The Renaissance is the beginning of a cultural upheaval in Europe. renaissance in europe
The relevance of the research topic is that the culture of the Renaissance has specific features of the transitional era from the Middle Ages to the new time, in which the old and the new, intertwined, form a peculiar, qualitatively new alloy. Difficult is the question of the chronological boundaries of the Renaissance (in Italy - 14 - 16 centuries, in other countries - 15 - 16 centuries), its territorial distribution and national characteristics. The areas in which the turning point of the Renaissance was especially evident were architecture and fine arts. Religious spiritualism, ascetic ideals and dogmatic conventionality of medieval art were replaced by a desire for a realistic knowledge of man and the world, faith in creative possibilities and the power of the mind.
The affirmation of the beauty and harmony of reality, the appeal to man as the highest principle of being, ideas about the harmonious laws of the universe, mastery of the laws of objective knowledge of the world give the art of the Renaissance ideological significance and inner integrity.
In the Middle Ages, rapid changes took place in Europe in the economic, social and religious spheres of life, which could not but lead to changes in art. At any time of change, a person tries to rethink the world around him anew, there is a painful process of “reassessment of all values”, using the famous expression of F. Nietzsche.
The era of the Renaissance (Renaissance), covering the period from the XIV to the beginning of the XVII centuries, falls on recent centuries medieval feudalism. It is hardly legitimate to deny the originality of this era, considering it, following the example of the Dutch culturologist I. Huizinga, "the autumn of the Middle Ages." Based on the fact that the Renaissance is a period different from the Middle Ages, one can not only distinguish between these two eras, but also determine their connections and points of contact.
The word "Renaissance" evokes the image of the fabulous bird Phoenix, which has always personified the process of eternal unchanging resurrection. And the phrase "Renaissance", even for a person who does not know enough about history, is associated with a bright and original period of history. These associations are generally correct. The Renaissance - the time from the 14th to the 16th centuries in Italy (the transitional era from the Middle Ages to the New Age) is full of extraordinary events and is represented by brilliant creators.
The term "Renissance" (Renaissance) was introduced by G. Vasari - a famous painter, architect and art historian to designate the period Italian art from 1250 to 1550, as the time of the revival of antiquity, although the concept of revival has been part of the everyday life of historical and philosophical thinking since antiquity. The idea of turning to antiquity was formed in the late Middle Ages. The figures of that era did not think about blind imitation of the era of antiquity, but considered themselves the successors of the artificially interrupted ancient history. By the 16th century the content of the concept was narrowed and embodied in the term proposed by Vasari. Since then, the Renaissance meant the rebirth of antiquity as an ideal model.
In the future, the content of the term Renaissance evolved. The Renaissance was understood as the emancipation of science and art from theology, a gradual cooling towards Christian ethics, the birth of national literatures, the human desire for freedom from the restrictions of the Catholic Church. The Renaissance was actually identified with the beginning of the era of humanism
The concept of "culture of the new time" covers the historical period from the XIV century to the present. Internal periodization includes the following steps:
formation (XIV-XV centuries);
crystallization, decoration (XVI - early XVII);
classical period (XVII - XVIII centuries);
descending stage of development (XIX century) 1 .
The border of the Middle Ages is the XIII century. At this time, there is a single Europe, it has one cultural language - Latin, three emperors, a single religion. Europe is experiencing the heyday of Gothic architecture. The process of formation of nationally independent states begins. National identity begins to prevail over religious.
By the 13th century, production began to play an increasingly strong role. This is the first step towards overcoming the disintegration of Europe. Europe is getting richer. In the XIII century. the peasants of Northern and Central Italy become personally free, but they lose their land and join the ranks of the poor. A significant part of them is supplied to the cities.
XII - XIII centuries. - the heyday of cities, especially in southern Europe. This period is characterized by the beginning of proto-bourgeois development. By the XIII century. many of the cities become independent states. The beginning of the culture of the new time is directly connected with the transition from rural culture to urban culture.
The crisis of medieval culture most profoundly affected its foundation - the sphere of religion and the church. The Church begins to lose moral, financial, military authority. Various currents begin to crystallize in the church as an expression of spiritual protest against the secularization of the church, its "drawing" into the economy. The form of this protest is the birth of orders. This phenomenon is largely associated with the name of Francis of Assisi (1182-1226). Coming from a merchant family, he led a very free lifestyle in his youth. Then he moved away from frivolous behavior, began to preach exceptional asceticism and became the head of the Franciscan order of the mendicant brethren. The religiosity of Francis was peculiar. Two features characterize his religiosity: the preaching of poverty and a special Christian pantheism. Francis taught that the grace of God lives in every earthly creature; he called animals brothers of man. The pantheism of Francis already included something new, remotely echoing the pantheism of the ancient Greeks. Francis does not condemn the world for its sinfulness, but admires its harmony. In an era of intense drama late medieval Franciscanism carried a calmer and brighter outlook on the world, which could not but attract the forerunners of the Renaissance culture. Many people followed the Franciscans with their preaching of poverty, sacrificing their property. The second order of mendicants is the Order of the Dominicans (1215), named after St. Dominic, a Spanish monk. In 1232, the Inquisition was transferred to this order.
The 14th century turned out to be a difficult test for Europe: a terrible plague epidemic destroyed 3/4 of its population and created a background against which the old Europe was disintegrating, new cultural regions were emerging. The wave of cultural change begins in the more prosperous south of Europe, in Italy. Here they take the form of the Renaissance (Renaissance). The term "Renaissance" in the exact sense refers only to Italy XIII - XVI centuries. It acts as a special case of modern culture. The second stage in the formation of the culture of the new time unfolds later on the territory of transalpine Europe - primarily in Germany, France, and other countries 1 .
The figures of the Renaissance themselves contrasted the new era with the Middle Ages as a period of darkness and ignorance. But the originality of this time is rather not the movement of civilization against savagery, culture against barbarism, knowledge against ignorance, but the manifestation of another civilization, another culture, another knowledge.
The Renaissance is a revolution, first of all, in the system of values, in the assessment of everything that exists and in relation to it. There is a conviction that a person is the highest value. Such a view of a person determined the most important feature of the culture of the Renaissance - the development of individualism in the sphere of worldview and the comprehensive manifestation of individuality in public life.
One of the characteristic features of the spiritual atmosphere of this time was a noticeable revival of secular moods. Cosimo Medici, the uncrowned ruler of Florence, said that he who seeks support in heaven for the ladder of his life will fall, and that he personally always strengthened it on earth.
The secular character is also inherent in such a bright phenomenon of Renaissance culture as humanism. In the broad sense of the word, humanism is a way of thinking that proclaims the idea of the good of man as the main goal of social and cultural development and defends the value of man as a person. In this interpretation, this term is used in our time. But as an integral system of views and a broad current of social thought, humanism arose in the Renaissance.
The ancient cultural heritage played a huge role in the formation of Renaissance thinking. The consequence of the increased interest in classical culture was the study of ancient texts and the use of pagan prototypes for the embodiment Christian images, collecting cameos, sculptures and other antiquities, as well as the restoration of the Roman tradition of portrait busts. The revival of antiquity, in fact, gave the name to the whole era (after all, the Renaissance is translated as rebirth). Philosophy occupies a special place in the spiritual culture of this time, and it has all the features that were mentioned above. The most important feature of the philosophy of the Renaissance is the anti-scholastic orientation of the views and writings of the thinkers of this time. Its other characteristic feature is the creation of a new pantheistic picture of the world, identifying God and nature.
The periodization of the Renaissance is determined by the supreme role of fine art in its culture. The stages of the history of art in Italy - the birthplace of the Renaissance - served for a long time main point reference. They are specially distinguished: the introductory period, the Proto-Renaissance, the "era of Dante and Giotto", c.1260-1320, partially coinciding with the Ducento period (13th century), as well as the Trecento (14th century), Quattrocento (15th century) and Cinquecento (16th century) . More common periods are the Early Renaissance (14th-15th centuries), when new trends actively interact with Gothic, overcoming and creatively transforming it; as well as the Middle (or High) and Late Renaissance, of which Mannerism became a special phase. The new culture of the countries located to the north and west of the Alps (France, the Netherlands, the Germanic-speaking lands) is collectively referred to as the Northern Renaissance; here the role of late Gothic (including such an important, “medieval-Renaissance” stage as “international Gothic” or “soft style” of the late 14-15th centuries) was especially significant. The characteristic features of the Renaissance were also clearly manifested in the countries of Eastern Europe (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, etc.), and affected Scandinavia. An original Renaissance culture developed in Spain, Portugal and England.
