F.Lippe Madonna

At the beginning of the 15th century, there were huge changes in life and culture in Italy. Since the 12th century, the townspeople, merchants and artisans of Italy have waged a heroic struggle against feudal dependence. Developing trade and production, the townspeople gradually got richer, threw off the power of the feudal lords and organized free city-states. These free Italian cities became very powerful. Their citizens were proud of their conquests. The enormous wealth of the independent Italian cities caused them to flourish. The Italian bourgeoisie looked at the world with different eyes, they firmly believed in themselves, in their own strength. They were alien to the desire for suffering, humility, the rejection of all earthly joys that have been preached to them so far. The respect for the earthly person who enjoys the joys of life grew. People began to take an active attitude to life, eagerly explore the world, admire its beauty. During this period, various sciences are born, art develops.

In Italy, many monuments of the art of Ancient Rome have been preserved, so the ancient era was again revered as a model, ancient art became an object of admiration. The imitation of antiquity gave reason to call this period in art - the Renaissance, which in French means "Renaissance". Of course, this was not a blind, exact repetition of ancient art, it was already new art, but based on ancient models. The Italian Renaissance is divided into 3 stages: VIII - XIV centuries - Pre-Renaissance (Proto-Renaissance or Trecento - with it.); XV century - early Renaissance (Quattrocento); late XV - early XVI century - High Renaissance.

Archaeological excavations were carried out throughout Italy, looking for ancient monuments. The newly discovered statues, coins, utensils, weapons were carefully preserved and collected in museums specially created for this purpose. Artists studied on these samples of antiquity, drew them from nature.

Flight into Egypt (Giotto)

Trecento (Pre-Renaissance)

The true beginning of the Renaissance is associated with the name Giotto di Bondone(1266? - 1337). He is considered the founder of Renaissance painting. The Florentine Giotto has made great contributions to the history of art. He was a renewer, the ancestor of all European painting after the Middle Ages. Giotto breathed life into the gospel scenes, created images of real people, spiritualized, but earthly.

Return of Joachim to the Shepherds (Giotto)

Giotto for the first time creates volumes with the help of chiaroscuro. He likes clean, light colors in cold shades: pinks, pearl grays, pale purples and light lilacs. The people in the frescoes of Giotto are stocky, with a heavy tread. They have large facial features, wide cheekbones, narrow eyes. His man is kind, considerate, serious.

Fresco by Giotto in the temple of Padua

Of the works of Giotto, the frescoes in the temples of Padua are best preserved. He presented the gospel stories here as existing, earthly, real. In these works, he tells about the problems that concern people at all times: about kindness and mutual understanding, deceit and betrayal, about depth, sorrow, meekness, humility and eternal all-consuming maternal love.

Fresco by Giotto

Instead of disparate individual figures, as in medieval painting, Giotto managed to create a coherent story, a whole narrative about the complex inner life of the characters. Instead of the conventional golden background of the Byzantine mosaics, Giotto introduces a landscape background. And if in Byzantine painting the figures, as it were, hovered, hung in space, then the heroes of Giotto's frescoes found solid ground under their feet. Giotto's search for the transfer of space, the plasticity of figures, the expressiveness of movement made his art a whole stage in the Renaissance.

Fresco by S.Martini

One of the famous masters of the Pre-Renaissance is Simone Martini (1284 - 1344).

In his painting, the features of northern Gothic were preserved: Martini's figures are elongated, and, as a rule, on a golden background. But Martini creates images with the help of chiaroscuro, gives them a natural movement, tries to convey a certain psychological state.

Fresco fragment. Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449 - 1494)

Quattrocento (early Renaissance)

Antiquity played a huge role in the formation of the secular culture of the early Renaissance. The Platonic Academy opens in Florence, the Laurentian library contains the richest collection of ancient manuscripts. The first art museums appear, filled with statues, fragments of ancient architecture, marbles, coins, and ceramics.

In the Renaissance, the main centers of the artistic life of Italy stood out - Florence, Rome, Venice. One of the largest centers, the birthplace of a new, realistic art was Florence. In the 15th century, many famous masters of the Renaissance lived, studied and worked there.

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence Cathedral)

Early Renaissance architecture

The inhabitants of Florence had a high artistic culture, they actively participated in the creation of city monuments, and discussed options for the construction of beautiful buildings. Architects abandoned everything that resembled Gothic. Under the influence of antiquity, buildings crowned with a dome began to be considered the most perfect. The model here was the Roman Pantheon.

Florence is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, a city-museum. It has preserved its architecture from antiquity almost intact, its most beautiful buildings were mostly built during the Renaissance. Above the red brick roofs of the ancient buildings of Florence rises the huge building of the city's Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, which is often called simply the Cathedral of Florence. Its height reaches 107 meters. A magnificent dome, the harmony of which is emphasized by white stone ribs, crowns the cathedral. The dome is striking in size (its diameter is 43 m), it crowns the entire panorama of the city. The cathedral is visible from almost every street in Florence, clearly looming against the sky. This magnificent structure was built by the architect Filippo Brunelleschi (1377 - 1446).

St. Peter's Cathedral (arch. Brunelleschi and Bramante)

The most magnificent and famous domed building of the Renaissance was St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It was built over 100 years. The creators of the original project were architects Bramante and Michelangelo.

Renaissance buildings are decorated with columns, pilasters, lion heads and "putti" (naked babies), plaster wreaths of flowers and fruits, leaves and many details, samples of which were found in the ruins of ancient Roman buildings. The semicircular arch came into fashion again. Wealthy people began to build more beautiful and more comfortable houses. Instead of houses closely pressed to each other, luxurious palaces appeared - palazzos.

David (sc.Donatello)

Sculpture of the early Renaissance

In the 15th century in Florence they created two famous sculptors - Donatello and Verrocchio. Donatello (1386? - 1466)- one of the first sculptors in Italy, who used the experience of ancient art. He created one of the finest works of the early Renaissance, the statue of David.

According to the biblical legend, a simple shepherd, the young man David defeated the giant Goliath, and thereby saved the inhabitants of Judea from enslavement and later became king. David was one of the favorite images of the Renaissance. He is depicted by the sculptor not as a humble saint from the Bible, but as a young hero, winner, defender of his native city. In his sculpture, Donatello sings of man as the ideal of a beautiful heroic personality that arose in the Renaissance. David is crowned with the laurel wreath of the winner. Donatello was not afraid to introduce such a detail as a shepherd's hat - a sign of his simple origin. In the Middle Ages, the church forbade depicting a naked body, considering it a vessel of evil. Donatello was the first master who bravely violated this prohibition. He asserts by this that the human body is beautiful. The statue of David is the first round sculpture in that era.

Statue of the commander Gattamelata (sc. Donatello)

Another beautiful sculpture by Donatello is also known - a statue of a warrior, commander Gattamelata. It was the first equestrian monument of the Renaissance. Created 500 years ago, this monument still stands on a high pedestal, decorating the square in the city of Padua. For the first time, not a god, not a saint, not a noble and rich man was immortalized in sculpture, but a noble, brave and formidable warrior with a great soul, who deserved fame for great deeds. Dressed in antique armor, Gattemelata (this is his nickname, meaning "spotted cat") sits on a mighty horse in a calm, majestic pose. The features of the warrior's face emphasize a decisive, firm character.

Equestrian monument to the condottiere Colleoni (Verocchio)

Andrea Verrocchio (1436 -1488)

The most famous student of Donatello, who created the famous equestrian monument to the condottiere Colleoni, which was placed in Venice on the square near the church of San Giovanni. The main thing that strikes in the monument is the joint energetic movement of the horse and rider. The horse, as it were, rushes beyond the marble pedestal on which the monument is erected.

Colleoni, standing up in the stirrups, stretched out, raising his head high, peers into the distance. A grimace of anger and tension froze on his face. In his posture, one feels a huge will, his face resembles a bird of prey. The image is filled with indestructible strength, energy, harsh authority.

Fresco by Masaccio

Early Renaissance painting

The Renaissance also updated the art of painting. Painters have learned to correctly convey space, light and shadow, natural poses, various human feelings. It was the early Renaissance that was the time of accumulation of this knowledge and skills. The paintings of that time are imbued with light and high spirits. The background is often painted in light colors, while buildings and natural motifs are outlined with sharp lines, pure colors predominate. With naive diligence, all the details of the event are depicted, the characters are most often lined up and separated from the background by clear contours.

The painting of the early Renaissance only strived for perfection, however, thanks to its sincerity, it touches the soul of the viewer.

Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Cassai Guidi, Known as Masaccio (1401 - 1428)

He is considered a follower of Giotto and the first master of painting of the early Renaissance. Masaccio lived only 28 years, but in such a short life he left a mark in art that is difficult to overestimate. He managed to complete the revolutionary transformations in painting begun by Giotto. His painting is distinguished by a dark and deep color. The people in the frescoes of Masaccio are much denser and more powerful than in the paintings of the Gothic era.

Fresco by Masaccio

Masaccio was the first to correctly arrange objects in space, taking into account perspective; he began to depict people according to the laws of anatomy.

He knew how to link figures and landscape into a single action, to convey the life of nature and people in a dramatic and at the same time quite natural way - and this is the great merit of the painter.

Adoration of the Magi (Masaccio)

Madonna and Child with Four Angels (Masaccio)

This is one of the few easel easel works commissioned by Masaccio in 1426 for the chapel in the church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Pisa.

