The development of students’ figurative thinking when learning lyrical landscape

The paper traces the origin of Russian lyrical landscape that evokes innermost poetic emotions and love for the motherland. While analyzing ways of perceiving picturesque landscapes, the author focuses on the culture of feelings, experiences, and aesthetic judgments. The research discusses the problem of finding a unified approach by different sciences and related fields (philosophy, psychology, education, techniques, art studies) that explain figurative thinking differently. However, researchers have failed to conduct a systematic analysis of figurative-thinking development practices. The study summarizes the theoretical and practical approaches to developing figurative thinking in primary and secondary school students during classroom landscape-painting conversations, plein air workshops, and narrative art classes. The research substantiates the applicability of a system of methods (based on the active theory of P.Ya. Galperin, L.V. Zankov, V.V. Davydov, D.B. Elkonin). This makes it possible for students to convey mood and feelings in landscapes by means of artistic expression (color, flavor) that demonstrate the degree of figurative thinking development.