In the XIII century in Italy, interest in antiquity increased significantly in the artistic environment. Several factors contributed to this in no small measure. After the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders to Italy, the influx of Greeks, the bearers of the Greek, ancient cultural tradition, sharply increased. The strengthening of trade ties with the Arab world meant, among other things, the strengthening of contacts with the ancient cultural heritage, the custodian of which at that time was the Arab world. Finally, Italy itself was at that time overflowing with monuments of ancient culture. The sight of culture, which did not notice them during the Middle Ages, suddenly saw them clearly through the eyes of people of art and science.
The most excellent material for understanding the transitional nature of the Proto-Renaissance is the work of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). He is rightly called the last poet of the Middle Ages and the first poet of the new era. Dante considered the year 1300 the middle of human history and therefore sought to give a generalizing and somewhat final picture of the world. This is done in the most complete way in the Divine Comedy (1307 - 1321). The connection of the poem with antiquity is already visible in the fact that one of the central characters of the Comedy is the Roman poet Virgil. He is earthly wisdom, enlightening and instructing. Outstanding people of the ancient world - the pagans Homer, Socrates, Plato, Heraclitus, Horace, Ovid, Hector, Aeneas - are placed by the poet in the first of the nine circles of hell, where there are people who have not known through no fault of their own true faith and baptisms.
Turning to the characteristics of the Early Renaissance in Italy, it is necessary to emphasize the following. By the beginning of the XV century. in Italy, the young bourgeois class has already acquired all its main features, which has become the main character of the era. He stood firmly on the ground, believed in himself, grew rich and looked at the world with different, sober eyes. The tragedy of the worldview, the pathos of suffering became more and more alien to him: the aestheticization of poverty - everything that dominated the public consciousness of a medieval city and was reflected in its art. Who were these people? These were people of the third estate who had won an economic and political victory over the feudal lords, direct descendants of the medieval burghers, who in turn came from medieval peasants who moved to the cities.
The ideal is the image of the universal man who creates himself - the titan of thought and deed. In the aesthetics of the Renaissance, this phenomenon is called titanism. The renaissance man thought of himself first of all as a creator and artist, like that absolute personality, the creation of which he realized himself.
Starting from the XIV century. cultural figures throughout Europe were convinced that they were experiencing a "new age", a "modern age" (Vasari). The feeling of the "metamorphosis" taking place was intellectual and emotional in content and almost religious in character.
The history of European culture owes the emergence of humanism to the early Renaissance. It acts as a philosophical and practical type of renaissance culture. We can say that the Renaissance is the theory and practice of humanism. Expanding the concept of humanism, it should first of all be emphasized that humanism is a free-thinking consciousness and completely secular individualism.
The era of the Early Renaissance is a time of rapid reduction of the distance between God and the human personality. All inaccessible objects of religious veneration, which in medieval Christianity required an absolute chaste attitude, become something very accessible and psychologically extremely close in the Renaissance. Let us cite, for example, such words of Christ, with which, according to the author of one literary work of that time, he addresses a nun of that time: “Sit down, my beloved, I want to soak up with you. My adorable, my beautiful, my gold, honey under your tongue ... Your mouth is fragrant like a rose, your body is fragrant like a violet ... You took possession of me like a young lady who caught a young gentleman in the room ... If only my suffering and my death were atoned for only your sins, I would not regret the torments that I had to endure.
Early Renaissance - the time of experimenting painting. To perceive the world in a new way meant, first of all, to see it in a new way. The perception of reality is tested by experience, controlled by reason. The original desire of the artists of that time was to depict the way we see how the mirror “represents” the surface. For that time, this was a genuine revolutionary upheaval.
The Renaissance in painting and plastic art for the first time revealed in the West all the drama of gesticulation and all its saturation with the inner experiences of the human personality. The human face has already ceased to be a reflection of otherworldly ideals, but has become an entrancing and infinitely delightful sphere of personal expressions about the whole endless range of all kinds of feelings, moods, states.
The early Renaissance is a time of experimenting painting. To perceive the world in a new way meant, first of all, to see it in a new way. The perception of reality is tested by experience, controlled by reason. The original desire of the artists of that time was to depict the way we see how a mirror “represents” the surface. For that time, this was a genuine revolutionary upheaval.
Geometry, mathematics, anatomy, the doctrine of the proportions of the human body are of great importance for the artists of this time. The artist of the Early Renaissance counted and measured, armed with a compass and a plumb line, draws perspective lines and a vanishing point, studies the mechanism of body movements with a sober look of an anatomist, classifies the movements of passion.
The Renaissance in painting and plastic art for the first time revealed in the West all the drama of gesticulation and all its saturation with the inner experiences of the human personality. The human face has already ceased to be a reflection of otherworldly ideals, but has become an entrancing and infinitely delightful sphere of personal expressions about the whole endless range of all kinds of feelings, moods, states.
2. FEATURES OF THE RENAISSANCE. PRINCIPLES OF HUMANISM IN EUROPEAN CULTURE. THE RENAISSAN IDEAL OF MAN
The revival was self-determined, first of all, in the sphere of artistic creativity. As an epoch of European history, it was marked by many significant milestones, including the strengthening of the economic and social liberties of cities, spiritual fermentation, which eventually led to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Peasant War in Germany, the formation of an absolutist monarchy (the largest in France), the beginning of the era of the Great geographical discoveries, the invention of European book printing, the discovery of the heliocentric system in cosmology, etc. However, its first sign, as it seemed to contemporaries, was the “flourishing of the arts” after long centuries of medieval “decline”, a flourishing that “revived” ancient artistic wisdom, precisely in In this sense, the word rinascita (from which the French Renaissance and all its European analogues come) is used for the first time by J. Vasari.
Wherein artistic creativity and especially fine arts is now understood as a universal language that allows you to know the secrets of "divine Nature." By imitating nature, by reproducing it not conventionally, but naturally, in a medieval way, the artist enters into competition with the Supreme Creator. Art appears in equal measure as a laboratory and a temple, where the paths naturally scientific knowledge and knowledge of God (as well as the aesthetic sense, the "sense of beauty" that is first forming in its final self-worth) constantly intersect.
The universal claims of art, which ideally should be "accessible to everything", are very close to the principles of the new Renaissance philosophy. Its largest representatives - Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno - make the problem of spiritual creativity the focus of their reflections, which, covering all spheres of being, thereby proves with its infinite energy the right of man to be called "the second god" or "like would be a god." Such an intellectual and creative aspiration can include - along with the ancient and biblical-evangelical tradition - purely unorthodox elements of gnosticism and magic (the so-called "natural magic", combining natural philosophy with astrology, alchemy and other occult disciplines, in these centuries is closely intertwined with the beginnings of a new, experimental natural science). However, the problem of man (or human consciousness) and his rootedness in God still remains common to all, although the conclusions from it can be of the most varied, and compromise-moderate, and impudent "heretical" character 1 .
Consciousness is in a state of choice - both the meditations of philosophers and the speeches of religious figures of all confessions are devoted to it: from the leaders of the Reformation M. Luther and J. Calvin, or Erasmus of Rotterdam (preaching the "third way" of Christian-humanistic religious tolerance) to Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the order Jesuits, one of the inspirers of the Counter-Reformation. Moreover, the very concept of "Renaissance" - in the context of church reforms - has a second meaning, marking not only the "renewal of the arts", but the "renewal of man", his moral composition.
The task of educating the "new man" is perceived as the main task era. The Greek word ("education") is the clearest analogue of the Latin humanitas (where "humanism" originates).