The Madonna sits on a throne built strictly according to the laws of Giotto's perspective. Her figure is written with confident and clear strokes, which creates the impression of a sculptural volume. Her face is calm and sad, her detached gaze is directed nowhere. Wrapped in a dark blue cloak, the Virgin Mary holds the Infant in her arms, whose golden figure stands out sharply against a dark background. The deep folds of the cloak allow the artist to play with chiaroscuro, which also creates a special visual effect. The baby eats black grapes - a symbol of communion. The impeccably drawn angels (the artist knew the human anatomy perfectly) surrounding the Madonna give the picture an additional emotional sound.

Masaccio. Fresco from the library of the Cathedral in Siena, dedicated to the biography of the humanist and poet Enea Silvio Piccolomini (1405-1464)

Here is presented the solemn departure of Cardinal Kapranik to the Basel Cathedral, which lasted almost 18 years, from 1431 to 1449, first in Basel, and then in Lausanne. The young Piccolomini was also in the retinue of the cardinal.

In an elegant frame of a semicircular arch, a group of horsemen is presented, accompanied by pages and servants. The event is not so real and reliable, but chivalrously refined, almost fantastic.

In the foreground, a beautiful rider on a white horse, in a luxurious dress and hat, turning his head, looks at the viewer - this is Aeneas Silvio. With pleasure the artist writes rich clothes, beautiful horses in velvet blankets. The elongated proportions of the figures, slightly mannered movements, slight tilts of the head are close to the court ideal.

The life of Pope Pius II was full of bright events, and Pinturicchio spoke about the meetings of the Pope with the King of Scotland, with Emperor Frederick III.

Saints Jerome and John the Baptist (Masaccio)

The only sash painted by Masaccio for a double-sided triptych. After the early death of the painter, the rest of the work, commissioned by Pope Martin V for the church of Santa Maria in Rome, was completed by the artist Masolino.

It depicts two strict, monumentally executed figures of saints dressed in all red. Jerome holds an open book and a model of the basilica, a lion lies at his feet. John the Baptist is depicted in his usual form: he is barefoot and holds a cross in his hand. Both figures impress with anatomical precision and an almost sculptural sense of volume.

Portrait of a Boy (1480) (Pinturicchio)

Interest in man, admiration for his beauty were so great in the Renaissance that this led to the emergence a new genre in painting - the portrait genre.

Pinturicchio (variant of Pinturicchio) (1454 - 1513) (Bernardino di Betto di Biagio)

A native of Perugia in Italy. For some time he painted miniatures, helped Pietro Perugino decorate the Sistine Chapel in Rome with frescoes. Gained experience in the most complex form of decorative and monumental wall painting. A few years later, Pinturicchio became an independent muralist. He worked on frescoes in the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. He made wall paintings in the library of the cathedral in Siena.

The artist not only conveys a portrait resemblance, but seeks to reveal the inner state of a person. Before us is a teenage boy, dressed in a strict pink town dress, with a small blue cap on his head. Brown hair falls to the shoulders, framing a delicate face, the attentive look of brown eyes is thoughtful, a little anxious.

Behind the boy is an Umbrian landscape with thin trees, a silvery river, a sky turning pink on the horizon. The spring tenderness of nature, as an echo of the character of the hero, is in harmony with the poetry and charm of the hero.

The image of the boy is given in the foreground, large and occupies almost the entire plane of the picture, and the landscape is painted in the background and very small.

This creates the impression of the significance of man, his dominance over the surrounding nature, asserts that man is the most beautiful creation on earth.

Madonna and Child with Two Angels (F. Lippi)

Filippo Lippi (1406 - 1469)

There were legends about Lippi's life. He himself was a monk, but left the monastery, became a wandering artist, kidnapped a nun from the monastery and died poisoned by the relatives of a young woman, whom he fell in love with at an advanced age. He painted images of the Madonna and Child, filled with living human feelings and experiences. In his paintings, he depicted many details: household items, the environment, so his religious subjects were similar to secular paintings.

Annunciation (1443) (F. Lippi)

Coronation of Mary (1441-1447) (F. Lippi)

Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni (1488) (Ghirlandaio)

He painted not only religious subjects, but also scenes from the life of the Florentine nobility, their wealth and luxury, portraits of noble people.

Before us is the wife of a wealthy Florentine, a friend of the artist. In this not very beautiful, luxuriously dressed young woman, the artist expressed calmness, a moment of stillness and silence. The expression on the woman's face is cold, indifferent to everything, it seems that she foresees her imminent death: soon after painting the portrait, she will die. The woman is depicted in profile, which is typical for many portraits of that time.

Baptism (1458-1460) (P. della Francesca)

Piero della Francesca (1415/1416 - 1492)

One of the most significant names in Italian painting of the 15th century. He completed numerous transformations in the methods of constructing the perspective of a picturesque space.

The picture was painted on a poplar board in egg tempera - obviously, by this time the artist had not yet mastered the secrets of oil painting, in the technique of which his later works would be painted.

The artist captured the manifestation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity at the time of the Baptism of Christ. The white dove, spreading its wings over the head of Christ, symbolizes the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Savior. The figures of Christ, John the Baptist and the angels standing next to them are painted in restrained colors.

Fresco by della Francesca

His frescoes are solemn, sublime and majestic. Francesca believed in the high destiny of man and in his works people always do wonderful things. He used subtle, gentle transitions of colors. Francesca was the first to paint en plein air (in the air).

Dead Christ (Mantegna)

Andrea Mantegna (1431 - 1506)

Major artist from Padua. He admired the harsh grandeur of the works of ancient artists. His images are reminiscent of Greek sculptures - strict and beautiful. In his frescoes, Mantegna sang the heroic personality. Nature in his paintings is deserted and inhospitable.

Mantegna. Madonna and Child with John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene (1500)

The Madonna sits on a scarlet chair under a canopy and holds the naked Christ Child in her arms. There is nothing regal in the guise of the Virgin Mary, rather, this is the image of a young peasant woman. The naked body of the Infant seems surprisingly alive. On the sides of the Madonna are John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. In the hands of the Magdalene is a vessel with incense for anointing, the cross in the hands of John is wrapped around a ribbon with a text about the lamb, atoning for the sins of the world. The figures are drawn in the usual manner for an artist and seem to be carved from stone, every fold is sharply defined in their clothes. The background is an image of a garden with dark foliage. In its tone, this greenery contrasts with the pale green, light sky. The work evokes a feeling of deep sadness and a certain doom.

Parnassus (Mantegna)

Prayer for the Chalice (Mantegna)

This small picture depicts the moment when, after the Last Supper, Jesus retires with Saint Peter and the two sons of Zebedee to the Garden of Gethsemane, where, leaving the apostles accompanying him, he leaves to pray, turning to God the Father: “My Father! this."

The kneeling figure of Christ in a prayerful pose is the compositional center of the picture. His eyes are turned to the sky, where a group of angels is visible on a cloud. At the foot of the mountain, the apostles accompanying Christ sleep.

On the road leading to the garden, accurately illustrating the words of the Gospel: "Behold, the betrayer of Me has come near," a group of guards, led by Judas, is visible.

There is a lot of symbolism in the picture: a dry tree with a vulture portends death, and a branch with a green shoot indicates an imminent resurrection; humble rabbits sitting on the road along which a detachment of Roman soldiers will pass to take Christ into custody speak of the meekness of a person in the face of imminent death. Three stumps left from freshly cut down trees remind of the impending crucifixion.

Sacred Conversation (Bellini)

Giovanni Bellini (1427/1430 - 1516)

The Bellini brothers brightly showed themselves in the early Renaissance. Especially famous is Giovanni Bellini, who was often called Gianbellino. He grew up in the family of a major Venetian painter. Together with his brother from his youth, he helped his father to carry out artistic orders. He worked on decorating the Doge's Palace in Venice.

His painting is distinguished by soft picturesqueness, rich golden color. The Madonnas of Gianbellino seem to dissolve in the landscape, always organic with it.

Madonna in the meadow (1500-1505) Bellini.

In the center of the picture is the image of a young Mary sitting in a meadow, on whose knees a sleeping naked baby. Her thoughtful face is charming, her hands folded in a prayerful gesture are beautiful. The figurine of the divine baby seems to be a sculpture, this indicates a close acquaintance with the work of Mantegna. However, the softness of the chiaroscuro and the overall saturation of the colors suggest that Bellini found his way into painting.

In the background is a beautiful landscape. The picture was painted in mixed media, which allowed the artist to make the contours softer and the colors more saturated.

Portrait of Doge Leonardo Loredan. Bellini

This portrait was commissioned by Bellini as an artist of the Republic of Venice. The doge is depicted here almost frontally - contrary to the then existing tradition of depicting faces in profile, including on medals and coins.

Clear chiaroscuro perfectly draw high cheekbones, nose and stubborn chin of an intelligent and strong-willed face of an elderly person. On a bright blue-green background, a white with gold and silver brocade mantle stands out in contrast. The doge wore it on the feast of the Candlemas - the day when he became engaged to the sea, taking power over Venice for a year. Oil work helped the artist fill the space of the picture with air and thereby make the image of the Doge surprisingly alive.

A powerful surge in the cultural life of many European countries, which occurred mainly in the 14th-16th centuries, and in Italy began as early as the 13th century, is commonly called the Renaissance (Renaissance). Initially, a new phenomenon in European cultural life looked like a return to the forgotten achievements of ancient culture in the field of science, philosophy, literature, art, a return to the classical “Golden Latin”, Thus, in Italy, manuscripts of ancient writers were searched for, works of ancient sculpture and architecture were retrieved from oblivion. .

