation and understanding of the Russian estate as the spiritual center of the nobles, as well as the repository of axiological meanings, the cultural and historical symbol of Russia and the artistic image perceived through literary, musical, pictorial refractions, the works of E.N. Marasinova ^[6], T.P. Kajan ^[7], L.V. Tydman ^[8] play an important role, P. Roosevelt ^[9], E.E. Dmitrieva ^[10], etc. The works of these authors can be called monumental, since the estate in them confidently enters not only the spheres of local history, art history or cultural studies, but also the semantic field of philosophy and aesthetics. Such an entry turns out to be important in connection with a number of problems, well reflected in their historical perspective by O.A. Bogdanova ^[11] on the example of literature.

Being a socially significant historical phenomenon, manor life turned out to be firmly connected with the life of noble Russia and almost ended with it. At the beginning of the XX century, the estates were on the verge of destruction: many were forgotten and destroyed over time, others were reorganized into state institutions, some received the status of nature reserves and museums. It took decades to rethink the role and importance of estates – during this process, their number decreased, and, along with the establishment of museums and galleries on the basis of the preserved estate spaces, the problem of reconstruction arose. The main question was not only how to correlate the efforts expended with the potential usefulness of restored estates, often rebuilt on the site of ruins, but also the need to update the status of existing ones, due to changes in the attitude of society and the individual to art objects, as well as the restoration, preservation and maintenance of interest in them.

Russian Russian manor studies currently have several leading topics: the manor as a locus amoenus; the manor as a significant image of literature (within the framework of this topic, a full-scale project "Manor and Dacha in Russian Literature" is actively operating); the manor as a space of specific parts (infrastructure, traditions of construction, architecture, household items that filled the manor, etc.). etc.) and estate life as "being of the heart" ^[12]. Such diversity well confirms the relevance of considering the estate as a cultural and historical structure of memory, but also draws attention to the little study of its side such as emotional and sensual fullness and the relationship of the estate space and the modern observer.

The topic raised in this way is well integrated into the plane of modern research, whose gaze increasingly turns to the role of personal perception experience in various acts of cognition^{[1] [13]}, and can contribute to the development of existing theories related to the special status of the subjective. Taken in the field of manor spaces, it is designed to show their previously unexplored side and thereby arouse interest in continuing the search, offering a study of estates at a new level, which, in turn, may be of practical importance in the conditions of the current trend in the modern world of preserving and strengthening the tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

It should be noted, however, that within the limits of this work we aim only to initially outline and show the boundaries of the emotional and sensual fullness of the estate space in terms of their explicit and implicit influence on the formation and establishment of special relations between the estate and a modern person who simultaneously enters this space and observes it from the outside. Thus, the purpose of this study is to consider the need to show the importance of the role of aesthetic experience and aesthetic perception in the study of the Russian estate as constituting one of the significant parts of modern man's interest in it.

To do this, first of all, we need to determine the significance of personal experience and personal experience in the field of various works of art, in some of which a Russian estate may look interesting. Using the data obtained, we will pay some attention to the issue of the insufficiency of describing the formal features of the Russian estate as the main sphere of application of interest in order to bring to the fore such an important concept for the space of estates as atmosphere. Identifying the accompanying and forming processes, we will try not only to explain the socio-aesthetic significance of the estate from a new side for research, but also to determine the role of aesthetic experience and aesthetic perception in its study. Thus, we will consider the most significant methods of comparison, analysis, synthesis and generalization, as well as consideration of the manor theme with the help of phenomenological aspects organizing its space.

The question of personal experience, perhaps, should begin with the statement that the importance of uniqueness in the last decades of the XX century, in connection with mass movements in all spheres of public life, increases exponentially, taking the forms of individuality, expressed, for example, in one's own style, then singularity. People want to possess something that does not yet belong to them, and therefore is unique, and the ambiguity of this possession was especially well felt at the time by V. Benjamin ^[14].

Reading between the lines ^[14], it seems as if a person wants to be closer to everything that feels far away, and at the same time feel dislike from what is typical, outdated, too familiar to him. He dreams of going on a trip, and after a while he is already striving for home; he saves up for a long time for the desired thing, and after a while he ceases to feel interest in it; he is full of inspiration to get acquainted with a work of art, and in a moment of truth he deigns to give it only a cursory glance, unable to focus on it alone for too long.

The desire to possess is close to the desire to master, which underlies the desire for the stars and the mysteries of the universe, forcing to explain the forces of nature, to expose the mechanisms of being, to develop new technologies – only more personally. Personally, in the sense that, wanting to possess something, a person first of all wants to withdraw the same from others in order to be unique in his possession.

There is initially some tragedy in this desire, because, as in the process of technical reproducibility ^[14], the result of possession leads to the devaluation of what a person wanted to possess, because in the process it loses the reason for this very possession. And at the same time, this desire may have potential, since it is an engine in various "achieving" processes, and, under certain conditions, it is even able to maintain an active interest for a long time^[2].

