What is Revival. We associate the revival with achievements in the field of culture, primarily in the field of fine arts. Before the mind's eye of anyone who is at least a little familiar with the history of art, there are harmoniously beautiful and majestic images created by artists: gentle madonnas and wise saints, brave warriors and citizens full of importance. Their figures rise solemnly against the backdrop of marble arches and columns, behind which spread light transparent landscapes.
Art always tells about its time, about the people who lived then. What kind of people created these images, full of dignity, inner peace, confidence in their own significance?
The term "Renaissance" was first used by Giorgio Vasari in the middle of the 16th century. in his book about the famous Italian painters, sculptors and architects of the XIII-XVI centuries. The name appeared at the moment when the era itself was ending. Vasari invested in this concept a very definite meaning: the heyday, rise, revival of the arts. Later, the desire for the revival of ancient traditions in culture, inherent in this period, began to be considered no less important.
The Renaissance phenomenon was generated by the conditions and needs of society on the eve of the New Age (i.e., the time on the outskirts of the formation of an industrial society), and the appeal to antiquity made it possible to find suitable forms for expressing new ideas and moods. The historical significance of this period lies in the formation of a new type of personality and in the creation of the foundations of a new culture.
New trends in the life of Italian society. In order to more easily understand the essence of the changes that have begun in the social and spiritual spheres, it is necessary to imagine how the relationship between the individual and society was built in the Middle Ages. Then the human personality was dissolved in that small collective (a peasant community, a knightly order, a monastic brotherhood, a craft workshop, a merchant guild), to which a person was attached by the circumstances of his origin and birth. He himself and all those around him perceived him primarily as, for example, a fra (brother) - a member of the monastic brotherhood, and not as a certain person with a specific name.
Relationships between people, norms of behavior and their perception have been elaborated and clearly defined. If we focus only on the theoretical side of the matter, then we can say this: the clergy were obliged to pray for all the laity, the nobility to protect everyone from a possible external threat, and the peasants to support and feed the first and second estates. In practice, all this was, of course, far from a theoretical idyll, but the distribution of role functions was just that. Social inequality was firmly fixed in the public consciousness, each estate had its own strictly defined rights and obligations, played a social role strictly corresponding to its social position. Birth secured the individual to a certain place in the structure of society, he could change his position almost exclusively within the framework of the step of the social ladder to which he belonged by origin.
Fixation to a certain social niche interfered with the free development of the human individual, but provided him with certain social guarantees. Thus, medieval society was focused on immutability, stability as an ideal state. It belonged to the type of traditional societies, the main condition for the existence of which is conservatism, obedience to traditions and customs.
The old worldview was oriented to the fact that earthly life is only a short period of time when a person prepares himself for the main, eternal, other life. Eternity subjugated the fleeting reality. Hopes for good changes were associated exclusively with this true life, with Eternity. The earthly world, this “vale of sorrow”, was of interest only insofar as it was a weak reflection of another, main world. The attitude towards man was ambivalent - he strictly shared his earthly, mortal and sinful beginning, which should have been despised and hated, and the sublime, spiritual, which was the only one worthy of existing. An ascetic monk who renounced the joys and anxieties of earthly life was considered an ideal.
A person was part of a small social community, and therefore any of his activities, including creative ones, were perceived as the result of collective efforts. In fact, creativity was anonymous, and our knowledge of the work of a particular sculptor or painter of the Middle Ages is random and fragmentary. The city, the community built the cathedral, and all its details were part of a single whole, designed for integral perception. Master architects, master masons, master carvers, master painters erected walls, created sculptures and stained-glass windows, painted walls and icons, but almost none of them sought to perpetuate their name for posterity. Ideally, they should have repeated in the best possible way, reproduced what was consecrated by the authority of antiquity and was considered as an “original” that should be imitated.
The first step towards the emergence of new trends in the life of society was the growth and development of cities. The Apennine peninsula, wedged like an outstretched boot into the expanses of the Mediterranean Sea, occupied an extremely advantageous position in the medieval world. The benefits of this location became especially obvious when economic life began to revive in the West, and the need for trade contacts with the rich countries of the Middle East grew. From the 12th century Italian cities began to flourish. The crusades became the impetus for the rapid development of the urban economy: the knights who set off to conquer the Holy Sepulcher needed ships to cross the sea; weapons to fight; products and various household items. All this was offered by Italian artisans, merchants, sailors.
In Italy, there was no strong central government, so each city, together with the surrounding countryside, became city-state, whose prosperity depended on the skill of its artisans, the briskness of its merchants, i.e. from the enterprise and energy of all the inhabitants.
The basis of the economic life of the society that existed in Italy in the 14th-15th centuries was industry and trade, concentrated in cities. The guild system was preserved, and only members of the guilds had civil rights; not all residents of the city. Yes, and different workshops differed significantly in the degree of influence: for example, in Florence, out of 21 workshops, the “senior workshops”, which united people of the most prestigious professions, enjoyed the greatest influence. The members of the senior workshops, the “fat men,” were, in fact, entrepreneurs, and new features in economic life were manifested in the emergence of elements (so far, only elements!) of a new economic structure.
Renaissance City. The culture of the Renaissance is an urban culture, but the city that gave birth to it was noticeably different from the medieval city. Outwardly, this was not too striking: the same high walls, the same random layout, the same cathedral on the main square, the same narrow streets. “The city grew like a tree: keeping its shape, but increasing in size, and the city walls, like rings on a cut, marked the milestones of its growth.” So in Florence in the XIII century. it took twice a century to expand the ring of walls. By the middle of the XIV century. the space allocated for urban development was increased 8 times. The government took care of the construction and preservation of the walls.
The city gates served as a point of contact with the outside world. The guards who stood at the gate collected a fee from merchants and peasants arriving in the city, they also protected the city from a possible enemy attack. Before the beginning of the era of artillery, walls with strong gates were quite reliable protection against external intrusions, only food and water would be enough. This limitation made it crowded, to increase the number of storeys of buildings. Italy is characterized by the erection of high towers by rival wealthy families, the verticals of which, together with the bell towers of churches, gave the city silhouette the appearance of a stone forest. The appearance of Siena, for example, is described in the lines of A. Blok as follows: “You stuck the points of churches and towers into the sky.”
The city is an artificially organized space. Streets and squares of Italian cities from the 13th century. paved with stones or pebbles. The daily life of people took place mostly on the street. Merchants, money changers, and artisans carried out money transactions on the street; artisans often worked on the street under a canopy; they met on the street or in the square to discuss various issues; births, bankruptcies, deaths, marriages, executions. The life of every city dweller proceeded in front of the neighbors.
The central square was decorated not only with a majestic cathedral, but with sculptures. An example of such decoration is in Florence the square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio (city hall). In the front part of the city, the neighborhood of old buildings of the Romanesque (to a lesser extent Gothic) style and new Renaissance buildings was especially noticeable. Residents of neighboring cities competed with each other in decorating squares, churches and public buildings.
In the XIV-XV centuries. in Italian cities there was rapid construction, old buildings were demolished and replaced with new ones. The dilapidation of buildings was far from always the reason for this - tastes changed, prosperity grew, and at the same time the desire to demonstrate new opportunities. An example of this kind is the one started in the XIV century. construction of a new Florentine cathedral (Duomo, better known as Santa Maria del Fiori), the dome of which was the largest for its time in the West.
Sometimes wealthy families united several old dwellings behind the renovated facade. So, the architect L. B. Alberti, commissioned by the Ruchelai family, built a palazzo in a new style, hiding eight houses behind a rusticated facade. The lane between the houses was turned into a courtyard. Such a technique made it possible to include living quarters, warehouses and shops, loggias and a garden into a single complex. The main architectural form of a secular city building -palazzo - palaces wealthy citizens, which had a rectangular shape with a courtyard. The facades of the palazzo, facing the street, corresponded to the living conditions that were characteristic of the Italian city-republics. Emphatically rough processing of stone (rustovka), which was lined with the wall of the lower floor, thick walls, small windows - all this reminded that such a palace could serve as a reliable shelter during numerous intra-city political conflicts.
The interiors consisted of a suite of rooms decorated with wall paintings and covered with wooden, carved, and less often stucco ceilings. In solemn occasions, the walls were decorated with wall carpets (trellises), which also contributed to the preservation of heat in the premises. Spacious Yu
rooms (stanzas), marble staircases created the impression of solemn splendor. The windows were closed with wooden shutters, sometimes they were covered with oiled linen, later (but this was already almost a sinful luxury!) They were filled with small pieces of glass inserted into a lead cover. The main heating device remained the hearth in the kitchen, as well as fireplaces in the large front rooms, which rather decorated than heated. Therefore, they tried to provide beds with a canopy and fence off heavy curtains from the surrounding space. It was impossible to heat the whole room with a hot stone or a bottle of hot water. As a rule, only the head of the family had “his own” room, a study-studio, “a place of work on the correspondence of manuscripts, reflections, solitary knowledge of the world and oneself”, and the rest of the household lived together. The daily life of a wealthy family most often proceeded in the courtyard and the galleries surrounding it.
Relatively few, but massive and richly decorated with carvings and paintings, pieces of furniture testified to the desire for comfort. The most common examples of furniture were a wedding chest (cassonne), a chest-bench with a back, massive wardrobes decorated with architectural details, tables, armchairs, and stools. The interior was decorated not only with wall paintings, but also with bronze lamps, painted ceramics (majolica), mirrors in carved frames, silver and glassware, and lace tablecloths.
Many architects dreamed of changing the appearance of cities according to new tastes, but this was impossible: large-scale construction required huge funds and no less authority to implement the mass demolition of houses. After all, for this it was necessary to break so many houses, so many people to relocate, but there were no funds for this. Therefore, they had to be content with the construction of individual buildings, most often cathedrals or palazzos of wealthy families. Cities were rebuilt gradually, as needed and possible, without any plan, and their external appearance remained largely medieval.
The ideal Renaissance cities appeared almost exclusively in blueprints and as backgrounds for pictorial compositions. “The model of the Renaissance city is an open model. The core is... the free space of the square, which opens outward with observation openings of the streets, with views into the distance, beyond the city walls... this is how the artists depicted the city, this is how the authors of architectural treatises see it. Ideally, the Renaissance city does not protect itself from the open space of the non-city, on the contrary, it controls it, subjugates it to itself ... The architectural thought of the Renaissance ... decisively opposes the city as an artificial and skillfully created work, to the natural environment. The city should not obey the locality, but subordinate it... The city of the Middle Ages was vertical. The city of the 15th century is ideally conceived as horizontal ... ”The architects who designed the new cities took into account the changing conditions and instead of the usual fortress walls, they proposed to build defensive forts around the city.
The appearance of people. The appearance of people changed, the world of things with which they surrounded themselves changed. Of course, the dwellings of the poor (a small wooden building or a room behind a windowless shop) remained the same as hundreds of years ago. The changes affected the prosperous, wealthy part of the population.
Clothing changed according to the moods and tastes of the era. Tastes were now determined by the needs and capabilities of civilians, wealthy citizens, and not by the military class of knights. Outerwear was sewn from multicolored, often patterned fabrics such as brocade, velvet, cloth, and heavy silk. Linen began to be used exclusively as an underdress, which looked through the lacing and slits of the top dress. “The outer clothing of an elderly citizen, even if he did not hold any elective office, was necessarily long, wide and gave his appearance an imprint of gravity and importance.” The clothes of young people were short. It consisted of a shirt, a waistcoat with a standing collar, and tight stockings tied to the waistcoat, often multi-colored. If in the fifteenth century preference was given to bright and contrasting colors, then from the beginning of the XYI century. monochrome clothes, decorated with fur and a chain of precious metal, become more fashionable.
Women's clothing in the 15th century It was distinguished by its softness of form and multi-colour. Over shirts and dresses with long narrow sleeves, a high waist and a large square neckline, they wore a cloak (sikora), which consisted of three panels. The back panel fell down the back in free folds, and two shelves were draped to the taste of the owner. The overall silhouette was reminiscent of antiquity. With the beginning of the XVI century. in women's outfits, horizontal division is emphasized. A large role in decorating the dress begins to play lace, framing the neckline and the edges of the sleeves. The waist falls to a natural place, the neckline is made larger, the sleeves are more voluminous, the skirt is more magnificent. Clothing was supposed to emphasize the beauty of a strong, healthy woman.
Discovery of the human "I". In the life of Italian Renaissance society, the old and the new coexist and intertwine. A typical family of that era is a large family, uniting several generations and several branches of relatives, subordinate to the head-patriarch, but next to this familiar hierarchy, another trend arises related to the awakening of personal self-consciousness.
After all, with the emergence in Italy of conditions for the emergence of a new economic structure and a new society, the requirements for people, their behavior, attitude to earthly affairs and concerns have also changed. The basis of the economic life of the new society was trade and handicraft production, concentrated in cities. But before most of the population concentrated in cities, before manufactories, factories, laboratories arose, there were people capable of creating them, people who were energetic, striving for constant change, fighting to assert their place in life. There was a liberation of human consciousness from the hypnosis of Eternity, after which the value of the moment, the significance of the fleeting life, the desire to more fully feel the fullness of being began to be felt more sharply.
A new type of personality arose, distinguished by courage, energy, a thirst for activity, free from obedience to traditions and rules, capable of acting in an unusual way. These people were interested in a variety of problems of life. So, in the account books of Florentine merchants, among the numbers and listings of various goods, one can find discussions about the fate of people, about God, about the most important events of political and artistic life. Behind all this, we feel an increased interest in Man, in himself.
A person began to consider his own individuality as something unique and valuable, all the more significant because it has the ability to constantly improve. The hypertrophied sense of one's own personality in all its originality absorbs the whole man of the Renaissance. He discovers his own individuality, plunges with delight into his own spiritual world, shocked by the novelty and complexity of this world.
Poets are especially sensitive to capture and convey the mood of the era. In the lyrical sonnets of Francesco Petrarch, dedicated to the beautiful Laura, it is obvious that their main character is the author himself, and not the object of his worship. The reader will learn almost nothing about Laura, in fact, except that she is perfection itself, possessing golden curls and a golden character. Their rapture, their experiences, their Suffering was described by Petrarch in sonnets. Upon learning of Laura's death, my orphanhood he mourned:
I sang about her golden curls,
I sang of her eyes and hands,
Honoring torment with heavenly bliss,
And now she is cold dust.
And I, without a lighthouse, in an orphan shell Through the storm, which is not new to me,
I float through life, ruling at random.
It should be borne in mind that the discovery of the personal "I" concerned only one half of the human race - men. Women were perceived in this world as beings with no value of their own. They had to take care of the household, give birth and raise small children, please men with their pleasant appearance and manners.
In the realization of the human "I" the presence of results was considered important, and not the field of activity where they were achieved - whether it be an established trading business, a magnificent sculpture, a battle won, or an admirable poem or painting. Know a lot, read a lot, study foreign languages, get acquainted with the writings of ancient authors, be interested in art, understand a lot about painting and poetry - this was the ideal of a person in the Renaissance. The high standard of personality requirements is shown in Baldasar Castiglione's essay “On the Courtier” (1528): “I want our courtier to be more than mediocrely familiar with literature ... so that he knows not only Latin, but also Greek ... so that he knows poets well, as well as orators and historians, and ... knows how to write in verse and prose ... I will not be pleased with our courtier if he is not yet a musician ... There is one more thing that I attach great importance: it is precisely the ability to draw and the knowledge of painting.
It is enough to list a few names of famous people of that time to understand how diverse were the interests of those who were considered a typical representative of their era. Leon Batista Alberti - architect, sculptor, antiquity expert, engineer. Lorenzo Medici is a statesman, brilliant diplomat, poet, connoisseur and patron of the arts. Verrocchio is a sculptor, painter, jeweler, and mathematician. Michelangelo Buonarroti - sculptor, painter, architect, poet. Raphael Santi - painter, architect. All of them can be called heroic personalities, titans. At the same time, one should not forget that greatness characterizes the scale, but does not give an assessment of their activities. The titans of the Renaissance were not only creators, but also good geniuses of their country.
The usual notions of what is “permissible” and what is “illegal” lost their meaning. At the same time, the old rules of relationships between people lost their meaning, which, perhaps, did not give absolute creative freedom, but are so important for life in society. The desire to assert oneself took a variety of forms - such an attitude could and did give rise not only to brilliant artists, poets, thinkers, whose activities were aimed at creation, but also geniuses of destruction, geniuses of villainy. An example of this kind is a comparative description of two illustrious contemporaries, whose peak of activity occurred at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)) - a person about whom it is easier to say what he did not know than to list what he could do. The famous painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, poet, musician, naturalist, mathematician, chemist, philosopher - all this rightfully refers to Leonardo. He developed a project for an aircraft, a tank, the most complex irrigation facilities, and much more. He worked where it was more convenient to find patrons from among the ruling elite, easily changing them, and died in France, where it is written on his tombstone that he was "a great French artist." His personality became the personification of the creative spirit of the Renaissance.
A contemporary of Leonardo was the famous condottiere Cesare Borgia (1474-1507). Broad education was combined in him with natural talents and unbridled egoism. His ambition manifested itself in an attempt to create a strong state in the center of Italy. He dreamed of uniting the whole country in case of success, he was a skillful and successful commander and efficient ruler. To achieve his goal, this refined connoisseur and connoisseur of beauty resorted to bribery, deceit, and murder. Such methods seemed to him quite acceptable in order to achieve the great goal - the creation of a strong state in the center of Italy. Circumstances prevented C. Borgia from carrying out his plans.
Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Borgia are contemporaries, equally typical of their critical era, when the old rules and norms of human life were losing their significance, and the new ones had not yet been accepted by society. The human personality strove for self-affirmation, using any means and opportunities. For her, the old ideas about “good” and “bad”, about “permissible” and “illegal” also lost their meaning. “People committed the wildest crimes and did not repent of them in any way, and they did so because the last criterion for human behavior was then considered to be the individual who felt himself isolated” . Often in one person selfless devotion to his art and unbridled cruelty were combined. Such was, for example, the sculptor and jeweler B. Cellini, about whom they said: "a bandit with fairy hands."
The desire of the individual to express himself by any means is called titanism. The titans of the Renaissance became the personification of the era that discovered the value of human "I", but stopped before the problem of establishing certain rules in relations between carriers of many different "I".