However, it would be wrong to interpret the Renaissance as a simple return to antiquity, because its representatives did not at all reject the achievements of medieval culture and treated the ancient heritage with a certain degree of criticism. The Renaissance phenomenon is a very multifaceted phenomenon in the cultural development of Europe, the core of which was a new worldview, a new self-awareness of man. In contrast to the ancient view of the world around us, in which a person is called to learn from nature, Renaissance thinkers believed that a person endowed with free will by God is the creator of himself and thus stands out from nature. As we can see, such an understanding of the essence of man not only differs from the ancient one, but also conflicts with the postulates of medieval theology. The focus of the thinkers of the Renaissance was a man, and not the Creator, as the highest measure of all things, which is why such a system of views is called "humanism" (from Latin humanus - human).

What was the basis of the new worldview? It is not possible to answer this question unambiguously. The Renaissance phenomenon was caused by a number of factors, among which are the following, the most common for most countries of Western Europe. During the period under review, the process of the formation of new (bourgeois or market) relations was quite clearly observed, which required the destruction of the system of medieval regulation of economic life that hindered their development. New forms of management assumed the release, the allocation of an economic entity into an independent free unit. This process was accompanied by corresponding changes in the spiritual life of society and, above all, those of its strata that were at the epicenter of the changes.

What is the indispensable condition for personal success if not more knowledge and skill, more energy and perseverance in achieving the goal? The realization of this truth forced many contemporaries of the Renaissance to turn their eyes to science and art, caused an increase in the need for knowledge in society, and raised the social prestige of educated people.

One should also take into account a very important factor of a sufficient level of cultural development of medieval society, which turned out to be generally able to perceive new ideas, culture and art of the Renaissance. Here is how the famous French philosopher and art critic, a deep connoisseur of the Renaissance Hippolyte Taine (1828-1893) spoke about this: “... one cannot look at the art of the Renaissance as the result of a happy accident; there can be no question of a successful game of fate that brought several more talented heads to the world stage, accidentally produced some kind of extraordinary harvest of geniuses ...; it can hardly be denied that the reason for such a wonderful flourishing of art lay in the general disposition of minds towards it, in the amazing ability for it, located in all strata of the people. This ability was instantaneous, and the art itself was the same.

The ideas of humanism that in a person his personal qualities are important, such as intelligence, creative energy, enterprise, self-esteem, will and education, and by no means social status and origin, fell on fertile ground. As a result of more than two centuries of the Renaissance, world culture has been enriched with spiritual treasures, the value of which is enduring.

However, the Renaissance cannot be considered only as a one-vector, exclusively progressive socio-cultural process. First of all, attention should be paid to the inconsistency of the concept of unlimited will and the ability of a person to self-improvement. Its humanistic orientation did not at all guarantee against the substitution of the concept of individual freedom for the concept of permissiveness, vile self-will - PS of the essence - for the antipodes of humanism. An example of this is the views of the Italian thinker Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who justified any means to achieve power, as well as the English humanist Thomas More (1478-1535) and the Italian philosopher Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), who saw the ideal of social harmony in society , built on a rigid hierarchical system that regulates all spheres of life. Subsequently, this model will be called "barracks communism." At the heart of this metamorphosis lies a rather deep feeling by the thinkers of the Renaissance of the dual nature of freedom. In this regard, the point of view of the largest Western psychologist and sociologist Erich Fromm (1900-1980) seems to be very appropriate:

“The individual is freed from economic and political fetters. He also acquires positive freedom - along with the active and independent role that he has to play in the new system - but at the same time frees himself from the ties that gave him a sense of security and belonging to some community. He can no longer live his life in a small little world, the center of which was himself; the world has become boundless and menacing. Having lost his definite place in this world, a person lost the answer to the question about the meaning of life, and doubts fell upon him: who is he, why does he live? Paradise is lost forever; the individual stands alone, face to face with his world, boundless and menacing.

The revival arose in Italy, where its first signs were noticeable as early as the 13th and 14th centuries (in the activities of the Pisano, Giotto, Orcagna, etc. families), but it was firmly established only from the 20s of the 15th century. In France, Germany and other countries, this movement began much later. By the end of the 15th century, it reached its peak. In the 16th century, a crisis of Renaissance ideas was brewing, resulting in the emergence of Mannerism and Baroque.

The Renaissance itself is divided into five stages:

Proto-Renaissance (2nd half of the XIII century - XIV century)

Early Renaissance (1410/1425 of the 15th century - the end of the 15th century)

High Renaissance (late 15th - first 20 years of the 16th century)

Late Renaissance (mid-16th - 90s of the 16th century)

Northern Renaissance -- 16th century

The Proto-Renaissance is closely connected with the Middle Ages, with Romanesque, Gothic traditions, this period was the preparation for the Renaissance. This period is divided into two sub-periods: before the death of Giottodi Bondone and after (1337). This period of the Renaissance was marked by the work of the great poet Dante Alighieri, whose "Divine Comedy" immortalized the name of its author. The most important discoveries, the brightest masters live and work in the first period. The second segment is connected with the plague epidemic that hit Italy. All discoveries were made on an intuitive level. At the end of the 13th century, the main temple building, the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, was erected in Florence, the author was Arnolfodi Cambio, then the work was continued by Giotto, who designed the campanile of the Florence Cathedral.

Previously, the art of the proto-Renaissance manifested itself in sculpture (Niccolò and Giovanni Pisano, Arnolfodi Cambio, Andrea Pisano). Painting is represented by two art schools: Florence (Cimabue, Giotto) and Siena (Duccio, Simone Martini). The central figure of painting was Giotto. Renaissance artists considered him a reformer of painting. Giotto outlined the path along which its development went: filling religious forms with secular content, a gradual transition from planar images to three-dimensional and relief images, an increase in realism, introduced a plastic volume of figures into painting, depicted an interior in painting.

The period of the so-called "Early Renaissance" in Italy covers the time from 1420 to 1500. During these eighty years, art has not yet completely renounced the traditions of the recent past, but is trying to mix into them elements borrowed from classical antiquity. Only later, and only little by little, under the influence of more and more changing conditions of life and culture, do artists completely abandon medieval foundations and boldly use examples of ancient art, both in the general concept of their works and in their details.

Whereas art in Italy was already resolutely following the path of imitation of classical antiquity, in other countries it long held on to the traditions of the Gothic style. North of the Alps, as well as in Spain, the Renaissance does not come until the end of the 15th century, and its early period lasts until about the middle of the next century.

The third period of the Renaissance - the time of the most magnificent development of his style - is commonly called the "High Renaissance". It is associated primarily with the names of three brilliant masters, the titans of the Renaissance - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael Santi and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The characteristic background of the rise of the Renaissance was the economic and political decline of Italy - a pattern that has been repeated more than once in history. In the work of representatives of the High Renaissance, the realistic and humanistic foundations of the culture of the Renaissance reached their peak. It extends into Italy from approximately 1500 to 1527. At this time, the center of influence of Italian art from Florence moved to Rome, thanks to the accession to the papal throne of Julius II - an ambitious, courageous and enterprising man, who attracted the best artists of Italy to his court, occupied them with numerous and important works and gave others an example of love for art. Under this Pope and under his immediate successors, Rome becomes, as it were, the new Athens of the time of Pericles: many monumental buildings are built in it, magnificent sculptures are created, frescoes and paintings are painted, which are still considered the pearls of painting; at the same time, all three branches of art harmoniously go hand in hand, helping one another and mutually acting on each other. The antique is now being studied more thoroughly, reproduced with greater rigor and consistency; tranquility and dignity replace the playful beauty that was the aspiration of the preceding period; reminiscences of the medieval completely disappear, and a completely classical imprint falls on all works of art. But imitation of the ancients does not stifle their independence in artists, and they, with great resourcefulness and liveliness of imagination, freely process and apply to their work what they consider appropriate to borrow for themselves from ancient Greco-Roman art.

The late Renaissance in Italy covers the period from the 1530s to the 1590s-1620s. Some researchers rank the 1630s as the Late Renaissance, but this position is controversial among art critics and historians. The art and culture of this time are so diverse in their manifestations that it is possible to reduce them to one denominator only with a great deal of conventionality. In Southern Europe, the Counter-Reformation triumphed, which looked with caution at any free thought, including the chanting of the human body and the resurrection of the ideals of antiquity, as the cornerstones of the Renaissance ideology. Worldview contradictions and a general feeling of crisis resulted in Florence in the "nervous" art of far-fetched colors and broken lines - mannerism. In Parma, where Correggio worked, Mannerism reached only after the death of the artist in 1534. The artistic traditions of Venice had their own logic of development; until the end of the 1570s. Titian and Palladio worked there, whose work had little in common with the crisis phenomena in the art of Florence and Rome.

However, the humanist movement in the XV century. went beyond Italy and had a powerful impact on the cultural process in countries located north of the birthplace of the Renaissance. Therefore, it seems legitimate to use the term Northern Renaissance, meaning by it not only a purely geographical characteristic, but also some features of the Renaissance in England, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. Very important features of the Northern Renaissance were that it took place during the Reformation, and also that in the culture of the peoples of these countries, for historical reasons, there was no such abundance of antiquity monuments as in Italy. The most noticeable stylistic differences in painting: unlike Italy, the traditions and skills of Gothic art were preserved in painting for a long time, less attention was paid to the study of the ancient heritage and the knowledge of human anatomy.

The era of the Renaissance was the greatest progressive upheaval of all experienced by mankind up to that time, an era that "needed titans and which gave birth to titans in strength of thought, passion and character, in versatility and learning."

