Achievements of the High Renaissance. School encyclopedia

FRANCESCO PETRARCA (1304-1374) - founder of the Italian Renaissance, great poet and thinker, political activist. Coming from a Popolan family in Florence, he spent many years in Avignon under the papal curia, and the rest of his life in Italy. Petrarch traveled a lot around Europe, was close to popes and sovereigns. His political goals: reform of the church, ending wars, unity of Italy. Petrarch was an expert in ancient philosophy; he is credited with collecting manuscripts of ancient authors and processing them textologically.

Petrarch developed humanistic ideas not only in his brilliant, innovative poetry, but also in Latin prose works - treatises, numerous letters, including his main epistolary, “The Book of Everyday Affairs.”

It is customary to say about Francesco Petrarca that he is more focused on himself than anyone else - at least in his time. That he was not only the first “individualist” of the New Age, but much more than that - an amazingly complete egocentric.

In the works of the thinker, the theocentric systems of the Middle Ages were replaced by the anthropocentrism of Renaissance humanism. Petrarch's “discovery of man” provided an opportunity for a deeper knowledge of man in science, literature, and art.

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1454-1519) - brilliant Italian artist, sculptor, scientist, engineer. Born in Anchiano, near the village of Vinci; his father was a notary who moved to Florence in 1469. Leonardo's first teacher was Andrea Verrocchio.

Leonardo's interest in man and nature speaks of his close connection with humanistic culture. He considered man's creative abilities to be limitless. Leonardo was one of the first to substantiate the idea of ​​the cognizability of the world through reason and sensations, which firmly entered the ideas of thinkers of the 16th century. He himself said about himself: “I would comprehend all the secrets by getting to the essence!”

Leonardo's research covered a wide range of problems in mathematics, physics, astronomy, botany, and other sciences. His numerous inventions were based on a deep study of nature and the laws of its development. He was also an innovator in the theory of painting. Leonardo saw the highest manifestation of creativity in the activity of an artist who scientifically comprehends the world and reproduces it on canvas. The thinker’s contribution to Renaissance aesthetics can be judged by his “Book on Painting.” He was the embodiment of the “universal man” created by the Renaissance.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI (1469-1527) - Italian thinker, diplomat, historian.

A Florentine, he came from an ancient but impoverished patrician family. For 14 years he served as secretary of the Council of Ten, in charge of military and foreign affairs of the Florentine Republic. After the restoration of power in Florence, the Medici were removed from government activities. In 1513-1520 he was in exile. This period includes the creation of Machiavelli’s most significant works - “The Prince”, “Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy”, “History of Florence”, which earned him European fame. Machiavelli's political ideal was the Roman Republic, in which he saw the embodiment of the idea of ​​a strong state, the people of which “are far superior to the sovereigns in both virtue and glory.” (“Discourses on the first decade of Titus Livy”).

The ideas of N. Machiavelli had a very significant influence on the development of political doctrines.

THOMAS MOP (1478-1535) - English humanist, writer, statesman.

Born into the family of a London lawyer, he was educated at Oxford University, where he joined the circle of Oxford humanists. Under Henry VIII he held a number of high government positions. His meeting and friendship with Erasmus of Rotterdam was very important for the formation and development of More as a humanist. He was accused of treason and executed on July 6, 1535.

The most famous work of Thomas More is “Utopia,” which reflects the author’s passion for ancient Greek literature and philosophy, and the influence of Christian thought, in particular Augustine’s treatise “On the City of God,” and also traces an ideological connection with Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose humanistic ideal was in is close to More in many ways. His ideas had a strong impact on public thought.

ERASM OF ROTTERDAM (1469-1536) - one of the most outstanding representatives of European humanism and the most versatile of the then scientists.

Erasmus, the illegitimate son of a poor parish priest, his early years spent in the Augustinian monastery, which he managed to leave in 1493. He studied with great enthusiasm the works of Italian humanists and scientific literature, became the greatest expert in Greek and Latin.

Erasmus's most famous work is the satire “Praise of Folly” (1509), modeled on Lucian, which was written in just one week in the house of Thomas More. Erasmus of Rotterdam tried to synthesize the cultural traditions of antiquity and early Christianity. He believed in the natural goodness of man and wanted people to be guided by the demands of reason; among the spiritual values ​​of Erasmus are freedom of spirit, temperance, education, simplicity.

THOMAS MUNZER (circa 1490-1525) - German theologian and ideologist of the early Reformation and the Peasants' War of 1524-1526 in Germany.

The son of a craftsman, Münzer was educated at the universities of Leipzig and Frankfurt an der Oder, from where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in theology, and became a preacher. He was influenced by mystics, Anabaptists and Hussites. In the early years of the Reformation, Münzer was an adherent and supporter of Luther. He then developed his doctrine of the popular Reformation.

In Münzer's understanding, the main tasks of the Reformation were not to establish a new church dogma or a new form of religiosity, but to proclaim an imminent socio-political revolution, which should be carried out by the mass of peasants and the urban poor. Thomas Munzer strove for a republic of equal citizens, in which people would ensure that justice and law prevailed.

For Münzer, Holy Scripture was subject to free interpretation in its context modern events, - interpretation directly addressed to spiritual experience reader.

Thomas Münzer was captured after the defeat of the rebels in an unequal battle on May 15, 1525 and, after severe torture, was executed.

Conclusion

Based on the first chapter, we can conclude that the main features of the Renaissance culture are:

Anthropocentrism,

Humanism,

Modification of the medieval Christian tradition,

A special attitude towards antiquity - the revival of ancient monuments and ancient philosophy,

A new attitude towards the world.

As for humanism, its leaders emphasized the value of the human personality, the independence of personal dignity from origin and birth, man’s ability to constantly improve and confidence in his limitless capabilities.

The Reformation played an extremely important role in the formation of world civilization and culture in general. It contributed to the process of the emergence of the man of bourgeois society - an autonomous individual with freedom of moral choice, independent and responsible in his beliefs and actions, thereby preparing the ground for the idea of ​​human rights. The bearers of Protestant ideas expressed a new, bourgeois type of personality with a new attitude to the world.

The figures of the Renaissance left us an extensive creative heritage that covers philosophy, art, political science, history, literature, natural sciences and many other areas. They made numerous discoveries that are a huge contribution to the development of world culture.

Thus, the Renaissance is a local phenomenon, but global in its consequences, which had a strong impact on the development of modern Western civilization and culture with its achievements: an effective market economy, civil society, a democratic legal state, a civilized way of life, and high spiritual culture.

[Francis Bacon's doctrine of "idols"

Idols and false concepts, which have already captivated the human mind and are deeply entrenched in it, so dominate the minds of people that they make it difficult for the truth to enter, but even if its entry is allowed and granted, they will again block the path during the very renewal of the sciences and will hinder it, unless the people, being warned, take arms against them as far as possible.

There are four kinds of idols that besiege the minds of people. In order to study them, let's give them names. Let us call the first type the idols of the clan, the second the idols of the cave, the third the idols of the square, and the fourth the idols of the theater.

The construction of concepts and axioms through true induction is undoubtedly the true means for suppressing and driving out idols. But pointing out idols is also very useful. The doctrine of idols is for the interpretation of nature what the doctrine of the refutation of sophisms is for generally accepted dialectics.

Idols of the family find their basis in the very nature of man, in the tribe or kind of people themselves, for it is false to assert that a person’s feelings are the measure of things. On the contrary, all perceptions, both of the senses and of the mind, rest on the analogy of man, and not on the analogy of the world. The human mind is like an uneven mirror, which, mixing its nature with the nature of things, reflects things in a distorted and disfigured form.

Idols of the Cave the essence of the misconception individual person. After all, everyone, in addition to the mistakes inherent in the human race, has their own special cave, which weakens and distorts the light of nature. This occurs either from the special innate properties of each, or from upbringing and conversations with others, or from reading books and from the authorities before whom one bows, or due to the difference in impressions, depending on whether they are received by biased and predisposed souls or souls cool and calm, or for other reasons. So the human spirit, depending on how it is located in individual people, is a changeable, unstable and seemingly random thing. This is why Heraclitus correctly said that people seek knowledge in small worlds, and not in the large or general world.

There are also idols that occur as if due to the mutual connectedness and community of people. We call these idols, meaning the communication and fellowship of people that gives rise to them, idols of the square. People unite through speech. Words are set according to the understanding of the crowd. Therefore, a bad and absurd statement of words besieges the mind in a surprising way. The definitions and explanations with which learned people are accustomed to arm themselves and protect themselves do not help the matter in any way. Words directly rape the mind, confuse everything and lead people to empty and countless disputes and interpretations.

Finally, there are idols that have entered the souls of people from various tenets of philosophy, as well as from perverse laws of evidence. We call them theater idols, for we believe that, as many philosophical systems as there are accepted or invented, so many comedies have been staged and performed, representing fictional and artificial worlds. We say this not only about philosophical systems that exist now or once existed, since tales of this kind could be folded and composed in multitude; after all, in general, very different errors have almost the same causes. At the same time, we mean here not only general philosophical teachings, but also numerous principles and axioms of the sciences, which received force as a result of tradition, faith and carelessness. However, each of these types of idols should be discussed in more detail and definitely separately, in order to warn the human mind.

The human mind, by virtue of its inclination, easily assumes more order and uniformity in things than it finds. And while many things in nature are singular and completely without similarity, he comes up with parallels, correspondences and relationships that do not exist. Hence the rumor that everything in the heavens moves in perfect circles\...\

The mind of man attracts everything to support and agree with what he has once accepted, either because it is an object of common faith, or because it pleases him. Whatever be the strength and number of facts that testify to the contrary, the mind either does not notice them, or neglects them, or diverts and rejects them through discrimination with great and pernicious prejudice, so that the reliability of those previous conclusions remains unimpaired. And therefore the one who answered correctly was the one who, when they showed him the images of those who had escaped shipwreck by taking a vow displayed in the temple and at the same time sought an answer whether he now recognized the power of the gods, asked in turn: “Where are the images of those who died after made a vow? This is the basis of almost all superstitions - in astrology, in dreams, in beliefs, in predictions and the like. People who delight themselves with this kind of vanity celebrate the event that has come true, and pass without attention the one that deceived, although the latter happens much more often. This evil penetrates even deeper into philosophy and science. In them, what is once recognized infects and subjugates the rest, even if the latter were much better and firmer. In addition, even if these partiality and vanity that we indicated did not take place, the human mind is still constantly characterized by the delusion that it is more amenable to positive arguments than negative ones, whereas in justice it should treat both of them equally; even moreover, in the construction of all true axioms great strength at the negative argument.