In the first case, of course, we are talking about the aura ^[14] of a work of art, and the question of active interest associated with it becomes important when it comes to uniqueness – not only of the aura, but also of the very contact with the work of art. In the correlation of active interest, aura and its uniqueness lies the significance of personal experience and personal experience.

Wishing to confirm the statement we have made, we note: "The authenticity of a thing is the totality of everything that it is capable of carrying in itself from the moment of its origin, from its material age to historical reality" ^{[14, pp. 21-22]}. Of course, first of all, the concept of aura comes to mind, composed of many components of a work of art – from materials to traces of history, but we want to pay attention to such a part as a consequence of this aura, expressed in the form of those emotions, associations and memories that evokes from past experience and leaves behind a work of art, or even the very process of coming into contact with it.

And, indeed, let us ask ourselves the question: is the aura of the object itself, or what one can feel when entering it, most interesting to a modern observer? V. Benjamin himself defines aura as "a unique sense of distance, no matter how close the object may be" ^{[14, p. 24]}, but is it possible to see some consequence in this? We will not deny that the effect of the aura lies in the cause of its manifestation, or even in its essence, because we do not set the main goal to understand this: it is enough for us to allow.

Assuming that the observer's interest in his own thoughts and feelings when in contact with a work of art may be more important than the material essence of the object being contemplated, one can come to a curious extension of the concept of uniqueness (and therefore the essence of the aura) to the assertion of the uniqueness of acts of personal aesthetic experience. This will immediately seem such a well-known fact that it will not even require new evidence, but it is in this bundle that we will get the necessary basis for the importance of personal experience in the field of each of the works of art, which, without a doubt, can be called a Russian noble estate.

A Russian noble estate should be considered an atypical work of art. As soon as it began to be created, it already acquired a special status, not peculiar to others, since it admitted more than one person into its creation, while the uniqueness of the overwhelming number of art objects was based precisely on their belonging to the hand of a certain master - and his only one^[3]. She has been building up her potential throughout her life: every owner and guest, restorer and observer, famous event or person related to the estate, who visited it, reflected it in their novels, notes, paintings and letters, left their imprint on her aura, increasing its significance and creating an image, generating around her space of history and creating myths.

The original space of the estate was formed by the architect and the customer at the same time: while the customer arranged the interior appearance of his house, often thinking it over in detail, the architect was responsible for what concerned figures and materials, and this often led to the fact that the positive outcome of the work directly depended on whether they could become good friends. Although until now, when considering the estate, we pay tribute to them, remembering, they are not, as a rule, the main application of our admiration and interest, but the totality of all names and events significant for the development of the estate, as well as its status, that is, what it is at present. Opinions – what is said about a particular estate, as well as how they relate to it^[4] – also play an important role, being not only a marker of public interest, but also a kind of critic, directly influencing the maintenance (or extinction) of artistic interest.

There are three most interesting aspects of the perception of the Russian estate as a work of art: the interest of others in it, personal interest and the ratio of their own and someone else's interest. It was these sides that in historical perspective determined the form and content of the estates that have survived to the present day: the measure was not so much the appearance, antiquity of the building or its significance as a monument of a certain style of art (although, of course, they played a role), as the ideas and memories accumulated within it over the centuries. It is highly likely that the main part of the Russian estates has been preserved in good condition and has reached our days only because they were not forgotten and could not be forgotten, in connection with the epoch-making events that took place within their borders or the world names that had to do with them, which created a special perception of the place. The share of the sensual-aesthetic, thus, turns out to be quite large.

"Historical museum houses ^[5] have the ability to recall the events of the past and establish contact between the visitor and the history living in this house [...] The value of a historical house is determined by [...] the embodiment of the spiritual life of the people who lived within these walls, walked here, used the objects of the original furnishings" ^[15]. The very meaning of the manor building in a sense begins to boil down to its ability to become a repository, opening which a person can feel what others have felt before him (this may be a touch of history, and the discovery of new knowledge and the desire for certain impressions), and make sure that others have learned before him. We are still talking about the aura of an art object, but it takes on a different appearance, becoming a full-fledged (and perhaps more perfect) atmosphere ^[16].

The atmosphere differs from the aura in that it is not enclosed in the object of art, but forms a space for it and around it: this space is such that it simultaneously combines the aura itself and the emotional and sensual involvement of an outside observer in it. This is not only the space of a work of art, representing architecture, household items, evidence of history and time ^[17], collectively creating an aura ^[6], but also the space of internal states in which a person simultaneously resides and creates. The concept of space introduced here is important because it allows the estate to become not only a contemplated fact (such as, for example, a picture hanging in a gallery), but also an experienced fact (such an experience is more tangible and differs in the greater activity of the process, allowing not only to observe the object from the side, but also to be part of it): taken together, they generate a special eventfulness of the estate. Let's explain.