The term "humanism" (its Latin form - studia humanitatis) is introduced by the "new people" of the Early Renaissance, reinterpreting in their own way the ancient philosopher and orator Cicero, for whom the term meant the fullness and inseparability of the diverse nature of man. In the approved system of values, spiritual culture as a whole, the ideas of humanism come to the fore. Borrowed from Cicero (I century BC), who called humanism the highest cultural and moral development of human abilities, this principle most fully expressed the main orientation of European culture of the XIV-XVI centuries.
Humanism develops as an ideological movement, it captures merchant circles, finds like-minded people at the courts of tyrants, penetrates into the highest religious spheres - into the papal office, becomes a powerful weapon of politicians, is established among the masses, leaves a deep mark on folk poetry, architecture, provides rich material for searches. painters and sculptors. A new, secular intelligentsia is emerging. Its representatives organize circles, give lectures at universities, act as the closest advisers to sovereigns.
Humanists bring into the spiritual culture freedom of judgment, independence in relation to authorities, a bold critical spirit. They are full of faith in the limitless possibilities of man and affirm them in numerous speeches and treatises. For humanists, there is no longer a hierarchical society in which a person is only the spokesman for “the interests of the class. They oppose all censorship, especially ecclesiastical censorship.
Humanists express the demand of the historical situation - they form an enterprising, active, enterprising person. Man already forges his own destiny, and the providence of the Lord has nothing to do with it. A person lives according to his own understanding, he is “set free” (N. Berdyaev).
Humanism as a principle of Renaissance culture and as a broad social trend is based on an anthropocentric picture of the world, a new center is being established in the entire ideological sphere - a powerful and beautiful personality.
The cornerstone of a new worldview is laid Dante Alighieri(1265-1321) - "the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of modern times" (F. Engels). Created by Dante in his Divine Comedy, the great synthesis of poetry, philosophy, theology, and science is both the result of the development of medieval culture and the approach to the new culture of the Renaissance. Faith in the earthly destiny of man, in his ability to accomplish his earthly feat on his own, allowed Dante to make the Divine Comedy the first hymn to the dignity of man. Of all manifestations of divine wisdom, man is for him "the greatest miracle" 1 .
Antiquity (that is, the ancient heritage), the Middle Ages (with their religiosity, as well as the secular code of honor) and the New Age (which put the human mind, its creative energy at the center of its interests) are here in a state of sensitive and continuous dialogue.
The theory of linear and aerial perspective, proportions, problems of anatomy and light and shade modeling are of great practical importance. The center of Renaissance innovations, the artistic "mirror of the era" was an illusory-natural-like painting, in religious art it displaces the icon, and in secular art it gives rise to independent genres of landscape, everyday painting, portrait (the latter played a primary role in the visual affirmation of the ideals of the humanistic virtu).
The art of printed engraving on wood and metal, which became truly massive during the Reformation, receives its final value. Drawing from a working sketch turns into a separate type of creativity; the individual manner of strokes, strokes, as well as texture and the effect of incompleteness (non-finito) are beginning to be valued as independent artistic effects.
Monumental painting is also becoming picturesque, illusory-three-dimensional, gaining more and more visual independence from the massif of the wall. All types of fine arts now, one way or another, violate the monolithic medieval synthesis (where architecture dominated), gaining comparative independence. Types of an absolutely round statue requiring a special detour, an equestrian monument, a portrait bust are being formed (in many respects reviving the ancient tradition), a completely new type of solemn sculptural and architectural tombstone is being formed.
The ancient order system predetermines the new architecture, the main types of which are harmoniously clear in proportions and at the same time plastically eloquent palace and temple (the idea of a temple building that is centric in plan is especially captivating for architects). The utopian dreams characteristic of the Renaissance do not find full-scale embodiment in urban planning, but implicitly spiritualize new architectural ensembles, whose scope accentuates the “earthly”, centric-perspectively organized horizontals, and not the gothic vertical aspiration upwards.
Different kinds decorative arts, as well as fashion acquire a special, in its own way "pictorial" picturesqueness. Among the ornaments, the grotesque plays a particularly important semantic role.
In literature, the love for Latin as the universal language of humanistic learning (which they seek to restore in its ancient expressive richness) coexists with the stylistic improvement of national, folk languages. The urban short story and the picaresque novel most vividly express the lively and fervent universalism of the Renaissance personality, who, as it were, is everywhere in his place.
The main stages and genres of Renaissance literature are associated with the evolution of humanistic concepts in the periods of early, high and late Renaissance. The literature of the early Renaissance is characterized by a short story, especially a comic one (Boccaccio), with an anti-feudal orientation, glorifying an enterprising and free from prejudice personality. The High Renaissance is marked by the flourishing of the heroic poem (in Italy - by L. Pulci, F. Verni, in Spain - by L. Camoens), whose adventurous and chivalrous plots poeticize the idea of the Renaissance about a man born for great deeds.
The original epic of the High Renaissance, a comprehensive picture of society and its heroic ideals in folk fairy-tale and philosophical-comic form was the work F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel". In the late Renaissance, characterized by a crisis in the concept of humanism and the creation of a prosaic emerging bourgeois society, the pastoral genres of the novel and drama developed. The highest rise of the late Renaissance - the dramas of Shakespeare and the novels of Cervantes, based on tragic or tragicomic conflicts between a heroic personality and a system of social life unworthy of a person.
Also characteristic of the era are the novel as such and the heroic poem (closely associated with the medieval adventurous chivalric tradition), satirical poetry and prose (the image of the wise jester now acquires central importance), various love lyrics, pastoral as a popular cross-species theme. In the theater, against the background of the rapid development of various forms of drama, magnificent court extravaganzas and city festivals stand out, giving rise to colorful synthesis of the arts.
Already in the period of the Early Renaissance, it reaches its peak musical polyphony strict style. Compositional techniques become more complex, giving rise to early forms of opera, oratorios, overtures, suites, and sonatas. Professional socialite musical culture- closely related to folklore - plays an increasing role along with religious.
In the Renaissance, professional music loses the character of a purely church art and is influenced by folk music, imbued with a new humanistic worldview. Various genres of secular musical art appear: frottola and villanella in Italy, villancico in Spain, ballad in England, madrigal, which originated in Italy, but became widespread. Secular humanistic aspirations also penetrate cult music. New genres emerge instrumental music, national schools of performance on the lute and organ are being put forward. The Renaissance ends with the emergence of new musical genres - solo songs, oratorios, operas.
The baroque successor to the Renaissance is closely associated with its later phases: a number of key figures of European culture, including Cervantes and Shakespeare, belong in this respect to both the Renaissance and the Baroque.
Humanism, appeal to cultural heritage antiquity, as if "revival" of it (hence the name). The revival arose and most clearly manifested itself in Italy, where already at the turn of the 13th - 14th centuries. its forerunners were the poet Dante, the artist Giotto and others. The work of the Renaissance figures is imbued with faith in the limitless possibilities of man, his will and mind, the denial of scholasticism and asceticism (the humanistic ethics of the Italians Lorenzo Valla, Pico della Mirandola, etc.). The pathos of affirming the ideal of a harmonious, liberated creative personality, the beauty and harmony of reality, the appeal to man as the highest principle of being, the feeling of the wholeness and harmonious laws of the universe give the art of the Renaissance great ideological significance, a majestic heroic scale. In architecture, secular structures began to play a leading role - public buildings, palaces, city houses. Using the order division of the wall, arched galleries, colonnades, vaults, domes, architects (Brunelleschi, Alberti, Bramante, Palladio in Italy, Lescaut, Delorme in France) gave their buildings majestic clarity, harmony and proportionality to man. Artists (Donatello, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto in Italy; Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Brueghel in the Netherlands; Durer, Niethardt, Holbein in Germany; Fouquet , Goujon, Clouet in France) consistently mastered the artistic reflection of all the richness of reality - the transfer of volume, space, light, the image of a human figure (including a naked one) and the real environment - an interior, a landscape. Renaissance literature created such monuments of enduring value as Gargantua and Pantagruel (1533-52) by Rabelais, Shakespeare's dramas, the novel Don Quixote (1605-15) by Cervantes, etc., which organically combined interest in antiquity with an appeal to folk culture, the pathos of the comic with the tragedy of being. Petrarch's sonnets, Boccaccio's short stories, Ariosto's heroic poem, the philosophical grotesque (Erasmus of Rotterdam's treatise Praise of Stupidity, 1511), Montaigne's essays in various genres, individual forms and national variants embodied the ideas of the Renaissance. In music imbued with a humanistic worldview, vocal and instrumental polyphony develops, new genres of secular vocal (frottola and villanella in Italy, villancico in Spain, ballad in England, madrigal) and instrumental music appear; the era ends with the emergence of such musical genres as solo song, cantata, oratorio and opera, which contributed to the establishment of homophony.