The human mind is most affected by what can immediately and suddenly strike it; this is what usually excites and fills the imagination. He transforms the rest imperceptibly, imagining it to be the same as the little that controls his mind. The mind is generally neither inclined nor capable of turning to distant and heterogeneous arguments by means of which axioms are tested, as if by fire., until harsh laws and strong authorities dictate this to him.

The human mind is greedy. He can neither stop nor remain at peace, but rushes further and further. But in vain! Therefore, thought is not able to embrace the limit and end of the world, but always, as if by necessity, imagines something existing even further. \...\ This impotence of the mind leads to much more harmful results in the discovery of causes, for, although the most general principles in nature must exist as they were found, and in reality have no causes, yet the human mind, knowing no rest , and here is looking for a more famous one. And so, striving for what is further, he returns to what is closer to him, namely, final causes, which have their source rather in the nature of man than in the nature of the Universe, and, starting from this source, have amazingly distorted philosophy. But he who seeks reasons for the universal philosophizes lightly and ignorantly, just as he who does not seek lower and subordinate causes.

The human mind is not dry light, it is sprinkled with will and passions, and this gives rise to what everyone desires in science. A person rather believes in the truth of what he prefers. He rejects the difficult because he has no patience to continue the research; sober - because it captivates hope; the highest in nature - because of superstition; the light of experience - because of arrogance and contempt for it, so that the mind does not turn out to be immersed in the base and fragile; paradoxes are due to conventional wisdom. In an infinite number of ways, sometimes unnoticeable, passions stain and corrupt the mind.

But to the greatest extent, the confusion and delusions of the human mind arise from inertia, inconsistency and deception of the senses, for what arouses the senses is preferred to what does not immediately arouse the senses, even if the latter is better. Therefore, contemplation ceases when the gaze ceases, so that the observation of invisible things is insufficient or absent altogether. Therefore, all the movement of spirits contained in tangible bodies remains hidden and inaccessible to people. In the same way, more subtle transformations in the parts of solid bodies remain hidden - what is usually called change, when in fact it is the movement of the smallest particles. Meanwhile, without research and clarification of these two things that we mentioned, nothing significant in nature can be achieved in a practical sense. Further, the very nature of air and all bodies that are thinner than air (and there are many of them) is almost unknown. Feeling in itself is weak and erroneous, and instruments designed to strengthen and sharpen feelings are worth little. The most accurate interpretation of nature is achieved through observations in appropriate, purposefully staged experiments. Here feeling judges only about experience, while experience judges nature and the thing itself.

The human mind by nature is focused on the abstract and thinks of the fluid as permanent. But it’s better to cut nature into pieces than to abstract. This is what the school of Democritus did, which penetrated deeper into nature than others. One should study more matter, its internal state and change of state, pure action and the law of action or motion, for forms are inventions of the human soul, unless these laws of action are called forms.

These are the idols we call idols of the race. They arise either from the uniformity of the substance of the human spirit, or from its prejudice, or from its limitations, or from its tireless movement, or from the instillation of passions, or from the incapacity of the senses, or from the way of perception.

Idols of the Cave come from the inherent properties of both soul and body, as well as from upbringing, from habits and accidents. Although this type of idols is varied and numerous, we will still point out those of them that require the most caution and are most capable of seducing and polluting the mind.

People love either those particular sciences and theories whose authors and inventors they consider themselves to be, or those in which they have invested the most work and to which they are most accustomed. If people of this kind devote themselves to philosophy and general theories, then under the influence of their previous plans they distort and spoil them. \...\

The biggest and, as it were, fundamental difference of minds in relation to philosophy and the sciences is the following. Some minds are stronger and more suitable for noticing differences in things, others - for noticing the similarities of things. Strong and sharp minds can focus their thoughts, lingering and dwelling on every subtlety of difference. And sublime and agile minds recognize and compare the subtlest similarities of things inherent everywhere. But both minds easily go too far in pursuit of either divisions of things or shadows.

Contemplation of nature and bodies in their simplicity crushes and relaxes the mind; contemplation of nature and bodies in their complexity and configuration deafens and paralyzes the mind. \...\ Therefore, these contemplations must alternate and replace each other so that the mind becomes both insightful and receptive and in order to avoid the dangers we have indicated and those idols that arise from them.

Caution in contemplation must be such as to prevent and expel the idols of the cave, which mainly arise either from the dominance of past experience, or from an excess of comparison and division, or from a tendency towards the temporary, or from the vastness and insignificance of objects. In general, let everyone who contemplates the nature of things consider doubtful that which has especially strongly captured and captivated his mind. Great care is necessary in cases of such preference, so that the mind remains balanced and pure.

But most painful of all idols of the square, which penetrate the mind along with words and names. People believe that their minds control their words. But it also happens that words turn their power against reason. This made science and philosophy sophistical and ineffective. Most of the words have their source in common opinion and divide things within the boundaries most obvious to the mind of the crowd. When a keener mind and a more diligent observation want to revise these boundaries so that they are more in accordance with nature, words become a hindrance. Hence it turns out that the loud and solemn disputes of scientists often turn into disputes regarding words and names, and it would be more prudent (according to the custom and wisdom of mathematicians) to begin with them in order to put them in order through definitions. However, even such definitions of things, natural and material, cannot cure this disease, for the definitions themselves consist of words, and words give birth to words, so it would be necessary to get to specific examples, their series and order, as I will soon say, when I move on to the method and way of establishing concepts and axioms.

Theater idols are not innate and do not penetrate the mind secretly, but are openly transmitted and perceived from fictitious theories and from perverse laws of evidence. However, an attempt to refute them would be decisively inconsistent with what we have said. After all, if we do not agree either on the grounds or on the evidence, then no arguments for the better are possible. The honor of the ancients remains unaffected, nothing is taken away from them, because the question concerns only the path. As they say, the lame man who walks on the road is ahead of the one who runs without a path. It is also obvious that the more dexterous and fast the off-road runner is, the greater his wanderings will be.

Our path of discovery of sciences is such that it leaves little to the sharpness and power of talents, but almost equalizes them. Just as in drawing a straight line or describing a perfect circle, firmness, skill and testing of the hand mean a lot if you use only your hand, it means little or nothing at all if you use a compass and ruler. This is the case with our method. However, although separate refutations are not needed here, something must be said about the types and classes of this kind of theory. Then also about the external signs of their weakness and, finally, about the reasons for such an unfortunate long and universal agreement in error, so that approaching the truth would be less difficult and so that the human mind would be more willing to purify itself and reject idols.

The idols of theater or theory are numerous, and there may be more of them, and someday there may be more of them. If for many centuries the minds of people had not been occupied with religion and theology and if civil authorities, especially monarchical ones, had not opposed such innovations, even speculative ones, and by turning to these innovations people had not incurred danger and suffered damage in their prosperity, not only not receiving rewards, but also being subjected to contempt and ill will, then, without a doubt, many more philosophical and theoretical schools would have been introduced, similar to those that once flourished in great variety among the Greeks. Just as many assumptions can be invented regarding the phenomena of the celestial ether, in the same way, and to an even greater extent, various dogmas can be formed and constructed regarding the phenomena of philosophy. The fictions of this theater are characterized by the same thing that happens in the theaters of poets, where stories invented for the stage are more harmonious and beautiful and are more likely to satisfy everyone’s desires than true stories from history.

The content of philosophy in general is formed by deducing a lot from a little or a little from a lot, so that in both cases philosophy is established on too narrow a basis of experience and natural history and makes decisions from less than it should. Thus, philosophers of the rationalist persuasion snatch from experience various and trivial facts, without knowing them exactly, but having studied them and without diligently weighing them. They assign everything else to reflection and the activity of the mind.

There are a number of other philosophers who, having worked diligently and carefully on a few experiments, dared to invent and derive their own philosophy from them, amazingly perverting and interpreting everything else in relation to it.

There is a third class of philosophers who, under the influence of faith and reverence, mix theology and traditions with philosophy. The vanity of some of them has reached the point that they derive science from spirits and geniuses. Thus, the root of the errors of false philosophy is threefold: sophistry, empiricism and superstition.

\...\ if people, prompted by our instructions and saying goodbye to sophistic teachings, seriously engage in experience, then, due to the premature and hasty fervor of the mind and its desire to ascend to the general and to the beginnings of things, a great danger may arise from philosophies of this kind . We must prevent this evil now. So, we have already spoken about certain types of idols and their manifestations. All of them must be rejected and cast aside by a firm and solemn decision, and the mind must be completely freed and purified from them. Let the entrance to the kingdom of man, based on science, be almost the same as the entrance to the kingdom of heaven, “where no one is given to enter without becoming like children.”

The Renaissance arose in Italy - its first signs appeared in the 13th-14th centuries. But it was firmly established in the 20s of the 15th century, and by the end of the 15th century. reached its peak.

In other countries, the Renaissance began much later. In the 16th century a crisis of Renaissance ideas begins, a consequence of this crisis is the emergence of mannerism and baroque.

Renaissance periods

Periods in the history of Italian culture are usually designated by the names of centuries:

• Proto-Renaissance (Ducento)- 2nd half of the 13th century - 14th century.
• Early Renaissance (Trecento) — beginning of the 15th - end of the 15th century.
• High Renaissance (Quattrocento) — end of the 15th - first 20 years of the 16th century.
• Late Renaissance (cinquecento) — mid-16th-90s of the 16th century.

For history Italian Renaissance Of decisive importance was the profound change in consciousness, views on the world and man, which dates back to the era of communal revolutions of the 2nd half of the 13th century.

It is this turning point that opens a new stage in the history of Western European culture. The fundamentally new trends associated with it found their most radical expression in the Italian culture and art of the so-called "the era of Dante and Giotto" - the last third of the 13th century and the first two decades of the 14th.