Attitude to the creative person and the position of the artist in society. There has been a turn to the type of civilization that involves active human intervention in the environment - not only self-improvement, but also the transformation of the environment - nature, society - through the development of knowledge and their application in the practical sphere. Thus, the most important thing in a person was his ability for self-realization and creativity (in the broadest sense of the word). This, in turn, implied the rejection of comprehensive regulation in favor of the recognition of private initiative. The medieval ideal of a contemplative life was supplanted by a new ideal of an active, active life, which made it possible to leave visible evidence of a person's stay on Earth. Activity becomes the main purpose of existence: to build a beautiful building, to conquer a lot of lands, to sculpt a sculpture or paint a picture that will glorify its creator, to get rich and leave behind a prosperous trading company, to found a new state, to write a poem or to leave numerous offspring - all this was in a certain meaning equivalent, allowed a person to leave his mark. Art made it possible for the creative principle to manifest itself in a person, while the results of creativity preserved the memory of him for a long time, brought him closer to immortality. The people of that era were convinced:
Creation can outlive the creator:
The Creator will leave, defeated by nature,
However, the image he captured
Will warm hearts for centuries.
These lines of Michelangelo Buonarroti can be attributed not only to artistic creativity. The desire for self-expression, the pathos of self-affirmation became the meaning of the spiritual life of Italian society during this period. The creative person was valued very highly and was associated, first of all, with the creative artist.
This is how the artists perceived themselves, and this did not contradict public opinion. The words that the Florentine jeweler and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini allegedly said to one courtier are known: “Perhaps there is only one like me in the whole world, but there are ten like you at every door.” The legend claims that the ruler, to whom the courtier complained about the audacity of the artist, supported Cellini, and not the courtier.
An artist could get rich like Perugino, get a title of nobility like Mantegna or Titian, join the inner circle of rulers like Leonardo or Raphael, but most of the artists had the status of artisans and considered themselves as such. Sculptors were in the same workshop with masons, painters with pharmacists. According to the ideas of their time, the artists belonged to the middle stratum of the townspeople, more precisely, to the bottom of this stratum. Most of them were considered middle-class people who had to constantly work, look for orders. D. Vasari, talking about his creative path, constantly notes that in order to fulfill one order he had to go to Naples, the other to Venice, the third to Rome. In between these trips, he returned to his native Arezzo, where he had a house, which he constantly equipped, decorated, expanded. Some artists had their own houses (in the 15th century in Florence a house cost 100-200 florins), others rented it. The painter spent about two years on painting a medium-sized fresco, receiving 15-30 florins for this, and this amount included the cost of the material used. The sculptor spent about a year making the sculpture and received about 120 florins for his work. In the latter case, more expensive consumables must be taken into account.
In addition to monetary payments, sometimes the masters were given the right to eat in the monastery. The omniscient Vasari described the case of the painter Paolo Uccello, whom the abbot fed cheese for a long time and diligently, until the master stopped coming to work. After the artist complained to the monks that he was tired of cheese, and they informed the abbot about this, the latter changed the menu.
It is interesting to compare information about the financial situation of two sculptors Donatello and Ghiberti equally (and highly) valued by their contemporaries. The first of them, by his nature and way of life, was a careless person in money matters. The legend testifies that he put all his (considerable) income in a purse hanging by the door, and all members of his workshop could take from this money. So, in 1427, the glorious master Donatello rented a house for 15 florins a year and had a net income (the difference between what he owed and what he was owed) - 7 florins. The economic Lorenzo Ghiberti in the same 1427 had a house, a plot of land, a bank account (714 florins) and a net income of -185 florins.
Masters willingly undertook to fulfill a variety of orders to decorate churches, rich palazzos, and design citywide holidays. “There was no current hierarchy of genres: art objects were necessarily functional in nature... Altar images, painted chests, portraits, and painted banners came out of one workshop... Such was the artistic self-consciousness, and one can only guess about the degree of magic the unity of the master with his work, for which he himself rubbed the paints, he himself glued the brush, he himself knocked together the frame - that's why he did not see the fundamental difference between the painting of the altar and the chest.
Competitions between artists for the right to receive a profitable government order were common practice. The most famous of these competitions is the competition for the right to make doors for the Florentine baptistery (baptistery), organized in the first years of the 15th century. San Giovanni was dear to all the inhabitants of the city, because they were baptized there, endowed with the name of each of them, from there everyone began their life journey. All famous masters participated in the competition, and it was won by Lorenzo Ghiberti, who later proudly wrote about it in his Notes.
Another famous competition took place a century later. This is a commission for the decoration of the council chamber, given by the Florentine Senoria to two of the most famous rivals, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The exhibition of cardboards (life-size drawings) made by masters became an event in the public life of the republic.
Humanism. The thinkers of the Middle Ages glorified the sublime, spiritual principle in man and cursed the base, bodily. People of the new era sang in man both the soul and the body, considering them equally beautiful and equally significant. Hence the name of this ideology - humanism (homo- Human).
The humanism of the Renaissance included two components: humanism, high spirituality of culture; and a complex of humanitarian disciplines aimed at studying the earthly life of a person, such as grammar, rhetoric, philology, history, ethics, and pedagogy. Humanists sought to turn the entire system of knowledge to solve the problems of human earthly life. The semantic core of humanism was the assertion of a new understanding of the individual, capable of free self-development. Thus, it manifested the main trend of the historical perspective of modernization development - change, renewal, improvement.
The humanists constituted not a numerous, but an influential social stratum of society, the forerunner of the future intelligentsia. The humanistic intelligentsia included representatives of the townspeople, the nobility, and the clergy. They used their knowledge and interests in a variety of activities. Among the humanists, one can name outstanding politicians, lawyers, employees of magistracy, artists.
The man in the representation of the people of that time was likened to a mortal god. The essence of the Renaissance lies in the fact that man was recognized as the “crown of creation”, and the visible earthly world acquired an independent value and significance. The entire worldview of the era was focused on the glorification of the merits and capabilities of man; it was not by chance that it was called humanism.
Medieval theocentrism was replaced by anthropocentrism. Man as the most perfect creation of God was in the center of attention of philosophers and artists. The anthropocentrism of the Renaissance manifested itself in different ways. Thus, the comparison of architectural structures with the human body, made in antiquity, was supplemented in the Christian spirit. “Leon Batista Alberti, who singled out biblical anthropomorphism from the pagan Vitruvius, comparing the proportions of the columns with the ratios of the height and thickness of a person ... he, following Augustine the Blessed, correlated human proportions with the parameters of Noah's ark and Solomon's temple. The maxim "man is the measure of all things" had an arithmetical meaning for the Renaissance.
The Italian humanist, who lived in the second half of the 15th century, was able to most convincingly express the essence of anthropocentrism. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494 ). He owns an essay called "Speech on the Dignity of Man." The name itself is eloquent, in which the evaluative moment is emphasized - “human dignity”. In this treatise, God, addressing a person, says: “I have placed you in the middle of the world, so that it would be easier for you to penetrate your surroundings with your eyes. I created you as a being not heavenly, but not only earthly, not mortal, but not immortal either, so that you, free from constraint, yourself become a creator and forge your own image completely.
Man turns out to be the most perfect creation, more perfect than even celestial beings, since they are endowed with their own virtues from the very beginning, and a man can develop them himself, and his valor, his nobility will depend solely on his personal qualities. (virtu). Here is what the architect and writer Leon Batista Alberti wrote about human capabilities: “So I realized that it is in our power to achieve all praise, in whatever valor, with the help of our own zeal and skill, and not only by the grace of nature and times. ..” Humanist scientists sought confirmation of their attitude to man from philosophers of other eras and found similar views among thinkers of antiquity.
Ancient heritage. The habit of relying on some kind of authority forced the humanists to look for confirmation of their views where they found ideas that were close in spirit - in the works of ancient authors. "Love for the ancients" has become a characteristic feature that distinguishes representatives of this ideological direction. Mastering the spiritual experience of antiquity was supposed to contribute to the formation of a morally perfect person, and hence the spiritual purification of society.
The Middle Ages never completely broke with the ancient past. Italian humanists viewed antiquity as an ideal. Thinkers of the previous millennium singled out Aristotle among the ancient authors, humanists were more attracted by famous orators (Cicero) or historians (Titus Livius), poets. In the writings of the ancients, the most important thoughts seemed to them about spiritual greatness, creative possibilities, and heroic deeds of people. F. Petrarch was one of the first who began to specifically look for ancient manuscripts, study ancient texts and refer to ancient authors as the highest authority. Humanists abandoned medieval Latin and tried to write their compositions in classical "Ciceronian" Latin, which forced them to subordinate the realities of contemporary life to the requirements of grammar. Classical Latin united its scholars throughout Europe, but separated their "republic of scholars" from those who were not versed in the subtleties of Latin.
Renaissance and Christian traditions. The new conditions of life demanded a rejection of the old Christian ideals of humility and indifference to earthly life. This pathos of denial was very noticeable in the culture of the Renaissance. At the same time, there was no rejection of Christian teaching. Renaissance people continued to consider themselves good Catholics. Criticism of the church and its leaders (especially monasticism) was very common, but it was a criticism of the people of the church, and not of Christian doctrine. Moreover, not only the immorality of the behavior of some part of the churchmen was criticized by the humanists, for them the medieval ideal of withdrawal, rejection of the world was unacceptable. Here is what the humanist Caluccio Salutati wrote to his friend who decided to become a monk: “Do not believe, O Pellegrino, that running away from the world, avoiding the sight of beautiful things, locking yourself up in a monastery or retiring to a skete is the path to perfection.”
Christian ideas coexisted quite peacefully in the minds of people with new norms of behavior. Among the defenders of new ideas there were many figures of the Catholic Church, including the highest ranks, up to and including cardinals and popes. In art, especially in painting, religious themes remained predominant. Most importantly, the Renaissance ideals included Christian spirituality, completely alien to antiquity.
Contemporaries valued the activities of the humanists as the highest achievement of the culture of their time, and their descendants know their highly learned studies more by hearsay. For subsequent generations, their work, in contrast to the works of artists, architects and sculptors, is of interest as a historical phenomenon. Meanwhile, it is precisely these pedantic connoisseurs of Latin, these lovers of reasoning
0 virtues of the ancients developed the foundations of a new view of the world, man, nature, instilled in society new ethical and aesthetic ideals. All this made it possible to break away from the traditions of the Middle Ages and give the emerging culture a renewed look. Therefore, for posterity, the Italian history of the Renaissance period is, first of all, the history of the heyday of Italian art.
The problem of transferring space. The Renaissance is characterized by a respectful, almost reverent attitude towards knowledge, towards learning. It was in the meaning of knowledge in the broadest sense of the word that the word "science" was used at that time. There was only one way of obtaining knowledge - observation, contemplation. The most progressive branch of knowledge at that time turned out to be knowledge related to the visual study of the external world.
“The long process of maturation of the sciences of nature and life begins already in the thirteenth century. And its beginning was a revolution in the development of vision, associated with the progress of optics and the invention of glasses ... The construction of a linear perspective expanded the field of view horizontally and thereby limited the dominance of the vertical directed to the sky in it. The source of information was the human eye. Only an artist, a person who has not only a keen eye, but also the ability to capture and convey to the viewer the appearance of an object or phenomenon that the viewer does not see, but would like to know, was able to convey information, create a visible image of any object. Hence the enthusiasm and pride in the words of D. Vasari, who wrote: “The eye, called the window of the soul, is the main way in which the general feeling can, in the greatest richness and splendor, consider the endless creations of nature ...”
It is not surprising, therefore, that the people of the Renaissance revered painting as a science, and the most important of the sciences: “Oh, amazing science, you keep alive the mortal beauties of mortals, make them more durable than the creations of nature, continuously changed by time, which brings them to inevitable old age ... ” Leonardo da Vinci repeated in different ways in his notes.
In this case, the transfer of the illusion of the three-dimensionality of an object, its location in space, i.e. the ability to create a reliable drawing. Color played a subordinate role, served as an additional decoration. "Perspective was the main intellectual game of the time..."
Vasari in his "Biographies" specifically noted the enthusiasm of a number of artists of the 15th century. the study of linear perspective. Thus, the painter Paolo Uccello literally “fixated” on the problems of perspective, devoted all his efforts to building the space correctly, learning how to convey the illusion of reduction and distortion of architectural details. The artist’s wife “often said that Paolo spent whole nights sitting in his studio in search of the laws of perspective and that when she called him to sleep, he answered her: “Oh, what a pleasant thing this perspective is!”
Stages of the Italian Renaissance. The culture of the Italian Renaissance went through several stages. The names of periods are traditionally determined by centuries:
- - the turn of the XIII-XIV centuries. - Ducento, Proto-Renaissance (Pre-Renaissance). Center - Florence;
- - XIV century. -trecento (Early Renaissance);
- - XV century. - quattrocento (the celebration of the culture of the Renaissance). Along with Florence, new cultural centers appear in Milan, Ferrara, Mantua, Urbino, Rimini;
- - XVI century. -cinquecento, includes: High Renaissance (first half of the 16th century), leadership in cultural life passes to Rome, and Late Renaissance (50-80s of the 16th century), when Venice becomes the last center of Renaissance culture.
Proto-Renaissance. In the early stages of the Renaissance, Florence was the main center of the new culture. Iconic figure-poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321 ) and the painter Giotto di Bondone (1276-1337 ), both coming out of Florence, both personalities are typical of a new historical era - active, active, energetic. Only one of them, Dante, having taken an active part in the political struggle, ended his life as a political exile, and the other, Giotto, being not only a famous artist, but also an architect, lived as a respectable and prosperous citizen. (in half). Each in his field of creativity was an innovator and the completion of traditions at the same time.
The latter quality is more characteristic of Dante. His name was made immortal by the poem "The Divine Comedy", which tells about the author's wanderings in the other world. All the main ideas of the medieval worldview are concentrated in this work. The old and the new side by side in it. The plot is quite medieval, but retold in a new way. First of all, it is important to note that Dante abandoned Latin. The poem is written in the Tuscan dialect. The image of a medieval vertical picture of the universe is given: the circles of Hell, the mountain of Purgatory, the spaces of Paradise, but the main character is Dante himself, who is accompanied by the Roman poet Virgil in his wanderings through Hell and Purgatory, and in Paradise he meets the “divine Beatrice”, a woman whom the poet loved all own life. The role assigned to the mortal woman in the poem indicates that the author is turned to the future rather than to the past.
The poem is inhabited by many characters, active, indomitable, energetic, their interests are turned to earthly life, they are concerned about earthly passions and deeds. Different fates, characters, situations pass before the reader, but these are people of the coming era, whose spirit is turned not to eternity, but to momentary interest "here and now." Villains and martyrs, heroes and victims, causing compassion and hatred - they all amaze with their vitality and love of life. The giant picture of the universe was created by Dante.
The artist Giotto set himself the goal of imitating nature, which would become the cornerstone for painters of the next era. This was manifested in the desire to convey the volume of objects, resorting to light and shadow modeling of figures, introducing landscape and interior into the image, trying to organize the image as a stage platform. In addition, Giotto abandoned the medieval tradition of filling the entire space of walls and ceilings with paintings that combine various subjects. The walls of the chapels are covered with frescoes, which are located in belts, and each belt is divided into several isolated paintings dedicated to a particular episode and framed with an ornamental pattern-frame. The viewer, passing along the walls of the chapel, examines various episodes, as if turning over the pages of a book.
The most celebrated works of Giotto are the wall paintings (frescoes) in churches in Assisi and Padua. In Assisi, the painting is dedicated to life
Francis of Assisi, shortly before canonized as a saint. The Padua cycle is associated with New Testament stories that tell the story of the life of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ.
Giotto's innovation consisted not only in the use of new techniques, not only in the "copying" of nature (which was too literally understood by his immediate followers - jottesco), but in recreating a new worldview with pictorial techniques. The images created by him are full of fortitude and calm grandeur. Such are equally Mary, solemnly accepting the news of her chosen one (“Annunciation”), and the good-natured St. Francis, glorifying the unity and harmony of the universe ("St. Francis preaching to the birds"), and Christ calmly meeting the treacherous kiss of Judas ("Kiss of Judas"). Dante and Giotto are considered the masters who began to develop the theme of the heroic man in the Italian Renaissance.
Trecento. Glory to this period was brought by the masters who developed the lyrical theme in art. The sonorous stanzas of Petrarch's sonnets about the beautiful Laura echo the refined linearity of the works of Sienese artists. These painters were influenced by Gothic traditions: the pointed spiers of churches, lancet arches, the 5-shaped curve of the figures, the flatness of the image and the decorativeness of the line distinguish their art. The most famous representative of the Sienese school is considered Simone Martini (1284-1344). The altar composition depicting the scene of the Annunciation, framed by exquisite gilded carvings, forming elongated Gothic arches, is typical for him. The golden background turns the whole scene into a fantastic vision, and the figures are full of decorative finesse and whimsical grace. The ethereal figure of Mary whimsically bent on a golden throne, her delicate face makes us remember Blok's lines: "insidious Madonnas squint their long eyes." The artists of this circle developed the lyrical line in the art of the Renaissance.
In the XIV century. the formation of the Italian literary language. The writers of that time willingly composed funny stories about earthly affairs, domestic troubles and adventures of people. They were occupied with questions: how a person will behave in certain circumstances; How do the words and deeds of people correspond to each other? Such short stories (novellas) were combined into collections that constituted a kind of "human comedy" of that era. The most famous of them, the Decameron » Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375 ), is an encyclopedia of everyday life and customs of the life of its time.
For posterity Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) - the first lyric poet of modern times. For his contemporaries, he was the greatest political thinker, philosopher, master of the thoughts of several generations. He is called the first humanist. In his treatises, the main techniques and themes inherent in humanism were developed. It was Petrarch who turned to the study of ancient authors, he constantly referred to their authority, began to write in the correct (“Ciceronian”) Latin, perceived the problems of his time through the prism of ancient wisdom.
In music, new trends appeared in the works of such masters as F. Landini. This direction was called "new art". At that time, new musical forms of secular music were born, such as the ballad and the madrigal. Through the efforts of the composers of the "new art", melody, harmony and rhythm were combined into a single system.