Our compatriot, a remarkable connoisseur of the Italian Renaissance P. Muratov wrote about it this way: “Humanity has never been so carefree in relation to the cause of things, and never has it been so sensitive to their phenomena. The world is given to man, and since it is a small world, everything in it is precious, every movement of our body, every curl of a grape leaf, every pearl in a woman's dress. For the artist's eye, there was nothing small and insignificant in the spectacle of life. Everything was for him an object of knowledge.
During the Renaissance, the philosophical ideas of Neoplatonism (Ficino) and pantheism (Patrici, Bruno, etc.) spread, outstanding scientific discoveries were made in the field of geography (Geographical Discoveries), astronomy (the development of the heliocentric system of the world by Copernicus), anatomy (Vesalius).
Renaissance artists develop principles, discover the laws of direct linear perspective. The creators of the theory of perspective were Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Alberta, Leonardo da Vinci. With a perspective construction, the whole picture turns into a kind of window through which we look at the world. The space develops in depth smoothly, imperceptibly flowing from one plane to another. The discovery of perspective was of great importance: it helped to expand the range of depicted phenomena, to include space, landscape, and architecture in painting.
The combination of a scientist and an artist in one person, in one creative personality was possible in the Renaissance and will become impossible later. Renaissance masters are often referred to as titans, referring to their versatility. “It was an era that needed titans and gave birth to them in terms of the power of thought, passion and character, in terms of versatility and scholarship” 1, wrote F. Engels .
3. prominent figures of the renaissance
It is natural that the time, which gave central importance to the "God-equal" human creativity, put forward in the art of personalities who - with all the abundance of talents of that time - became the personification of entire eras of national culture (personalities - "titans", as they were romantically called later). Giotto became the personification of the Proto-Renaissance, the opposite aspects of the Quattrocento - constructive rigor and sincere lyricism - were respectively expressed by Masaccio and Fra Angelico with Botticelli. The "Titans" of the Middle (or "High") Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo are artists - symbols of the great milestone of the New Age as such. The most important stages of Italian Renaissance architecture - early, middle and late - are monumentally embodied in the works of F. Brunelleschi, D. Bramante and A. Palladio. J. Van Eyck, J. Bosch and P. Brueghel the Elder personify with their work the early, middle and late stages of painting of the Netherlandish Renaissance. A. Durer, Grunewald (M. Nithardt), L. Cranach the Elder, H. Holbein the Younger approved the principles of the new fine arts in Germany. In literature, F. Petrarch, F. Rabelais, Cervantes and W. Shakespeare - to name only the largest names - not only made an exceptional, truly epoch-making contribution to the process of formation of national literary languages, but became the founders of modern lyrics, novel and drama as such.
Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519) was a painter, sculptor, architect, writer, musician, art theorist, military engineer, inventor, mathematician, anatomist, botanist. He explored almost all areas of natural science, foresaw many things that were not yet thought of at that time.
When they began to analyze his manuscripts and countless drawings, they discovered the discoveries of the mechanics of the XIX century. Vasari wrote with admiration about Leonardo da Vinci:
“... There was so much talent in him, and this talent was such that, no matter what difficulties his spirit turned to, he resolved them with ease ... His thoughts and daring were always regal and generous, and the glory of his name grew so much that he was appreciated not only in his time, but also after his death.
Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564) - another great master of the Renaissance, a versatile, versatile person: sculptor, architect, artist, poet. Poetry was the youngest of Michelangelo's muses. More than 200 of his poems have come down to us.
Raphael Santi (1483-1520)- not only a talented, but also a versatile artist: an architect and muralist, a portrait master and a master of decor.
Albrecht Dürer(1471-1528) - the founder and largest representative of the German Renaissance, "northern Leonardo da Vinci", created several dozen paintings, more than a hundred engravings, about 250 woodcuts, many hundreds of drawings, watercolors. Dürer was also an art theorist, the first in Germany to create a work on perspective and write "Four Books on Human Proportions".
Founder of New Astronomy Nicholas Copernicus is the pride of his country. He was born in the Polish town of Torun, located on the Vistula. Copernicus lived during the Renaissance and was a contemporary prominent personalities enriched various areas of human activity with invaluable achievements. In the galaxy of these people, Copernicus took a worthy and honorable place thanks to his immortal work "On the rotations of celestial bodies", which became a revolutionary event in the history of science.
These examples could be continued. Thus, universality, versatility, creative talent were characteristic features of the masters of the Renaissance.
CONCLUSION
The theme of the Renaissance is rich and inexhaustible. Such a powerful movement determined the development of the entire European civilization for many years.
So, revival or renaissance- an era in the life of mankind, marked by a colossal rise in art and science. The art of the Renaissance, which arose on the basis of humanism - a trend of social thought that proclaimed a person the highest value of life. In art, the main theme has become a beautiful, harmoniously developed person with unlimited spiritual and creative possibilities. The art of the Renaissance laid the foundations of the European culture of the New Age, radically changed all the main types of art.
Creatively revised principles of the ancient order system were established in architecture, and new types of public buildings were formed. Painting was enriched with a linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body. Earthly content penetrated the traditional religious themes of works of art. Increased interest in ancient mythology, history, everyday scenes, landscape, portrait. Along with the monumental wall paintings that adorn architectural structures, a picture appeared, oil painting arose. In the first place in art came the creative individuality of the artist, as a rule, a universally gifted person.
In the art of the Renaissance, the paths of scientific and artistic comprehension of the world and man were closely intertwined. Its cognitive meaning was inextricably linked with sublime poetic beauty; in its striving for naturalness, it did not descend to petty everyday life. Art has become a universal spiritual need.
The discoveries made in the Renaissance in the field of spiritual culture and art had a great historical meaning for development European art subsequent centuries. Interest in them continues to this day.
Now, in the 21st century, it may seem that all this is a matter of bygone days, antiquity covered with a thick layer of dust, not of research interest in our turbulent age, but without studying the roots, how will we understand what feeds the trunk, what holds the crown in the wind change?
Undoubtedly, the Renaissance is one of the most beautiful eras in the history of mankind.
LIST OF USED LITERATURE
Argan Giulio Carlo. History of Italian Art. Translation from Italian in 2 volumes. Vol. 1 / Under the scientific editorship of V.D. Dazhina. M, 1990.