The fall played a role in the formation of the Renaissance Byzantine Empire. The Byzantines who moved to Europe brought with them their libraries and works of art, unknown to medieval Europe. Byzantium never broke with ancient culture.

The growth of city-republics led to an increase in the influence of classes that did not participate in feudal relations: artisans and craftsmen, merchants, bankers. The hierarchical system of values ​​created by the medieval, largely church culture, and its ascetic, humble spirit were alien to all of them. This led to the emergence of humanism, a socio-philosophical movement that considered man, his personality, his freedom, his active, creative activity as the highest value and criterion for evaluating public institutions.

Secular centers of science and art began to emerge in cities, the activities of which were outside the control of the church. In the middle of the 15th century. Printing was invented, which played an important role in the spread of new views throughout Europe.

Renaissance Man

Renaissance man differs sharply from medieval man. He is characterized by faith in the power and strength of the mind, admiration for the inexplicable gift of creativity.

Humanism focuses on human wisdom and its achievements as the highest good for a rational being. Actually, this leads to the rapid flourishing of science.

Humanists consider it their duty to actively disseminate the literature of ancient times, because it is in knowledge that they see true happiness.

In a word, the Renaissance man tries to develop and improve the “quality” of the individual through the study of the ancient heritage as the only basis.

And intelligence occupies a key place in this transformation. Hence the emergence of various anti-clerical ideas, which are often unreasonably hostile to religion and the church.

Proto-Renaissance

The Proto-Renaissance is the forerunner of the Renaissance. It is also closely connected with the Middle Ages, with Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic traditions.

It is divided into two sub-periods: before the death of Giotto di Bondone and after (1337). The most important discoveries, the brightest masters live and work in the first period. The second segment is associated with the plague epidemic that struck Italy.

Proto-Renaissance art is characterized by the emergence of tendencies towards a sensual, visual reflection of reality, secularism (in contrast to the art of the Middle Ages), and the emergence of interest in the ancient heritage ( characteristic of art Renaissance).

At the origins of the Italian Proto-Renaissance is the master Niccolo, who worked in the second half of the 13th century in Pisa. He became the founder of a school of sculpture that lasted until the mid-14th century and spread its attention throughout Italy.

Of course, much of the sculpture of the Pisan school still gravitates towards the past. It preserves old allegories and symbols. There is no space in the reliefs; the figures closely fill the surface of the background. Still, Niccolo's reforms are significant.

The use of the classical tradition, the emphasis on volume, materiality and weight of figures and objects, the desire to introduce elements of a real earthly event into the image of a religious scene created the basis for a broad renewal of art.

In the years 1260–1270, Niccolo Pisano's workshop carried out numerous orders in the cities of central Italy.
New trends are also penetrating Italian painting.

Just as Niccolò Pisano reformed Italian sculpture, Cavallini laid the foundation for a new direction in painting. In his work he relied on late antique and early Christian monuments, with which Rome was still rich in his time.

Cavallini's merit lies in the fact that he sought to overcome the flatness of forms and compositional construction, which were inherent in the prevailing in his time in Italian painting“Byzantine” or “Greek” manner.

He introduced chiaroscuro modeling borrowed from ancient artists, achieving roundness and plasticity of forms.

However, from the second decade of the 14th century, artistic life in Rome froze. The leading role in Italian painting passed to the Florentine school.

Florence for two centuries it was something like the capital of the artistic life of Italy and determined the main direction of the development of its art.

But the most radical reformer of painting was Giotto di Bondone (1266/67–1337).

In his works, Giotto sometimes achieves such strength in the clash of contrasts and transmission human feelings, which allows us to see in him the predecessor of the greatest masters of the Renaissance.

Treating the Gospel episodes as events of human life, Giotto places them in a real situation, while refusing to combine moments from different times in one composition. Giotto's compositions are always spatial, although the stage on which the action takes place is usually not deep. Architecture and landscape in Giotto's frescoes are always subordinate to action. Every detail in his compositions directs the viewer’s attention to the semantic center.

Another important center of art in Italy at the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 14th century was Siena.

Art of Siena marked by features of refined sophistication and decorativeism. In Siena, French illuminated manuscripts and works of artistic crafts were valued.

In the XIII-XIV centuries, one of the most elegant cathedrals of Italian Gothic was erected here, on the facade of which Giovanni Pisano worked in 1284-1297.

For architecture Proto-Renaissance is characterized by balance and calm.

Representative: Arnolfo di Cambio.

For sculpture This period is characterized by plastic power and the influence of late antique art.

Representative: Niccolo Pisano, Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio.

For painting The appearance of tactility and material persuasiveness of forms is characteristic.

Representatives: Giotto, Pietro Cavallini, Pietro Lorenzetti, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Cimabue.

Early Renaissance

In the first decades of the 15th century, a decisive turning point occurred in the art of Italy. The emergence of a powerful center of the Renaissance in Florence entailed a renewal of the entire Italian artistic culture.

The work of Donatello, Masaccio and their associates marks the victory of Renaissance realism, which was significantly different from the “realism of detail” that was characteristic of the Gothic art of the late Trecento.

The works of these masters are imbued with the ideals of humanism. They heroize and exalt a person, raising him above the level of everyday life.

In their struggle with the Gothic tradition, artists of the early Renaissance sought support in antiquity and the art of the Proto-Renaissance.

What the masters of the Proto-Renaissance sought only intuitively, by touch, is now based on precise knowledge.

Italian art of the 15th century is distinguished by great diversity. The difference in the conditions in which they are formed local schools, gives rise to a variety of artistic movements.

The new art, which triumphed in advanced Florence at the beginning of the 15th century, did not immediately gain recognition and spread in other regions of the country. While Bruneleschi, Masaccio, and Donatello worked in Florence, the traditions of Byzantine and Gothic art were still alive in northern Italy, only gradually supplanted by the Renaissance.

The main center of the early Renaissance was Florence. Florentine culture of the first half and mid-15th century is diverse and rich.

For architecture The early Renaissance is characterized by the logic of proportions, the form and sequence of parts are subordinated to geometry, and not to intuition, which was a characteristic feature of medieval buildings

Representative: Palazzo Rucellai, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti.

For sculpture This period is characterized by the development of free-standing statues, pictorial reliefs, portrait busts, and equestrian monuments.

Representative: L. Ghiberti, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, della Robbia family, A. Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano, B. da Maiano, A. Verrocchio.

For painting Characterized by a feeling of harmonious order in the world, an appeal to the ethical and civil ideals of humanism, a joyful perception of the beauty and diversity of the real world.

Representatives: Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, A. del Castagno, P. Uccello, Fra Angelico, D. Ghirlandaio, A. Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Piero della Francesca, A. Mantegna, P. Perugino.

High Renaissance

The culmination of art (the end of the 15th and the first decades of the 16th century), which presented the world with such great masters as Raphael, Titian, Giorgione and Leonardo da Vinci, is called the stage of the High Renaissance.

The focus of artistic life in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century moved to Rome.

The popes sought to unite all of Italy under the rule of Rome, making attempts to convert it into a cultural and leading political center. But, without ever becoming a political reference point, Rome was transformed for some time into the citadel of spiritual culture and art of Italy. The reason for this was also the patronage tactics of the popes, who attracted the best artists to Rome.

The Florentine school and many others (old local ones) were losing their former significance.

The only exception was the rich and independent Venice, which demonstrated a vibrant cultural originality throughout the 16th century.

Due to the constant connection with the great works of the archaic, art was freed from verbosity, often so characteristic creativity Quattrocento virtuosos.

Artists of the High Renaissance acquired the ability to omit small details that do not affect the overall meaning and strive to achieve harmony and a combination of the best aspects of reality in their creations.

Creativity is characterized by faith in the unlimited possibilities of man, in his individuality and in the rational world apparatus.

The main motif of the art of the High Renaissance is the image of a harmoniously developed and strong person in both body and spirit, who is above everyday routine.

Since sculpture and painting get rid of the unquestioning slavery of architecture, which gives life to the formation of new genres of art such as landscape, historical painting, portrait.

During this period, High Renaissance architecture gained its greatest momentum. Now, without exception, customers did not want to see even a drop of the Middle Ages in their homes. The streets of Italy have become more colorful than just luxurious mansions, but palaces with extensive plantings. It should be noted that the Renaissance gardens known in history appeared precisely during this period.

Religious and public buildings also no longer smack of the spirit of the past. The temples of the new buildings seem to have risen from the times of Roman paganism. Among the architectural monuments of this period one can find monumental buildings with the obligatory presence of a dome.

Grandiosity of this art was also revered by his contemporaries, — so Vasari spoke of him as: “the highest stage of perfection which the most valued and most celebrated creations of the new art have now reached.”

For architecture The high Renaissance is characterized by monumentality, representative grandeur, grandeur of plans (coming from Ancient Rome), intensively manifested in Bramant's projects of St. Peter's Cathedral and the reconstruction of the Vatican.

Representative: Donato Bramante, Antonio da Sangallo, Jacopo Sansovino

For sculpture This period is characterized by heroic pathos and, at the same time, a tragic feeling of the crisis of humanism. The strength and power of a person, the beauty of his body are glorified, while at the same time emphasizing his loneliness in the world.

Representative: Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Brunelleschi, Luca della Robbia, Michelozzo, Agostino di Duccio, Pisanello.

For painting The transfer of facial expressions of a person’s face and body is characteristic; new ways of conveying space and constructing a composition appear. At the same time, the works create a harmonious image of a person that meets humanistic ideals.

Representatives: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Santi, Michelangelo Buonarotti, Titian, Jacopo Sansovino.

Late Renaissance

At this time, an eclipse occurs and a new artistic culture emerges. It is not shocking that the work of this period is extremely complex and is characterized by the predominance of confrontation between different directions. Although, if we do not consider the very end of the 16th century - the time when the Carracci and Caravaggio brothers entered the arena, then we can narrow the entire diversity of art to two main trends.

The feudal-Catholic reaction dealt a mortal blow to the High Renaissance, but could not kill the powerful artistic tradition that had been formed over two and a half centuries in Italy.

Only rich Venetian Republic, free both from the power of the Pope and from the domination of the interventionists, ensured the development of art in this region. The Renaissance in Venice had its own characteristics.