But the Renaissance began very modestly, quite innocently, and certainly not everywhere. The birthplace of the Renaissance is Florence, the "Athens of Italy", for which there were certain historical and social prerequisites. So, it was in Florence in 1293, i.e. just at the dawn of the Renaissance, the first republican constitution in Christian Europe was adopted, and the constitution was very democratic, providing for the division of power into legislative (signoria) and executive, the head of which, as well as the commander of the militia, was the "gonfaloniere (standard-bearer) of justice." All craft workshops elected an equal number of deputies to the signoria.

Florence was a city of wealthy merchants, manufacturers,

a huge number of artisans - weavers, silk-makers, furriers - their interests were represented by workshops. In addition, the workshops of doctors, pharmacists, and musicians were very numerous for that time. Surprisingly, there were a lot of lawyers - lawyers, solicitors, notaries. The Florentine bankers competed only with the Lombard ones. They financed the pope, the German emperor, the French king, the Florentine coin - the gold florin, minted from 1252, was considered, along with the Venetian ducat, the most full-weight in Europe.

The presence of civil liberties, economic prosperity ensured the birth of new creative communities. In Florence, and a little later - in Siena, Ferrara, Pisa, circles of educated people formed who called themselves humanists in the narrower, educational sense of the word. The term itself comes from the name of the circle of sciences that the poetically and artistically gifted Florentines were engaged in: studia humanitatis. These are the sciences which have as their object man and everything human, as opposed to studiadivina - everything that studies the divine, i.e. theology.

The Florentine humanists were well aware of the Scriptures, the patristics, and among the humanists of a later time - especially the 16th century. Eminent theologians met, such as Erasmus of Rotterdam or Johann Reuchlin. The early Florentine humanists were most often politicians, lawyers, jurists. For example, the great Dante, a former diplomat and deputy from the White Guelph party, Francesco Petrarca, is not only a great lyric poet, but also an author of political poems; as well as a whole group of orators, publicists of the 15th century. - Coluccio Salutati, Leonardo Bruni, Gianozzo Manetti, Matteo Palmieri, Donato Accaiuoli, Ala Magayu Rinuccini. Their literary and journalistic work lies in line with civil humanism. But humanism is not a political doctrine, although politics has always been in the sphere of interests of humanists. Moreover, they, as educated people who know languages, speak correct Latin, experienced in jurisprudence, eloquence, often knowing fortification, mathematics, architecture, engineering, and sometimes astrology, and alchemy, sought to attract envoys, advisers, secretaries, chancellors, both the republican governments of the cities of Italy (Florence, Venice, Genoa), and various monarchs, including the pope.

And yet, the main activity of the humanists was philological science. Humanists began to look for rewriting, to study first literary and then artistic monuments of antiquity, primarily statues. Moreover, in Florence - an ancient city founded in antiquity, and in Rome, and in Ravenna, and in Naples, most of all Greek and Roman statues, painted vessels, and buildings have been preserved. For the first time in a thousand years of Christianity, ancient statues were treated not as pagan idols, but as works of art. The same can be said about ancient books.

Of course, the works of ancient thinkers were not forgotten in previous centuries. And in the era of the so-called Carolingian renaissance, and during the reign of Emperor Otto, and indeed throughout the entire Middle Ages, ancient manuscripts were copied in monasteries. On the philosophy of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, the creator of the theological system of Catholicism, built a picture of the world, which the church took for dogma. The ancient applied art, inherited by the Byzantine artistic craft, did not die either.

But it is with the humanists that the inclusion of the ancient heritage in the education system, acquaintance with ancient literature, sculpture, and the philosophy of wide educated circles begins. Poets and artists strive to imitate ancient authors, to revive ancient art in general. But, as often happens in history, especially the history of art, the revival of some old principles and forms (unless, of course, highly gifted people revive) leads to the creation of a completely new one.

The word "Renaissance" appeared later than the word "humanism" - in the work of the painter, architect and art historian of the 16th century. Giorgio Vasari. At the same time, Vasari speaks with amazement about the revival of art after a thousand-year, as he believes, its vegetation.

Humanists did not seek, however, to revive ancient culture on its own foundation - the Olympic religion and pagan mythology, although they studied mythology very diligently, especially according to Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Almost all humanists and artists of the Renaissance are Christians, no matter what kind of relationship they have with the official church. Perhaps only Lorenzo Balla and Pietro Pomponazzi are humanists of the 15th century. - were skeptical about religion in general, and Pomponazzi was skeptical about the idea of ​​the immortality of the soul. Almost all painters, sculptors, composers of the Renaissance worked in line with church themes, in church genres and forms. Moreover, often religious fanaticism, obscurantism and ignorance took up arms against humanism and, at the same time, against the official church, which, according to some purists, was mired in paganism. So, the Florentine Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498), who, by the way, was brought up in a humanistic spirit, became a monk, broke with humanism, attacked the church with accusations, and for some time even turned out to be the dictator of Florence. During his short reign, many books and works of art "non-Christian in spirit" were burned. Savonarola, his angry sermons were carried away for some time by the great artist Sandro Botticelli, who even decided to burn his "pagan" paintings. In 1498, Savonarola was executed by the verdict of the signoria. Thus, there were cases when the enemies of the official church also acted as enemies of humanism. At the same time, some humanists held high positions in the church hierarchy, were bishops, cardinals, even popes - for example, Eneo Silvio Piccolomia became pope under the name of Pius II. Pope Leo X, the son of the ruler of Florence, the richest banker and famous philanthropist Lorenzo Medici, nicknamed the Magnificent, was also an undoubted humanist.

In other words, among the humanists there were people of different political

(Republicans, monarchists, democrats, aristocrats, etc.), religious orthodox Catholics, skeptics, outright atheists, Lutheran Protestants, Calvinist Protestants, pious theologians), philosophical and natural-scientific views. They were united by something else - a commitment to education, a good literary style.

Humanists revived the correct literary Latin language, in which they wrote scientific essays, delivered sermons and teachings. From the 15th century, the study of the ancient Greek language and its introduction into school education began. Europeans got the opportunity to read Homer, Sophocles, Theocritus in the originals.

The paradox of the situation lies in the fact that it is the humanists who

Renaissance, champions of the purity of the Latin language, lovers of antiquity, connoisseurs of Greco-Roman mythology became at the same time the creators of literature in national languages. First of all, this is Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), who wrote a grandiose poem about his imaginary visit to the afterlife - “The Divine Comedy” (Dante himself called the poem simply “Comedy”, since it ends happily, the word Davina - “Divine” - was added by contemporaries admiring the verses) in the Tuscan dialect. The Tuscan dialect formed the basis of the general Italian literary language with the light hand of Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio. In the same XIV century. For centuries, Geoffrey Chaucer in England has created a literary English language, born from a mixture of the Celtic, Latin, German dialects of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes (this dialect gave the main lexical composition) and the French language of the Normans of William the Conqueror. And at the end of the XV century. and in the 16th century. The literary language of France is taking shape (especially in the works of the poets of the Pleiades - Pierre Ronsard, Joashen de Belle), Germany (this is the merit of Luther), a common Spanish language based on the Castilian dialect.

But not only literary languages ​​- in the Renaissance, regional art schools were formed, in which one can see the embryos of future national art schools. True, it is still too early to talk about national schools in the Renaissance. For example, the great Dutch school of composers (Okegem, Obrecht, Jog.ken de Pre, Dufay, and in the 16th century - Orlando Lasso) is not only Dutch, but also French, and Orlando Lasso, moreover, almost all his life worked in the capital of Bavaria - Munich. At the same time, along with the Dutch or, as it is also called, the Franco-Flemish, significant composer schools developed in Rome and Venice.

But the fact remains: humanists are reviving classical Latin and at the same time creating works of art in living national languages.

The second paradox of the Renaissance: the rapid secularization (that is, the transition from the church to the secular state) of all culture - especially education - despite the fact that the brightest artistic creations are born in line with church art. All the great masters of the Renaissance - Giotto and Cimabue, Leonardo, Botticelli, Raphael, Michelangelo create frescoes, design and paint cathedrals, turn to biblical and New Testament characters and subjects (for example, Michelangelo's Moses, David, Pieta) in sculpture. Musicians create masses and motets (a genre of spiritual polyphonic work).

Humanists re-translate, comment on the Bible and engage in theological research. And yet, if we cover the entire artistic life of the Renaissance as a whole, one gets the impression that art came out of church dictate. Apparently, this impression is facilitated by the fact that both in secular and ecclesiastical works, the masters of the Renaissance speak the same artistic language. The images of the Mother of God by Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael are very “secularized” - especially in the Leonard Benois Madonna or, as it is also called, the Madonna with a Flower, and in the most famous Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Connestabile Madonna, as well as in “ Madonna with a Goldfinch”, where, in addition to the baby Jesus, little John, the future John the Baptist, is also depicted.

The dividing line between the secular and the ecclesiastical - in terms of emotional state, details, in terms of the nature of writing - is blurred. The same interpenetration of church and secular occurs in music. Josquin de Pre, Orlando Lasso, Palestrina write masses, motets, offertoriums in Latin texts in a strict polyphonic manner. But they also write polyphonic secular songs - French chanson, German Lied, Italian madrigals. In secular songs, the same techniques of polyphony are used as in masses, and the themes of secular songs are placed at the basis of the masses. Therefore, we can say that in the art of the Renaissance there is not only secularization, secularization of art, but interpenetration, a mixture of folklore, secular and church.