Muratov P. Images of Italy. M., 1994.Modern humanity
№ 14 The era of the revival of Western Europe. rebirth- this is a period in the cultural and ideological development of the countries of Western and Central Europe. The Renaissance manifested itself most clearly in Italy, because. in Italy there was no single state (with the exception of the south). The main form of political existence - small city-states with a republican form of government, feudal lords merged with bankers, wealthy merchants and industrialists. Therefore, in Italy, feudalism in its full forms did not take shape. The situation of rivalry between cities put in the first place not origin, but personal abilities and wealth. There was a need not only for energetic and enterprising people, but also for educated people. Therefore, a humanistic direction appears in education and worldview. Revival is usually divided into Early (beginning 14 - end 15) and High (end 15 - First quarter of 16.). The greatest artists of Italy belong to this era - Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519), Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475 -1564) and Rafael Santi(1483 - 1520). This division applies directly to Italy and, although the Renaissance reached its peak in the Apennine Peninsula, its phenomenon spread to other parts of Europe. Similar processes north of the Alps are called « Northern Renaissance ». Similar processes took place in France and in the cities of Germany. Medieval man, and people of modern times, were looking for their ideals in the past. In the Middle Ages, people believed that they continued to live in. The Roman Empire continued, and the cultural tradition: Latin, the study of Roman literature, the difference was felt only in the religious sphere. But in the Renaissance, the view of antiquity changed, which saw something fundamentally different from the Middle Ages, mainly the absence of the all-encompassing power of the church, spiritual freedom, and the attitude towards man as the center of the universe. It was these ideas that became central in the worldview of the humanists. The ideals, so consonant with the new development trends, gave rise to the desire to resurrect antiquity in full, and it was Italy, with its huge number of Roman antiquities, that became fertile ground for this. The Renaissance manifested itself and went down in history as a period of extraordinary rise in art. If earlier works of art served church interests, that is, they were cult objects, now works are created to satisfy aesthetic needs. Humanists believed that life should bring pleasure and medieval monastic asceticism was rejected by them. A huge role in the formation of the ideology of humanism was played by such Italian writers and poets, as Dante Alighieri (1265 - 1321), Francesco Petrarca (1304 - 1374), Giovanni Boccaccio(1313 - 1375). Actually, they, especially Petrarch, were the founders of both Renaissance literature and humanism itself. Humanists perceived their era as a time of prosperity, happiness and beauty. But this does not mean that it was devoid of controversy. The main one was that it remained the ideology of the elite, new ideas did not penetrate the masses of the people. And the humanists themselves sometimes had a pessimistic mood. Fear of the future, disappointment in human nature, the impossibility of achieving an ideal in the social structure pervade the moods of many figures of the Renaissance. Perhaps the most revealing in this sense was the tense expectation doomsday in 1500. The Renaissance laid the foundations for a new European culture, a new European secular worldview, a new European independent personality.
Renaissance (Renaissance)Renaissance, or Renaissance (fr. Renaissance, Italian Rinascimento) - an era in the history of European culture, which replaced the culture of the Middle Ages and preceded the culture of modern times. Approximate chronological framework of the era - XIV-XVI centuries.
A distinctive feature of the Renaissance is the secular nature of culture and its anthropocentrism (that is, interest, first of all, in a person and his activities). There is an interest in ancient culture, there is, as it were, its “revival” - and this is how the term appeared.
The term Renaissance is already found among Italian humanists, for example, in Giorgio Vasari. V modern meaning the term was coined by the 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. Nowadays, the term Renaissance has become a metaphor for cultural flourishing: for example, the Carolingian Renaissance of the 9th century.
General characteristics of the Renaissance
A new cultural paradigm arose as a result of dramatic changes public relations in Europe.
The growth of city-republics led to an increase in the influence of estates that did not participate in feudal relations: artisans and artisans, merchants, and bankers. All of them were alien to the hierarchical system of values created by the medieval, largely church culture and its ascetic, humble spirit. This led to the emergence of humanism - a socio-philosophical movement that considered a person, his personality, his freedom, his active, creative activity as the highest value and criterion for evaluating social institutions.
Secular centers of science and art began to appear in the cities, the activities of which were outside the control of the church. The new worldview turned to antiquity, seeing in it an example of humanistic, non-ascetic relations. The invention of printing in the middle of the 15th century played a huge role in spreading the ancient heritage and new views throughout Europe.
The revival arose in Italy, where its first signs were visible as early as the 13th and 14th centuries (in the activities of the Pisano, Giotto, Orcagni, and others families), but where it was firmly established only from the 20s of the 15th century. In France, Germany and other countries, this movement began much later. By the end of the 15th century, it reached its peak. In the 16th century, a crisis of Renaissance ideas was brewing, resulting in the emergence of Mannerism and Baroque.
Renaissance art.
Under the theocentrism and asceticism of the medieval picture of the world, art in the Middle Ages served primarily religion, conveying the world and man in their relation to God, in conditional forms, was concentrated in the space of the temple. Neither visible world nor man could be self-valuable objects of art. In the 13th century in medieval culture, new trends are observed (the cheerful teaching of St. Francis, the work of Dante, the forerunners of humanism). In the second half of the 13th c. the beginning of a transitional era in the development of Italian art - the Proto-Renaissance (lasted until the beginning of the 15th century), which prepared the Renaissance. The work of some artists of this time (G. Fabriano, Cimabue, S. Martini, etc.), quite medieval in iconography, is imbued with a more cheerful and secular beginning, the figures acquire a relative volume. In sculpture, the Gothic incorporeality of figures is overcome, Gothic emotionality is reduced (N. Pisano). For the first time, a clear break with medieval traditions manifested itself at the end of the 13th - the first third of the 14th century. in the frescoes of Giotto di Bondone, who introduced a sense of three-dimensional space into painting, painted figures more voluminous, paid more attention to the setting and, most importantly, showed a special, alien to exalted Gothic, realism in depicting human experiences.
On the soil cultivated by the masters of the Proto-Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance arose, which passed through several phases in its evolution (Early, High, Late). Associated with a new, in fact, secular worldview, expressed by humanists, it loses its inextricable connection with religion, painting and statue spread beyond the temple. With the help of painting, the artist mastered the world and man as they were seen by the eye, applying a new artistic method (transferring three-dimensional space using perspective (linear, airy, color), creating the illusion of plastic volume, maintaining the proportionality of figures). Interest in the individual individual traits combined with the idealization of man, the search for "perfect beauty". The plots of sacred history did not leave art, but from now on their depiction was inextricably linked with the task of mastering the world and embodying the earthly ideal (hence Bacchus and John the Baptist Leonardo, Venus and Our Lady of Botticelli are so similar). Renaissance architecture loses its gothic aspiration to the sky, acquires a “classical” balance and proportionality, proportionality to the human body. The ancient order system is being revived, but the elements of the order were not parts of the structure, but decor that adorned both traditional (temple, palace of authorities) and new types of buildings (city palace, country villa).
The ancestor of the Early Renaissance is the Florentine painter Masaccio, who picked up the tradition of Giotto, achieved an almost sculptural tangibility of figures, used the principles of linear perspective, and left the conventionality of depicting the situation. Further development of painting in the 15th century. went in the schools of Florence, Umbria, Padua, Venice (F. Lippi, D. Veneziano, P. dela Francesco, A. Pallayolo, A. Mantegna, K. Criveli, S. Botticelli and many others). In the 15th century Renaissance sculpture is born and develops (L. Ghiberti, Donatello, J. della Quercia, L. della Robbia, Verrocchio and others, Donatello was the first to create a self-standing round statue not connected with architecture, he was the first to depict a naked body with an expression of sensuality) and architecture (F. Brunelleschi, L. B. Alberti and others). Masters of the 15th century (primarily L. B. Alberti, P. della Francesco) created the theory of fine arts and architecture.
Around 1500, in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Titian, Italian painting and sculpture reached their highest point entered the time of the High Renaissance. The images they created perfectly embodied human dignity strength, wisdom, beauty. An unprecedented plasticity and spatiality was achieved in painting. Architecture reached its peak in the work of D. Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo. Already in the 1520s in the art of Central Italy, in the art of Venice in the 1530s, changes were taking place, which meant the onset of the Late Renaissance. The classical ideal of the High Renaissance associated with the humanism of the 15th century quickly lost its significance, not responding to the new historical situation (the loss of Italy's independence) and the spiritual climate (Italian humanism became more sober, even tragic). The work of Michelangelo, Titian acquires dramatic tension, tragedy, sometimes reaching despair, the complexity of formal expression. P. Veronese, A. Palladio, J. Tintoretto and others can be attributed to the Late Renaissance. The reaction to the crisis of the High Renaissance was the emergence of a new artistic movement- mannerism, with its heightened subjectivity, mannerisms (often reaching pretentiousness and affectation), impetuous religious spirituality and cold allegorism (Pontormo, Bronzino, Cellini, Parmigianino, etc.).