Speaking of creations famous artists the second half of the 16th century, then they still have a Renaissance foundation, but with some changes.

The fate of man was no longer portrayed as so selfless, although echoes of the theme of a heroic personality who is ready to fight evil and a sense of reality are still present.

The foundations of the art of the 17th century were laid in the creative searches of these masters, thanks to which new means of expression.

Few artists belong to this movement, but eminent masters of the older generation, caught in a crisis at the culmination of their creativity, such as Titian and Michelangelo. In Venice, which occupied a unique position in artistic culture Italy XVI century, this orientation is also inherent in artists of the younger generation — Tintoretto, Bassano, Veronese.

Representatives of the second direction are completely different masters. They are united only by subjectivity in the perception of the world.

This trend spread in the second half of the 16th century and, not limited to Italy, flows into most European countries. In the art history literature of the end of the last century, called “ mannerism».

A passion for luxury, decorativeness and a dislike for scientific research delayed the penetration of artistic ideas and practices of the Florentine Renaissance into Venice.

(Abstract)

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High Renaissance, the contribution of its masters to the art of the Renaissance

The main stages of the political and socio-economic development of Italy in the 16th century. chronologically did not coincide with the main phases of cultural processes. The High Renaissance occurred during the devastating Italian Wars (1494-1559), which caused serious damage to the country's economy. In the new environment, the moods and ideologies of various social strata changed. Ethical values ​​common in the trade and entrepreneurial strata, rationalism and the principles of honest accumulation, ideas of citizenship and patriotism gave way to noble morality, which valued nobility, family honor, military valor and loyalty to the lord. The cult of courtliness also gained importance. During the era of the Counter-Reformation and Catholic reaction, which sharply intensified in the last decades of the 16th century, the principles of traditional church morality and piety were implanted with new energy and various methods.

Humanistic ideals also underwent a certain transformation. This was reflected in crisis phenomena, a number of which emerged in Renaissance culture already in the era of the High Renaissance. The doctrine of man, his place in nature and society has now developed not so much in the sphere of traditional humanistic disciplines, but in natural philosophy and natural science, political and historical thought, literature and art. But, perhaps, the main difference between the Cinquecento and the previous stages of the Renaissance is the wide penetration of the Renaissance into all spheres of culture: from science and philosophy to architecture and music. Even the 16th century does not know uniformity of development, but there is no longer an area of ​​Italian culture that would not have been affected by the influence of the Renaissance. Renaissance culture, its humanistic worldview and artistic ideals widely influenced the life of Italian society. Secular principles were actively asserted in the ideology and mentality, in the lifestyle and everyday life of different social strata. This was facilitated by the very versatility of the culture of the Renaissance, the variety of spheres of its manifestation and influence - from philosophy to literature and art. The Renaissance, thus, gave impetus to the strengthening of the processes of secularization of public life in Italy, increasing the role of individual and national identity, the development of new mass artistic tastes.

The first three decades of cultural development of Italy in the 16th century. are extremely rich in brilliant talents. This is a time of close interaction various fields artistic and intellectual creativity on the basis of a strengthened commonality of new ideological positions, and different types of art - on the basis of a new style that has become unified for their entire ensemble. The culture of the Renaissance at this time acquired unprecedented power and wide recognition in Italian society, actively influencing the entire course of the country’s cultural development processes. This was greatly facilitated by the successes of humanism achieved by the end of the 15th century. During the High Renaissance, the humanistic ideal of a free and harmonious personality, with unlimited possibilities for understanding the world and creative activity, was especially clearly embodied in the fine arts and literature, and found new meaning in philosophical and political thought. At the same time, Renaissance aesthetics took on mature forms, which developed primarily on a Neoplatonic basis, but was also influenced by the poetics of Aristotle. Aesthetics was enriched by new ideas born in the works of great masters - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, in the works of Bembo, Castiglione, other writers, in numerous philosophical treatises on love. The ideals of beauty and harmony were comprehensively comprehended and even became a kind of norm that influenced the most different types creative activity: internal harmony and perfection of the form of works became a characteristic feature of the era. The similarity of aesthetic approaches and artistic style, which reached classical features and expressiveness, created a certain unity of art and literature, which played a leading role in the culture of the High Renaissance.

Not only courtly and aristocratic circles, but also part of the clergy were actively involved in the values ​​of the Renaissance catholic church. Patronage has become a very noticeable socio-cultural phenomenon in Italy. In a country where state polycentrism was preserved, the courts of rulers, who attracted artists and architects, writers and historians, political thinkers and philosophers to their service, turned out to be the main centers of Renaissance culture. The papal court did not lag behind the rulers of Milan and Naples, Mantua and Ferrara, Urbino and Rimini in generous patronage of the arts. In the republics of Florence and Venice, a tradition of state orders and private patronage of cultural figures developed. At the same time, the system of patronage, which became the main source of livelihood for many of them, left a certain stamp on their work, forcing them to take into account the interests and tastes of the customer.

Having reached the heights of its development during the High Renaissance, Renaissance culture did not escape crisis phenomena. They are obvious in the emerging dramatic tension of artistic images, which later reached the point of tragedy, in the bitter desire to show the futility of even the heroic efforts of man in the fight against the fatal forces opposing him. Signs of the emerging crisis phenomena also appear in the contrasts in social thought that sharply emerged at that time: rationalism and a sober view of reality are combined with an intense utopian search for an ideal earthly city.

The internal contradictions in the development of Renaissance culture were caused, first of all, by changing historical circumstances, harsh ones that called into question faith in the capabilities of an individual. The increasingly obvious gap between humanistic ideals and reality gave rise to crisis phenomena in culture, as well as attempts to overcome them. Connected with this is the emergence of mannerism - a new artistic movement in literature and art, the characteristic features of which were the emphasis on intense inner life human, mysticism, whimsical fantasy. Mannerism rejected strict classical harmony in the name of grace or the cold splendor of images; it resorted to extensive use of the techniques of the great masters of the Renaissance, but its artistic virtuosity was often limited to purely external effects. The artistic language of mannerism became more complex, acquiring features of pretentiousness, refinement, and increased expression. The aesthetics of mannerism asserted an orientation not toward “imitation” of nature, but toward “transforming” it. This trend became widespread mainly in the courtly and aristocratic environment, where it solved mainly decorative problems. Associated with it is the development of ceremonial aristocratic portraiture, painting of palazzos and villas, landscape architecture, costume design, sculptural works, and in literature - primarily the work of poets. By the end of the century, when another artistic movement began to emerge - Baroque, the stylistic heterogeneity of Italian culture turned out to be one of its most characteristic features.

Three geniuses - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo symbolize the High Renaissance in the fine arts. Leonardo da Vinci closely connected scientific and artistic knowledge of the world, the experience of a natural scientist and the possibilities of painting. Leonardo’s teaching on perspective and structure is based on this principle of the commonwealth of science and art. human body and its proportions, about movements associated with the psychological state of a person. Among the means of expressiveness Leonardo paid Special attention chiaroscuro, achieving a uniquely soft modeling of faces and figures, as if shrouded in a subtle haze (“sfumato”). The humanistic ideal of man was deeply and fully embodied in his paintings and drawings. The portrait images created by Leonardo are majestic and significant, they carry an ideal beginning and at the same time are vitally truthful and individualized. His portrait of the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece of Renaissance art. The nobility of the image of the young Florentine woman is achieved by subtle revelation of the psychological wealth of a person. The images of the fresco “The Last Supper”, which occupies the central wall of the refectory in the Milan monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, are constructed differently. In this painting, the characteristic of drama achieves special expressiveness. emotional experiences characters shocked by Christ's words. An important role here belongs to the movements and gestures of Jesus and the apostles. The compositional perfection of the fresco gives it expressive unity.

In the work of Raphael, the humanistic dream of a beautiful person living in complete harmony with peace imbued divine beauty. Many of Raphael’s images are bright, joyful, and distinguished by soft lyricism, but he knew how to add dramatic tension to his works. Raphael was the greatest master of composition, marked by a special musicality of rhythms, expressive plasticity of figures, architectural forms, and landscapes. What is attractive in his portraits is the nobility of the ideal of man, embodied in the concrete, recognizable appearance of people of the Renaissance (these are portraits of the Florentine merchant Angelo Doni, the humanist Count Baldassare Castiglione, Pope Leo X with the cardinals, etc.). Numerous images of Madonnas created by the artist in Umbria, Florence and Rome amaze with poetry and sublime beauty. Each of Raphael’s famous masterpieces (“Madonna del Granduca”, “Sistine Madonna”, “Madonna in an Armchair”, etc.) is distinguished by its unique artistic structure and its special emotional atmosphere of love and spiritual purity. The brilliant gift of Raphael the monumentalist was revealed in the paintings of the interiors of the Vatican, including in the frescoes “The School of Athens”, “Parnassus”, “Disputa”, “The Expulsion of Heliodorus” and others, as well as in the harmony of the ensembles of individual halls. The artist appears here as the creator of a heroic style, glorifying the greatness and dignity of man, the grandeur of the culture he creates.

An exceptional place in Renaissance culture belongs to Michelangelo Buonarroti, a painter, sculptor, architect and poet who made outstanding contributions to each of these areas of creativity. For his versatile genius, his contemporaries called him “divine.” The leading theme of all Michelangelo's art is the greatness and drama of human existence, the heroism of his struggle, its titanic tension. In Michelangelo's sculptural and pictorial images, the image of the naked body dominates - he saw in it the bearer and exponent of the qualities of the soul and therefore endowed it with both beauty and special power. The everyday principle was alien to Michelangelo’s poetics - he was attracted by the intensity of emotions, the power of pent-up energy or the outburst of passion.

Statue of David, one of early works master, became the perfect embodiment of the monumental image of a brave young man, ready to fight. Already contemporaries perceived this image as a symbol of love of freedom. In the grandiose painting of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, where the artist was supposed to depict the creation of the world and man, early history humanity, Michelangelo sang the beauty and energy of creativity, the greatness of wisdom, strong characters and the spiritual significance of people. In the mature work of the master, the motives of man’s confrontation with forces hostile to him grow. Such are the figures of young men for the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome, seemingly bursting from the sculptor’s raw stone mass, which received the conventional names “Slaves” or “Prisoners”. The mighty statue of “Moses”, intended for this unfinished ensemble, amazes with the gigantic tension of internal forces. Michelangelo created another architectural and sculptural complex - the ensemble of the Medici Chapel - in Florence. The atmosphere of the emerging crisis of humanistic ideals was reflected here in the interpretation of the figures personifying the pace of time - Day, Night, Evening and Morning. For all their physical strength, they are imprinted with mental fatigue, inner turmoil, and bitter thoughts.