Quattrocento. This period opens the activity of three masters: the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446 ), sculptor Donatello(1386-1466 ), painter Masaccio (1401-1428 ). Their hometown of Florence becomes the recognized center of a new culture, the ideological core of which was the glorification of man.
In the architectural designs of Brunelleschi, everything is subordinated to the exaltation of man. This was manifested in the fact that buildings (even huge churches) were built in such a way that a person would not seem lost and insignificant there, as in a Gothic cathedral. Light arcades (elements that had no analogues in antiquity) decorate the outer galleries of the Orphanage, light and austere interiors set in a serious mood, a majestic and light octagonal dome crowns the space of the Cathedral of Santa Maria della Fiore. The facades of city palaces-palazzos, in which the rough masonry of the first floor (rustication) are set off by elegant portal windows, are full of severe restraint. This impression was achieved by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi.
The sculptor Donato, who entered the history of art under his nickname Donatello, revived a type of free-standing sculpture forgotten in the Middle Ages. He managed to combine the ancient ideal of a harmoniously developed human body with Christian spirituality and intense intellectuality. The images he created, whether it be the excitedly tense prophet Avvakum (“Zukkone”), the pensive victor David, the calmly concentrated Maria Anunziata, the terrible Gattamelata in his dispassionate perseverance, glorify the heroic principle in man.
Tomaso Masaccio continued Giotto's reforms in painting. His figures are voluminous and emphatically material (“Madonna and Child and St. Anne”), they stand on the ground, and do not “hover” in the air (“Adam and Eve, expelled from paradise”), they are placed in a space that the artist managed to convey using the techniques of the central perspective ("Trinity").
The frescoes by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel depict the apostles who accompanied Christ on his earthly wanderings. These are ordinary people, fishermen and artisans. The artist, however, does not seek to dress them in rags to emphasize their simplicity, but also avoids lush robes that would show their chosenness, exclusivity. It is important for him to show the timeless significance of what is happening.
Renaissance masters of middle Italy tried to avoid this kind of detail. It was considered more important to convey the typical, generalized, rather than individual, random, to convey the greatness of a person. To do this, for example, Piero della Francesca resorted to such techniques as the use of a “low horizon” and the likening of human figures draped in wide cloaks to architectural forms (“The Queen of Sheba before Solomon”).
Along with this heroic tradition, another lyrical one developed. It was dominated by decorativeness, multicolor (the surface of many paintings of that era resembles elegant carpets), and patterning. The characters depicted by the masters of this direction are melancholy thoughtful, filled with tender sadness. Little things in everyday life, whimsical details make up a significant part of their attractiveness. The artists of this circle included both Florentine masters and artists of other schools. The most famous of them are Fra Beato Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Benozzo Gozzoli, Pietro Perugino, Carlo Crivelli.
The most brilliant master of this direction was the Florentine Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510 ). The touching, poignant beauty of his Madonnas and Venuses is for many associated with the art of the Quattrocento in general. Exquisitely faded colors, whimsical, now flowing, now wriggling lines, light figures gliding above the ground and not noticing each other. Botticelli is one of the most charming artists of the Renaissance, whose work combines the influence of medieval aesthetics, fluency in new artistic techniques and a premonition of a crisis in humanistic culture. In his painting there are mythological, allegorical and biblical subjects. These plots are conveyed by the brush of a simple-hearted and sincere person who has joined the philosophical ideas of Neoplatonism.
Botticelli's art flourished at the court of the unofficial ruler of Florence, banker Lorenzo Medici, who was a typical socio-political figure of his time: a cunning and dodgy politician, a tough ruler, an enthusiastic art lover, a good poet. He did not commit such atrocities as S. Malatesta or C. Borgia, but on the whole adhered to the same principles in his actions. He was characterized (again in the spirit of the times) by a craving for demonstrating external luxury, splendor, festivity. Under him, Florence was famous for its brilliant carnivals, an obligatory component of which were costumed processions, during which small theatrical performances were played on mythological and allegorical themes, accompanied by dancing, singing, and recitation. These festivities anticipated the formation of theatrical art, the rise of which began in the next, 16th century.
Crisis of ideas of humanism. Humanism focused on the glorification of man and pinned hopes that a free human personality could endlessly improve, and at the same time, people's lives would improve, relations between them would be kind and harmonious. Two centuries have passed since the beginning of the humanist movement. The spontaneous energy and activity of people have created a lot - magnificent works of art, rich trading companies, scientific treatises and witty short stories, but life has not become better. Moreover, the thought of the posthumous fate of daring creators was increasingly disturbing. What can justify man's earthly activity from the point of view of the afterlife? Humanism and the whole culture of the Renaissance did not give an answer to this question. The freedom of the individual, inscribed on the banner of humanism, gave rise to the problem of personal choice between good and evil. The choice was not always made in favor of the good. The struggle for power, influence, wealth led to constant bloody skirmishes. Blood flooded the streets, houses, and even churches of Florence, Milan, Rome, Padua, and all the great and small city-states of Italy. The meaning of life was reduced to obtaining specific and tangible successes and achievements, but at the same time it did not have any higher justification. In addition, the “game without rules”, which became the rule of life, could not continue for too long. This situation gave rise to a growing desire to introduce an element of organization and certainty into the life of society. It was necessary to find a higher justification, a higher stimulus for the frenzied boiling of human energy.
Neither the humanistic ideology, oriented toward solving the problems of earthly life, nor the old Catholicism, whose ethical ideal was turned to a purely contemplative life, could provide a correspondence between the changing needs of life and their ideological explanation. Religious dogma had to adapt to the needs of a society of active, enterprising, independent individualists. However, attempts at church reforms in the conditions of Italy, the former ideological and organizational center of the Catholic world, were doomed to failure.
The most striking example of this is the attempt of the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola to carry out such a reform in the conditions of Florence. After the death of the brilliant Lorenzo de' Medici, Florence experienced a political and economic crisis. After all, the splendor of the Medici court was accompanied by a deterioration in the economy of Florence, a weakening of its position among neighboring states. The stern Dominican monk Savonarola gained enormous influence in the city, calling for the rejection of luxury, the pursuit of vain arts and the establishment of justice. Most of the townspeople (including artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi) enthusiastically began to fight evil, destroying luxury items, burning works of art. Through the efforts of the curia of Rome, Savonarola was overthrown and executed, the power of the oligarchy was restored. But the former, serene and joyful confidence in the ideals, addressed to the glorification of the perfect man, was gone.
High Renaissance. The core of the humanistic ideology was the subversive pathos of emancipation, liberation. When its possibilities were exhausted, a crisis was bound to come. A short period, approximately three decades, is the moment of the last takeoff before the start of the destruction of the entire system of ideas and moods. The center of cultural development moved at this time from Florence, which was losing its republican prowess and orders, to Rome, the center of the theocratic monarchy.
Three masters most fully expressed the High Renaissance in art. It can be said, although, of course, somewhat conditionally, that the eldest of them, Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519 ), sang the human intellect, the mind that elevates a person above the surrounding nature; the youngest, Rafael Santi (1483-1520 ), created perfectly beautiful images, embodying the harmony of spiritual and physical beauty; A Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) glorified the strength and energy of man. The world created by the artists is a reality, but cleansed of everything petty and random.
The main thing that Leonardo left to people is his painting, glorifying the beauty and mind of man. Already the first of Leonardo's independent works, the head of an angel, written for the Baptism by his teacher Verrocchio, struck the audience with its thoughtful and thoughtful look. The artist’s characters, whether it’s young Mary playing with a child (“Madonna Benois”), beautiful Cicilia (“Lady with an Ermine”) or the apostles and Christ in the scene of “The Last Supper”, are, first of all, thinking beings. Suffice it to recall the painting known as the portrait of Mona Lisa ("Gioconda"). The look of a calmly sitting woman is full of such insight and depth that it seems that she sees and understands everything: the feelings of people looking at her, the complexities of their lives, the infinity of the Cosmos. Behind her is a beautiful and mysterious landscape, but she rises above everything, she is the main thing in this world, she personifies the human intellect.
In the personality and work of Rafael Santi, the desire for harmony, inner balance, calm dignity characteristic of the Italian Renaissance was manifested with particular fullness. He left behind not only paintings and architectural works. His paintings are very diverse in subject matter, but when they talk about Raphael, images of his Madonnas first come to mind. They have a fair share of similarities, manifested in spiritual clarity, childish purity and clarity of the inner world. Among them there are thoughtful, dreamy, flirtatious, focused, each embodies one or another facet of one image - a woman with a child's soul.
The most famous of the Raphael Madonnas, the Sistine Madonna, falls out of this series. Here is how the impression of the Soviet soldiers who saw it in 1945 taken out of the mine, where it was hidden by the Nazis, is described: “Nothing in the picture at first holds your attention; your gaze glides, not stopping at anything, until that moment, until it meets another, moving towards the gaze. Dark, wide-set eyes calmly and attentively look at you, shrouded in a transparent shadow of eyelashes; and already something vague stirred in your soul, making you alert ... You are still trying to understand what the matter is, what exactly in the picture alerted you, alarmed you. And your eyes involuntarily again and again are drawn to her gaze ... The look of the Sistine Madonna, slightly clouded with sorrow, is full of confidence in the future, towards which she, with such grandeur and simplicity, carries her most precious son.
A similar perception of the picture is conveyed by such poetic lines: “Kingdoms perished, seas dried up, / Citadels burned to the ground, / Aona in maternal sorrow / From the past to the future went.”
In the work of Raphael, the desire to find the common, typical in the individual is especially vivid. He talked about how he had to see a lot of beautiful women in order to write Beauty.
When creating a portrait, the artists of the Italian Renaissance focused not on the details that help to show the individual in a person (the shape of the eyes, the length of the nose, the shape of the lips), but on the generalizing-typical, constituting the “species” features of the Man.
Michelangelo Buonarroti was both a wonderful poet and a brilliant sculptor, architect, and painter. The long creative life of Michelangelo included the time of the highest flowering of the Renaissance culture; he, who survived most of the titans of the Renaissance, had to observe the collapse of humanistic ideals.
The strength and energy with which his works are imbued seem sometimes excessive, overwhelming. In the work of this master, the pathos of creation, characteristic of the era, is combined with a tragic sense of the doom of this pathos. The contrast of physical strength and powerlessness is present in a number of sculptural images, such as the figures of "Slaves", "Prisoners", the famous sculpture "Night", as well as in the images of sibyls and prophets on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
A particularly tragic impression is made by the painting depicting the scene of the Last Judgment on the western wall of the Sistine Chapel. According to the art critic, “the upraised hand of Christ is the source of a vortex spherical movement that takes place around the central oval... The world is set in motion, it hangs over the abyss, the entire array of bodies hangs over the abyss in the Last Judgment... In an angry outburst Christ's hand went up. No, he did not appear as a savior to people ... and Michelangelo did not want to console people ... This God is quite unusual ... he is beardless and youthfully swift, he is powerful in his physical strength, and all his strength is given to anger. This Christ knows no mercy. Now it would only be condoning evil.
Renaissance in Venice: a celebration of color. A rich merchant republic became the center of the Late Renaissance. Among the cultural centers of Italy, Venice occupied a special position. New trends penetrated there much later, which is explained by the strong conservative sentiments that existed in this oligarchic merchant republic, connected by close relations with Byzantium and heavily influenced by the “Byzantine manner”.
Therefore, the spirit of the Renaissance manifests itself in the art of the Venetians only from the second half of the 15th century. in the works of several generations of artists of the Bellini family.
In addition, Venetian painting has another noticeable difference. In the visual arts of other Italian schools, the main thing was drawing, the ability to convey the volume of bodies and objects using light and shade modeling (the famous sfumato Leonardo da Vinci), the Venetians, on the other hand, attached great importance to the play of colors. The damp atmosphere of Venice contributed to the fact that the artists treated the picturesqueness of their work with great attention. Not surprisingly, the Venetians were the first Italian artists to turn to the technique of oil painting, developed in the north of Europe, in the Netherlands.
The real flowering of the Venetian school is associated with creativity Giorgione de Castelfranco (1477-1510 ). This early deceased master left behind few paintings. Man and nature are the main theme of such works as "Country Concert", "Sleeping Venus", "Thunderstorm". “A happy harmony reigns between nature and man, which, strictly speaking, is the main theme of the image.” Color plays an important role in Giorgione's painting.
The most famous representative of the Venetian school was Titian Vecelio, whose year of birth is unknown, but he died a very old man, in 1576 during a plague epidemic. He painted pictures on biblical, mythological, allegorical subjects. In his painting, there is a strong life-affirming beginning, the heroes and heroines are full of strength and physical health, majestic and beautiful. The altar image of the Ascension of Mary (Assunta) and the antique motif of the Bacchanalia are equally saturated with the energy of impulse and movement. The Denarius of Caesar (Christ and Judas) and Love on Earth and Heaven are also permeated with philosophical overtones. The artist sang of female beauty ("Venus of Urbino", "Danae", "Girl with Fruit") and the tragic moment of a person's departure from life ("Lamentation of Christ", "The Entombment"). Majestically beautiful images, harmonious details of architectural forms, beautiful things that fill the interiors, the soft and warm color of the paintings - all testify to the love of life inherent in Titian.
The same theme was constantly developed by another Venetian, Paolo Veronese (1528-1588 ). It is his large-scale "Feasts" and "Celebrations", his allegories to the glory of the prosperity of the Venetian Republic, that first of all come to mind with the words "Venetian painting". Veronese lacks the versatility and wisdom of Titian. His painting is more decorative. It was created, first of all, to decorate the palazzo of the Venetian oligarchy and design official buildings. Cheerful temperament and sincerity turned this panegyric painting into a jubilant celebration of life.
It should be noted that the Venetians more often than the representatives of other Italian schools, there are antique stories.
political ideas. It became obvious that the humanistic belief that a free and omnipotent person would become happy and make everyone around him happy was not justified, and the search for other options for achieving happiness began. As the hope for the ability of an individual to create conditions for a happy or at least peaceful life of people faded, attention was shifted to the possibilities of an organized human community - the state. At the origins of the political thought of modern times is a Florentine Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527 ), who was a statesman, historian, playwright, military theorist, and philosopher. He tried to understand how society should be organized so that people could live more peacefully. The strong power of the ruler is what, in his opinion, could ensure order. May the ruler be cruel as a lion and cunning as foxes, may he, protecting his power, eliminate all rivals. According to Machiavelli, unlimited and uncontrolled power should contribute to the creation of a large and powerful state. In such a state, most people will live in peace, without fear for their lives and property.
The activities of Machiavelli testified that the time of “playing without rules” pretty tired society, that there was a need to create a force that could unite people, regulate relations between them, establish peace and justice, and the state began to be considered as such a force.
The place of art in society. As already noted, the most revered field of activity was then artistic creativity, because it was the language of art that expressed itself in the era as a whole. Religious consciousness was losing its pervasive influence on the life of society, and scientific knowledge was still in its infancy, so the world was perceived through art. Art played the role that in the Middle Ages belonged to religion, and in the society of modern and contemporary times, to science. The universe was perceived not as a mechanistic system, but as an integral organism. The main means of comprehending the environment was observation, contemplation, fixing what was seen, and this was best provided by painting. It is no coincidence that Leonardo da Vinci calls painting a science, moreover, the most important of the sciences.
Many facts testify to the importance of the appearance of an outstanding work of art in the eyes of contemporaries.
About competitions between artists for the right to receive a profitable government order was mentioned above. Equally controversial was the question of where Michelangelo's "David" should stand, and a few decades later the same problem arose over the installation of "Perseus" by B. Cellini. And these are just a few of the most famous examples of this kind. Such an attitude towards the emergence of new artistic creations designed to decorate and glorify the city was completely natural for the urban life of the Renaissance. The epoch spoke about itself in the language of works of art. Therefore, every event in artistic life became important for the whole society.
Themes and interpretation of plots in the art of the Italian Renaissance. For the first time in a thousand years of the existence of Christian culture, artists began to depict the earthly world, exalting, glorifying, deifying it. The themes of art remained almost exclusively religious, but within the framework of this traditional theme, interest shifted, relatively speaking, to life-affirming subjects.
The first thing that comes to mind at the mention of the Italian Renaissance is the image of Mary with a baby, which is represented by a young mistress (Madonna) with a touchingly beautiful child. “Madonna and Child”, “Madonna with Saints” (the so-called “Holy Interview”), “Holy Family”, “Adoration of the Magi”, “Nativity”, “Procession of the Magi” are the favorite themes of the art of the era. No, both "Crucifixions" and "Lamentations" were created, but this note was not the main one. Customers and artists, who embodied their desires in visible images, found in traditional religious plots something that carried hope and faith in a bright beginning.
Among the characters of sacred legends, images of real people appeared, like donors(donors) located outside the frame of the altar composition or as protagonists of crowded processions. Suffice it to recall the "Adoration of the Magi" by S. Botticelli, where members of the Medici family are recognizable in the elegant crowd of worshipers and where the artist presumably placed a self-portrait. Along with this, independent portrait images of contemporaries, painted from nature, from memory, according to descriptions, became widespread. In the last decades of the fifteenth century artists began to increasingly depict scenes of a mythological nature. Such images were supposed to decorate the premises of the palazzo. Scenes from modern life were included in religious or mythological compositions. By itself, modernity in its everyday manifestations did not interest artists too much; they clothed sublime, ideal themes in familiar visual images. The masters of the Renaissance were not realists in the modern sense of the word, they recreated the world of Man, cleared of everyday life, with the means available to them.
Following the techniques of linear perspective, the artists created on the plane the illusion of a three-dimensional space filled with figures and objects that seemed to be three-dimensional. People in Renaissance paintings are represented as majestic and important. Their postures and gestures are full of seriousness and solemnity. A narrow street or a spacious square, a smartly furnished room or freely spreading hills - everything serves as a background for the figures of people.
In Italian Renaissance painting, the landscape or interior is primarily a frame for human figures; subtle light and shade modeling creates the impression of materiality, but not coarse, but exquisitely airy (it is no coincidence that Leonardo considered the ideal time to work in the middle of the day in cloudy weather, when the lighting is soft and diffused); the low horizon makes the figures monumental, as if touching the sky with their heads, and the restraint of their postures and gestures gives them solemnity and majesty. The characters are not always beautiful in facial features, but they are always filled with inner significance and importance, self-esteem and calmness.