Theocentric attitudes in the doctrine of man in the Middle Ages were gradually overcome in the philosophy of the Renaissance. Deistic and pantheistic concepts of the creation of the world and man appeared. The sinfulness of the human race was denied, the ideas of antiquity about the intrinsic value of man, about his right to happiness, freedom, not in the afterlife, but even during earthly life, were revived. A humanistic attitude was formed, placing man, and not God, at the center of the universe and philosophy. All philosophy is imbued with the pathos of humanism, the autonomy of man, faith in his limitless possibilities.

Picodela Mirandole (1463--1494): man occupies a central place in the universe. This happens because he is involved in everything earthly and heavenly. He rejects astral determinism in favor of the free will of man. Freedom of choice and creative abilities determine that everyone is the creator of his own happiness or misfortune and is able to reach both the animal state and rise to a god-like being.

There is a rehabilitation of the bodily nature of man, the restoration of the ancient ideal of kalokagatiya. The idea of ​​a comprehensively developed harmonious personality is becoming widespread. The development of art reaches an unprecedented flowering. It was the language of art, in the form of artistic images, that expressed all the main anthropological ideas of the Renaissance, which most significantly differed from the corresponding ideas of the Middle Ages. On the canvases of Masaccio, Botticelli, Leonardo, in the short stories of Boccaccio and Sacchetti, human life is depicted in its entirety, in the harmonious unity of sensual and spiritual pleasures.

In the philosophical anthropology of this period, the motives of approaching individualism, egoism and utilitarianism, associated with the emerging capitalist social relations and the dominance of private interest, are already quite clearly audible. So, Lorenzo Valla (1406-1457) clearly states that prudence and justice come down to the benefit of the individual, in the first place should be their own interests, and in the last - the homeland.

In the Renaissance, special attention is paid to understanding the place of man in this world, which is why the science of anthropology has developed tremendously. Anthropology is a set of scientific disciplines dealing with the study of man, his origin, development, existence in natural and cultural environments.

The emergence of the term "anthropology" goes back to ancient philosophy. The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384--322 BC) was the first to use it to designate a field of knowledge that studies mainly the spiritual side of human nature. Despite the fact that the term in this sense was used by many classical and non-classical thinkers (Kant, Feuerbach, etc.), a special philosophical discipline and school as such took shape only at the beginning of the 20th century under the name "philosophical anthropology". In its original meaning, the term "anthropology" is also used in many humanities (art history, psychology, etc.) and in theology (theology), religious philosophy to this day. So, in pedagogy there is an anthropological approach to education. Later anthropological knowledge differentiated and became more complex.

Traditionally, there are several, to varying degrees, separate and interrelated disciplines:

Philosophical anthropology is a philosophical doctrine of the nature and essence of man, considering man as a special kind of being. Anthropology as a philosophical doctrine is historically the first form of representing a person as such as a special subject of understanding and study.

Religious anthropology is a philosophical doctrine of the essence of man, developed in line with theology and considering the nature and essence of man in the context of religious teachings. Self-determination of the subject of anthropology in theology - the disclosure of the teachings of the church about man.

Physical anthropology, which includes paleoanthropology and the applied discipline of forensic anthropology, considers man as a species in the context of his evolution and in comparison with his closest relatives - modern and fossil great apes.

Social and cultural anthropology, a discipline quite close to ethnology, deals with the comparative study of human societies. In the context of the problematic field and methodology of socio-cultural anthropology, linguistic, cognitive, political, economic, historical anthropology and anthropology of law also stand out as specific disciplines.

Visual Anthropology - is engaged in the study of man on the basis of photo and video materials using such expressive means as: cinema, photography, television, and others.

Research methods. Anthropology studies variations in the size and shape of the body through description and measurement. The descriptive technique was called anthroposcopy, the measuring one - anthropometry. In the processing of anthropometric material, the role of statistical methods is great. Important methods of anthropological research are craniology, osteology, odontology, anthropological photography, taking prints of skin patterns of the palms and plantar surfaces of the feet, removing plaster face masks, and obtaining plaster prints of the internal cavity of the skull (endocranes). Methods of hematological research, as well as methods of microanatomy, biochemistry, radiology, family studies, longitudinal (long-term) and transverse (simultaneous) study of groups, methods of fractionating body weight, the use of radioactive isotopes, various photometric methods, etc., are widespread in modern anthropology. value received the so-called geographical method, i.e., mapping the values ​​of otd. racial characteristics and the "imposition" of these cards on top of each other. Combined with ethnographic and historical data, the geographical method forms the basis of racial analysis.

The philosophers of the Renaissance from Erasmus to Montaigne bowed before reason and its creative power. Reason is a priceless gift of nature, which distinguishes man from all things, makes him god-like. For a humanist, wisdom was the highest good available to people, and therefore they considered the propaganda of classical ancient literature to be their most important task. In wisdom and knowledge, they believed, a person finds true happiness - and this was his true nobility. The improvement of human nature through the study of ancient literature is the cornerstone of Renaissance humanism. The development of knowledge in the XIV-XVI centuries significantly influenced people's ideas about the world and man's place in it. The great geographical discoveries, the heliocentric system of the world of Nicolaus Copernicus changed ideas about the size of the Earth and its place in the Universe, and the works of Paracelsus and Vesalius, in which for the first time after antiquity attempts were made to study the structure of man and the processes occurring in him, marked the beginning of scientific medicine and anatomy .

The great geographical discoveries (XV-XVI centuries) expanded the horizons of anthropological knowledge, acquainting, albeit superficially, Europeans with the racial types of the peoples of East Asia (travels of PlanoCarpini, Rubruk, Marco Polo), the population of America (H. Columbus), with the peoples of Eastern Siberia (S. Dezhnev), Tierra del Fuego and Oceania (F. Magellan). The significance of Magellan's round-the-world voyage was most important for anthropology in the sense that, having confirmed the existence of antipodes, it showed the incompatibility of science with the biblical legend of the creation of man in the "Holy Land", a significant event in the history of anthropology in the 17th century. were the first descriptions of the anatomy of anthropomorphic monkeys, for example, by the Englishman E. Tyson, who studied the corpse of a chimpanzee in 1699.

In the Renaissance, the humanistic concept of man becomes dominant in philosophy. In contrast to religious views on man as a sinful being, submissive to fate, the thinkers of the Renaissance (especially T. More and T. Campanella) proclaimed the value of the human personality, its dignity, reason and nobility. In their writings, the individual is seen as something sublime, self-valuable.

The question of the relationship between man and nature, the individual and society is brought to the fore, the ideal of a comprehensively developed personality is proclaimed, the contours of a new society are outlined, in which the free development of everyone would be carried out.

In the philosophy of this period, God was not completely denied, but its banner was not God, but man. The entire philosophy of the Renaissance turned out to be permeated with the pathos of humanism, the autonomy of man, faith in his limitless possibilities.

Pico de Mirandola (1463-1494) composes the speech "On the Dignity of Man". Unlike all other creations, man himself controls his moral character. The idea of ​​man as "the most glorious master and sculptor" of himself adds a new element to the basic idea of ​​Christian anthropology - the idea of ​​god-likeness. If the “image of God” is a gift, then the “likeness of God” is not so much a gift as a task, but a feat, in the process of which the likeness of God is realized, a person has to perform only by the person himself. The light of human freedom stands above all natural necessity and transcends it. This fact - the indeterminacy of human existence - raises a person even higher than the angels. Since the angels and heavenly powers accepted their nature and perfection once and for all from God (although they fell after that). Man achieves perfection independently on the basis of his freedom.

Man has the possibility of reciprocal love to God. (Condemned as heretical by Pope Innocent VIII).

In the works of the figures of the Renaissance, a humanistic concept of man is formed. Its foundations were laid by the great Dante. The embodiment of high ideas about a person is the image of Ulysses (Odysseus) - a bold discoverer, a hero, a valiant, intelligent person. Through his mouth, Dante proclaimed a new view of man.

"O brothers...

That short period, while they still do not sleep

Earthly feelings - their meager remnant

Give in to the comprehension of novelty ...

You were not created for animal fate,

But they were born for valor and knowledge.

Freedom and personal responsibility, nobility, the ability to exploit, to fulfill the earthly purpose, which is activity, are the most important features of a person. The concept of humanists contains a new understanding of the relationship between the divine and natural principles: they must be in unity. Man is a creative being. Its dignity lies in the ability to rise above the animal state: what is truly human in it comes from culture. The humanistic view of a person breaks with asceticism, proclaims the right of a person to the fullness of physical and spiritual life, the maximum development of the best human qualities.

Leonardo da Vinci (1452 - 1519) revealed the inconsistency of man. Man is a magnificent instrument of nature, an earthly god, but he is also cruel and often insignificant in his thoughts and actions.

A new aspect in the understanding of man is revealed in the work of the outstanding Italian statesman and political philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli (1487 - 1527). According to Machiavelli, political action requires a person, first of all, to take into account objective circumstances, the will, energy and strength of a politician - valor (virtu). In order to achieve the set goal, a politician should not reckon with moral and religious assessments. Politics and morality are autonomous. Moral considerations are subordinated to the goals of politics. Only the state interest, that is, the national interest, the interest of the fatherland, drives the actions of a statesman. The result of these arguments was the conclusion: the end justifies the means. In modern psychology, there is the concept of "Machiavellianism". It denotes a person's tendency to manipulate other people. A technique has been developed for identifying Machiavellianism as a personality characteristic.