The Northern Renaissance was prepared by the emergence in the 1420s - 1430s on the basis of the late Gothic (not without the indirect influence of the Jott tradition) of a new style in painting, the so-called "ars nova" - "new art" (E. Panofsky's term). Its spiritual basis, according to researchers, was primarily the so-called "New Piety" of the northern mystics of the 15th century, which presupposed specific individualism and pantheistic acceptance of the world. The origins of the new style were the Dutch painters Jan van Eyck, who also improved oil paints, and the Master from Flemall, followed by G. van der Goes, R. van der Weyden, D. Boats, G. tot Sint Jans, I. Bosch and others (mid-second half of the 15th century). New Netherlandish painting received a wide response in Europe: already in the 1430s–1450s, the first examples of new painting appeared in Germany (L. Moser, G. Mulcher, especially K. Witz), in France (Master of the Annunciation from Aix and, of course, Zh .Fuke). The new style was characterized by a special realism: the transmission of three-dimensional space through perspective (although, as a rule, approximately), the desire for three-dimensionality. "New Art", deeply religious, was interested in individual experiences, the character of a person, appreciating in him, above all, humility, piety. His aesthetics is alien to the Italian pathos of the perfect in man, passion for classical forms (the faces of the characters are not perfectly proportioned, gothic angular). With special love, nature, life were depicted in detail, carefully written out things, as a rule, had a religious and symbolic meaning.
Actually, the art of the Northern Renaissance was born at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. as a result of the interaction of the national artistic and spiritual traditions of the trans-Alpine countries with the Renaissance art and humanism of Italy, with the development of northern humanism. The first artist of the Renaissance type can be considered the outstanding German master A. Durer, who involuntarily, however, retained the Gothic spirituality. A complete break with Gothic was made by G. Holbein the Younger with his "objectivity" of the painting style. The painting of M. Grunewald, on the contrary, was imbued with religious exaltation. The German Renaissance was the work of one generation of artists and dwindled in the 1540s. in the Netherlands in the first third of the 16th century. currents oriented towards the High Renaissance and the mannerism of Italy began to spread (J. Gossart, J. Scorel, B. van Orley, etc.). The most interesting thing in the Dutch painting of the 16th century. - this is the development of the genres of easel painting, everyday life and landscape (K. Masseys, Patinir, Luke of Leiden). The most nationally original artist of the 1550s–1560s was P. Brueghel the Elder, who owns paintings of everyday and landscape genres, as well as parable paintings, usually associated with folklore and a bitterly ironic look at the life of the artist himself. The Renaissance in the Netherlands ends in the 1560s. The French Renaissance, which was entirely courtly in nature (in the Netherlands and Germany, art was more associated with the burghers) was perhaps the most classical in the Northern Renaissance. The new Renaissance art, gradually gaining strength under the influence of Italy, reaches maturity in the middle - second half of the century in the work of architects P. Lesko, the creator of the Louvre, F. Delorme, sculptors J. Goujon and J. Pilon, painters F. Clouet, J. Cousin Senior. The “Fontainebleau School”, founded in France, had a great influence on the above painters and sculptors. by Italian artists Rosso and Primaticcio, who worked in the Mannerist style, but the French masters did not become Mannerists, having accepted the classical ideal hidden under the Mannerist guise. The Renaissance in French art ends in the 1580s. In the second half of the 16th century the art of the Renaissance in Italy and other European countries is gradually giving way to mannerism and early baroque.
The uniqueness of the Renaissance lies in the fact that, having one source (the ancient worldview that received a new life in Italy), this era gave rise to various original manifestations in almost all countries of Europe. The Renaissance in Italy began the very first, achieved the most brilliant results - and therefore is considered exemplary. It is no coincidence that the titans of the Renaissance, that is, the figures who had the greatest influence on further European culture, are almost all Italians. Painters Sandro Botticelli, Rafael Santi, Giorgione, Titian, architects Filippo Brunelleschi and Leon Batista Alberti, painter, sculptor, architect, poet Michelangelo Buonarroti, unique man Leonardo da Vinci, who contributed to the development of almost all areas of knowledge, and many others .
Renaissance picture of the world
If we try to abstract ourselves from the external visual side of the Renaissance, from the paintings of Raphael and Leonardo, from the sculptures of Michelangelo, from the beautiful Italian architectural masterpieces, it will be found that a general description of the Renaissance is impossible without the concept of Renaissance humanism. Humanism is a worldview in which the center of the universe is a person. At the same time, God is not completely rejected (although many figures of the Renaissance expressed ideas that, to one degree or another, can be interpreted either as atheistic or as occult), but fades into the background. He remains the Creator, but now, as it were, he retires into the shadows, leaving man to decide his own destiny and the destiny of the world. It is precisely in order for a person to be able to cope with this task that his nature must be studied in every possible way.
Moreover, to study in all its manifestations, needs and needs, physical, emotional, mental, rational, and so on. As a result, the humanistic ideal of a person should be formed - a being endowed with moral and mental virtues, and at the same time possessing moderation and abstinence. The ethics of the Renaissance said that these virtues are not something innate, but are brought up in a person through the study of ancient literature, art, history, and culture. That is why education in the Renaissance came to the fore. Within the framework of the medieval worldview, a person did not need to know much, it was enough for him to believe in God and fulfill the church commandments, caring not so much about earthly life as about saving the soul for eternal life.
Now the earthly component of life has been rehabilitated, and then, contrary to the precepts of the first humanists, and elevated to the absolute. So education in the Renaissance became a true birth for the individual: only having received knowledge about human nature and its creativity, a person could be considered complete. The ideal of a comprehensively developed personality was a person who was beautiful in body, pure in mind, exalted in soul, and at the same time engaged in some kind of creative, transforming reality, work. It is no coincidence that the heroes of the paintings of the Renaissance are not just pretty people, they are heroes shown at the moment of committing some significant act, accomplishment. The requirements for women were somewhat relaxed: the women of the Renaissance were in themselves an illustration of the beauty of human nature. Women's sensuality, which in the Middle Ages was hidden in every possible way as sinful, was now emphasized in every possible way, especially in the visual arts.
Alexander Babitsky
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Introduction
Conclusion
Introduction
Renaissance, or Renaissance - an era in the history of European culture, which replaced the culture of the Middle Ages and preceded the culture of the New Age. Approximate chronological framework of the era: the beginning of the XIV - the last quarter of the XVI century A distinctive feature of the Renaissance is the secular nature of culture and its anthropocentrism (that is, interest, first of all, in a person and his activities). There is an interest in ancient culture, there is, as it were, its “revival” - and this is how the term appeared.
The term Renaissance is found among Italian humanists, such as Giorgio Vasari. In its modern meaning, the term was coined by the 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. Nowadays, the term Renaissance has become a metaphor for cultural flourishing: for example, the Carolingian Renaissance or the Renaissance of the 12th century.
The culture of the Renaissance arose and took shape earlier than other countries in Italy, reaching a brilliant flowering here in the first decades of the 16th century. Its origin in the XIV century. and rapid progressive development in the XV century. were due to the historical features of the country.
The formation of a new culture has become a matter, first of all, of the humanistic intelligentsia, which, in their origin and social status, is very motley and heterogeneous. Although the ideas put forward by the humanists received a public outcry that grew over time, in general it is difficult to associate them with the ideology of a particular stratum of society, including characterizing them as “bourgeois” or “early bourgeois”. With all the ideological diversity in the culture of the Italian Renaissance, however, there was a core of a single new worldview, the specific features of which determine its "Renaissance". Ultimately, it was generated by the new needs of life itself, as was the task of achieving a higher level of education for a fairly wide section of society. The internal laws of the development of culture itself also led to the promotion of this important educational goal. In Italy, the varied structure of education that has developed in the cities has helped to implement it.
The purpose of this essay is to look at life in Italy during the Renaissance.
1. Progressive changes in the economy, politics, culture of the XII-XIII centuries.
The culture of the Renaissance arose and took shape earlier than other countries in Italy, reaching a brilliant flowering here in the first decades of the 16th century. Its origin in the XIV century. and rapid progressive development in the XV century. were due to the historical features of the country. One of the most urbanized regions of Europe - Italy in the XIV-XV centuries. reached a very high level of medieval civilization in comparison with other regions of Europe. Free Italian city-states in the conditions of political particularism gained economic power, relying on advanced forms of commercial, industrial and financial entrepreneurship, monopoly positions in foreign markets and extensive lending to European rulers and nobility. The independent cities of northern and central Italy, rich and prosperous, extremely active economically and politically, became the main base for the formation of a new, renaissance culture, secular in its general direction.