Artists in everything and always avoid extremes and accidents. Here is how the art critic described the museum impressions of Italian Renaissance painting: “The halls of Italian art of the XIV-XVI centuries are distinguished by one interesting feature - they are surprisingly quiet with an abundance of visitors and various excursions ... Silence floats from the walls, from the paintings - the majestic silence of the high sky, soft hills, big trees. And -big people... People are bigger than the sky. The world spreading behind them - with roads, ruins, river banks, cities and knights' castles - we see as if from a height of flight. It is extensive, detailed, and respectfully removed."
In the story about the exhibition of cardboards made by Leonardo and Michelangelo for the Council Hall (the paintings were never completed by either one or the other), it is worth paying attention to the fact that it seemed especially important for the Florentines to see the cardboards. They especially appreciated the drawing, which conveys the form, volume of the depicted objects and bodies, as well as the ideological concept that the master tried to embody. Color in painting was for them, rather, an addition, emphasizing the form created by the drawing. And one more thing: judging by the surviving copies, both works (they were devoted to two battles important for the history of the city-state of Florence) should have become a typical manifestation of the Renaissance approach to art, where the main thing was a man. For all the difference in the cardboards, Leonardo and Michelangelo, entwined into a single ball during the fight for the banner of horse soldiers at Leonardo (“Battle of Anghiari”) and soldiers rushing to arms, caught by the enemy while swimming in the river, at Michelangelo (“Battle of Cashine"), - the general approach to the presentation of the depicted is obvious, requiring the selection of a human figure, subordinating the surrounding space to it. After all, the actors are more important than the place of action.
It is interesting to trace how the mindset of the era was reflected in art by comparing several works devoted to depicting the same subject. One of the favorite plots of the time was the story of Saint Sebastian, who was executed by Roman soldiers for his commitment to Christianity. This theme made it possible to show the heroism of the human person, capable of sacrificing his life for his beliefs. In addition, the plot made it possible to turn to the image of a naked body, to realize the humanistic ideal - a harmonious combination of a beautiful appearance and a beautiful human soul.
In the middle of the XV century. Several papers have been written on this subject. The authors were rather dissimilar masters: Perugino, Antonello de Mesina and others. When looking at their paintings, one is struck by the calmness, the sense of inner dignity, which imbues the image of a beautiful naked young man standing near a pillar or tree and dreamily looking into the sky. Behind him is a peaceful rural landscape or a cozy town square. Only the presence of arrows in the body of a young man tells the viewer that we have a scene of execution before us. Pain, tragedy, death is not felt. These beautiful young men, united by the fate of the martyr Sebastian, are aware of their immortality, just as people who lived in Italy in the 15th century felt their invulnerability, omnipotence.
In the picture, painted by the artist Andrea Mantegna, we feel the tragedy of what is happening, his St. Sebastian feels like he's dying. And finally, in the middle of the XVI century. Titian Vecelio wrote his St. Sebastian. There is no detailed landscape on this canvas. The place of action is only indicated. There are no random figures in the background, no warrior-executioners aiming at their prey, nothing that can tell the viewer the meaning of the situation, and at the same time there is a sense of a tragic end. This is not just the death of a human being, it is the death of the whole world, burning in the crimson flashes of a universal catastrophe.
The value of the culture of the Italian Renaissance. The soil that gave rise to the culture of the Italian Renaissance was destroyed during the 16th century. Most of the country was subjected to foreign invasions, the new economic structure was undermined by the movement of the main trade routes in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, the Polan republics fell under the rule of ambitious condottieri mercenaries, and the surge of individualistic energy lost its internal justification and gradually died out under the conditions of the revival. feudal orders (re-feudalization of society). The attempt to create a new society based on the emancipation of the human personality, on the initiative of entrepreneurship, was interrupted in Italy for a long time. The country was in decline.
On the other hand, the cultural tradition created by this society spread through the efforts of Italian masters throughout Europe, became the standard for European culture as a whole, received further life in its version, which was assigned the name of "high", "scientific" culture. Monuments of Renaissance culture remained - beautiful buildings, statues, wall paintings, paintings, poems, wise writings of humanists, traditions remained that became decisive for the culture of those peoples who were under its influence for the next three and a half centuries (until the end of the 19th century). , and this influence gradually spread very widely.
It should be especially noted and highlighted the importance of the fine arts of the Italian Renaissance with its desire to convey on the plane of a wall or board, a sheet of paper enclosed in a canvas frame the illusion of three-dimensional space filled with illusory three-dimensional images of people and objects - what can be called “window of Leonardo Danilov I.E. Italian city of the 15th century. Reality, myth, image. M., 2000.S. 22, 23. See: Golovin V.P. The world of the artist of the early Renaissance. M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 2002. P. 125. Boyadzhiev G. Italian notebooks. M., 1968. S. 104.
Fresco by Masaccio "The Miracle with the Stater": here for the first time, it is believed, the direct perspective discovered by Brunneleschi was used
Why Italian? Yes, because that's where it all started. From here originates the entire European Renaissance. (Russia "missed" this era, connecting to European fashion, starting only with Peter I.) It was the Italian Renaissance that gave the world a galaxy of geniuses, and it is with Italy of the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries that we associate the concept of "Renaissance art."
Leonardo da Vinci (self-portrait) and his Vitruvian Man. According to Leonardo, the proportions of the human body are ideal, and in order to build a harmonious building, it is necessary to use knowledge of these proportions.
It was a time of extraordinary cultural flourishing. But what gave such a powerful impetus? How did the Renaissance grow from the ascetic aesthetics of the Middle Ages?
History will help to find the answer, namely the history of the Byzantine state. It was formed in 395 AD. after the final division of the Roman Empire. Soon the Roman Empire, tormented by barbarian raids, ceased to exist, and Byzantium grew stronger and became a powerful empire - the heir to ancient (Greek) culture. It was, among other things, a very rich state, and on this "basis" a cultural "superstructure" developed perfectly. It existed for many centuries, but already in the 12th century it began to lose land, in 1204 it survived the capture of Constantinople by the crusaders, and, finally, finally fell under the onslaught of the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century.
Together with the treasures, works of art, and libraries stolen by the Crusaders, Byzantine culture, the direct heir of antiquity, was “taken out” to the “Latin”, Catholic part of Europe. Fleeing from the conquerors, the carriers of this culture, the most educated people of their time, came to the Apennine Peninsula. And thanks to them, antiquity has become incredibly fashionable. And since a great number of samples of ancient Roman architecture have been preserved in Italy, here it is - an example to follow!
The ideal was seen in the ancient order with its harmonious proportions, with its symmetry. They reproduced it in their native, somewhat heavy Roman version, the castles of the nobility therefore looked harsh - but they impeccably embodied the idea of \u200b\u200bpower and might. Typical "representatives" of the style are Palazzo Pitti, Palazzo Rucellai.
Palazzo Rucellai, designed by Leon Battista Alberti (1402-1472), is an innovation for its time. The facade, "broken" by rustication and clear rows of pilasters, has not been used before
The window is designed like a small door: it has its own "arcade", and the "ceiling" is supported by a column. Stone carving is combined with thoughtful stucco decoration: a lion on the coat of arms, a ribbon above the coat of arms, capitals of a composite order, an elegant frieze pattern
A typical palazzo of that time is rectangular in plan. (In one of the articles on our blog, we recalled Andrea Palladio - the founder of classicism; so, this unique architect, ahead of his time, lived in the Renaissance.)
By the way, it was then that the Gothic style was called "Gothic", that is, "barbarian", and they finally turned away from it. Not only aristocrats, but even popes, and those who wanted the most significant cathedrals and the papal residence to be built and luxuriously decorated in a new way. Stone carving, plaster molding, sculpture, murals - all this was included in the arsenal of the new style.
Dome of the Cathedral of St. Peter in the Vatican. The dome was designed by Michelangelo. Bramante (started construction), Raphael, Michelangelo, and later Bernini, the master of the Baroque era, took part in the construction and decoration of this grandiose building.
By the way, the church has become one of the most influential and wealthy customers, thanks to which we have today such masterpieces of architecture as the Cathedral of St. Peter and the temple of Tempieto (in Rome), the ensemble of Capitol Square, Florence Cathedral. (As well as masterpieces of painting, such as the famous fresco by Leonardo da Vinci "The Last Supper" in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazia in Milan and the paintings by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel.)
Cathedral of St. Petra
Sculpture on the facade of St. Petra
Interior of the Sistine Chapel with paintings by Michelangelo
Detail of the ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel
Capitol Square in Rome - another outstanding work of Michelangelo
"David" by Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. Fresco in the Church of Santa Maria Delle Grazie (Milan)
Leonardo da Vinci
Church of Santa Maria Delle Grazia (Milan), the altar of which was designed by Bramante
Donato Bramante (1444-1514) is one of the most significant architects of the Italian Renaissance. In particular, it was he who began to build the Cathedral of St. Petrav Rome. Worked in Milan for 20 years. There he met Leonardo da Vinci, whose urban planning ideas had a great influence on him.
Tempieto (1502) is rightfully considered Bramante's masterpiece
Palazzo Cancelleria (designed by Bramante)
Along with the architecture, the interior has also changed. The art of stucco decoration and the stucco manufacturing technologies themselves were developed by the Roman interior, which was inherited by the Renaissance interior. From the arsenal of ancient Rome, the columns of the laconic and rough Tuscan order, as well as the lush Corinthian and composite style (they are crowned with a fancy plaster molding, reminiscent of a basket with an armful of flowers) are borrowed from the arsenal of ancient Rome. The ceiling is also worked out with the help of gypsum stucco, dividing it into convex rectangles. From above, all this is signed and covered with gold leaf. Masters "remember" the Roman technology "stucco" - the creation of stucco molding with marble chips imitating marble.
Vatican Museum. This museum interior is typically Renaissance: Florentine mosaics on the floor, gilded and painted plaster moldings on the ceiling, stucco decor on the walls, indistinguishable from marble, and a lot of antique sculpture.
Interior of the Cathedral of St. Petra
Arcade and plaster moldings in the decor of the columns (Palazzo Rucellai)
On the basis of traditional ancient Roman ornaments - a stylized Greek wave, acanthus leaves, dolphins, fish and shells - and the Byzantine vine, Renaissance masters create their own style, characterized by great creative freedom. Masks, lion heads, swirls of herbs, leaves are combined in one pattern. Renaissance ornaments combine fantasy and austerity, and most importantly, they are charged with amazing vitality, which the ancient world was able to convey to the Renaissance.
Ornament of the frieze of the Palazzo Rucellai
As for the furniture, it partly continues the traditions of the Middle Ages - huge chests (from which the Italian low closet - credenza will later “grow”), rough chairs, heavy tables. But, on the other hand, at this time, wardrobes appeared that resembled a miniature palazzo, and the invention of plywood made it possible to decorate the surface of marquetry furniture - as exquisitely as the walls and ceiling, magnificently decorated with gypsum stucco. The masters of that time create a “system of refrains” in the interior, repeating and varying similar decorative motifs in furniture, wall decor, and fabrics, making the space look very harmonious.
Credenza in the Renaissance style, modern work (Mascheroni factory). Why not a palazzo?
Ryazan State Radio Engineering Academy
Department of History and Culture
Discipline cultural studies
Abstract on the topic:
"Renaissance Art in Italy"
Fulfilled Art. gr. 070
Boltukova A.A.
checked
Kupreev A.I.
Ryazan 2001
I Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………..…..2
II Renaissance in Italy:
1. Periodization……………………………………………………………………………….3
2. Proto-Renaissance:
Trecento:
· Nicolo Pisano as the founder of the school of sculpture ……..……………………….4
· A new word in painting - Pietro Cavalini……….………………………………4
· Florence – the capital of the artistic life of Italy (Giotto di Bondone)…………..…………………………………………………………………………4
3. Early Renaissance:
Quattrocento……………………………………….…………………………………………….6
a) sculpture:
· Lorenzo Ghiberti………………………………………………………………………….7
· Donatello is a great reformer.....………………………………….……………….7
· Jacopo della Quercia…………………………………………………….………………...9
· Family of sculptors della Robia……………..…………………………………………9
b) painting:
· The psychological depth of the images of Masaccio……………………………………….9
· Paolo Uccelo and his “fabulousness”…..…………………………………………………11
4. High Renaissance:
a) in Central Italy:
· Creativity of Leonardo da Vinci as the embodiment of harmony.…………………..12
· Master of the Madonnas (Raphael)…..………………………………….……………………13
· The work of Michelangelo…………………………………………………………..14
b) in Venice
· Mythological and literary plots of Giorgione……………………………15
· Titian Vecellio……………………………………………………………………...16
5. Late Renaissance:
· The creative individuality of Tintoretto…………………………………………………………………………………………16
· Mannerism is a special phase of the Late Renaissance………………………………..17
III Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………..18
List of Literature………………………………………………………………………..20
B E D E N I E
The art of the Renaissance arose on the basis of humanism (from lat. humanus - "human") - a trend of social thought that originated in the XIV century. in Italy, and then during the second half of the XV-XVI centuries. spread to other European countries. Humanism proclaimed the highest value of man and his good. Humanists believed that every person has the right to freely develop as a person, realizing their abilities. The ideas of humanism were most vividly and fully embodied in art, the main theme of which was a beautiful, harmoniously developed person with unlimited spiritual and creative possibilities.
Humanists were inspired by antiquity, which served for them as a source of knowledge and a model of artistic creativity. The great past, constantly reminding of itself in Italy, was perceived at that time as the highest perfection, while the art of the Middle Ages seemed unskillful barbaric. The term “revival”, which arose in the 16th century, meant the emergence of a new art that revived classical antiquity, ancient culture. However, the art of the Renaissance owes much to the artistic tradition of the Middle Ages. The old and the new were in inseparable connection and confrontation.
With all the contradictory diversity and richness of its origins, the art of renaissance is a phenomenon marked by a deep and fundamental novelty. It laid the foundations of the European culture of modern times. All the main types of art - painting, graphics, sculpture, architecture - have changed tremendously.
Creatively revised principles of the ancient order system were established in architecture, and new types of public buildings were formed. Painting was enriched with a linear and aerial perspective, knowledge of the anatomy and proportions of the human body. Earthly content penetrated the traditional religious themes of works of art. Increased interest in ancient mythology, history, everyday scenes, landscapes, portraits. Along with the monumental wall paintings that adorn architectural structures, a picture appeared, oil painting arose.
Art has not yet completely broken away from the craft, but the creative individuality of the artist, whose activity at that time was extremely diverse, came to the fore. The universal talent of the masters of the Renaissance is striking - they often worked in the field of architecture, sculpture, painting, combined their passion for literature, poetry and philosophy with the study of the exact sciences. The concept of a creatively rich, or "Renaissance", personality subsequently became a household word.
In the art of the Renaissance, the paths of scientific and artistic comprehension of the world and man were closely intertwined. Its cognitive meaning was inextricably linked with sublime poetic Beauty; in its striving for naturalness, it did not descend to petty everyday life. Art has become a universal spiritual need.
The formation of the Renaissance culture in Italy took place in economically independent cities. In the rise and flourishing of the art of the Renaissance, the Church and the magnificent courts of uncrowned sovereigns (ruling wealthy families) - the largest patrons and customers of works of painting, sculpture and architecture - played an important role. The main centers of Renaissance culture were at first the cities of Florence, Siena, Pisa, then Padua. Ferrara, Genoa, Milan and later than all, in the second half of the 15th century, rich merchant Venice. In the XVI century. Rome became the capital of the Italian Renaissance. Since that time, local centers of art, except for Venice, have lost their former importance.
P E R I O D I Z A T I A
Due to the transitional nature of the Renaissance, the chronological framework of this historical period is rather difficult to establish. The periodization of the Renaissance is determined by the supreme role of fine art in its culture. Based on the signs that will be indicated later (humanism, anthropocentrism, modification of the Christian tradition, the revival of antiquity), then the chronology will look like this: the introductory period, Proto-Renaissance, "the era of Dante and Giotto", c.1260-1320, partially coinciding with the period of ducento (XII-XII centuries) and trecento (XIII-XIV centuries), Early Renaissance(quattrocento XIV-XV centuries), when new trends actively interact with Gothic, overcoming and creatively transforming it, as well as high And Late Renaissance(cinquecento XV-XVI centuries).; a special phase of which became mannerism.
P O T O R E N E S S A N S
In Italian culture XIII - XIV centuries. Against the backdrop of still strong Byzantine and Gothic traditions, features of a new art began to appear - the future art of the Renaissance. Therefore, this period of its history was called the Proto-Renaissance (i.e., preparing the onset of the Renaissance; from Greek"protos" - "first").
There was no similar transitional period in any of the European countries. In Italy itself, proto-Renaissance art existed only in Tuscany and Rome.
In Italian culture, the features of the old and the new were intertwined. "The last poet of the Middle Ages" and the first poet of the new era, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) created the Italian literary language. What Dante started was continued by other great Florentines of the 14th century - Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374), the founder of European lyric poetry, and Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), the founder of the novel (short story) genre in world literature. In the visual arts, the impersonal guild craft gives way to individual creativity. In architecture, sculpture and painting, major masters are coming forward who have become the pride of the era - Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Pietro Cavallini, Giotto di Bondone, whose work largely determined the further development of Italian art, laying the foundations for renewal.
Trecento
From the second half of the XIII - at the beginning of the XIV century. in the struggle against the local feudal lords, the Florentine burghers grew stronger. Florence was one of the first to turn into a rich republic with a constitution adopted in 1293, with a rapidly emerging bourgeois way of life and emerging bourgeois culture. The Republic of Florence lasted for almost one hundred and fifty years, making its fortunes in the wool and silk trade and becoming famous for its manufactories.
Changes in the art of Italy, first of all, affected the sculpture. They were prepared by the sculptural works of the master Niccolo Pisano (about 1220 - between 1278 and 1284). He was born in the south, in Puglia, but, while working in Pisa, he became so close to the city that he received the nickname Pisano, with which he entered the history of Italian art. There is a clear influence of antiquity in his works. He undoubtedly studied the sculptural decoration of late Roman and early Christian sarcophagi. The hexagonal marble pulpit (1260), made by him for the baptistery in Pisa, became an outstanding achievement of the Renaissance sculpture and influenced its further formation. The pulpit, made of white, pink-red and dark green marble, is a whole architectural structure, easily visible from all sides. According to medieval tradition, on the parapets (the walls of the pulpit) there are reliefs on scenes from the life of Christ, between them are the figures of the prophets and allegorical virtues. The columns rest on the backs of recumbent lions. Niccolo Pisano used traditional plots and motifs here, however, the pulpit belongs to a new era.