A deep psychological analysis of a person is contained in the work of the French philosopher M. Montaigne (1533 - 1592) "Experiments". Much attention is paid to self-knowledge. Man, according to Montaigne, is not the center of the universe, but part of it. “When I play with a cat, who knows if she is more likely to play with me than I am with her?” he asks. Montaigne's skepticism, his thoughts about the virtues of the common man, criticism of the morals and hypocrisy of high society were continued in the science of modern times.

Not only anthropology dealt with the problem of man. To some extent, the problems that confronted psychology in the Renaissance repeated the old ones that arose during the formation of scientific psychology at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC. As then, psychology sought to overcome the sacredness that returned in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we can say that the Renaissance period was, in fact, the time of the return (revival) of the most important principles of ancient science, the departure from dogmatism and the search for ways of the most optimal scientific study of mental (mental) states. At the same time, a new subject of psychological science was born as a science of consciousness, finally formulated already in modern times.

The 15th-17th centuries remained in history as the time of the rise of art, especially Italian painting and sculpture. The Reformation, which changed not only church life, but also the consciousness of people, was of great importance. The discovery of America, the expansion of geographical concepts also could not but affect the general worldview and led to the active development of scientific knowledge. Significant discoveries were made primarily in astronomy (N. Copernicus, G. Galileo, D. Bruno), mathematics, physics (L. da Vinci, I. Kepler), philosophy and social sciences (T. More, M. Montaigne, E Rotterdamsky, N. Machiavelli).

To a lesser extent, problems of the psyche were studied at that moment, since questions of spiritual life in many respects still remained outside the circle of scientific study. A new aspect of the psychological and philosophical works of that time was the study of the problem of abilities, which, along with the study of cognition, was leading at that time.

A new interpretation of emotions and the development of affects was given in his work by Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588). In an effort to explain the mental from natural laws, he organized the first society of natural scientists, which set as its goal the study of nature in all its parts, explaining it from itself. Therefore, the doctrine of the driving forces, which are the source of energy for various forms of development, came to the fore in his concept. He singled out heat and cold, light and darkness, the ability to expand and contract, etc. as the main ones. These forces, Telesio argued, are in mutual penetration, creating new formations associated with the concentration of certain forces. The struggle of opposing forces is the source of all development.

Telesio also believed that the main purpose of nature is to preserve the achieved state. Thus, we can say that the idea of ​​homeostasis first appeared in his concept, although it was presented at the level of science of that time. The law of self-preservation, in his opinion, is subject to the development of the psyche, and the mind and emotions regulate this process. At the same time, the strength of the soul is manifested in positive emotions, and its weakness, which interferes with self-preservation, is manifested in negative emotions. The mind evaluates situations from this point of view. Comparing these views of Telesio with the provisions of subsequent psychological concepts proving the connection of emotions and reason with the desire for adaptation, one can see their affinity associated with the desire to explain the mental by its role in maintaining the vital activity of the organism. However, if in the future in such explanations one can find not only advantages, but also disadvantages, then Telesio's concept at that time was a breakthrough to new explanatory principles that make psychology an objective science.

The famous Spanish scientist Juan Luis (Ludovik) Vives (1492-1540) also wrote about the need to develop a natural-scientific approach to the study of the psyche. H. Vives was educated in England, worked for a long time in England, Holland and Germany, maintaining friendly relations with many European scientists of that time - T. More, E. Rotterdam and others. In his work "On the Soul and Life" X. Vives substantiated a new approach to psychology as an empirical science based on the analysis of data from sensory experience. For the correct construction of concepts, he proposed a new way of generalizing sensory data - induction. Although the operational-logical methods of the inductive method were later developed in detail by Francis Bacon, X. Vives owns the proof of the possibility and validity of the logical transition from the particular to the general. The basis of such a transition, according to Vives, are the laws of associations, the interpretation of which he took from Aristotle. The association of impressions determines, in his opinion, the nature of memory. On the same basis, the simplest concepts arise, providing material for all subsequent work of the intellect. Along with the sensory side of mental activity, great importance was attached to the emotional. Vives was one of the first to come to the conclusion that the most effective way to suppress a negative experience is not to restrain it or suppress it with the mind, but to repress it with another, stronger experience. The psychological concept of X. Vives served as a rationale for the development of the pedagogical concept of J. Comenius.

No less important for psychology was the book of another famous Spanish psychologist - Juan Huarte (1530-1592) "Study of abilities in the sciences." This was the first psychological work that set as a special task the study of individual differences in abilities for the purpose of professional selection. Huarte's book, which can be called the first study in differential psychology, posed four questions as the main ones:

What qualities does that nature have that makes a person capable of one science and incapable of another?

What kinds of gifts are there in the human race?

What arts and sciences correspond to each talent in particular?

By what signs can you recognize the corresponding talent?

The analysis of abilities was compared with a mixture of four elements in the body (temperament) and with a difference in areas of activity (medicine, jurisprudence, military art, government, etc.), requiring appropriate talents.

Imagination (fantasy), memory and intellect were recognized as the main abilities. Each of them was explained by a certain temperament of the brain, that is, the proportion in which the main juices are mixed in it. Analyzing the various sciences and arts, H. Huarte evaluated them in terms of which of the three abilities they require. This directed Huarte's thought to a psychological analysis of the activities of a commander, doctor, lawyer, theologian, and so on. The dependence of talent on nature does not mean, in his opinion, the uselessness of education and work. However, there are also large individual and age differences. A significant role in the formation of abilities is played by physiological factors, in particular the nature of nutrition.

Huarte believed that it was especially important to establish external signs by which one could distinguish the qualities of the brain that determine the nature of talent. And although his own observations about the correspondences between bodily signs and abilities are very naive (for example, he singled out stiffness of hair, peculiarities of laughter, etc. as such signs), the very idea of ​​a correlation between internal and external was, as shown by the subsequent path differential psychology, quite rational. Huarte dreamed of organizing professional selection on a national scale: “In order for no one to make mistakes in choosing the profession that is most suitable for his natural talent, the sovereign should have allocated authorized people of great mind and knowledge who would have discovered more in each of his talents. at a tender age; they would then oblige him to study the field of knowledge that suits him.”

Of all the areas of natural science, in connection with their significance for psychology, the development of medicine, anatomy and human physiology in different countries should be especially noted. T. Paracelsus (1493 - 1541) came up with a new theory about the nature of the human body, the causes and methods of treating diseases. In anatomy, Andrei Vesalius (1514 - 1564) published the fundamental work "On the Structure of the Human Body" (1543). The book replaced the anatomy of Galen, in which there were many errors, because he judged the structure of the human body on the basis of data that he drew from the anatomy of monkeys and dogs. The number of newly discovered body parts has steadily increased. The Italian contemporaries of Vesalius - G. Fallopius, B. Eustachius, I. Fabricius from Aquapendente and others - make a number of discoveries that have forever entered anatomy under their names.

Of great importance were the works of the physician and thinker Miguel Serveta (1509/1511 - 1553), his ideas on the pulmonary circulation (1553). A new era in anatomy, physiology and embryology began with the work of M. Malpighi (1628-1694) and research in experimental physiology. V. Harvey in 1628 solved the problem of blood circulation.

Thus, knowledge gradually developed through experience, which replaced dogma and scholasticism.

The German scholastics R. Goklenius and O. Kassmann first introduced the term "psychology" (1590). Prior to this, Philip Melanchthon (1497 - 1560) - a German humanist, a friend of Luther, brought up under the influence of Erasmus, in his Commentary on the Soul, gave her a place of honor. He was revered as an authority in the field of teaching psychology and dominated some German universities until the middle of the 18th century. The Spanish humanist, friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Juan Luis Vives (1492 - 1542), in his book "On the Soul and Life" (1538) argued that the main question is not what the soul is, but what are its manifestations and their connection. This indicates an increased interest in psychological questions and makes it possible to understand the successes of psychological analysis in the 17th century. F. Bacon and R. Descartes.

Summing up the development of psychology in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, it must be emphasized that this period was not uniform in its achievements and the content of psychological research. The relationship between church and science changed repeatedly during this long period of time, with the greatest persecution of knowledge and the system of scientific evidence occurring during the weakening of the power of the church, which, as a rule, considered science not in itself, but as a source (or obstacle) for achieving certain goals.

Among the most important studies that were carried out at that time by both Arab scientists and European church and secular thinkers, it is necessary to note the first works related to the study of the psychology of the masses, the development of methods for persuading people. Attention is drawn to the works that were later called psychotherapeutic, their purpose was to provide psychological assistance to people experiencing emotional discomfort, tension, neurosis.

During the Renaissance, by contrast, psychological research returned to the problems that had been raised in antiquity. This is due to the emergence of the opportunity to fully read the works of scientists of that time (and not just the selected things of Plato or Aristotle), and with the revival of interest in studying the stages of cognition, human abilities, including the ability to build an objective picture of the world, realizing it as a whole. This interest became leading in the next period, called the New Time.

Many researchers of the culture of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance oppose them, pointing out that the culture of the Middle Ages is fundamentally, essentially different from the culture of the Renaissance. So, characterizing the culture of the Middle Ages, P.A. Sorokin singled out principled rationality as its characteristic feature. In his opinion, “medieval culture was not a conglomerate of various cultural realities, phenomena and values, but a single whole, all parts of which expressed the same highest principle of objective reality and significance: infinity, supersensibility, superreason of God, God omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient , absolutely fair, beautiful, creator of the world and man. Sharing the cultures of the epochs that interest us, P.A. Sorokin pointed out that the change of cultures occurred due to the change of the idea of ​​ideality by the idea of ​​sensibility, which reflects the culture of sensory, empirical, secular and "corresponding to this world." He considers the culture of the Renaissance as a replacement for the medieval, which is in a state of decline.