When a person enters the estate space, he has a unique experience of thinking and experiencing, but the estate also has its own aura: touching, they complement and interpenetrate each other, generating a unique state of atmosphere that cannot be repeated. Such an atmosphere is characterized by the vividness of an experience in which a person possesses a work of art (after all, one cannot deny that his feelings are unique and very personal), but at the same time cannot withdraw it from others, as a result of which the latter cannot lose the reason that generates the desire to possess it, which means it can be experienced again and again again.

Unlike the aesthetic experience of other (non-spatial) types of art, the experience of the estate as a work of art moves from the level of what, that is, what kind of creation it is and whose it is, to the level of reality, that is, how it is given at this moment of time and place and how it exists here and now^[7] the observer. This can be seen as an important reason for the modern interest (as acting within the continuation of the era of technical reproducibility described by V. Benjamin) in homesteads and an explanation of why each contact with the space of the estate is an event through which ^[8], firstly, the contemplation of the estate in comparison "then" and "now" is manifested (and also a frequent attempt to imagine "later"), and, secondly, the possibility of being both "here" and "there" (and sometimes being on the border). "Recall that we are not talking about space as a receptacle, but about the "space of significance". This is not a metric space of attraction, but a semantic space that creates event structures of being (strong spaces of art and creativity) that allow a person to be present in the world" ^{[18, p. 140]}. So we get the opportunity to consider the estate not only as an object, but also as a special spatial experience, comparable in uniqueness to a special form of art ^[9].

The experience of the atmosphere differs in duration, and, therefore, can be called an aesthetic event ^[19], in the center of which lies the maximum sense of a person's own being; it occupies part of a certain space, occurs in it and cannot be carried beyond its limits ^[10], which means it tends to the context (the case that brought the person at a given moment in a given space in a given state) and truly only within it. In this regard, it is impossible not to mention the success of various environmental events (so-called performances with the participation of the audience) held on the basis of the estates: having appeared in the heyday of noble culture, balls and masquerades, large-scale dinners and festivities continue in the modern world with music evenings, excursions and immersive journeys, practically revealed by traditions (you can recall, for example, the tea ceremony at the State Museum of the East in Moscow) or such full-scale dives as the Autumn Ball at the Vienna Opera or the All-Russian Graduation The ball at the State Kremlin Palace. Each of these events not only clearly reveals the inner eventfulness of various manor spaces, bringing the observer as close as possible to the disclosure of historical reality, but also continues to create more and more new images.

 Although not every result of artistic activity receives the status of a work of art, it is still a consequence of everyday life: almost everyone is able to learn how to draw, but the picture is obtained only when the creator goes beyond the ordinary and stands out from it in some way, but at the same time, without having an everyday background, the picture cannot become itself^[11]. The estate space can be called aesthetically significant precisely because it is part of the context of everyday life, representing the structure of the house-being well known to every person: easily recognizable, it is especially deeply perceived at the level of states that give a sense of the reality of the world and one's own presence ^[20] in it. "Being deprived of these moods, we become biorobots operating in the mode of impeccable subordination, we simply function, losing our human (refined, obstinate, creative) nature ^{[18, p. 141]}.

In the special tone of "modern culture, which demonstrates the satiety of forms and the strange state of longing for the lost real [...]" ^{[18, p. 141]}, it is no longer enough to simply identify formal features or describe the change of characteristic features in the perception of the estate in certain periods of history, but it is necessary to pay attention to the previously unexplored side her perceptions. In other words, to pay attention not only to the exterior of the manor space, but also to consider its internal parts, which ensure the existence of a special manor image, valuable for that unique feeling of intertwined place and time, which V. Benjamin called aura in his works, we conclude in the concept of atmosphere.

^[1] This can be confirmed, for example, by the large-scale concept of aesthetics of the Other developed by Lishaev S.A., where the "special" human states are put at the forefront

^[2] This interest, it should be said, is perfectly familiar to museums and galleries, which are constantly searching for new ideas, ways and means of presenting works of art to the viewer, as well as constantly monitoring new technologies in an effort to survive among them, and are successfully used by them

^[3] This can be confirmed, for example, by the fact that when mentioning a work of art, in imagination we immediately associate it with the name of a particular author, and it is important to us that this particular author wrote this particular work

^[4] Is it known or not, does it justify the accumulated meanings, in what state it is, what special facts it is known, etc.

^[5] And the estate, undoubtedly, can be called a historical house

^[6] Which here acts more as "special moods" that make up the aesthetics of the Other

^[7] Existence here is not only a statement of "I am", but also "I feel like this", and the second is the reason for "I am"

^[8] And, as a rule, each time in a different way

^[9] In this regard, it is quite interesting to develop the theme of the components of the aesthetic experience of spiritually significant emotions and feelings as works of art

^[10] As well as the aura can not be carried outside the work of art

^[11] That is, to be aesthetically significant – unique

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