Niccolo became the founder of a school of sculpture that lasted until the middle of the 14th century and spread its attention throughout Italy. Of course, much in 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. And yet Niccolo's reforms are significant. The use of the classical tradition, the emphasis on the volume, materiality and weight of the figure and objects, the desire to introduce elements of a real earthly event into the image of a religious scene created the basis for a wide renewal of art. In the years 1260-1270, the workshop of Niccolo Pisano carried out numerous orders in the cities of central Italy.
New trends penetrate into the painting of Italy. For some time, a significant role in this area belonged to the artists of Rome. The Roman school put forward one of the largest masters of the Proto-Renaissance - Pietro Cavallini (between 1240 and 1250 - about 1330).
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. He is the author of mosaics (Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere; 1291) and frescoes (Church of Santa Cecilia in Trastvere; about 1293). The merit of Cavallini lies in the fact that he sought to overcome the flatness of forms and compositional construction, which were inherent in the “Byzantine” or “Greek” manner that dominated Italian painting in his time. He introduced light and shade modeling borrowed from ancient artists, achieving roundness and plasticity of forms.
However, from the second decade of the XIV century, artistic life in Rome froze. The leading role in Italian painting passed to the Florentine school.
Florence for two centuries was something like the capital of the artistic life of Italy and determined the main direction of the development of its art.
The birth of the proto-Renaissance art of Florence is associated with the name of Cenny di Peppo, nicknamed Cimabue (c.1240-c.1302).
But the most radical reformer of painting was one of the greatest artists of the Italian Proto-Renaissance. Giotto di Bondone (1266/67-1337). In his works, Giotto sometimes achieves such strength in the clash of contrasts and the transfer of human feelings, which allows us to see in him the predecessor of the greatest masters of the Renaissance. He worked as a painter, sculptor and architect. However, his main vocation was painting. The main work of Giotto is the painting of the Arena Chapel or the Scrovegni Chapel (named after the customer) in the city of Padua (1303-1306). Later works of Giotto are murals in the church of Santa Croce in Florence (Peruzzi chapel and Bardi chapel). In the Chapel del Arena, the frescoes are arranged in three rows along a blank wall. The interior of a simple single-nave chapel is illuminated by five windows on the opposite wall. Below, on a picturesquely imitated plinth of pink and gray squares, there are 14 allegorical figures of prophets and virtues. Above the entrance to the chapel is the painting "The Last Judgment", on the opposite wall - the scene "Annunciation". Giotto connected 38 scenes from the life of Christ and Mary into a single harmonious whole, creating a majestic epic cycle. Gospel stories are presented by Giotto as real events. Living language tells about the problems that worry people at all times: about kindness and mutual understanding ("The Meeting of Mary and Elizabeth", "The Meeting of Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate"), deceit and betrayal ("The Kiss of Judas", "The Flagellation of Christ"), about the depth of sorrow, meekness, humility and eternal all-consuming maternal love ("Lamentation"). The scenes are full of inner tension, like, for example, "The Resurrection of Lazarus", sometimes poignant in their tragedy, like the composition "Carrying the Cross".
Interpreting the gospel episodes as events of human life, Giotto places them in a real setting, while refusing to combine moments at different times in one composition. Giotto's compositions are always spatial, although the stage on which the action is played is usually not deep. Architecture and landscape in Giotto's frescoes are always subject to action. Every detail in his compositions directs the viewer's attention to the semantic center.
Giotto laid the foundation for Renaissance art. Although he was not the only artist of his time who embarked on the path of reform, his determination, determination, and bold break with the essential principles of the medieval tradition make him the founder of a new art.
Another important center of Italian art at the end of the 13th century - the first half of the 14th century was Siena. The formation of his art school took place at the same time as the Florentine one, but the art of these two largest Tuscan cities is different, just as their way of life and their culture were different.
Siena was an old rival of Florence. This led to a series of military clashes, ending with varying success, but by the end of the 13th century, the preponderance was on the side of Florence, which enjoyed the support of the Pope.
The art of Siena is marked by features of refined sophistication and decorativeism. French illustrated manuscripts and handicrafts were valued in Siena. In the XIII-XIV centuries, one of the most elegant Italian Gothic cathedrals was erected here, on the facade of which he worked in 1284-1297. Giovanni Pisano.
R A N N E E RESTORATION
In the first decades of the 15th century, a decisive turning point took place in the art of Italy. The emergence of a powerful center of the Renaissance in Florence led to the renewal of the entire Italian artistic culture. The work of Donatello, Masaccio and their associates marks the victory of Renaissance realism, which differed significantly from the "realism of details" that was characteristic of the art of the late trecento. The works of these masters are imbued with the ideals of humanism. They exalt a person, raise him above the level of everyday life.
In their struggle with the Gothic tradition, the artists of the early Renaissance sought support in antiquity and the art of the Proto-Renaissance. What the masters of the Proto-Renaissance searched for only intuitively, by touch, is now based on accurate knowledge.
Italian art of the 15th century is distinguished by great diversity. The difference in the conditions in which local schools are formed gives rise to a variety of artistic movements. The new art, which won at the beginning of the 15th century in advanced Florence, did not immediately receive recognition and distribution in other areas of the country.
While Bruneleschi, Masaccio, Donatello worked in Florence, the traditions of Byzantine and Gothic art were still alive in northern Italy, only gradually being replaced by the Renaissance.
Quattrocento
From the end of the XIV century. power in Florence passes to the house of Medici bankers. Its head, Cosimo de' Medici, became the unspoken ruler of Florence. Writers, poets, scientists, architects and artists flock to the court of Cosimo Medici (and then his grandson Lorenzo, nicknamed the Magnificent). The age of medical culture begins. The first signs of a new, bourgeois culture and the emergence of a new, bourgeois worldview were especially pronounced in the 15th century, during the Quattrocento period. But precisely because the process of the formation of a new culture and a new worldview was not completed during this period (this happened later, in the era of the final disintegration and disintegration of feudal relations), the 15th century is full of creative freedom, bold daring, admiration for human individuality. This is truly the age of humanism. In addition, this is an era full of faith in the limitless power of the mind, an era of intellectualism. The perception of reality is tested by experience, experiment, controlled by the mind. Hence the spirit of order and measure, which is so characteristic of the art of the Renaissance. Geometry, mathematics, anatomy, the doctrine of the proportions of the human body are of great importance to artists; it is then that they begin to carefully study the structure of man; in the 15th century Italian artists also solved the problem of rectilinear perspective, which has already matured in the art of the trecento.
Antiquity played a huge role in the formation of the secular culture of the Quattrocento. The 15th century demonstrates direct links with the culture of the Renaissance. Since 1439, since the ecumenical church council held in Florence, to which the Byzantine emperor John Palaiologos and the patriarch of Constantinople arrived, accompanied by a magnificent retinue, and especially after the fall of Byzantium in 1453, when many scientists who had fled from the East found refuge in Florence, this city becomes one of the main centers in Italy for the study of the Greek language, as well as the literature and philosophy of Ancient Greece. The Platonic Academy is founded in Florence, the Laurentian library contains the richest collection of ancient manuscripts. And yet the leading role in the cultural life of Florence in the first half and the middle of the 15th century undoubtedly belonged to art. The first art museums appear, filled with statues, fragments of ancient architecture, marbles, coins, and ceramics. Ancient Rome is being restored. The beauty of the suffering Laocoön, the beautiful Apollo (Belvedere) and Venus (Medician) appear before the astonished Europe.
Sculpture
In the XV century. Italian sculpture flourished. It acquired an independent meaning, independent of architecture, new genres appeared in it. The practice of artistic life began to include orders from wealthy merchants and craftsmen to decorate public buildings; art competitions acquired the character of broad public events. The event that opens a new period in the development of Italian Renaissance sculpture is considered to be the competition held in 1401 for the manufacture of bronze of the second northern doors of the Florentine baptistery. Among the participants of the competition were young masters - Filippo Brunelleschi and Lorenzo Ghiberti (about 1381-1455).
The brilliant draftsman Ghiberti won the competition. One of the most educated people of his time, the first historian of Italian art, Ghiberti, in whose work the main thing was the balance and harmony of all elements of the image, devoted his life to one type of sculpture - relief. His quest culminated in the making of the eastern doors of the Florentine Baptistery (1425-1452), which Michelangelo called "The Gates of Paradise". The ten square compositions made of gilded bronze that make them convey the depth of space in which figures, nature, and architecture merge. They are reminiscent of expressive picturesque paintings. Ghiberti's workshop has become a real school for a whole generation of artists. In his studio, the young Donatello, the great reformer of Italian sculpture, worked as an assistant.
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who was called Donatello (circa 1386-1466), was born in Florence in the family of a wool comber. He worked in Florence, Siena, Rome, Padua. However, the huge fame did not change his simple way of life. It was said that the selfless Donatello hung a purse with money at the door of his workshop, and his friends and students took from the purse as much as they needed.
On the one hand, Donatello longed for the truth of life in art. On the other hand, he gave his works the features of sublime heroism. These qualities appeared already in the early works of the master - statues of saints intended for the outer niches of the facades of the Church of Or San Michele in Florence, and the Old Testament prophets of the Florentine campanile. The statues were in niches, but they immediately attracted attention with the harsh expressiveness and inner strength of the images. Especially famous is "St. George" (1416) - a young warrior with a shield in his hand. He has a focused, deep look; he stands firmly on the ground, legs wide apart. In the statues of the prophets, Donatello especially emphasized their characteristic features, sometimes coarse, unadorned, even ugly, but alive and natural. Donatello's prophets Jeremiah and Habakkuk are whole and spiritually rich natures. Their strong figures are hidden by heavy folds of cloaks. Life furrowed Avvakum's faded face with deep wrinkles, he became completely bald, for which he was nicknamed Zuccone (Pumpkin) in Florence.
In 1430, Donatello created David, the first nude statue in Italian Renaissance sculpture. The statue was intended for a fountain in the courtyard of the Medici Palace. The biblical shepherd, the winner of the giant Goliath, is one of the favorite images of the Renaissance. Depicting his youthful body, Donatello undoubtedly proceeded from antique samples, but reworked them in the spirit of his time. Thoughtful and calm David in a shepherd's hat, shading his face, tramples Goliath's head with his foot and seems to be unaware of the feat he has accomplished.
A trip to Rome with Brunelleschi greatly expanded the artistic possibilities of Donatello, his work was enriched with new images and techniques, which affected the influence of antiquity. A new period has begun in the master's work. In 1433 he completed the marble pulpit of the Florentine cathedral. The entire field of the pulpit is occupied by a jubilant round dance of dancers putti- something like antique cupids and at the same time medieval angels in the form of naked boys, sometimes winged, depicted in motion. This is a favorite motif in the sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, which then spread in the art of the 17th-18th centuries.
For almost ten years, Donatello worked in Padua, an old university city, one of the centers of humanistic culture, the birthplace of St. Anthony of Padua, deeply revered in the Catholic Church. For the city cathedral dedicated to St. Anthony, Donatello completed in 1446-1450. a huge sculpted altar with many statues and reliefs. The central place under the canopy was occupied by the statue of the Madonna and Child, but on both sides of which there were six statues of saints. At the end of the XVI century. the altar was demolished. Only a part of it has survived to this day, and now it is difficult to imagine how it looked originally.
Four extant altar reliefs depicting the miraculous deeds of St. Anthony allow us to appreciate the unusual techniques used by the master. This is a type of flat, as if flattened relief. Crowded scenes are presented in a single movement in a real life setting. Huge city buildings and arcades serve as a background for them. Due to the transfer of perspective, there is an impression of the depth of space, as in paintings.
At the same time, Donatello completed in Padua an equestrian statue of the condottiere Erasmo de Narni, a native of Padua, who was in the service of the Venetian Republic. The Italians called him Gattamelata (Cunning Cat). This is one of the first Renaissance equestrian monuments. Calm dignity is poured into the whole appearance of Gattamelata, dressed in Roman armor, with his head bare in the Roman manner, which is a magnificent example of portrait art. An almost eight-meter statue on a high pedestal is equally expressive from all sides. The monument is placed parallel to the facade of the Cathedral of Sant'Antonio, which allows you to see it either against the blue sky, or in spectacular comparison with the powerful forms of domes.
In the last years spent in Florence, Donatello experienced a spiritual crisis, his images became more and more dramatic. He created a complex and expressive group "Judith and Holofernes" (1456-1457); the statue of "Mary Magdalene" (1454-1455) in the form of a decrepit old woman, an emaciated hermit in an animal skin - reliefs tragic in mood for the church of San Lorenzo, already completed by his students.
Among the largest sculptors of the first half of the XV century. cannot be overlooked Jacopo della Quercia (1374-1438) - an older contemporary of Ghiberti and Donatello. His work, rich in many discoveries, stood, as it were, aloof from the general path along which the art of the Renaissance developed. A native of the city of Siena, Quercea worked in Lucca. There, in the city cathedral, there is a tombstone of the young Ilaria del Careto, made by this master, of rare beauty. In 1408 - 1419. Quercea created sculptures for the monumental Fonte Gaia fountain in Campo Square in Siena. Then the master lived in Bologna, where his main work was the reliefs for the portal of the church of San Petronio (1425-1438). Made of dark gray hard local stone, they are distinguished by powerful monumentality, anticipating the images of Michelangelo.
The second generation of Florentine sculptors gravitated towards more lyrical, peaceful, secular art. The leading role in it belonged to the family of sculptors della Robbia. Head of family Lucca della Robbia (1399 or 1400-1482), a contemporary of Brunelleschi and Donatello, became famous for his use of the glazing technique in round sculpture and relief, often combining them with architecture. The glaze technique (majolica), known from ancient times to the peoples of Western Asia, was brought to the Iberian Peninsula and the island of Mallorca in the Middle Ages, which is why it got its name, and then spread widely in Italy. Lucca della Robbia created medallions with reliefs on a deep blue background for buildings and altars, garlands of flowers and fruits, majolica busts of the Madonna, Christ, John the Baptist. The cheerful, elegant, kind art of this master received a well-deserved recognition of his contemporaries. Great perfection in the majolica technique was also achieved by his nephew Andrea della Robbia (1435-1525).
Painting
The huge role that Brunelleschi played in the architecture of the early Renaissance, and Donatello in sculpture, belonged to Masaccio in painting. Brunelleschi and Donatello were at their creative peak when Masaccio was born. According to Vasari, "Masaccio strove to depict figures with great vivacity and the greatest immediacy, like reality."
Masaccio died young, before reaching the age of 27, and yet he managed to do as much new in painting as any other master could not manage in his whole life.
Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai, nicknamed Masaccio (1401 - 1428), was born in the town of San Valdarno near Florence, where he went as a young man to study painting. There was an assumption that Masolino de Panicale was his teacher, with whom he then collaborated; it has now been rejected by researchers. Masaccio worked in Florence, Pisa and Rome.
His "Trinity" (1427-1428), created for the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, became a classic example of an altar composition. The fresco is made on the wall extending into the depths of the chapel, which is built in the form of a Renaissance arched niche. The mural features a crucifix, figures of Mary and John the Baptist. They are overshadowed by the image of God the Father. In the foreground, the frescoes depict kneeling customers, as if they were in the very premises of the church. The image of the sarcophagus, located at the bottom of the fresco, on which the skeleton of Adam lies. The inscription above the sarcophagus contains the traditional medieval saying: "I was once like you, and you will be like me."
Until the 50s. 20th century this work of Masaccio in the eyes of art lovers and scientists receded into the background before his famous cycle of murals of the Brancacci Chapel. After the fresco was moved to its original place in the temple in 1952, washed, restored, when its lower part with a sarcophagus was discovered, the "Trinity" attracted the close attention of researchers and art lovers. The creation of Masaccio is remarkable in every respect. The majestic detachment of the images is combined here with the hitherto unseen reality of space and architecture, with the voluminousness of the figures, the expressive portrait characteristics of the customers’ faces, and with the image of the Mother of God, surprising in terms of the power of restrained feeling.
In the same years, Masaccio (in collaboration with Masolino) created in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine the murals of the Brancacci Chapel, named after a wealthy Florentine customer.
The painter was faced with the task of constructing a space using linear and aerial perspective, placing powerful figures of characters in it, truthfully depicting their movements, postures, gestures, and then connecting the scale and color of the figures with a natural or architectural background. Masaccio not only successfully coped with this task, but also managed to convey the inner tension and psychological depth of the images.
The plots of the murals are mainly devoted to the history of the Apostle Peter. The most famous composition, “The Miracle with the Stater,” tells how a tax collector stopped Christ and his disciples at the gates of the city of Capernaum, demanding money from them to maintain the temple. Christ commanded the apostle Peter to catch a fish in the Lake of Gennesaret and extract a stater from it. On the left in the background, the viewer sees this scene. On the right, Peter is handing the money to the collector. Thus, the composition connects three episodes of different times, in which the apostle appears three times. In Masaccio's essentially innovative painting, this technique is a belated tribute to the medieval tradition of pictorial storytelling; at that time, many masters had already abandoned it, and more than a century ago, Giotto himself. But this does not violate the impression of bold novelty, which distinguishes the whole figurative structure of the painting, its dramaturgy, life-convincing, slightly rude characters.
Sometimes Masaccio is ahead of his time in expressing the strength and sharpness of feelings. Here is the fresco "The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise" in the same Brancacci Chapel. The viewer believes that Adam and Eve, who violated the Divine prohibition, are really expelled from paradise by an angel with a sword in his hands. The main thing here is not the biblical plot and external details, but the feeling of boundless human despair, which grips Adam, who covered his face with his hands, and sobbing Eve, with sunken eyes and a dark gap in her mouth distorted by a cry.
In August 1428, Masaccio left for Rome without finishing the painting, and soon died suddenly. The Brancacci Chapel became a place of pilgrimage for painters who adopted the techniques of Masaccio. However, much in the creative; The legacy of Masaccio was able to appreciate only the next generations.