J. le Goff divides the two cultural epochs on the basis of the values ​​that dominate the mass consciousness of the people who lived at that time.

It should be pointed out here that J. le Goff considers the Renaissance as a component of the Middle Ages, explaining this by singling out, as already mentioned, the value orientations of mass consciousness as a logical basis for classifying the cultures of the two eras. He connects changes in culture, first of all, with an appeal to the earthly world and its values. “Of course, in the early Middle Ages, the immediate goal of human life and struggle was earthly life, earthly power. However… the cultural, ideological, existential thoughts of the people were directed to heaven.” Analysis of the differences between the culture of the Middle Ages and the culture of the Renaissance, J. le Goff conducts in three areas:

Analysis of cultural and mental tools that provide

the birth of new ideas;

Analysis of the attitude to the earthly, especially to life, to the human

body, to earth, to earthly history;

Analysis of the distinction in the system of values ​​and ideas of church and secular, spiritual and worldly, sacred and profane.

Analyzing the differences between the culture of the Middle Ages and the culture of the Renaissance, he points out that the restructuring of value orientations required overcoming a number of ideological obstacles. Among the most important changes, J. Le Goff singles out the admission of innovations and the limitation of the scope of unshakable adherence to "authorities" (authoritates) in the field of religion, intellectual activity and art, overcoming the notions characteristic of the early Middle Ages and inherited from early Christianity that the world is old, that he has already entered the phase of his decline, the so-called "sixth age", that this aging is irreversible, that he is not so much "living" as "surviving" (mundussenesit). Ontological characteristics of the world receive a new understanding: time and space. This is reflected in culture and art. Thus, the changes associated with the understanding of time are reflected in fiction, in particular in the courtly novel, where time forms the basis of a story that includes numerous episodes and unexpected plot twists. “All this taken together assumed an orientation towards earthly values, towards ratio as a logical beginning, reason and calculation at the same time.” In the emergence of new value orientations and new practices, the progress of writing as a human intrusion into the world of the sacred is especially noticeable, the written text is desacralized. The letter takes on an ordinary character, becomes more and more fluent. “Letter is now created not in the name of God and Heaven, but for the sake of the earth.”

The changes also affected the attitude of a person to his very life, to his body. The early Middle Ages proclaimed contempt for the body, its impulses sought to curb, humble. The body was considered "the vile shell of the soul." In the Renaissance, everything changed. The body became the recognized form of every spiritual being, the beauty of the body now proclaimed the beauty of the soul. The significance and value of earthly life has increased. Examples include the evolution of attitudes towards laughter, changes in the concept of holiness, changes in attitudes towards posthumous memory of oneself. The monasticism of the early Middle Ages taught Christian society to neglect the earthly world. One of the manifestations of this neglect was the suppression of laughter, the most shameful sound that the mouth can make. In the culture of the Renaissance, laughter in most of its manifestations is legitimized and considered as a prototype of heavenly joy.

The evolution of the concept of holiness was that it was life

the saint as such takes on greater significance; doubtful from the point of view of the church miraculous acts performed by the saints are no longer taken into account; the right to holiness is given first of all by a virtuous and pious life, manifestations of deep piety. Miracles act as an addition. They may affirm holiness, but it is not expressed in them. The saint traditionally acts in a miracle not as an author, but as an intermediary; God is the only miracle worker. However, divine intervention in the formation of saints now seems to be less than before. The saint, in a sense, creates himself, he appears as a “self-mademan”.

The changes also affect the attitude of people to the posthumous memory of themselves.

Attempts to overcome oblivion had different expressions at that time. For example, they return to the practice of wills, lost since antiquity. The right of posthumous disposal of one's goods preserves for the deceased the connection with the lost possessions. The increase in the number of funeral masses was aimed both at perpetuating the memory of the dead among the living, and at saving the soul.

Belief in the existence of purgatory (as a place of cleansing from sins between death and the Last Judgment) gave many people the belief that souls in purgatory have the right to return to earth and appear alive. Thus, falling into purgatory did not mean completely dying from life.

In the Renaissance, new value systems are created based on

earthly foundations and in ethics, and in politics, and in religion.

From the time of antiquity and the establishment of Christianity, man knew as a living example for Christ to follow three variants of the Christian hero - a martyr, a monk and a saint. Now, in the 11th-13th centuries, two new models of aristocratic and purely secular heroes are being formed, although these heroes themselves remain Christian.

The first of these models is embodied by the secular, worldly code of the courtesy.

It characterizes the art of living and represents the code of good manners and ideal standards of earthly behavior. He seeks to inspire a person with four principles of such behavior: politeness (instead of rudeness and violence), courage, love and spiritual breadth, generosity. This code was supposed to form a civilized warrior and fit him into the framework of a harmonious whole, built on two main oppositions: culture - nature and man - woman. Courtly love exalts worldly, earthly love that exists alongside the divine and heavenly (and sometimes neglects it).

In the XIII century. this simple courtesy gives way to a more sophisticated one, recognizing impeccability as its ideal. Courtesy appears here in a more moderate incarnation and combines courage with wisdom, valor at once. At the same time, two models of an ideal society are formulated. The first assumes the real creation on earth of the most perfect society possible. Another way to create a perfect society is a pure utopia, expressed in literature: it is a dream of the return of mankind not to a Christian paradise, but to the Golden Age of antiquity, in the center of which is humanity and the earthly world for whom there is no need for heaven. The changes also affect the area of ​​religion. They were closely associated with the renewal of the church as a result of the activities of mendicant orders. It was at this time that heretical teachings were formed, affirming a complete rejection of the world, of everything material for the sake of heaven. But at the same time, views are being formed in which the main thing is the dream of the millennium kingdom, proclaimed in the Apocalypse, and the onset of the Golden Age, when all types of church and secular hierarchy will disappear and the kingdom of the saints of this world will begin.

Art tries to express the meaning of the transient, earthly and love for it. Attention to the ephemeral, fleeting is growing, everything earthly is acquiring a higher appreciation. Due to the fact that a person is re-exploring space and there are important changes in the construction of linear perspective, there is a major shift in the system of artistic representation, which is called the birth of realism. This realism also represents a set of certain rules, a kind of code, desacralized and profane.

Faith in the inevitability of the end of the world recedes: the threat of the Last Judgment, depicted on the portals of cathedrals, seems to be turned away. The earth no longer imitates the sky, it becomes a reality, while the sky, on the contrary, imitates the earth. Close to the position of J. le Goff, the opinion of G.K. Kosikov. In his opinion, “neither chronologically nor in stages, the Renaissance should replace the feudal Middle Ages. On the contrary, it is more correct to speak of a large, three-hundred-year period, which belongs simultaneously to the history of the Middle Ages and the history of the New Age. This is consistent with the opinion of B.F. Porshnev, according to which the Renaissance-humanistic culture, various forms of “free thinking” of the 17th century and, finally, the Enlightenment form three successive stages of ascent from the worldview of the Middle Ages to the Great Bourgeois Revolution of the late 18th century. However, notes G.K. Kosikov, there is a qualitative difference between the culture of the Renaissance and the culture of the Middle Ages. Medieval culture was institutionalized (i.e., more of a ritualized culture), while Renaissance culture was institutionalized to a small extent and mainly in the humanities (i.e., more of a game character). Having arisen within the framework of the Middle Ages and, in principle, by no means breaking with its values, this culture, nevertheless, significantly shifted the emphasis in the medieval picture of the world, creating certain conditions for its subsequent destruction; however, at the same time, the Renaissance culture itself, primarily due to its principled elitism, showed obvious unviability already in the second half of the 16th century, it “has outlived itself in a new social environment. The cult of antiquity degenerated into limited pedantry, proud individualism into selfish unscrupulousness, the doctrine of the dignity of man into an instruction to an exemplary courtier.

According to G.K. Kosikov, “The Renaissance arose not at all on the ruins of the Middle Ages, but, on the contrary, in a dense medieval environment, when feudal civilization continued to live an active life, undergoing a process of complex development.” Here G.K. Kosikov continues the thought of R.I.

Khlodovsky that the "Renaissance" is such an epoch in the life of medieval society in which a cultural movement called the Renaissance took place, but which is by no means reduced to this movement. L.M. Batkin, characterizing the culture of the Renaissance, substantiated an interesting, though not entirely indisputable, idea about its “dialogic”: “Everything specifically defined in the sphere of his (Renaissance) thought and creativity is, in fact, non-Renaissance, be it Christianity, “literature”, Platonism, Hermeticism, Averroism ... Only the meeting of non-Renaissance cultures in an individual free in relation to each of them is renaissance.”

It is necessary to attach fundamental importance to the fact of the sacralization of ancient culture by the intellectual elite of that time; its representatives did not think about antiquity, but, according to the apt expression of G.K. Kosikov, "antiquity - antique categories, images, topoi, and just quotations." They, as it were, distanced themselves from their own modernity and from its culture, which explains the original cultural gesture of the outstanding cultural figures of the Renaissance - the renunciation of modernity and the symbolic "relocation" to antiquity. This can explain the fact that Petrarch seriously dealt with letters to Cicero and Titus Livius, Ficino lit a lamp in front of the bust of Plato, and Rabelais, who considered every word of Hippocrates infallible, spoke with genuine anxiety about those disasters that would certainly happen in medical practice if in the publication of the texts of the Greek healer, at least one mistake will creep in. This means that the most prominent representatives of the culture of the Renaissance gave antiquity a value in itself, and if it did not always give them ground for free dialogue, then it always had an unconditional stimulus for them.