Of no small importance was the fact that in Italy there were no clearly defined estates, the feudal nobility was involved in a stormy urban life and closely linked in its political and economic activities with the merchant elite and the wealthy stratum of the gentiles, the boundaries between which were blurred. This feature of Italian society contributed to the creation of a special climate in the city-state: the freedom of full-fledged citizens, their equality before the law, valor and enterprise, which opened the way to social and economic prosperity, were valued and cultivated here. In the urban environment, new features of the worldview and self-awareness of various strata of society were more clearly manifested. A typical example is business books, family chronicles, memoirs, letters from representatives of prominent families in Florence, Venice, and other cities - the so-called merchant literature clearly reflected the mindset of both the patriciate and the popolan environment. The very existence of this kind of literature is indicative, testifying to the high level of education of the leading social stratum of the city.
Among the prerequisites for the emergence and development of Renaissance culture in Italy, one of the most important was a broad system of education - from primary and secondary schools maintained at the expense of the city commune, home schooling and vocational training in shops of merchants and artisans to numerous universities. Unlike other countries, they were early open to teaching disciplines that expanded the scope of traditional liberal education. Finally, a significant role was played in Italy by the especially close historical connection of its culture with Roman civilization - one should not forget about the numerous monuments of antiquity preserved in the country. Restoring continuity with ancient culture - the task put forward by the figures of the Renaissance, it was not by chance that it originated and for a long time was most fully carried out precisely in Italy, for which culture ancient rome was an important part of her own past. The new attitude to the ancient heritage has become here the problem of resurrecting the tradition of the ancestors.
The ideological origins of the Renaissance are already found in the medieval culture of Europe in the 12th-13th centuries. They can be seen in the Provencal lyrics and poetry of the Vagantes, in urban satire and short stories, in the philosophy of the Chartres school, Pierre Abelard, John of Salisbury. Secular motifs characteristic of knightly and urban literature, attempts to free philosophy from dogmatism, as well as a number of other features of medieval culture - all this paved the way for the culture of the Renaissance with its non-traditional, although remaining within the framework of the Christian worldview, ideas about the world and man. . In Italy, new trends emerged in the poetry of the "sweet style", the art of the Proto-Renaissance, and the work of Dante Alighieri. The Divine Comedy is a poetic-philosophical generalization of the medieval worldview, like other works of the great Florentine (the treatises Feast and Monarchy, the poetic cycle New Life), contain many ideas that were later adopted and developed by humanists. This is a new understanding of nobility as the result of the efforts of the individual, and not a sign of generosity, and large-scale images strong personalities in the Divine Comedy, and an appeal to the ancient heritage as an important source of knowledge.
The ideological guidelines of the Renaissance culture of Italy were also influenced by the psychological climate of urban life, changes in the mentality of various strata of society. In this respect, the urban environment was by no means homogeneous. Sobriety of practical thinking, business rationalism, high quality of professional knowledge, breadth of outlook and education were valued in business circles. The principles of corporate consciousness gradually gave way to individualistic tendencies. Along with the growing apology for enrichment, the concepts of group and personal honor, respect for the laws, were preserved, although the cult of communal freedoms typical of Italian cities had already begun to be combined with attempts to justify the deception of the state in favor of the family and clan when paying taxes. New maxims began to prevail in merchant morality oriented towards secular affairs - the ideal of human activity, energetic personal efforts, without which it was impossible to achieve professional success, and this step by step led away from church ascetic ethics, which sharply condemned acquisitiveness, the desire for hoarding.
Among the nobility, especially among the old aristocratic families, traditional performances about feudal prowess, family honor was highly valued, but here, too, new trends appeared, not without the influence of the merchant-Popolan environment. The everyday life of the nobility who had long since moved to the city included, as a rule, trade and financial entrepreneurship, which gave rise to practical rationalism, prudence, and a new attitude towards wealth. The desire of nobles to play a leading role in urban politics intensified not only personal ambitions in the sphere of power, but also patriotic sentiments - serving the state in the administrative field relegated military prowess to the background.
The bulk of the gentiles - middle-class merchants and guild masters, as well as representatives of traditional intellectual professions (clergy, theologians, lawyers, doctors) advocated the preservation social peace and prosperity of the city of the state, converging in this partly with " business people". Here the traditions of corporatism were stronger.
In the grassroots urban environment, with the growing contrast between poverty and wealth, outbursts of social protest often arose, sometimes reaching uprisings, and their own ideas about justice, sinfulness and retribution developed, far from the moods of not only the ruling elite of society, but sometimes even from the mentality of the handicraft milieu of gentiles. The peasantry, for the most part personally free and sufficiently mobile, under the specific conditions of Italian feudalism, was closely connected with the city and replenished the ranks of its unskilled workers. This environment was the most conservative, it was in it that the traditions of medieval folk culture were firmly preserved, which had a certain impact on the culture of the Renaissance.
2. Transition from theocentric to anthropological understanding of the world
The Renaissance meant the crisis of the feudal system and the emergence of capitalism in Europe. For philosophy, this time was a kind of transitional period - from theocentrism to rationalism, to the study of the world by means of scientific knowledge. The process of secularization began as a trend towards the gradual liberation of society from the spiritual dictates of religion and the church and the formation of a secular culture. The development of philosophy in the Renaissance was determined by the influence of a number of factors. First, the influence of advanced ancient philosophical thought (Socrates, Epicurus, etc.). Secondly, interaction with the systematic science that was emerging in that era. And, thirdly, the growing influence of the established capitalist system on the public consciousness, culture and morality of society.
Within the framework of this great era, a deep breakdown of the theological picture of the world (theocentrism) that had developed in the Middle Ages became apparent. Biggest Contribution the natural philosophy and natural science of the Renaissance brought such a turn. However, the position of science was not yet strengthened, and religion was still very influential. A peculiar form of struggle and compromise between them was pantheism (“godlessness”), which affirmed the idea of the dissolution of God in nature and in all its things. "God is inside nature, not outside it" - this thesis became dominant in the Renaissance.
Very important characteristic new era was anthropocentrism. It is a type of philosophizing, the essence of which is the perception of man as a kind of center of the world, the "crown" of the evolution of nature. The expression of such a worldview was humanism - an ideological trend that originated in Italian cities, which proclaimed a person the highest value and goal of society and formed the concept of personality. The spirit of humanistic anthropocentrism permeated not only philosophy, but the entire culture of the Renaissance, especially literature and fine arts. In fact, it was a philosophical and artistic era, where the cult of man, his spirituality and beauty, freedom and greatness prevailed. The Renaissance emphasized not only the freedom of man, but also the idea of a comprehensive (universal) development of his inclinations and abilities (essential forces), his creative vocation in the world.
The birth of capitalism aroused a great interest of philosophy in socio-political problems, in the topic of the state. At this time formed utopian socialism, who put forward the ideal of a new and just society (communism), where a person could develop freely, comprehensively and harmoniously.
3. Renaissance humanism and the problem of unique individuality
A very important feature of the philosophy and culture of the Renaissance was humanistic anthropocentrism, i.e. perception of a person as a kind of center of the world and the highest value. It is known that the object of attention for the philosophy of the ancient world was, first of all, the Cosmos, and in the Middle Ages - God. On the contrary, the Renaissance focused its main attention on Man, his essence and nature, the meaning of existence and vocation in the world. It is not surprising that it was at this time that humanism was fully formed - an ideological trend, the supporters of which declared a person as the highest value and goal of society. To the question "Is man great or insignificant?" they confidently answered: "Not only great, but also omnipotent." Humanism meant the revival (“renaissance”) of the ancient tradition (Socrates, Epicurus, etc.), respect for a person, protection of his self-worth, honor and dignity, the right to freedom and happiness.