In the work of his contemporary Paolo Uccello (1397-1475), who belonged to the generation of masters who worked after the death of Masaccio, the craving for elegant fabulousness sometimes acquired a naive shade. This feature of the artist's creative style has become his original hallmark. His early small painting "Saint George" is charming. A green dragon with a spiral tail and patterned wings, as if carved from tin, walks resolutely on two legs. He's not scary, he's funny. The artist himself was probably smiling while creating this painting. But in the work of Uccello, wayward fantasy was combined with a passion for exploring perspective. Experiments, drawings, sketches, to which he devoted sleepless nights, Vasari described as eccentricities. Meanwhile, Paolo Uccello entered the history of painting as one of those painters who first began to use the technique of linear perspective in his canvases.
In his youth, Uccello worked in the workshop of Ghiberti, then made mosaics for the Cathedral of San Marco in Venice, and returning to Florence, he became acquainted with the paintings by Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel, which had a great influence on him. The fascination with perspective was reflected in the first work of Uccello - a portrait of the English condottiere John Hawkwood, known to Italians as Giovanni Acuto, painted by him in 1436. A huge monochrome (one-color) fresco depicts not a living person, but his equestrian statue, which the viewer looks at from the bottom up.
Uccello's bold searches found expression in three of his famous paintings commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici and dedicated to the battle of two Florentine commanders with the troops of Siena at San Romano. In the amazing paintings of Uccello, against the backdrop of a toy landscape, horsemen and warriors clashed in a fierce battle, spears, shields, flagpoles mixed up. And, nevertheless, the battle looks like a conditional, frozen extremely beautiful, gleaming gold scenery with figures of horses in red, pink and even blue.
HIGH REVIVAL
High Renaissance in Central Italy
From the end of the 15th century, Italy began to experience all the consequences of an unfavorable economic rivalry with Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands. The northern cities of Europe organize a series of military campaigns against Italy, which is scattered and losing its power. This difficult period brings to life the idea of the unification of the country, an idea that could not but excite the best minds of Italy.
It is well known that certain periods of the flourishing of art may not coincide with the general development of society, its material, economic status. In difficult times for Italy, the short golden age of the Italian Renaissance begins - the so-called High Renaissance, the highest point of flowering of Italian art. The High Renaissance thus coincided with the period of the fierce struggle of the Italian cities for independence. The art of this time was permeated with humanism, faith in the creative powers of man, in the unlimitedness of his possibilities, in the rational arrangement of the world, in the triumph of progress. In art, the problems of civic duty, high moral qualities, feat, the image of a beautiful, harmoniously developed, strong in spirit and body hero man who managed to rise above the level of everyday life came to the fore. The search for such an ideal led art to synthesis, generalization, to the disclosure of the general patterns of phenomena, to the identification of their logical interconnection. The art of the High Renaissance renounces particulars, minor details in the name of a generalized image, in the name of striving for a harmonious synthesis of the beautiful aspects of life. This is one of the main differences between the High Renaissance and the early one.
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) was the first artist to clearly embody this difference. He was born in Anchiano, near the village of Vinci; his father was a notary who moved in 1469 to Florence. Leonardo's first teacher was Andrea Verrocchio. The figure of an angel in the picture of the teacher "Baptism" already clearly demonstrates the difference in the perception of the world by the artist of the past era and the new era: no frontal flatness of Verrocchio, the finest light and shade modeling of volume and the extraordinary spirituality of the image. By the time of leaving the workshop of Verrocchio, the researchers attribute the "Madonna with a flower" ("Madonna Benois", as it was called before, by the name of the owners). During this period, Leonardo was undoubtedly influenced by Botticelli for some time. His "Annunciation" in detail still reveals close ties with the quattrocento, but the calm, perfect beauty of the figures of Mary and the archangel, the color structure of the picture, the compositional order speak of the worldview of the artist of the new era, characteristic of the High Renaissance.
After leaving Milan, Leonardo worked for some time in Florence. There, Leonardo's work seemed to be illuminated by a bright flash: he painted a portrait of Mona Lisa, wife of the wealthy Florentine Francesco di Giocondo (circa 1503). The portrait, known as the "La Gioconda", has become one of the most famous works of world painting.
A small portrait of a young woman, shrouded in an airy haze, sitting against the backdrop of a bluish-green strange rocky landscape, is full of such lively and tender trembling that, according to Vasari, one can see the pulse beating in the deepening of Mona Lisa's neck. It would seem that the picture is easy to understand. Meanwhile, in the extensive literature on the Gioconda, the most opposite interpretations of the image created by Leonardo collide.
In the history of world art, there are works endowed with strange, mysterious and magical powers. It's hard to explain, it's impossible to describe. Among them, one of the first places is occupied by the image of the young Florentine Mona Lisa. She, apparently, was an outstanding, strong-willed person, intelligent and whole nature. Leonardo invested in her amazing look, directed at the viewer, in her famous, as if sliding, mysterious smile, in the facial expression marked by unsteady variability, a charge of such intellectual and spiritual strength, which raised her image to an unattainable height.
In the last years of his life, Leonardo da Vinci worked little as an artist. Having received an invitation from the French King Francis I, he left for France in 1517 and became a court painter. Soon Leonardo died. In a self-portrait drawing (1510-1515), the gray-bearded patriarch with a deep mournful look looked much older than his age.
It is impossible to imagine that Leonardo da Vinci could live and create in another era. And yet, his personality transcended its time, rose above it. The work of Leonardo before Vinci is inexhaustible. The scale and uniqueness of his talent can be judged by the master's drawings, which occupy one of the places of honor in the history of world art. With drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, sketches, sketches, diagrams, not only manuscripts devoted to the exact sciences, but also works on the theory of art are inextricably linked. In the famous "Treatise on Painting" (1498) and his other notes, much attention is paid to the study of the human body, information on anatomy, proportions, the relationship between movements, facial expressions and the emotional state of a person. A lot of space is given to the problems of chiaroscuro, volumetric modeling, linear and aerial perspective.
The art of Leonardo da Vinci, his scientific and theoretical research, the uniqueness of his personality have passed through the entire history of world culture and had a huge impact on it.
With creativity Raphael (1483-1520) the idea of sublime beauty and harmony is associated in the history of world art. It is generally accepted that in the constellation of brilliant masters of the High Renaissance, in which Leonardo personified intellect, and Michelangelo - power, it was Raphael who was the main carrier of harmony. Of course, to one degree or another, each of them possessed all these qualities. There is no doubt, however, that the relentless striving for a bright, perfect beginning permeates all of Raphael's work and constitutes its inner meaning.
Rafael initially studied in Urbino with his father, then with the local painter Timoteo Vite. In 1500, he moved to Perugia, the capital of Umbria, to continue his education in the workshop of the famous painter, head of the Umbrian school, Pietro Perugino. The young master quickly surpassed his teacher.
Raphael was called the Master of the Madonnas. The mood of spiritual purity, still somewhat naive in one of his first small paintings - "Madonna Conestabile" (1502-1503), - acquired the sublime character of the early period of Raphael - "The Betrothal of Mary" (1504). The scene of the betrothal of Mary and Joseph, taking place against the backdrop of wonderful architecture, is an image of high beauty. This small picture already belongs entirely to the art of the High Renaissance. The main characters, groups of girls and boys conquer with their natural grace. Expressive, melodious, marks and plastic are their movements, postures and gestures: for example, the approaching hands of Mary and Joseph, putting a ring on her finger. There is nothing superfluous, secondary in the picture. Golden, red and dark green tones, consonant with the soft blue of the sky, create a festive mood.
In 1504 Raphael moved to Florence. Here his work gained maturity and calm grandeur. In the Madonna cycle, he varied the image of a young mother with the Christ Child and little John the Baptist against the backdrop of a landscape. Especially good is the Madonna in the Green (1505). The painting uses the pyramidal composition of Leonardo, and the subtle harmony of colors is inherent in the coloring.
Raphael's successes were so significant that in 1508 he was invited to the papal court in Rome. The artist received an order to paint the ceremonial apartments of the Pope, the so-called stanz (rooms) in the Vatican Palace. The murals of the Vatican stanzas (1509 - 1517) brought fame to Raphael, nominated him to the leading masters not only of Rome, but also of Italy.
As before, Raphael again turned to the beloved image of the Madonna and Child. The master was preparing to create his great masterpiece - the "Sistine Madonna" (1515 - 1519) for the church of St. Sixtus in Piacenza. In the history of art, the "Sistine Madonna" is an image of perfect beauty.
Rafael was a wonderful master of drawing. Here his impeccable, light, free sense of line was clearly manifested. He also made significant contributions to architecture. The very name of Raphael - the Divine Sanzio - later became the personification of an ideal artist endowed with a divine gift.
With great honors, he was buried in the Roman Pantheon, where his ashes rest to this day.
Michelangelo Buonarroti(1475-1564) - the greatest master of the High Renaissance, who created outstanding works of sculpture, painting and architecture.
Michelangelo spent his childhood in the small Tuscan town of Caprese near Florence. He spent his youth and years of study in Florence. In the art school at the court of Duke Lorenzo de' Medici, he discovered the beauty of ancient art, he communicated with the great representatives of humanistic culture. Florence owns almost all the sculptural works of Michelangelo. However, Rome can equally be called the city of Michelangelo.
In 1469 he arrived in Rome, where fame soon came to him. The most famous work of the first Roman period is the "Pieta" ("Lamentation of Christ") (1498 - 1501) in the chapel of St. Peter's Basilica. On her knees, too young for such an adult son of Mary, the lifeless body of Christ is stretched out. The grief of the mother is light and sublime, only in the gesture of the left hand, mental suffering seems to spill out. White marble polished to a shine. In the play of light and shadow, its surface seems precious.
Returning to Florence in 1501, Michelangelo undertook to execute the colossal marble statue of David (1501-1504). The statue reaches five and a half meters in height. She personifies the limitless power of man. David is just preparing to strike the enemy with a stone fired from a sling, but it is already felt that this is a future winner, full of consciousness of his physical and spiritual strength. The hero's face expresses an unshakable will.
Michelangelo considered himself only a sculptor, which, however, did not prevent him, a true son of the Renaissance, from being a great painter and architect. The most grandiose work of monumental painting of the High Renaissance is the ceiling painting of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, made by Michelangelo in 1508 - 1512.
The tomb of Pope Julius II could have become the pinnacle in the field of sculpture if Michelangelo had succeeded in realizing his original plan: forty marble statues were to decorate the mausoleum. We have come down to the "Shackled Slave" - a strong, stocky young man who vainly seeks to free himself from the shackles, and the "Dying Slave" - a beautiful young man who expects death as deliverance from torment (about 1513).
After the fall of the Republic in Florence, Michelangelo did not feel safe. In 1534 he left his native city and moved to Rome, where, by order of Pope Paul III, he painted the famous fresco "The Last Judgment" (1536 - 1541) on the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. Against the background of a cold blue-ash sky, many figures are engulfed in a whirling motion. A tragic sense of world catastrophe prevails. The hour of retribution is approaching, the angels announce the coming of the Last Judgment.
In the last decades of his life, the master was engaged only in architecture and poetry. The work of the great Michelangelo made up an entire era and was far ahead of its time, it played a grandiose role in world art, and also influenced the formation of the principles of the Baroque.
High Renaissance in Venice
If the work of Michelangelo in its second half already bears the features of a new era, then for Venice the entire 16th century still passes under the sign of the Cinquecento. Venice, which has managed to maintain its independence, remains faithful to the traditions of the Renaissance for a longer time.
From the workshop of Gianbellino came two great artists of the High Venetian Renaissance: Giorgione and Titian.
Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione (1477-1510), - a direct follower of his teacher and a typical artist of the time of the High Renaissance. He was the first on Venetian soil to turn to literary themes, to mythological subjects. Landscape, nature and the beautiful naked human body became for him an object of art and an object of worship. The sense of harmony, the perfection of proportions, linear rhythm, soft light painting, the spirituality and psychological expressiveness of his images, and at the same time the logic, rationalism of Giorgione are close to Leonardo, who undoubtedly had a direct influence on him when he traveled from Milan in 1500. Venice. But Giorgione is more emotional than the great Milanese master, and, like a typical Venice artist, he is interested not so much in linear perspective as in airy and mainly color problems.
Already in the first known work "Madonna of Castelfranco" (circa 1505), Giorgione appears as a fully developed artist; the image of the Madonna is full of poetry, thoughtful dreaminess, permeated with that mood of sadness that is characteristic of all female images of Giorgione. During the last five years of his life (Giorgione died of the plague, which was a particularly frequent visitor to Venice), the artist created his best works, executed in oil technique, the main one in the Venetian school at a time when the mosaic became a thing of the past along with the entire medieval art system, and the fresco proved unstable in the humid Venetian climate. In the painting of 1506 "Thunderstorm" Giorgione depicts man as part of nature. A woman feeding a child, a young man with a staff (who can be mistaken for a warrior with a halberd) are not united by any action, but are united in this majestic landscape by a common mood, a common state of mind. Giorgione owns the finest and extraordinarily rich palette. The muted tones of the young man's orange-red clothes, his greenish-white shirt, echoing the woman's white cloak, are, as it were, enveloped in that semi-twilight air that is characteristic of pre-storm lighting. The green color has a lot of shades: olive in the trees, almost black in the depths of the water, lead in the clouds. And all this is united by one luminous tone, conveying the impression of unsteadiness, anxiety, anxiety, joy, like the very state of a person in anticipation of an impending thunderstorm.
Titian Vecellio (1477-1576) - the greatest artist of the Venetian Renaissance. He created works on both mythological and Christian subjects, worked in the portrait genre, his coloristic talent is exceptional, his compositional ingenuity is inexhaustible, and his happy longevity allowed him to leave behind a rich creative heritage that had a huge impact on posterity. Titian was born in Cadore, a small town at the foot of the Alps, in a military family, studied, like Giorgione, with Gianbellino, and his first work (1508) was joint painting with Giorgione of the barns of the German Compound in Venice. After the death of Giorgione, in 1511, Titian painted in Padua several rooms of scuolo, philanthropic brotherhoods, in which the influence of Giotto, who once worked in Padua, and Masaccio is undoubtedly felt. Life in Padua introduced the artist, of course, to the works of Mantegna and Donatello. Glory to Titian comes early. Already in 1516, he became the first painter of the republic, from the 20s - the most famous artist of Venice, and success does not leave him until the end of his days. Around 1520, the Duke of Ferrara commissioned him a series of paintings in which Titian appears as a singer of antiquity who managed to feel and, most importantly, embody the spirit of paganism ("Bacchanal", "Feast of Venus", "Bacchus and Ariadne").
L O D E N E R E N E N I E
In the second half of the 16th century in Italy, the decline of the economy and trade was growing, Catholicism entered into a struggle with humanistic culture, art was in deep crisis. It strengthened anti-Renaissance anti-classical tendencies, embodied in mannerism.
Mannerism almost did not affect Venice, which in the second half of the 16th century became the main center of late Renaissance art. Although the commercial and political importance of the Venetian Republic was steadily declining, as was its power, the City of Lagoon was still driven from the power of the Pope, and from foreign domination, and the riches accumulated by him were enormous. During this period, the way of life in Venice and the nature of its culture were distinguished by such scope and splendor that nothing seemed to indicate the decline of the weakening Venetian state. In line with the high humanistic Renaissance tradition in the new historical conditions in Venice, the creativity of the great masters of the late Renaissance, enriched with new forms - Palladio, Veronese, Tintoretto - developed.
Tintoretto (1518-1594), whose real name is Jacopo Robusti, was born in Venice and was the son of a dyer, hence the master's nickname - Tintoretto, or the Little Dyer.
The abundance of external artistic influences dissolved in the unique creative individuality of this last of the great masters of the Italian Renaissance. In his work, he was a giant figure, the creator of volcanic temperament, violent passions and heroic intensity. Following the late Michelangelo and Titian, Tintoretto paved new paths in art. No wonder his work was a tremendous success both among contemporaries and subsequent generations. Tintoretto was distinguished by a truly inhuman ability to work, tireless search. He felt the tragedy of his time more sharply and deeper than most of his contemporaries. The master rebelled against the established traditions in the visual arts - the observance of symmetry, strict balance, static; expanded the boundaries of space, saturated it with dynamics, dramatic action, began to express human feelings more vividly. He is the creator of mass scenes imbued with the unity of experience.
In 1539, the painter opened his workshop in Venice. Tintoretto's early work is little known. The painting “The Miracle of the Removed Mark” (1548) brought him fame. The expressiveness of the forms and the rich color scheme of large spots of red and blue create the impression of a miracle happening before the eyes of a dismayed crowd. Swiftly flying upside down, St. Mark in fluttering scarlet clothes stops the execution of the unjustly condemned. Restoration of the last decades has revealed in all its splendor the rich and colorful palette of the master.
Unusual painting "Introduction to the Temple" in the church of Santa Maria del Orto (1555). Tintoretto depicted a semicircular asymmetrical staircase going up steeply. Maria has already reached her peak, and the secondary characters in the foreground, including a woman with a girl, direct the viewer's attention to her with gestures and looks. The artist expressively and boldly built the composition diagonally - the most dynamic technique in painting. In the painting, Tintoretto expressed the idea of the spiritual perfection of man.
In Venice, due to climatic conditions, not frescoes were used to decorate buildings, but huge paintings painted in the technique of oil painting. Tintoretto is a master of monumental paintings, the author of a gigantic ensemble consisting of several dozen works. They were made for the upper and lower halls of the Skuolidi San Rocco (School of St. Roch; 1565-1588).
The master began the design of Scuola di San Rocco with the creation of a grandiose monumental composition "The Crucifixion". An image with many characters - spectators (men and women), warriors, executioners - encloses the central scene of the crucifixion in a semicircle. At the foot of the cross, the relatives and disciples of the Savior form a group that is rare in spiritual strength. In the radiance of colors in the twilight sky, it is as if Christ embraces with his hands, nailed to the crossbeams, the restless, agitated world, blessing and forgiving it. And in the later years of his life, Tintoretto was attracted by mass scenes. The “Battle of the Tsar” created by him for the Doge's Palace (circa 1585) occupies an entire wall. In essence, this is the first truly historical painting in European painting. In order to convey the tension of the battle in the picture, the master used the restless rhythm of lines, color strokes, and flashes of light.