One of Michelangelo's later masterpieces was the painting of the huge altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican - “The Last Judgment”. Here sounds the motif of a formidable, inexorable and irresistible will at this hour, drawing heavy masses of titanic bodies into a circular movement, lifted to heaven or cast down to hell. The images of the sculptural group “Pieta” (“Lamentation of Christ”) from the Florence Cathedral are filled with tragedy and deep sorrow. It also belongs to the late work of Michelangelo and was intended by him for his own tombstone. In the art of Michelangelo, the transition from the High to the Late Renaissance was especially dramatic, for which crisis motives and a feeling of disappointment in reality, so far from humanistic ideals, became characteristic.

The art of the High Renaissance is not limited to the work of the already mentioned great masters. Their contemporaries were such major artists with their own individual style as Andrea del Sarto, Antonio Correggio and a number of others. Correggio, in particular, was not only the head of one of the local Italian schools of the High Renaissance, but also the founder of a new type of ceiling painting with figures floating in the clouds from angles difficult to depict.

In 1520-1530 XVI century In Italian art, a new movement is emerging - mannerism, with its characteristic reverence for the great artists of the High Renaissance and at the same time with a rejection of classicism: a violation of the natural proportions of figures, their deliberate sophistication and flexibility, sensual grace, and the increasing role of fantasy in compositions. Mannerists strive with their art not to “imitate nature,” but to “surpass it.” Mannerism was most fully embodied in the works of prominent artists - Pontormo, Rosso, Parmigianino. In the work of the Mannerists, which was strongly influenced by the tastes of the nobility and the courts, a new type of portrait emerged - the courtly-aristocratic one. Bronzino worked especially hard in this genre; the majestic images of his models are emphatically closed, devoid of deep psychologism.

One of the main centers of Renaissance art already at the beginning of the 16th century. became Venice. Its greatest artists not only contributed to the development of the traditions of the High Renaissance, but also remained faithful to them in those decades when Mannerism was spreading more and more widely in the rest of Italy. The harmony and balance of generalized, sublime images, characteristic of the work of the Renaissance masters, receive a new bright embodiment in the works of Venetian artists and are complemented by the perception of the world in the amazing richness of its color, remarkable coloristic discoveries, and the desire to consider man in inextricable unity with his natural environment.

This was clearly evident in the musical-sounding works of Giorgione (c. 1477-1510). A number of his works are devoted to secular themes. In his paintings “Sleeping Venus”, “Thunderstorm”, “Three Philosophers”, “Rural Concert”, the images of the characters are in harmony with the landscape imbued with subtle poetry. The spirituality of images also distinguishes Giorgione’s portraiture.

His successor in Venetian art was Titian (c. 1477 or 1480-1576). He lived a long time creative life, covering the stages of the High and Late Renaissance in the specific conditions of Venice. Titian's innovation affected the most different forms and genres of painting. His name is associated with the establishment of easel paintings, the creation of monumental altar paintings, the identification of landscape as an independent genre, and the development of various types of portraits (artistic ceremonial, chamber, etc.). Titian is considered a true reformer of painting - with the exceptional richness and diversity of his coloristic achievements, it was he who showed the enormous possibilities of color as a means of artistic expression new painting. Creating festive, vital images of man, able to clearly reveal his harmonious connection with nature, Titian at the same time turned to images marked by the depth of penetration into the inner world of people, into their psychology. The themes of his works are extremely wide and varied: from canvases with characters from ancient mythology (“Venus of Urbino”, “Bacchus and Ariadne”, “Danae”) and allegorical paintings (“Earthly and Heavenly Love”) to grandiose altar images (“Assunta” - “The Ascension of the Madonna”) and the drama of later works (“The Crowning with Thorns”, “St. Sebastian”). Titian created an entire portrait gallery of his contemporaries (“Young Man with a Glove,” “Ippolito Riminaldi,” portraits of Emperor Charles V, Pope Paul III, etc.). In Titian's late work, his gift as an artist-colorist was particularly fully revealed: the color modeling of forms is combined here with the finest colorful nuances, the artist completes the whole created with a brush, sometimes rubbing paint into the canvas with his fingertips.

One of the most important Renaissance artists in Venice and an outstanding colorist was Paolo Veronese (1528-1588). His canvases and paintings are characterized by a life-affirming, festive worldview. He was a monumentalist and creator of decorative ensembles, a master of grandiose compositions on the themes of celebrations and festivals, in which he included depictions of characters in spectacular costumes, colorful episodes, and a majestic architectural background (“Marriage at Cana,” “Adoration of the Magi,” “Feast in the House of Levi.” " and etc.). Veronese owns many decorative panels and frescoes in palaces, villas, and churches; he also decorated the Doge's Palace (“Triumph of Venice”). Drama was not particularly characteristic of his art, but even in Veronese, at the late stage of his work, among large number In ceremonial works, mournful images also appeared - “The Crucifixion” and “The Lamentation of Christ.”

An outstanding Venetian artist of the Late Renaissance was Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594). A student of Titian, he highly appreciated his teacher's coloristic skills, but sought to combine it with the mastery of Michelangelo's drawing. The range of Tintoretto's work extended from monumental paintings to intimate, lyrical paintings. In his works, he often depicted crowd scenes with dramatically intense action, deep space, and figures from complex angles. His compositions are distinguished by exceptional dynamism, and in the late period - by strong contrasts of light and darkness. Among his best works are “The Miracle of St. Mark", "Introduction to the Temple", "Flight into Egypt". He devoted a whole series of his works to the history of the relics of St. Mark, who was revered in Venice. Tintoretto was also the author of large decorative works, in which the trends leading to the art of the next century, to the Baroque ("Calvary", "Paradise", "Last Supper") are already noticeable.

In sculpture of the 16th century. two schools dominate - Venetian and Roman-Tuscan. In the first (its prominent representative was Jacopo Sansovino) the Renaissance traditions were preserved for a long time; it was distinguished by a tendency towards decorativeness. The second experienced a strong influence of mannerism, which was especially clearly manifested in the works of the major sculptor and jeweler of the Late Renaissance Benvenuto Cellini. He worked in Florence, Rome, a number of other Italian cities, as well as in Paris. The masterpiece of his small sculpture was the golden salt shaker, created by order of the French king Francis I. His bronze sculpture “Perseus” was a typically mannerist work. Cellini lived a turbulent life, which he masterfully described in his autobiography.

The cultural life of Italy in the 16th century, rich in the brightest talents in the most different areas creativity, was distinguished by a variety of new phenomena and trends. One of these phenomena was the emergence of various academies - literary, scientific, artistic, musical. These voluntary communities united people, regardless of their social status, into groups of like-minded people, passionate about a common interest, striving for free self-expression in creativity. The academies stimulated the search for new paths in science, literature, music, visual and theatrical arts.

The court culture of the Cinquecento became a different, complex phenomenon. It included and connected with each other almost all types artistic creativity. Italian rulers provided their orders for the creation of many outstanding architectural, gardening, and sometimes even urban planning ensembles. Their courtyards, which also possessed rich libraries, collections of antiquities, and collections of new art, acquired the status of important cultural centers. Court culture, which had a distinctly aristocratic character, first developed in line with the Renaissance, and later became the main sphere of manifestation of mannerism.

One of the characteristic signs of court culture, especially from the middle of the 16th century. became a direct intervention in artistic life rulers of the absolutist type (in Florence, Mantua, Ferrara, Rome, Naples) with the aim of using architecture and fine arts to glorify their regimes. In the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, whose capital was Florence, under Cosimo I de' Medici (1537-1573) and his successors, various spheres of life were unified - from behavior and fashion to ideological positions; freethinking was not allowed. Art became the main sphere of the persistent artistic policy of the rulers, who sought an apology and mythologization of power. The best Florentine masters of the mid and second half of the 16th century. (G. Vasari, B. Buontalenti, Giambologna, etc.) carried out the orders of the dukes, strictly following the instructions of the authorities. Medici palaces and villas, in the architecture and decoration of which the features of mannerism were combined with the traditions of the Quattrocento, were supposed to serve representative purposes, emphasizing the greatness and wealth of the rulers. The sculptural busts of Cosimo I by B. Cellini and B. Bandinelli were based on portraits of Roman emperors and served to satisfy the duke’s ambitions. The picturesque ceremonial portraits of Cosimo I and his family, artistically executed by Bronzino, were subordinated to the same task of idealizing powerful people. Under the Medici, lavish festive ceremonies, theatrical processions, and carnivals were widely practiced, involving the masses of Florentine residents. These celebrations combined entertainment and propaganda objectives, the desire to demonstrate merit and prosperity to the population ruling house. The relationship between government and society took on aesthetic forms, as often happened in the 15th century. But Quattrocento did not know such a thoughtful and energetic system of actions by the authorities, for whom the use of art for political purposes became an integral part of the art of politics.

The broadest layer of cultural life in Italy in the 16th century. the folk culture of the city and countryside with its firmly established traditions remained. But it, too, interacting with “high” culture, sprouted new shoots in music and dance, theater, literature, and festive events. The church also sought to adapt the achievements of various cultural movements and directions to its goals, which affected, in particular, the organization of its education system, especially in the schools created by the Jesuit Order in different cities Italy. The fight against heresies and free-thinking, the desire to establish orthodox views in all layers of society were proclaimed by the Council of Trent as the main task of church policy. The implementation of this goal was carried out on the basis of using in the interests of the church many achievements of the humanities of the Renaissance era. For two and a half centuries, the Renaissance thus gave a powerful stimulus to the development of the most different directions in the cultural life of Italy.

Renaissance art in Italy, which had an impact powerful impact on the development of artistic culture in Europe did not extend beyond the 16th century. At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, it was replaced by two new trends emerging at this time - Baroque and Academicism. Their development and flourishing in Italy are associated already with the 17th century.