Humanism as a trend was formed in the bosom of fiction as a critical reaction to the dogmas of religion, to the doctrine of the sinfulness and unfreedom of man. Italian writers restored and promoted the work of those ancient philosophers and poets (Socrates, Epicurus, Virgil, Horace) who defended the ideas of the high value of man and his freedom. ancient culture was presented to humanists as a model of perfection, undeservedly rejected in the era of the “thousand-year night” (Middle Ages). Florence became the center of the Italian humanist movement. Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), "the last poet of the Middle Ages" and at the same time "the first poet of modern times", was born and worked in this city. In his Divine Comedy, Dante put forward a thesis, bold for his time, that man by nature was created not only for posthumous, but also for earthly life. And in this poem, Dante rejected asceticism and preached a reasonable way of life. The heroes of the poem are living people, seeking and suffering, creating their own destiny. The author of the work emphasized that the outcome of human life depends on the deeds of the person himself, on his ability to choose a reasonable path and not deviate from it. Over time, the theme of freedom as the self-determination of man has become one of the most important in the Italian humanism of the Renaissance.
The founder of the humanistic trend in Italy is the poet and philosopher Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the founder of the lyric as a new genre in European literature. Like most people of his time, Petrarch was a believer. However, he was very critical of the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, seeing in it pseudo-learning and far-fetched formulas. In his works, Petrarch defended the human right to earthly aspirations, to love other people. He tried to give his philosophy a moral orientation and for this he restored the ethical teaching of Socrates. In man, he was interested, first of all, in the theme of love, which he considered as the highest expression of the spiritual principle. Human life is always a constant search for oneself in this world, which is often associated with excruciating suffering, with mental anxiety.
The formation of Italian humanism was also promoted by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), who spoke in his work The Decameron from the standpoint of criticizing the clergy and supporting the advanced mentality of the urban population. Humanistic motives also took place in the work of other authors of that time. Among them should be attributed Coluccio Salutati, who at one time was the chancellor of the Florentine Republic. Leonardo Bruni translated into Latin a number of works by Plato and Aristotle, Plutarch and Demosthenes. Names were widely known in Italy statesman and the philosopher Gianozzo Manetti, the painter Leon Batista Albert, the minister of the church Marsilio Ficino.
The most prominent figure among the Italian humanists was Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), a professor at the University of Rome. He showed himself to be an active supporter of the teachings of the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus. Valla was an opponent of the secular power of the popes, a sharp critic of asceticism and monasticism associated with it. According to him, scholasticism is an idle and irrational occupation. The Italian humanist tried to restore the true teachings of Epicurus, which were banned in the Middle Ages. According to him, Epicureanism most fully affirms the idea of the fullness of human life, preaches sensual activity and bodily well-being. In his treatise "On Pleasure", the scientist argued that the basic law of human nature is pleasure as a true pleasure of the soul and body. He proclaimed: "Long live faithful and constant pleasures at any age and for any sex!" Lorenzo Valla even believed that pleasures should continue in the afterlife of a person. His teaching was positive, because it restored the natural right of a person to the fullness of his existence and individual happiness in life.
Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) also stood on the positions of humanistic anthropocentrism. In his “Speech on the Dignity of Man”, he emphasized the most important property of man - his freedom. According to Pico, man represents the fourth world, along with the sublunar, the heavenly and the heavenly. On earth, man is a great being who has a mind and a soul. The spirit of a person determines the freedom of his will and, consequently, the entire life path. Having created man, God allegedly put in him the “seeds” of a diverse life, which gives him the opportunity to choose: either rise to the perfect angels, or descend to the animal existence. Freedom is priceless God's gift, which constitutes the inner essence of man. This freedom gives a person the opportunity to be active and "rise above the heavens", to become the creator of his own destiny.
4. Internal contradictions in the culture of the Renaissance
The culture of the Renaissance is famous for its amazing abundance of bright talents, many achievements in various fields of creativity, masterpieces of art and literature, which belong to the highest creations of mankind. Closely connected with the social, political and other aspects of the life of the era, it is distinguished by its exceptional versatility and is not without contradictions, which are manifested not only in the specifics of the general tendencies of its development, but also in the individual contribution to the culture of many of its figures from different countries Europe.
The Renaissance occupies a special place in the history of Europe. The culture of this time is connected by thousands of threads with changes in the life of society, its complication and contradictions in the context of the beginning of the transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age. The traditional system of feudal social relations is undergoing a crisis and is being transformed, new forms of market economy are emerging. The established social structures, position and self-consciousness of various sections of the population of the city and countryside are changing. It is no coincidence that the 16th century was marked by large-scale social conflicts and movements in many European countries. The tension and inconsistency of the social life of the era intensified in connection with the formation of a new type of statehood - absolute monarchy, as well as as a result of the inter-confessional struggle caused by the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation that followed it.
The development of the Renaissance in individual countries and regions of Europe proceeded with different intensity and unequal pace, but it was able to give European culture a certain unity: with a variety of national characteristics, the culture of different countries has similar features. This was of great importance, since in social terms, the Renaissance culture was not homogeneous: it was nourished, ideologically and materially, by different social groups - the middle layers of the city and its top, part of the clergy, nobility, aristocracy. Even wider was the social environment in which this culture spread. Ultimately, it affected all strata of society, from the royal court to the urban lower classes, although, of course, in different ways. Formed in a relatively narrow circle of the new intelligentsia, it did not become elitist in its general ideological orientation and understanding of the tasks of culture itself. No wonder the Renaissance was nourished by humanistic ideas, which in the process of its evolution formed into a holistic worldview. It organically intertwined the foundations of Christian doctrine, pagan wisdom and secular approaches in various fields of knowledge. The focus of humanists was the "earthly kingdom of man", the image of the creator of his own destiny. Anthropocentrism became a characteristic feature of Renaissance culture. She affirmed the greatness of man, the strength of his mind and will, the high destiny in the world. She called into question the principle of class division of society: she demanded that a person be valued according to his personal merits and merits, and not according to generosity or the size of his fortune.
Conclusion
The Renaissance was a period of organic synthesis of philosophical thought, science and art. At that time, large and bright thinkers lived and worked. The revival proclaimed the spirit of freedom and happiness of man, his high vocation in the world - to be a creator and creator, an accomplice in the divine world-creation. It was, according to the definition of F. Engels, "the era of giants" - "in terms of the power of thought, passion and character", the era of the greatest progressive turn in the history of human civilization.
Within the framework of this great era, a deep breakdown of the theological picture of the world that had developed in the Middle Ages became apparent. The greatest contribution to this turn was made by the natural philosophy and natural science of the Renaissance. However, the position of science was not yet strengthened, and religion was still very influential. A peculiar form of struggle and compromise between them was pantheism (“godlessness”), which affirmed the idea of the dissolution of God in nature and in all its things.
During the Renaissance, secular life comes to the fore, human activity in this world, for the sake of this world, to achieve human happiness in this life, on Earth.
The worldview of the people of the Renaissance has a pronounced humanistic character. Man in this worldview is interpreted as a free being, the creator of himself and the world around him. Renaissance thinkers, of course, could not be atheists or materialists.
In the Renaissance, any activity was perceived differently than in antiquity or in the Middle Ages. Among the ancient Greeks, physical labor and even art were not highly valued. An elitist approach to human activity dominated, the highest form of which was declared to be theoretical quests - reflections and contemplations, because it was they who attached a person to what is eternal, to the very essence of the Cosmos, while material activity plunges into the transient world of opinions. Christianity considered the highest form of activity that leads to the "salvation" of the soul - prayer, the performance of liturgical rituals, the reading of Holy Scripture. On the whole, all these types of activity were of a passive nature, the nature of contemplation.
In the Renaissance, however, material-sensory activity, including creative activity, acquires a kind of sacred character. In the course of it, a person does not simply satisfy his earthly needs; realizes the new world, beauty, creates the highest thing in the world - himself.
List of used literature
culture renaissance theocentric
1. L.M. Bragin "Social and ethical views of Italian humanists" (second half of the 15th century) MGU Publishing House, 1983
2. From the history of culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Publishing house "Science", M 1976
3. The art of the early Renaissance. -- M.: Art, 1980
4. History of art: Renaissance. -- M.: AST, 2003
5. Yaylenko E.V. Italian Renaissance. -- M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2005
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