The work of Tintoretto completes the development of the artistic culture of the Renaissance in Italy.
Mannerist art
Mannerism is a trend in European art of the 16th century. It comes from the Italian word maniera - “manner”, “reception”, “artistic handwriting”. This term first appeared in European art history in the 1920s. XX century., And the study of mannerism has generated an extensive scientific literature with controversial assessments and points of view.
Mannerism in its most general expression denotes an anti-classical trend that developed in Italy around 1520 and developed until 1590. The art of mannerism departs from the Renaissance ideals of the harmonious perception of a person who finds himself at the mercy of supernatural forces. The world appears unstable, shaky, in a state of decay. The images are full of anxiety, restlessness, tension, the artist moves away from nature, strives to surpass it, following in his work a subjective “inner idea”, the basis of which is not the real world, but creative imagination; the means of performance is the "beautiful manner" as the sum of certain techniques. Among them are the arbitrary elongation of the figures, the complex serpentine rhythm, the unreality of fantastic space and light, and sometimes cold piercing colors.
The first stage of Italian mannerism covers the 20-40s. 16th century and represents a relatively narrow current, most clearly embodied in painting. The largest and most gifted master of a complex creative destiny was Jacopo Pontormo(1494-1556). In his famous painting “Descent from the Cross”, the composition is unstable, the figures are pretentiously broken, the light colors are sharp.
The first generation of mannerists completes Francesco Mazzola, nicknamed Parmigianino (1503 - 1540), a sophisticated master and a brilliant draftsman. He liked to impress the viewer: for example, he painted a self-portrait in a convex mirror. Deliberate deliberateness distinguishes his famous "Madonna with a long neck" (1438 - 1540).
The second stage of Mannerism (1540-1590) turns in Italy into a broad current, covering painting, sculpture and architecture. Mannerism becomes a courtly aristocratic art, which initially develops in the duchies of Parma, Mantua, Ferrara, Modena, and then asserts itself in Florence and Rome.
The largest master - the artist of the Medici court Agnolo Bronzino(1503-1572), especially known for his ceremonial portraits. They echoed the era of bloody atrocities and moral decline that gripped the highest circles of Italian society. The noble customers of Bronzino are, as it were, separated from the viewer by an invisible distance; the stiffness of their poses, the impassivity of their faces, the richness of their clothes, the gestures of beautiful idle hands are like an outer shell that hides an inner flawed life.
The type of court portrait created by Mannerism influenced the portrait art of the 16th-17th centuries in other countries, where it usually developed on a lively, healthy, sometimes more prosaic local basis.
The art of mannerism was transitional: the Renaissance was fading into the past, the time had come for a new all-European artistic style - baroque.
CONCLUSION
The ideas of humanism are the spiritual basis for the flourishing of Renaissance art. The art of the Renaissance is imbued with the ideals of humanism; it created the image of a beautiful, harmoniously developed person. The Italian humanists demanded freedom for man. “But freedom in the understanding of the Italian Renaissance,” wrote its connoisseur A.K. to be willpower, preventing him from feeling and thinking as he wants. In modern science there is no unambiguous understanding of the nature, structure and chronological framework of Renaissance humanism. But, of course, humanism should be considered as the main ideological content of the Renaissance culture, inseparable from the entire course of the historical development of Italy in the era of the beginning of the disintegration of feudal and the emergence of capitalist relations. Humanism was a progressive ideological movement that contributed to the establishment of a means of culture, relying primarily on the ancient heritage. Italian humanism went through a series of stages: formation in the 14th century, a bright heyday of the next century, internal restructuring and gradual declines in the 16th century. The evolution of the Italian Renaissance was closely connected with the development of philosophy, political ideology, science, and other forms of social consciousness and, in turn, had a powerful impact on the artistic culture of the Renaissance.
Revived on an ancient basis, humanitarian knowledge, including ethics, rhetoric, philology, history, turned out to be the main area in the formation and development of humanism, the ideological core of which was the doctrine of man, his place and role in nature and society. This doctrine developed mainly in ethics and was enriched in various areas of the Renaissance culture. Humanistic ethics brought to the fore the problem of man's earthly destiny, the achievement of happiness through his own efforts. Humanists approached the issue of social ethics in a new way, in the solution of which they relied on ideas about the power of man's creative abilities and will, about his wide possibilities for building happiness on earth. They considered the harmony of the interests of the individual and society to be an important prerequisite for success, they put forward the ideal of the free development of the individual and the improvement of the social organism and political orders, which is inextricably linked with it. This gave a pronounced character to many ethical ideas and teachings of the Italian humanists.
Many problems developed in humanistic ethics acquire a new meaning and special relevance in our era, when the moral stimuli of human activity perform an increasingly important social function.
The humanistic worldview became one of the largest progressive conquests of the Renaissance, which had a strong influence on the entire subsequent development of European culture.
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Chapter "Introduction", section "The Art of Italy". General history of arts. Volume III. Renaissance art. Author: E.I. Rotenberg; under the general editorship of Yu.D. Kolpinsky and E.I. Rotenberg (Moscow, Art State Publishing House, 1962)
In the history of the artistic culture of the Renaissance, Italy made a contribution of exceptional importance. The very scale of the greatest flourishing that marked the Italian Renaissance seems especially striking in contrast to the small territorial dimensions of those urban republics where the culture of this era was born and experienced its high rise. Art in these centuries occupied a previously unprecedented position in public life. Artistic creation seemed to have become an insatiable need of the people of the Renaissance, an expression of their inexhaustible energy. In the advanced centers of Italy, a passion for art captured the widest sections of society - from the ruling circles to ordinary people. The construction of public buildings, the installation of monuments, the decoration of the main buildings of the city were a matter of national importance and the subject of attention of senior officials. The appearance of outstanding works of art turned into a major social event. The fact that the greatest geniuses of the era - Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo - received the name divino - divine from contemporaries - can testify to the general admiration for outstanding masters.
In terms of its productivity, the Renaissance, covering about three centuries in Italy, is quite comparable to the whole millennium during which the art of the Middle Ages developed. The very physical scale of everything that was created by the masters of the Italian Renaissance, majestic municipal buildings and huge cathedrals, magnificent patrician palaces and villas, works of sculpture in all its forms, countless monuments of painting - fresco cycles, monumental altar compositions and easel paintings, is already amazing. . Drawing and engraving, handwritten miniatures and the newly emerged printed graphics, decorative and applied arts in all its forms - there was, in essence, not a single area of artistic life that would not experience a rapid upsurge. But perhaps even more striking is the unusually high artistic level of the art of the Italian Renaissance, its truly global significance as one of the pinnacles of human culture.
The culture of the Renaissance was not the property of Italy alone: its scope covered many of the countries of Europe. At the same time, in one country or another, individual stages in the evolution of Renaissance art found their predominant expression. But in Italy, a new culture not only originated earlier than in other countries - the very path of its development was distinguished by an exceptional sequence of all stages - from the Proto-Renaissance to the late Renaissance, and in each of these stages Italian art gave high results, surpassing in most cases of achievement of art schools in other countries (In art history, by tradition, the Italian names of those centuries in which the birth and development of the Renaissance art of Italy falls are widely used (each of these centuries represents a certain milestone in this evolution). Thus, the 13th century is called ducento, the 14th - trecento, 15th - quattrocento, 16th - cinquecento.). Thanks to this, the Renaissance artistic culture in Italy reached a special fullness of expression, appearing, so to speak, in its most integral and classically finished form.
The explanation of this fact is connected with the specific conditions in which the historical development of Renaissance Italy proceeded. The social base that contributed to the emergence of a new culture was determined here extremely early. Already in the 12th-13th centuries, when Byzantium and the Arabs were pushed aside from the traditional trade routes in the Mediterranean region as a result of the Crusades, the northern Italian cities, and above all Venice, Pisa and Genoa, seized all the intermediary trade between Western Europe and East. In the same centuries, handicraft production experienced its rise in such centers as Mila, Florence, Siena and Bologna. The accumulated wealth was invested on a large scale in industry, trade, and banking. Political power in the cities was seized by the Polanian estate, that is, artisans and merchants united in workshops. Relying on their growing economic and political power, they began a struggle with local feudal lords, seeking the complete deprivation of their political rights. The strengthening of the Italian cities allowed them to successfully repel the onslaught from other states, primarily the German emperors.
By this time, the cities of other European countries also embarked on the path of defending their communal rights from the claims of powerful feudal lords. II, however, the rich Italian cities differed in this respect from the urban centers on the other side of the Alps in one decisive feature. In the exceptionally favorable conditions of political independence and freedom from feudal institutions, the forms of a new, capitalist way of life were born in the cities of Italy. The earliest forms of capitalist production manifested themselves most clearly in the cloth industry of the Italian cities, primarily in Florence, where forms of scattered and centralized manufactory were already being used, and the so-called senior workshops, which were unions of entrepreneurs, established a system of cruel exploitation of hired workers. Evidence of how far Italy was ahead of other countries on the path of economic and social development can be the fact that already in the 14th century. Italy knew not only the anti-feudal movements of the peasants that unfolded in certain regions of the country (for example, the uprising of Fra Dolcino in 1307), or the speeches of the urban plebs (the movement led by Cola di Rienzi in Rome in 1347-1354), but also the uprisings of the oppressed workers against entrepreneurs in the most advanced industrial centers (the ciompi uprising in Florence in 1374). In the same Italy, earlier than anywhere else, the formation of the early bourgeoisie began - that new social class, which was represented by popolansky circles. It is important to emphasize that this early bourgeoisie bore signs of a fundamental difference from the medieval burghers. The essence of this difference is associated primarily with economic factors, since it is in Italy that early capitalist forms of production arise. But no less important is the fact that in the advanced centers the Italian bourgeoisie of the 14th century. possessed all the fullness of political power, extending it to the land holdings adjacent to the cities. Such completeness of power was not known to the burghers in other European countries, whose political rights usually did not go beyond the limits of municipal privileges. It was the unity of economic and political power that gave the Polanian class of Italy those special features that distinguished it both from the medieval burghers and from the bourgeoisie of the post-Renaissance era in the absolutist states of the 17th century.
The collapse of the feudal estate system and the emergence of new social relations led to fundamental shifts in worldview and culture. The revolutionary character of the social upheaval, which was the essence of the Renaissance, manifested itself with exceptional clarity in the advanced urban republics of Italy.
In terms of social and ideological, the Renaissance in Italy was a complex and contradictory process of the destruction of the old and the formation of the new, when the reactionary and progressive elements were in a state of the most acute struggle, and legal institutions, social order, customs, as well as the worldview foundations themselves, have not yet acquired the inviolability consecrated by time and state-church authority. Therefore, such qualities of the people of that time as personal energy and initiative, courage and perseverance in achieving the set goal, found extremely favorable ground for themselves in Italy and could reveal themselves here with the greatest fullness. No wonder it was in Italy that the very type of Renaissance man developed in its greatest brightness and completeness.
The fact that Italy provided a unique example of the long and extremely fruitful evolution of Renaissance art in all its stages is primarily due to the fact that the real influence of progressive social circles in the economic and political sphere remained here until the first decades of the 16th century. This influence was also effective at a time when in many centers of the country a transition began (from the 14th century) from the communal system to the so-called tyrannies. The strengthening of centralized power by transferring it into the hands of one ruler (who came from feudal or the richest merchant families) was the result of an intensification of the class struggle between the ruling bourgeois circles and the mass of the urban lower classes. But the very economic and social structure of Italian cities was still largely based on previous conquests, and it was not without reason that the excesses of power on the part of those rulers who tried to establish a regime of open personal dictatorship were followed by active actions of wide sections of the urban population, often leading to the expulsion of tyrants. These or other changes in the forms of political power that took place during the period under review could not destroy the very spirit of the free cities, which persisted in the advanced centers of Italy until the tragic end of the Renaissance.
This situation distinguished Renaissance Italy from other European countries, where new social forces came to replace the old legal order later, and the chronological length of the Renaissance itself was therefore correspondingly smaller. And since the new social class could not occupy such strong positions in these countries as in Italy, the Renaissance upheaval expressed itself in less decisive forms and the shifts in artistic culture themselves did not have such a pronounced revolutionary character.
However, going ahead of other countries along the path of social and cultural progress, Italy turned out to be behind them in another important historical issue: the political unity of the country, its transformation into a strong and centralized state was unrealistic for it. This was the root of the historical tragedy of Italy. Since the time when the large monarchies neighboring it, and above all France, as well as the Holy Roman Empire, which included the German states and Spain, became powerful powers, Italy, divided into many warring regions, found itself defenseless against the onslaught of foreign armies. . The campaign against Italy undertaken by the French in 1494 ushered in a period of wars of conquest that ended in the middle of the 16th century. the capture by the Spaniards of almost the entire territory of the country and the loss of its independence for several centuries. Calls for the unification of Italy by the best minds of the country and individual practical attempts in this direction could not overcome the traditional separatism of the Italian states.
The roots of this separatism must be sought not only in the egoistic policy of individual rulers, especially the popes of Rome, those bitterest enemies of the unity of Italy, but above all in the very foundation of the economic and social system that was established during the Renaissance in the advanced regions and centers of the country. The spread of a new economic and social structure within the framework of a single all-Italian state turned out to be unfeasible at that time, not only because the forms of the communal system of the city republics could not be transferred to the management of the whole country, but also because of economic factors: the creation of a single economic system on a scale of the entire Italy at the then level of productive forces was impossible. The widespread development of the early bourgeoisie, characteristic of Italy, which had full political rights, could only take place within the boundaries of small urban republics. In other words, the fragmentation of the country was one of the inevitable prerequisites for the flourishing of such a powerful Renaissance culture as the culture of Italy, for such a flourishing was possible only in the conditions of individual independent city-states. As the course of historical events showed, in the centralized monarchies, Renaissance art did not acquire such a pronounced revolutionary character as in Italy. This conclusion is confirmed by the fact that if politically Italy turned out to be in the course of time dependent on such strong absolutist powers as France and Spain, then in terms of cultural and artistic - even during the period when Italy lost its independence - the dependence was reversed. .
Thus, in the very prerequisites for the greatest upsurge of the culture of the Italian Renaissance were laid the reasons for the collapse that awaited it. This, of course, does not mean at all that the calls for the unification of the country, which intensified especially during the period of Italy's severe political crisis in the first decades of the 16th century, were not of a progressive nature. These appeals not only corresponded to the aspirations of large sections of the population, whose social conquests and independence were threatened, they were also a reflection of the real process of the growing cultural consolidation of various regions of Italy. Disunited at the dawn of the Renaissance due to the unevenness of their cultural development, many regions of the country by the 16th century were already connected by a deep spiritual unity. What remained impossible in the state-political sphere was carried out in the ideological and artistic sphere. Republican Florence and papal Rome were warring states, but the largest Florentine masters worked both in Florence and in Rome, and the artistic content of their Roman works was at the level of the most progressive ideals of the freedom-loving Florentine Republic.
The exceptionally fruitful development of Renaissance art in Italy was facilitated not only by social, but also by historical and artistic factors. Italian Renaissance art owes its origin not to any one, but to several sources. In the pre-Renaissance period, Italy was a crossroads for several medieval cultures. In contrast to other countries, both main lines of medieval European art, Byzantine and Romano-Gothic, found equally significant expression here, complicated in certain areas of Italy by the influence of the art of the East. Both lines contributed to the development of Renaissance art. From Byzantine painting, the Italian Proto-Renaissance adopted the ideally beautiful structure of images and forms of monumental pictorial cycles; the Gothic figurative system contributed to the penetration into the art of the 14th century of emotional excitement and a more specific perception of reality. But even more important was the fact that Italy was the guardian of the artistic heritage of the ancient world. In one form or another, the ancient tradition found its refraction already in medieval Italian art, for example, in the sculpture of the Hohenstaufen period, but only in the Renaissance, starting from the 15th century, did ancient art open to the eyes of artists in its true light as an aesthetically perfect expression of the laws of reality itself. . The combination of these factors created in Italy the most favorable ground for the birth and rise of Renaissance art.
One of the indicators of the highest level of development of Italian Renaissance art was the broad development of scientific and theoretical thought characteristic of it. The early appearance of theoretical writings in Italy was in itself evidence of the important fact that the representatives of advanced Italian art realized the essence of the revolution that had taken place in culture. This awareness of creative activity to a very large extent stimulated artistic progress, for it allowed the Italian masters to move forward not by groping, but purposefully setting and solving certain tasks.
The interest of artists in scientific problems at that time was all the more natural because in their objective knowledge of the world they relied not only on its emotional perception, but also on a rational understanding of the laws underlying it. The fusion of scientific and artistic knowledge, characteristic of the Renaissance, was the reason that many of the artists were at the same time outstanding scientists. In the most striking form, this feature is expressed in the personality of Leonardo da Vinci, but to one degree or another it was characteristic of very many figures of Italian artistic culture.
Theoretical thought in Renaissance Italy developed along two main lines. On the one hand, this is the problem of the aesthetic ideal, in the solution of which the artists relied on the ideas of the Italian humanists about the high destiny of man, about ethical standards, about the place that he occupies in nature and society. On the other hand, these are practical questions of the embodiment of this artistic ideal by means of the new, Renaissance art. The knowledge of the masters of the Renaissance in the field of anatomy, perspective theory and the doctrine of proportions, which was the result of scientific comprehension of the world, contributed to the development of those means of pictorial language, with the help of which these masters were able to objectively reflect reality in art. In theoretical works devoted to various types of art, a wide variety of issues of artistic practice were considered. Suffice it to mention as examples the development of questions of mathematical perspective and its application in painting, carried out by Brunelleschi, Alberti and Piero della Francesca, a comprehensive body of artistic knowledge and theoretical conclusions, which are countless notes by Leonardo da Vinci, writings and statements about the sculpture of Ghiberti, Michelangelo and Cellini, architectural treatises by Alberti, Averlino, Francesco di Giorgio Martini, Palladio, Vignola. Finally, in the person of George Vasari, the culture of the Italian Renaissance put forward the first art historian who, in his biographies of Italian artists, made an attempt to comprehend the art of his era in historical terms. The content and breadth of coverage of these works is confirmed by the fact that the ideas and conclusions of Italian theorists retained their practical significance for many centuries after their appearance.