Conclusion

The connection between art and science is one of the most characteristic features of the culture of the Renaissance. True image the world and man had to be based on their knowledge, therefore the cognitive principle played a particularly important role in the art of this time. Naturally, artists sought support in the sciences, often stimulating their development.

Painting the ideal of the human personality, Renaissance figures emphasized its kindness, strength, heroism, and ability to create and create a new world around itself.

The Renaissance is a time of great discoveries, great masters and their outstanding works. It was marked by the emergence of a whole galaxy of artist-scientists.

It was a time of titanism, which manifested itself both in art and in life. It is enough to recall the heroic images created by Michelangelo, and their creator himself - poet, artist, sculptor. People like Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci were real examples limitless possibilities person. Artists began to see the world differently: the flat, seemingly disembodied images of medieval art gave way to three-dimensional, relief, convex space. Raphael Santi (1483-1520), Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) glorified with their creativity a perfect personality in which physical and spiritual beauty merge together in accordance with the requirements of ancient aesthetics. Renaissance artists rely on the principles of imitation of nature, use perspective, the rule of the “golden ratio” in constructing the human body. Leonardo da Vinci characterizes painting as “the greatest of sciences.” The principle of “conformity to nature,” the desire to reproduce the depicted object as accurately as possible, as well as the interest in individuality inherent in this period impart a subtle psychologism to the works of the Renaissance masters. Characteristic feature The Renaissance had a close connection between science and art. This determined the titanic personality of the Renaissance: the masters of the Renaissance, especially the High Renaissance, combined artists, poets, engineers, and musicians. The most striking examples of the titans of the Renaissance can be called Leonardo and Michelangelo, Raphael Santi, Titian Vecellio.

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A distinctive feature of the Renaissance is the secular nature of culture and its anthropocentrism (that is, interest, first of all, in man and his activities). Interest in ancient culture appears, its “revival,” as it were, occurs - and this is how the term appeared.

Term Renaissance already found among Italian humanists, for example, Giorgio Vasari. IN modern meaning the term was coined by the 19th century French historian Jules Michelet. Currently the term Renaissance developed into a metaphor for cultural flourishing: for example, the 9th-century Carolingian Renaissance.

general characteristics

A new cultural paradigm arose as a result of fundamental changes in social relations in Europe.

The growth of city-republics led to an increase in the influence of classes that did not participate in feudal relations: artisans and craftsmen, merchants, bankers. The hierarchical system of values ​​created by the medieval, largely ecclesiastical culture and its ascetic, humble spirit were alien to all of them. 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 public institutions.

Secular centers of science and art began to emerge in 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 relationships. The invention of printing in the middle of the century played a huge role in the spread of ancient heritage and new views throughout Europe.

Periods of the era

Early Renaissance

The period of the so-called “Early Renaissance” covers the time from year to year in Italy. During these eighty years, art has not yet completely abandoned the traditions of the recent past, but has tried to mix into them elements borrowed from classical antiquity. Only later, and only little by little, under the influence of increasingly changing conditions of life and culture, do artists completely abandon medieval foundations and boldly use examples of ancient art both in the general concept of their works and in their details.

While art in Italy was already resolutely following the path of imitation of classical antiquity, in other countries it long adhered to the traditions of the Gothic style. North of the Alps, and also in Spain, the Renaissance begins only at the end of the 15th century, and its early period lasts until approximately the middle of the next century, without producing anything particularly remarkable.

High Renaissance

The second period of the Renaissance - the time of the most magnificent development of his style - is usually called the “High Renaissance”, it extends in Italy from approximately to 1580. At this time, the center of gravity of Italian art from Florence moved to Rome, thanks to the accession to the papal throne of Julius II, an ambitious, courageous and enterprising man, who attracted to his court best artists Italy, which occupied them with numerous and important works and who gave others an example of love for the arts. Under this pope and his immediate successors, Rome becomes, as it were, the new Athens of the time of Pericles: many monumental buildings are created in it, magnificent sculptural works are executed, frescoes and paintings are painted, which are still considered the pearls of painting; at the same time, all three branches of art harmoniously go hand in hand, helping one another and mutually influencing each other. Antiquity is now studied more thoroughly, reproduced with greater severity and consistency; calmness and dignity are established instead of the playful beauty that was the aspiration of the previous period; memories of the medieval completely disappear, and a completely classical imprint falls on all creations of art. But imitation of the ancients does not drown out their independence in artists, and they, with great resourcefulness and liveliness of imagination, freely rework and apply to their work what they consider appropriate to borrow from Greco-Roman art.

Northern Renaissance

The Renaissance period in the Netherlands, Germany and France is usually distinguished as a separate style direction, which has some differences with the Renaissance in Italy, and called the “Northern Renaissance”.

The most noticeable stylistic differences are in painting: unlike Italy, the traditions and skills of Gothic art were preserved in painting for a long time, less attention was paid to the study of ancient heritage and knowledge of human anatomy.

Renaissance Man

The science

In general, the pantheistic mysticism of the Renaissance prevailing in this era created an unfavorable ideological background for the development of scientific knowledge. The final formation of the scientific method and the subsequent Scientific Revolution of the 17th century. associated with the Reformation movement opposed to the Renaissance.

Philosophy

Renaissance philosophers

Literature

The literature of the Renaissance most fully expressed the humanistic ideals of the era, the glorification of a harmonious, free, creative, comprehensively developed personality. The love sonnets of Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) revealed the depth of man's inner world, the richness of his emotional life. In the XIV-XVI centuries, Italian literature experienced a heyday - the lyrics of Petrarch, the short stories of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), the political treatises of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), the poems of Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) and Torquato Tasso (1544-1595) brought it forward among the “classical” (along with ancient Greek and Roman) literatures for other countries.

The literature of the Renaissance was based on two traditions: folk poetry and “book” ancient literature, so it often combined the rational principle with poetic fiction, and comic genres gained great popularity. This was manifested in the most significant literary monuments of the era: Boccaccio's Decameron, Cervantes' Don Quixote, and Francois Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel.

The emergence of national literatures is associated with the Renaissance - in contrast to the literature of the Middle Ages, which was created mainly in Latin.

Theater and drama became widespread. The most famous playwrights of this time were William Shakespeare (1564-1616, England) and Lope de Vega (1562-1635, Spain)

art

Painting and sculpture of the Renaissance are characterized by the rapprochement of artists with nature, their closest penetration into the laws of anatomy, perspective, the action of light and other natural phenomena.

Renaissance artists, painting traditional religious themes, began to use new artistic techniques: building a three-dimensional composition, using a landscape in the background. This allowed them to make the images more realistic and animated, which showed a sharp difference between their work and the previous iconographic tradition, replete with conventions in the image.

Architecture

The main thing that characterizes this era is the return to tsui

To the principles and forms of ancient, mainly Roman art. Special meaning in this direction, symmetry, proportion, geometry and the order of its component parts are given, as is clearly evidenced by surviving examples of Roman architecture. The complex proportions of medieval buildings are replaced by an orderly arrangement of columns, pilasters and lintels; asymmetrical outlines are replaced by a semicircle of an arch, a hemisphere of a dome, niches, and aedicules.

Renaissance architecture experienced its greatest flourishing in Italy, leaving behind two monument cities: Florence and Venice. Great architects worked on the creation of buildings there - Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti, Donato Bramante, Giorgio Vasari and many others.

Music

In the era of the Renaissance (Renaissance), professional music loses the character of a purely church art and is influenced by folk music, imbued with a new humanistic worldview. The art of vocal and vocal-instrumental polyphony reaches a high level in the work of representatives of “Ars nova” (“New Art”) in Italy and France in the 14th century, in new polyphonic schools - English (XV centuries), Dutch (XV-XVI centuries. ), Roman, Venetian, French, German, Polish, Czech, etc. (XVI century).

Various genres of secular musical art appear - frottola and villanelle in Italy, villancico in Spain, ballad in England, madrigal, which originated in Italy (L. Marenzio, J. Arkadelt, Gesualdo da Venosa), but became widespread, French polyphonic song (K Janequin, C. Lejeune). Secular humanistic aspirations also penetrate into religious music - among the Franco-Flemish masters (Josquin Depres, Orlando di Lasso), in the art of composers of the Venetian school (A. and G. Gabrieli). During the period of the Counter-Reformation, the question of expelling polyphony from the religious cult was raised, and only the reform of the head of the Roman school, Palestrina, preserves polyphony for the Catholic Church - in a “purified”, “clarified” form. At the same time, some valuable achievements of secular music of the Renaissance were reflected in Palestrina’s art. New genres of instrumental music are emerging, and national schools of performing the lute, organ, and virginel are emerging. In Italy, the art of making bowed instruments with rich expressive possibilities. The clash of different aesthetic attitudes is manifested in the “struggle” of two types of bowed instruments - the viol, which was common in the aristocratic environment, and

Material from Uncyclopedia

Renaissance, or Renaissance (from the French renaître - to be reborn), is one of the most striking eras in the development of European culture, spanning almost three centuries: from the middle of the 14th century. until the first decades of the 17th century. This was an era of major changes in the history of the peoples of Europe. In conditions of a high level of urban civilization, the process of the emergence of capitalist relations and the crisis of feudalism began, the formation of nations and the creation of large national states took place, a new form appeared political system- absolute monarchy (see State), new ones were formed community groups- bourgeoisie and hired workers. The spiritual world of man also changed. Great geographical discoveries expanded the horizons of contemporaries. This was facilitated by the great invention of Johannes Gutenberg - printing. In this complex, transitional era, a new type of culture emerged that placed man and the surrounding world at the center of its interests. The new, Renaissance culture was widely based on the heritage of antiquity, interpreted differently than in the Middle Ages, and in many ways rediscovered (hence the concept of “Renaissance”), but it also drew from the best achievements of medieval culture, especially secular - knightly, urban , folk The Renaissance man was gripped by a thirst for self-affirmation and great achievements, actively involved in public life, rediscovered the natural world, strived for a deep understanding of it, and admired its beauty. The culture of the Renaissance is characterized by a secular perception and understanding of the world, an affirmation of the value of earthly existence, the greatness of the mind and creative abilities of man, and the dignity of the individual. Humanism (from the Latin humanus - human) became the ideological basis of the culture of the Renaissance.

Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the first representatives of humanistic literature of the Renaissance.

Palazzo Pitti. Florence. 1440-1570

Masaccio. Tax collection. Scene from the life of St. Petra Fresco of the Brancacci Chapel. Florence. 1426-1427

Michelangelo Buonarroti. Moses. 1513-1516

Rafael Santi. Sistine Madonna. 1515-1519 Canvas, oil. Art Gallery. Dresden.

Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna Litta. Late 1470s - early 1490s Wood, oil. State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg.

Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. OK. 1510-1513

Albrecht Durer. Self-portrait. 1498

Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Hunters in the snow. 1565 Wood, oil. Museum of Art History. Vein.

Humanists opposed the dictatorship of the Catholic Church in the spiritual life of society. They criticized the method of scholastic science, based on formal logic (dialectics), rejected its dogmatism and faith in authorities, thereby clearing the way for free development scientific thought. Humanists called for study ancient culture, which the church denied as pagan, perceiving from it only that which did not contradict Christian doctrine. However, the restoration of the ancient heritage (humanists searched for manuscripts of ancient authors, cleared texts from later layers and mistakes of copyists) was not an end in itself for them, but served as the basis for a decision current problems modernity, to build a new culture. The range of humanitarian knowledge within which the humanistic worldview was formed included ethics, history, pedagogy, poetics, and rhetoric. Humanists made valuable contributions to the development of all these sciences. Their search for a new scientific method, criticism of scholasticism, translations of scientific works of ancient authors contributed to the rise of natural philosophy and natural science in the 16th - early 17th centuries.

Formation of the Renaissance culture in different countries was not simultaneous and proceeded at unequal rates in different areas of culture itself. It first developed in Italy, with its numerous cities that had reached a high level of civilization and political independence, with ancient traditions that were stronger than in other European countries. Already in the 2nd half of the 14th century. In Italy, significant changes took place in literature and humanities - philology, ethics, rhetoric, historiography, pedagogy. Then fine arts and architecture became the arena for the rapid development of the Renaissance; later the new culture embraced the sphere of philosophy, natural science, music, and theater. For more than a century, Italy remained the only country of Renaissance culture; by the end of the 15th century. The revival began to gain strength relatively quickly in Germany, the Netherlands, and France in the 16th century. - in England, Spain, Central European countries. Second half of the 16th century. became a time not only of high achievements of the European Renaissance, but also of manifestations of the crisis of the new culture caused by the counter-offensive of reactionary forces and internal contradictions development of the Renaissance itself.

The origin of Renaissance literature in the 2nd half of the 14th century. associated with the names of Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio. They affirmed humanistic ideas of personal dignity, linking it not with birth, but with the valiant deeds of a person, his freedom and the right to enjoy the joys of earthly life. Petrarch’s “Book of Songs” reflected the subtlest shades of his love for Laura. In the dialogue “My Secret” and a number of treatises, he developed ideas about the need to change the structure of knowledge - to put human problems at the center, criticized the scholastics for their formal-logical method of knowledge, called for the study of ancient authors (Petrarch especially appreciated Cicero, Virgil, Seneca), highly raised the importance of poetry in man’s knowledge of the meaning of his earthly existence. These thoughts were shared by his friend Boccaccio, the author of the book of short stories “The Decameron”, and a number of poetic and scientific works. The Decameron traces the influence of folk-urban literature of the Middle Ages. Here, humanistic ideas were expressed in artistic form - the denial of ascetic morality, the justification of a person’s right to the full expression of his feelings, all natural needs, the idea of ​​nobility as the product of valiant deeds and high morality, and not the nobility of the family. The theme of nobility, the solution of which reflected the anti-class ideas of the advanced part of the burghers and people, will become characteristic of many humanists. IN further development Humanists of the 15th century made a great contribution to literature in Italian and Latin. - writers and philologists, historians, philosophers, poets, statesmen and speakers.

In Italian humanism there were directions that had different approaches to solving ethical problems, and above all to the question of man’s path to happiness. Thus, in civil humanism - the direction that developed in Florence in the first half of the 15th century. (its most prominent representatives are Leonardo Bruni and Matteo Palmieri) - ethics was based on the principle of serving the common good. Humanists asserted the need to educate a citizen, a patriot who puts the interests of society and the state above personal ones. They claimed moral ideal active civil life as opposed to the church ideal of monastic hermitage. They attached particular value to such virtues as justice, generosity, prudence, courage, politeness, and modesty. A person can discover and develop these virtues only in active social interaction, and not in flight from worldly life. Humanists of this school considered the best form of government to be a republic, where, in conditions of freedom, all human abilities can be most fully demonstrated.

Another direction in humanism of the 15th century. represented the work of the writer, architect, and art theorist Leon Battista Alberti. Alberti believed that the law of harmony reigns in the world, and man is subject to it. He must strive for knowledge, to comprehend the world around him and himself. People must build earthly life on reasonable grounds, on the basis of acquired knowledge, turning it to their own benefit, striving for harmony of feelings and reason, the individual and society, man and nature. Knowledge and work obligatory for all members of society - this, according to Alberti, is the path to a happy life.

Lorenzo Valla put forward a different ethical theory. He identified happiness with pleasure: a person should receive pleasure from all the joys of earthly existence. Asceticism is contrary to human nature itself; feelings and reason are equal in rights; their harmony should be achieved. From these positions, Valla made a decisive criticism of monasticism in the dialogue “On the Monastic Vow.”

At the end of the 15th - end of the 16th century. The direction associated with the activities of the Platonic Academy in Florence became widespread. The leading humanist philosophers of this movement, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, exalted the human mind in their works based on the philosophy of Plato and the Neoplatonists. The glorification of personality became characteristic of them. Ficino considered man the center of the world, the connecting link (this connection is realized in knowledge) of a beautifully organized cosmos. Pico saw in man the only creature in the world endowed with the ability to shape himself, relying on knowledge - on ethics and the sciences of nature. In his “Speech on the Dignity of Man,” Pico defended the right to free thought and believed that philosophy, devoid of any dogmatism, should become the lot of everyone, and not a select few. Italian Neoplatonists approached the solution of a number of theological problems from new, humanistic positions. The invasion of humanism into the sphere of theology is one of the important features of the European Renaissance of the 16th century.

The 16th century marked a new rise in Renaissance literature in Italy: Ludovico Ariosto became famous for the poem “ Furious Roland“, where reality and fantasy, glorification of earthly joys and sometimes sad and sometimes ironic understanding of Italian life are intertwined; Baldassare Castiglione created a book about the ideal man of his era (“The Courtier”). This is the time of creativity of the outstanding poet Pietro Bembo and the author of satirical pamphlets Pietro Aretino; at the end of the 16th century Torquato Tasso’s grandiose heroic poem “Jerusalem Liberated” was written, which reflected not only the gains of secular Renaissance culture, but also the emerging crisis of the humanistic worldview, associated with the strengthening of religiosity in the conditions of the Counter-Reformation, with the loss of faith in the omnipotence of the individual.

The art of the Italian Renaissance achieved brilliant successes, which began with Masaccio in painting, Donatello in sculpture, Brunelleschi in architecture, who worked in Florence in the 1st half of the 15th century. Their work is marked by brilliant talent, a new understanding of man, his place in nature and society. In the 2nd half of the 15th century. in Italian painting, along with the Florentine school, a number of others emerged - Umbrian, Northern Italian, Venetian. Each of them had its own characteristics; they were also characteristic of the work of the greatest masters - Piero della Francesca, Adrea Mantegna, Sandro Botticelli and others. All of them in different ways revealed the specifics of Renaissance art: the desire for life-like images based on the principle of “imitation of nature”, a wide appeal to the motifs of ancient mythology and secular interpretation of traditional religious stories, interest in linear and aerial perspective, in the plastic expressiveness of images, harmonious proportions, etc. Portraits became a common genre of painting, graphics, medal art, and sculpture, which was directly related to the affirmation of the humanistic ideal of man. The heroic ideal of the perfect person was embodied with particular completeness in the Italian art of the High Renaissance in the first decades of the 16th century. This era brought forward the brightest, multifaceted talents - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo (see Art). A type of universal artist emerged, combining in his work a painter, sculptor, architect, poet and scientist. Artists of this era worked closely with humanists and showed great interest in the natural sciences, especially anatomy, optics, and mathematics, trying to use their achievements in their work. In the 16th century Venetian art experienced a special boom. Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto created beautiful canvases, notable for their coloristic richness and realism of images of man and the world around him. The 16th century was a time of active establishment of the Renaissance style in architecture, especially for secular purposes, which was characterized by a close connection with the traditions of ancient architecture (order architecture). A new type of building was formed - a city palace (palazzo) and a country residence (villa) - majestic, but also commensurate with the person, where the solemn simplicity of the facade is combined with spacious, richly decorated interiors. A huge contribution to Renaissance architecture was made by Leon Battista Alberti, Giuliano da Sangallo, Bramante, and Palladio. Many architects created projects for an ideal city, based on new principles of urban planning and architecture that met human needs for a healthy, well-equipped and beautiful living space. Not only individual buildings were rebuilt, but also entire old medieval cities: Rome, Florence, Ferrara, Venice, Mantua, Rimini.

Lucas Cranach the Elder. Female portrait.

Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait of the Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam. 1523

Titian Vecellio. Saint Sebastian. 1570 Oil on canvas. State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg.

Illustration by Mr. Doré for the novel by F. Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel”.

Michel Montaigne is a French philosopher and writer.

In the political and historical thought of the Italian Renaissance, the problem of a perfect society and state became one of the central ones. The works of Bruni and especially Machiavelli on the history of Florence, based on the study of documentary material, and the works of Sabellico and Contarini on the history of Venice revealed the merits of the republican structure of these city-states, while historians of Milan and Naples, on the contrary, emphasized the positive centralizing role of the monarchy. Machiavelli and Guicciardini explained all the troubles of Italy, which became in the first decades of the 16th century. arena of foreign invasions, its political decentralization and called on the Italians for national consolidation. A common feature Renaissance historiography was the desire to see in people themselves the creators of their history, to deeply analyze the experience of the past and use it in political practice. Widespread in the 16th - early 17th centuries. received a social utopia. In the teachings of the utopians Doni, Albergati, Zuccolo, the ideal society was associated with the partial liquidation private property, equality of citizens (but not all people), universal compulsory labor, harmonious development of the individual. The most consistent expression of the idea of ​​socialization of property and equalization was found in Campanella’s “City of the Sun.”

New approaches to the solution traditional problem The natural philosophers Bernardino Telesio, Francesco Patrizi, and Giordano Bruno put forward the relationship between nature and God. In their works, the dogma of a creator God directing the development of the universe gave way to pantheism: God is not opposed to nature, but, as it were, merges with it; nature is seen as existing forever and developing according to its own laws. The ideas of the Renaissance natural philosophers met with sharp resistance from the Catholic Church. For his ideas about the eternity and infinity of the Universe, consisting of a huge number of worlds, for his sharp criticism of the church, which condones ignorance and obscurantism, Bruno was condemned as a heretic and committed to fire in 1600.

The Italian Renaissance had a huge impact on the development of Renaissance culture in other European countries. This was facilitated to a large extent by printing. The major centers of publishing were in the 16th century. Venice, where at the beginning of the century the printing house of Aldus Manutius became an important center of cultural life; Basel, where the publishing houses of Johann Froben and Johann Amerbach were equally significant; Lyon with its famous Etienne printing house, as well as Paris, Rome, Louvain, London, Seville. Printing became a powerful factor in the development of Renaissance culture in many European countries and opened the way to active interaction in the process of building a new culture of humanists, scientists, and artists.

The largest figure of the Northern Renaissance was Erasmus of Rotterdam, with whose name the movement of “Christian humanism” is associated. He had like-minded people and allies in many European countries (J. Colet and Thomas More in England, G. Budet and Lefebvre d'Etaples in France, I. Reuchlin in Germany). Erasmus broadly understood the tasks of the new culture. In his opinion, this was not only the resurrection of the ancient pagan heritage, but also the restoration of early Christian teaching. He did not see between them fundamental differences from the point of view of the truth to which man should strive. Like the Italian humanists, he linked the improvement of man with education, creative activity, and the revelation of all the abilities inherent in him. His humanistic pedagogy received artistic expression in “Easy Conversations,” and his sharply satirical work “In Praise of Stupidity” was directed against ignorance, dogmatism, and feudal prejudices. Erasmus saw the path to people's happiness in peaceful life and the establishment of a humanistic culture based on all values historical experience humanity.

In Germany, Renaissance culture experienced a rapid rise at the end of the 15th century. - 1st third of the 16th century. One of its features was the flourishing of satirical literature, which began with Sebastian Brant’s essay “Ship of Fools,” in which the mores of the time were sharply criticized; the author led readers to the conclusion about the need for reforms in public life. satirical line in German literature continued “Letters of Dark People” - an anonymously published collective work of humanists, chief among whom was Ulrich von Hutten, - where church ministers were subjected to devastating criticism. Hutten was the author of many pamphlets, dialogues, letters directed against the papacy, the dominance of the church in Germany, and the fragmentation of the country; his work contributed to the awakening of the national consciousness of the German people.

The largest artists of the Renaissance in Germany were A. Dürer, an outstanding painter and unsurpassed master of engraving, M. Niethardt (Grunewald) with his deeply dramatic images, portrait painter Hans Holbein the Younger, as well as Lucas Cranach the Elder, who closely associated his art with the Reformation.

In France, the Renaissance culture took shape and flourished in the 16th century. This was facilitated, in particular, by the Italian wars of 1494-1559. (they were fought between the kings of France, Spain and the German emperor for the mastery of Italian territories), which revealed to the French the richness of the Renaissance culture of Italy. At the same time, a feature French Renaissance there was an interest in the traditions of folk culture, creatively mastered by humanists along with the ancient heritage. The poetry of C. Marot, the works of humanist philologists E. Dole and B. Deperrier, who were part of the circle of Margaret of Navarre (sister of King Francis I), are imbued with folk motifs and cheerful freethinking. These trends were very clearly manifested in the satirical novel of the outstanding Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel”, where plots drawn from ancient folk tales about cheerful giants, are combined with ridicule of the vices and ignorance of contemporaries, with a presentation of a humanistic program of upbringing and education in the spirit of a new culture. The rise of national French poetry is associated with the activities of the Pleiades - a circle of poets led by Ronsard and Du Bellay. During the period of civil (Huguenot) wars (see Religious Wars in France), journalism was widely developed, expressing differences in the political positions of the opposing forces of society. The largest political thinkers were F. Hautman and Duplessis Mornay, who opposed tyranny, and J. Bodin, who advocated the strengthening of a single national state headed by an absolute monarch. The ideas of humanism found deep understanding in Montaigne's Essays. Montaigne, Rabelais, Bonaventure Deperrier were prominent representatives of secular freethinking, which rejected the religious foundations of their worldview. They condemned scholasticism, the medieval system of upbringing and education, scholasticism, and religious fanaticism. The main principle of Montaigne's ethics is the free manifestation of human individuality, the liberation of the mind from subordination to faith, and the fullness of emotional life. He associated happiness with the realization of the individual’s internal capabilities, which should be served by secular upbringing and education based on free-thinking. In the art of the French Renaissance, the portrait genre came to the fore, outstanding masters which became J. Fouquet, F. Clouet, P. and E. Dumoustier. J. Goujon became famous in sculpture.

In the culture of the Netherlands during the Renaissance, rhetorical societies were a distinctive phenomenon, uniting people from different strata, including artisans and peasants. At meetings of societies, debates were held on political, moral and religious topics, performances were staged in folk traditions, there was a refined work on the word; Humanists took an active part in the activities of societies. Folk features were also characteristic of Dutch art. The greatest painter Pieter Bruegel, nicknamed "The Peasant", in his paintings peasant life and landscapes with particular completeness expressed the feeling of the unity of nature and man.

). It reached a high level in the 16th century. the art of theater, democratic in its orientation. Household comedies, historical chronicles, and heroic dramas were staged in numerous public and private theaters. The plays of C. Marlowe, in which majestic heroes challenge medieval morality, and B. Johnson, in which a gallery of tragicomic characters appears, prepared the appearance of the greatest playwright of the Renaissance, William Shakespeare. A perfect master of various genres - comedies, tragedies, historical chronicles, Shakespeare created unique images of strong people, personalities who vividly embodied the traits of a Renaissance man, life-loving, passionate, endowed with intelligence and energy, but sometimes contradictory in his moral actions. Shakespeare's work exposed the gap between the humanistic idealization of man and the deepening conflicts of life that deepened in the era of the Late Renaissance. real world. The English scientist Francis Bacon enriched Renaissance philosophy with new approaches to understanding the world. He contrasted observation and experiment with the scholastic method as a reliable tool. scientific knowledge. Bacon saw the path to building a perfect society in the development of science, especially physics.

In Spain, Renaissance culture experienced a “golden age” in the 2nd half of the 16th century. - the first decades of the 17th century. Her highest achievements are associated with the creation of a new spanish literature and national folk theater, as well as with the work of the outstanding painter El Greco. The formation of new Spanish literature, which grew out of the traditions of knightly and picaresque novels, found a brilliant conclusion in brilliant novel Miguel de Cervantes "The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha." In the images of the knight Don Quixote and the peasant Sancho Panza, the main humanistic idea novel: the greatness of man in his courageous struggle against evil in the name of justice. Cervantes's novel is both a kind of parody of the chivalric romance that is fading into the past, and the broadest canvas of the folk life of Spain in the 16th century. Cervantes was the author of a number of plays that made a great contribution to the creation of the national theater. To an even greater extent, the rapid development of the Spanish Renaissance theater is associated with the work of the extremely prolific playwright and poet Lope de Vega, the author of lyrical-heroic comedies of cloak and sword, imbued with the folk spirit.

Andrey Rublev. Trinity. 1st quarter of the 15th century

At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Renaissance culture spread in Hungary, where royal patronage played an important role in the flowering of humanism; in the Czech Republic, where new trends contributed to the formation of national consciousness; in Poland, which became one of the centers of humanistic freethinking. The influence of the Renaissance also affected the culture of the Dubrovnik Republic, Lithuania, and Belarus. Certain pre-Renaissance tendencies also appeared in Russian culture of the 15th century. They were associated with a growing interest in human personality and its psychology. In art, this is primarily the work of Andrei Rublev and artists of his circle, in literature - “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom,” which tells about the love of the Murom prince and the peasant girl Fevronia, and the works of Epiphanius the Wise with his masterful “weaving of words.” In the 16th century Renaissance elements appeared in Russian political journalism (Ivan Peresvetov and others).

In the XVI - first decades of the XVII century. significant changes have occurred in the development of science. The beginning of new astronomy was laid by the heliocentric theory of the Polish scientist N. Copernicus, which revolutionized ideas about the Universe. It received further substantiation in the works of the German astronomer I. Kepler, as well as the Italian scientist G. Galileo. The astronomer and physicist Galileo constructed a telescope, using it to discover the mountains on the Moon, the phases of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, etc. Galileo’s discoveries, which confirmed the teaching of Copernicus about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, gave impetus to the more rapid spread of the heliocentric theory, which the church recognized as heretical; she persecuted her supporters (for example, the fate of D. Bruno, who was burned at the stake) and banned the works of Galileo. A lot of new things have appeared in the field of physics, mechanics, and mathematics. Stephen formulated the theorems of hydrostatics; Tartaglia successfully studied the theory of ballistics; Cardano discovered the solution of algebraic equations of the third degree. G. Kremer (Mercator) created more advanced geographical maps. Oceanography emerged. In botany, E. Cord and L. Fuchs systematized a wide range of knowledge. K. Gesner enriched knowledge in the field of zoology with his “History of Animals”. Knowledge of anatomy was improved, which was facilitated by the work of Vesalius “On the structure of the human body.” M. Servet expressed the idea of ​​the presence of a pulmonary circulation. The outstanding physician Paracelsus brought medicine and chemistry closer together and made important discoveries in pharmacology. Mr. Agricola systematized knowledge in the field of mining and metallurgy. Leonardo da Vinci put forward a series engineering projects, far ahead of contemporary technical thought and anticipating some later discoveries (for example, the aircraft).