To an even greater extent, this applies to the very creative achievements of the masters of the Italian Renaissance, who made an important contribution to all types of plastic arts, often predetermining the path of their development in subsequent eras.
In the architecture of Renaissance Italy, the main types of public and residential structures used since then in European architecture were created and those means of architectural language were developed that became the basis of architectural thinking over a long historical period. Dominance in Italian architecture of the secular beginning was expressed not only in the predominance of public and private buildings for secular purposes in it, but also in the fact that spiritualistic elements were eliminated in the very figurative content of religious buildings - they gave way to new, humanistic ideals. In secular architecture, the leading place was occupied by the type of residential city house-palace (palazzo) - originally the dwelling of a representative of wealthy merchant or business families, and in the 16th century. - the residence of a nobleman or ruler of the state. Acquiring over time the features of a building not only private, but also public, the Renaissance palazzo also served as a prototype for public buildings in subsequent centuries. In the church architecture of Italy, special attention was paid to the image of a centric domed structure. This image corresponded to the idea of a perfect architectural form that prevailed in the Renaissance, which expressed the idea of the Renaissance personality, which is in harmonious balance with the surrounding world. The most mature solutions to this problem were given by Bramante and Michelangelo in the designs of the Cathedral of St. Peter in Rome.
As for the language of architecture itself, the revival and development of the ancient order system on a new basis was decisive here. For the architects of Renaissance Italy, the order was an architectural system designed to visually express the tectonic structure of the building. The proportionality inherent in the order to a person was considered as one of the foundations of the humanistic ideological content of the architectural image. Italian architects expanded the compositional possibilities of the order in comparison with the ancient masters, having managed to find an organic combination of it with a wall, an arch and a vault. The entire volume of the building is conceived by them as if permeated with an order structure, which achieves a deep figurative unity of the structure with its natural environment, since the classical orders themselves reflect certain natural patterns.
In urban planning, the architects of Renaissance Italy faced great difficulties, especially in the early period, since most cities had dense capital buildings already in the Middle Ages. However, the advanced theorists and practitioners of the architecture of the early Renaissance set themselves major urban planning problems, considering them as urgent tasks of tomorrow. If their bold general urban planning ideas were not fully feasible at that time and therefore remained the property of architectural treatises, then certain important tasks, in particular the problem of creating an urban center - the development of principles for building the main square of the city - were found in the 16th century. its brilliant solution, for example in Piazza San Marco in Venice and Capitoline Square in Rome.
In the fine arts, Renaissance Italy provided the most striking example of the self-determination of certain types of art, which, during the Middle Ages, were subordinate to architecture, but now have gained complete figurative independence. In terms of ideas, this process meant the liberation of sculpture and painting from the religious and spiritualistic dogmas of the Middle Ages that fettered them and an appeal to images saturated with new, humanistic content. In parallel with this, the emergence and formation of new types and genres of fine arts took place, in which a new ideological content found its expression. Sculpture, for example, after a millennium break, finally regained the basis of its figurative expressiveness, turning to a free-standing statue and a group. The scope of figurative coverage of sculpture has also expanded. Along with the traditional images associated with the Christian cult and ancient mythology, which reflected general ideas about a person, it also turned out to be a specific human individuality, which was manifested in the creation of monumental monuments to rulers and condottieres, as well as in the widespread sculptural portrait in the forms portrait bust. A radical transformation is also undergoing a type of sculpture, so developed in the Middle Ages, as a relief, the figurative possibilities of which, thanks to the use of methods of pictorial and perspective depiction of space, are expanded due to a more complete and comprehensive display of the living environment surrounding a person.
As for painting, here, along with the unprecedented flourishing of monumental fresco composition, it is necessary to emphasize the fact of the emergence of easel painting, which marked the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of fine art. Of the pictorial genres, along with compositions on biblical and mythological themes, which occupied a dominant position in the Renaissance painting of Italy, one should single out the portrait, which survived its first flowering in this era. The first important steps were also taken in such new genres as historical painting in the proper sense of the word and landscape.
Having played a decisive role in the process of emancipation of certain types of fine arts, the Italian Renaissance at the same time preserved and developed one of the most valuable qualities of medieval artistic culture - the principle of synthesizing various types of art, combining them into a common figurative ensemble. This was facilitated by the heightened sense of artistic organization inherent in Italian masters, which manifests itself in them both in the general design of any complex architectural and artistic complex, and in every detail of an individual work included in this complex. At the same time, in contrast to the medieval understanding of synthesis, where sculpture and painting are subordinate to architecture, the principles of Renaissance synthesis are based on the peculiar equality of each of the art forms, due to which the specific qualities of sculpture and painting within the framework of a common artistic ensemble acquire an increased efficiency of aesthetic impact. It is important to emphasize here that the signs of belonging to a large figurative system are carried not only by works that are directly included in any artistic complex, but also separately taken independent monuments of sculpture and painting. Whether it's Michelangelo's colossal David or Raphael's miniature Connestabile Madonna, each of these works potentially contains qualities that make it possible to consider it as a possible part of some general artistic ensemble.
This specifically Italian monumental-synthetic warehouse of Renaissance art was facilitated by the very nature of the artistic images of sculpture and painting. In Italy, unlike other European countries, the aesthetic ideal of the Renaissance man was formed very early, dating back to the teaching of the humanists about the uomo universale, about the perfect man, in which bodily beauty and fortitude are harmoniously combined. As the leading feature of this image, the concept of virtu (valor) is put forward, which has a very broad meaning and expresses the active principle in a person, the purposefulness of his will, the ability to implement his lofty plans in spite of all obstacles. This specific quality of the Renaissance figurative ideal is not expressed by all Italian artists in such an open form, as, for example, by Masaccio, Andrea del Castagno, Mantegna and Michalangelo - masters whose work is dominated by images of a heroic nature. But it is always present in the images of a harmonic warehouse, for example, in Raphael and Giorgione, because the harmony of the Renaissance images is far from relaxed rest - behind it, the hero’s inner activity and consciousness of his moral strength are always felt.
Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, this aesthetic ideal did not remain unchanged: depending on the individual stages in the evolution of Renaissance art, its various aspects were outlined in it. In the images of the early Renaissance, for example, the features of an unshakable inner integrity are more pronounced. The spiritual world of the heroes of the High Renaissance is more complex and richer, giving the most striking example of the harmonious worldview inherent in the art of this period. In the following decades, with the growth of unresolvable social contradictions, internal tension intensifies in the images of Italian masters, a feeling of dissonance, a tragic conflict appears. But throughout the Renaissance, Italian sculptors and painters remained committed to a collective image, to a generalized artistic language. It is thanks to the desire for the most general expression of artistic ideals that the Italian masters managed, to a greater extent than the masters of other countries, to create images of such a broad sound. This is the root of the peculiar universality of their figurative language, which turned out to be a kind of norm and model of Renaissance art in general.
The enormous role of deeply developed humanistic ideas for Italian art was already manifested in the unconditionally dominant position that the human image found in it - one of the indicators of this was the admiration for the beautiful human body, characteristic of Italians, which was considered by humanists and artists as the receptacle of a beautiful soul. The domestic and natural environment surrounding a person in most cases did not become the object of such close attention for Italian masters. This pronounced anthropocentrism, the ability to reveal one's ideas about the world primarily through the image of a person, gives the heroes of the masters of the Italian Renaissance such a comprehensive depth of content. The path from the general to the individual, from the whole to the particular is characteristic of Italians not only in monumental images, where their very ideal qualities are a necessary form of artistic generalization, but also in such a genre as portraiture. And in his portrait works, the Italian painter proceeds from a certain type of human personality, in relation to which he perceives each specific model. In accordance with this, in the Italian Renaissance portrait, unlike portrait images in the art of other countries, the typifying principle prevails over the individualizing tendencies.
But the dominance of a certain ideal in Italian art did not at all mean leveling and excessive uniformity of artistic solutions. The unity of ideological and figurative premises not only did not exclude the diversity of creative talents of each of the huge number of masters who worked in this era, but, on the contrary, set off their individual characteristics even more clearly. Even within one, moreover, the shortest phase of Renaissance art - those three decades in which the High Renaissance falls, we can easily catch differences in the perception of the human image among the greatest masters of this period. Thus, the characters of Leonardo stand out for their deep spirituality and intellectual wealth; in the art of Raphael, a sense of harmonic clarity dominates; the titanic images of Michelangelo give the most vivid expression of the heroic effectiveness of the man of this era. If we turn to the Venetian painters, then the images of Giorgione attract with their subtlest lyricism, while Titian's sensual fullness and variety of emotional movements are more pronounced. The same applies to the pictorial language of Italian painters: if the Florentine-Roman masters are dominated by linear plastic means of expression, then the Venetians have a decisive importance in terms of color.
Separate aspects of the Renaissance figurative perception received different refraction in the art of the Italian Renaissance, depending on the various stages of its evolution and on the traditions that developed in individual territorial art schools. Since the economic and cultural development of the Italian states was not uniform, their contribution to the art of the Renaissance was also different during its individual periods. Of the many artistic centers of the country, three should be singled out - Florence, Rome and Venice, the art of which, in a certain historical sequence, represented the main line of the Italian Renaissance for three centuries.
The historical role of Florence in shaping the culture of the Renaissance is especially significant. Florence was at the forefront of new art from the time of the Proto-Renaissance until the High Renaissance. The capital of Tuscany turned out to be, as it were, the focus of the economic, political and cultural life of Italy from the 13th to the beginning of the 16th century, and the events of its history, having lost their purely local character, acquired an all-Italian significance. The same fully applies to the Florentine art of these centuries. Florence was the birthplace or place of creative activity of many of the greatest masters from Giotto to Michelangelo.
From the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th century. Rome, along with Florence, is put forward as the leading center of the country's artistic life. Using its special position as the capital of the Catholic world, Rome becomes one of the strongest states in Italy, claiming the leading role among them. Accordingly, the artistic policy of the Roman popes develops, which, in order to strengthen the authority of the Roman pontificate, attract the largest architects, sculptors and painters to their court. The rise of Rome as the main artistic center of the country coincided with the beginning of the High Renaissance; Rome retained its leading position during the first three decades of the 16th century. The best works of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo and many other masters working in Rome, created during these years, marked the zenith of the Renaissance. But with the loss of political independence by the Italian states, during the crisis of the Renaissance culture, papal Rome turned into a stronghold of ideological reaction, which took the form of a counter-reformation. Since the 1940s, when the counter-reformation opened a wide offensive against the conquests of the Renaissance culture, the third largest artistic center, Venice, has been the guardian and successor of the progressive Renaissance ideals.
Venice was the last of the strong Italian republics to defend its independence and retain a large share of its enormous wealth. Remaining until the end of the 16th century. a major center of Renaissance culture, it was the stronghold of the hopes of enslaved Italy. It was Venice that was destined to give the most fruitful disclosure of the figurative qualities of the Italian late Renaissance. The work of Titian in the last period of his activity, as well as the largest representatives of the second generation of Venetian painters of the 16th century. - Veronese and Tintoretto was not only an expression of the realistic principles of Renaissance art at a new historical stage - it paved the way for those most historically promising elements of Renaissance realism that were continued and developed in a new great artistic era - in the painting of the 17th century.
Already for its time, the art of the Italian Renaissance had an exceptionally broad pan-European significance. Outstripping the rest of Europe on the path of evolution of Renaissance art in chronological terms. Italy was also ahead of them in solving many of the most important artistic tasks put forward by the era. Therefore, for all other national Renaissance cultures, the appeal to the work of Italian masters entailed a sharp leap in the formation of a new, realistic art. Already in the 16th century, achieving a certain level of artistic maturity in European countries was impossible without a deep creative assimilation of the conquests of Italian art. Such great painters as Dürer and Holbein in Germany, El Greco in Spain, such major architects as the Netherlander Cornelis Floris, the Spaniard Juan de Herrera, the Englishman Pnigo Jones, owe much to the study of the art of Renaissance Italy. Exceptional in its scope was the sphere of activity of the Italian architects and painters themselves, which spread throughout Europe from Spain to Ancient Rus'. But perhaps even more significant is the role of the Italian Renaissance as the foundation of the culture of modern times, as one of the highest incarnations of realistic art and the greatest school of artistic skill.
Details Category: Fine arts and architecture of the Renaissance (Renaissance) Posted on 12/19/2016 16:20 Views: 6560The Renaissance is a time of cultural flourishing, the heyday of all the arts, but the fine arts were the most fully expressing the spirit of their time.
Renaissance, or Renaissance(French "newly" + "born") was of world importance in the history of European culture. The Renaissance replaced the Middle Ages and preceded the Enlightenment.
The main features of the Renaissance- the secular nature of culture, humanism and anthropocentrism (interest in a person and his activities). During the Renaissance, interest in ancient culture flourished and, as it were, its “revival” took place.
The revival arose in Italy - its first signs appeared as early as the 13th-14th centuries. (Tony Paramoni, Pisano, Giotto, Orcagna and others). But it was firmly established from the 20s of the 15th century, and by the end of the 15th century. reached its highest peak.
In other countries, the Renaissance began much later. In the XVI century. the crisis of the ideas of the Renaissance begins, the consequence of this crisis is the emergence of mannerism and baroque.
Renaissance periods
The Renaissance is divided into 4 periods:
1. Proto-Renaissance (2nd half of the XIII century - XIV century)
2. Early Renaissance (beginning of the XV-end of the XV century)
3. High Renaissance (late 15th - first 20 years of the 16th century)
4. Late Renaissance (mid-16th-90s of the 16th century)
The fall of the Byzantine Empire played a role in the formation of the Renaissance. The Byzantines who moved to Europe brought with them their libraries and works of art, unknown to medieval Europe. In Byzantium, they never broke with ancient culture either.
Appearance humanism(of the socio-philosophical movement, which considered man as the highest value) was associated with the absence of feudal relations in the Italian city-republics.
Secular centers of science and art began to appear in the cities, which were not controlled by the church. whose activities were outside the control of the Church. In the middle of the XV century. typography was invented, which played an important role in spreading new views throughout Europe.
Brief characteristics of the Renaissance periods
Proto-Renaissance
Proto-Renaissance is the forerunner of the Renaissance. It is still closely connected with the Middle Ages, with Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic traditions. It is associated with the names of Giotto, Arnolfo di Cambio, the Pisano brothers, Andrea Pisano.
Andrea Pisano. Bas-relief "Creation of Adam". Opera del Duomo (Florence)
The painting of the Proto-Renaissance is represented by two art schools: Florence (Cimabue, Giotto) and Siena (Duccio, Simone Martini). The central figure of painting was Giotto. He was considered a reformer of painting: he filled religious forms with secular content, made a gradual transition from planar images to three-dimensional and relief images, turned to realism, introduced the plastic volume of figures into painting, depicted the interior in painting.
Early Renaissance
This is the period from 1420 to 1500. The artists of the Early Renaissance of Italy drew motives from life, filled traditional religious subjects with earthly content. In sculpture, these were L. Ghiberti, Donatello, Jacopo della Quercia, the della Robbia family, A. Rossellino, Desiderio da Settignano, B. da Maiano, A. Verrocchio. Free-standing statues, picturesque reliefs, portrait busts, and equestrian monuments begin to develop in their work.
In Italian painting of the XV century. (Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, A. del Castagno, P. Uccello, Fra Angelico, D. Ghirlandaio, A. Pollaiolo, Verrocchio, Piero della Francesca, A. Mantegna, P. Perugino, etc.) are characterized by a sense of the harmonious ordering of the world, conversion to the ethical and civic ideals of humanism, joyful perception of the beauty and diversity of the real world.
The ancestor of Italian Renaissance architecture was Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), an architect, sculptor and scientist, one of the creators of the scientific theory of perspective.
A special place in the history of Italian architecture is occupied by Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). This Italian scholar, architect, writer and musician of the Early Renaissance was educated in Padua, studied law in Bologna, and later lived in Florence and Rome. He created theoretical treatises On the Statue (1435), On Painting (1435–1436), On Architecture (published in 1485). He defended the "folk" (Italian) language as a literary language, in the ethical treatise "On the Family" (1737-1441) he developed the ideal of a harmoniously developed personality. In architectural work, Alberti gravitated towards bold experimental solutions. He was one of the pioneers of the new European architecture.
Palazzo Rucellai
Leon Battista Alberti designed a new type of palazzo with a façade treated with rustication to its full height and dissected by three tiers of pilasters, which look like the structural basis of the building (Palazzo Rucellai in Florence, built by B. Rossellino according to Alberti's plans).
Opposite the Palazzo stands the Rucellai Loggia, where receptions and banquets for trading partners were held, weddings were celebrated.
Loggia Rucellai
High Renaissance
This is the time of the most magnificent development of the Renaissance style. In Italy, it lasted from about 1500 to 1527. Now the center of Italian art is moving from Florence to Rome, thanks to the accession to the papal throne. Julia II, an ambitious, courageous, enterprising man, who attracted the best artists of Italy to his court.
Raphael Santi "Portrait of Pope Julius II"
Many monumental buildings are being built in Rome, magnificent sculptures are being created, frescoes and paintings are being painted, which are still considered masterpieces of painting. Antiquity is still highly valued and carefully studied. But imitation of the ancients does not stifle the independence of artists.
The pinnacle of the Renaissance is the work of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) and Raphael Santi (1483-1520).
Late Renaissance
In Italy, this is the period from the 1530s to the 1590s-1620s. The art and culture of this time is very diverse. Some believe (for example, British scholars) that "The Renaissance as an integral historical period ended with the fall of Rome in 1527." The art of the late Renaissance is a very complex picture of the struggle of various currents. Many artists did not seek to study nature and its laws, but only outwardly tried to assimilate the "manner" of the great masters: Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo. On this occasion, the aged Michelangelo once said, looking at how artists copy his "Last Judgment": "My art will make many fools."
In Southern Europe, the Counter-Reformation triumphed, which did not welcome any free thought, including the chanting of the human body and the resurrection of the ideals of antiquity.
Famous artists of this period were Giorgione (1477/1478-1510), Paolo Veronese (1528-1588), Caravaggio (1571-1610) and others. Caravaggio considered the founder of the Baroque style.