Meanwhile, the essence and fundamental novelty of the Renaissance lies precisely in the fact that it turned antiquity into an absolute measure, into an ideal horizon of human culture, in the light of which living modernity should also be evaluated. This is what, despite the continuity of the connection, the Renaissance culture differed from the culture of the XII-XIII centuries, which, with all its respect for antique samples, never turned them into a spiritual criterion of culture. The original movement from modernity to antiquity existed in the Renaissance only for the sake of countermovement - from antiquity to modernity: having felt Greco-Roman antiquity as a different world, but not repulsive, but attractive with its “otherness”, gave rise to attempts by Renaissance thinkers to move this world into the reality around them, namely: to embody the wisdom gleaned from ancient books in new life circumstances.

The Renaissance synthesis turned out to be a grandiose attempt to transfer to the soil of medieval civilization the entire set of cultural values ​​generated by a different, albeit somewhat related, civilization, not just to “assimilate” or “adapt” its individual elements, but to directly and directly introduce someone else’s spiritual experience into one’s own.

Features of medieval and renaissance culture in relation to

person, to personality can be characterized as follows. The medieval individual is characterized by the experience of his own “I” in the categories of a social role, but this in no way negates not only his inherent sense of “selfhood”, but also, most importantly, free orientation and movement both within such roles and from one role. to another. Each such role presupposes the highest and lowest limits of its "fulfillment", i.e. the measure of intimate familiarization with it and conscious activity, the perfection of the embodiment of such a role. Hence the medieval concept of personality and the medieval concept of individualism, which were associated not with a person's feeling of his own specialness and peculiarity, but with a sense of his originality, for example, talent, ability to do something, skill in its performance, etc.

In the culture of the Renaissance, a self-valuable personality - "especially an isolated human personality - is not a fundamental principle of Renaissance aesthetics." The Renaissance understanding of personality has a modified medieval nature. Medieval man was fully characterized by the feeling of his "self", i.e. internal integrity and concentration of every "I" in a single point, which by no means denied the idea of ​​the sameness of human nature and the existential equality of individual individuals.

According to A.F. Losev, the Renaissance man took on "divine functions" i.e. began to look for the value bases of his own life in this very life, devoid of metaphysical support. A.F. Losev speaks of the "spontaneous-individualistic orientation of a person who dreamed of being decisively liberated from everything objectively significant and recognizing only his own internal needs and requirements." OH. Gorfunkel, analyzing the differences between Renaissance and medieval anthropology, points out that not only did Renaissance anthropology not separate a person from God and from “everything that is objectively meaningful”, but, on the contrary, included him in a “perfect and beautiful cosmos” as an organic part. “A deified man is not a grain of sand in a deified cosmos. He is an expression of the same great cosmic forces that permeate the entire space of the world.

Being involved in God, man was exalted by the thinkers of the Renaissance not as an isolated and self-sufficient personality, but as a representative of the generic possibilities of all mankind. The turn made by them was, rather, not in the separation of such a person from super-personal and universally significant moral norms and laws, but in shifting the emphasis from the idea of ​​“deification” (which is given only by grace) of a person, to his “deification” - not in the sense of displacement by the “creature” of its “creator”, but in the sense of emphasizing the “divine” in its infinity, the cognitive, ethical and creative possibilities of man in relation to the universe.

The ideal of the Renaissance personality is not a subject cherishing his individual uniqueness, but a person individually exercising his spirit in order to acquire the quality of "universality", i.e. absorb all the possible diversity of culture and themes - in the limit - merge with other equally "universal" individuals. Renaissance culture remained mainly the property of the intellectual elite, which led to the transformation of innovative ideas circulating within a closed system, and later to their degradation, reduction to blind imitation, exaggerated attention to the external, existing to the detriment of the internal, essential. Thus, there was an evolution from a culture that was internally free and, to a certain extent, innovative, to the loss of the existential component of life and activity, which led to a focus on the external forms of their manifestation.

The specificity of revivalist individualism consisted in the spontaneous self-affirmation of a person who thinks and acts artistically and understands the natural and historical environment surrounding him not substantively, but self-sufficingly contemplatively.

Two elements permeate the entire aesthetics of the Renaissance and all of its

art. The thinkers and artists of the Renaissance feel in themselves the boundless power and never before the opportunity for a person to penetrate into the depths of both inner experiences, and artistic imagery, and the almighty beauty of nature. Before the artists of the High Renaissance, no one ever dared to be such a deep philosopher as to see through the depths of the subtlest creativity of man, nature and society. However, even the biggest, greatest figures of the Renaissance always felt some kind of limitation of the human being, some kind of his, and moreover, very frequent, helplessness in the transformation of nature, in artistic creativity and in religious comprehension.

In the art of the Renaissance, not only secularization, secularization of art, but interpenetration, a mixture of folklore, secular and ecclesiastical takes place.

In the culture of the Renaissance, there is a change in values, one of the most important components of cultural consciousness. Among the most important changes: the admission of innovations and the limitation of the sphere of unshakable adherence to "authorities" in the field of religion, intellectual activity and art, overcoming the notion that the world has already entered the phase of its decline. Ontological characteristics of the world receive a new understanding: time and space. This is reflected in culture and art. Thus, the changes associated with the understanding of time are reflected in fiction, in particular in the courtly novel, where time forms the basis of a story that includes numerous episodes and unexpected plot twists. In the emergence of new value orientations and new practices, the progress of writing as a human intrusion into the world of the sacred is especially noticeable, the written text is desacralized. The letter takes on an ordinary character, becomes more and more fluent. “Letter is now created not in the name of God and Heaven, but for the sake of the earth.”

The history of human culture knows many ups, bright flourishes, artistically abundant, intellectually rich and fruitful eras. And yet, the European - primarily Italian - Renaissance of the XIV-XVI centuries. became the basis for the emergence of a new form of cultural consciousness. The very term "Renaissance" arose precisely at that time, among Florentine poets, artists and connoisseurs of antiquity, when significant changes began to occur in Europe, in its cultural and social life. Therefore, the cultural upheaval accomplished by the Renaissance is especially significant, of course, for the spiritual life of Europe. But directly or indirectly, immediately or after several centuries, it affected the culture and way of life of all the peoples of the world, because it was the Renaissance spirit - individual freedom, bold knowledge, admiration for the ancient, primarily Hellenistic-Roman universality, intellectual insatiability - that allowed Europeans to take political, cultural and economic hegemony throughout the world.

So, in the Renaissance, the cult of the divine man is established. The human body is enlightened and transformed in a way that was impossible outside of faith in the resurrection of the flesh. The perfection of the body is taken as an image of spiritual perfection, nakedness - as an image of purity and truthfulness. In its turn to antiquity, humanism found inspiration for man's personal search for truth and goodness. Humanists of different eras, as a rule, saw their task in glorifying man. The crisis of humanism naturally leads to the idea of ​​a superman, which we find in the philosophy of F. Nietzsche. revival middle ages renaissance

In the horizons of the generations that followed the Renaissance, right up to the 20th century. there was no place not only for non-European art, but also for artistic phenomena that were formed on the cultural soil of Europe itself and departed from the canons of the Renaissance. All meaningful history, ancient and new, with people, culture, transient realities, joined a separate, mortal person - such was the Renaissance and thus forever remained in the memory of Europe. He gave her a model of how a great joint human creation can create completely different, original, but bright personalities. Antiquity was assimilated by the Renaissance as a pra-culture, and he himself became a pra-culture for the new Europe.

His home was Italy, which at the end of the Middle Ages gave rise to the most developed culture in Europe.

In its location, Italy was the direct heir to the ancient Roman culture, the impact of which was felt throughout its history. Since Antiquity, Greek culture has also influenced its spiritual life, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when a large number of Byzantine scientists moved to Italy.

However, the Renaissance did not come down to a simple copying of ancient traditions; it was a more complex and deeper phenomenon in world history, new in its scope and outlook. The refined and complex culture of the Middle Ages played no less a role in its origin than the culture of the ancient era, so in many respects the Renaissance was a direct continuation of the Middle Ages.

Italy remained politically fragmented into several competing states, but economically, many of them were the most developed countries in Europe. For a long time, the Italian states have occupied leading positions in trade between East and West. It was in the cities of Northern Italy that new forms of industrial production and banking, political activity and diplomatic art were born. The high level of economic development, on the one hand, and the rich intellectual life, on the other, turned these cities into centers for the formation of a new European culture. Italian urban culture has become the breeding ground in which the prerequisites of the Renaissance could come true.

The first capital of the Italian Renaissance was the main city of Tuscany Florence, where there was a unique combination of circumstances that contributed to the rapid rise of culture. At the time of the Renaissance, the center of Renaissance art moved to Rome. Popes Julius II and Leo X then made great efforts to revive the former glory of the Eternal City, thanks to which it really turned into a center of world art. The third largest center of the Italian Renaissance was Venice, where Renaissance art acquired a peculiar coloration, due to local characteristics.

art

One of the most prominent figures of the Italian Renaissance was Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519). He combined many talents in himself - a painter, a sculptor, an architect, an engineer, an original thinker. His painting is one of the pinnacles in the development of world art. With his experimental observations, the great Leonardo enriched almost all areas of science of his time.

No less great artist competed with the genius of Leonardo da Vinci Michelangelo(1475-1564), who was also distinguished by a variety of talents. Michelangelo became famous as a sculptor and architect, painter and poet. Eternal glory was brought to him by the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, where Michelangelo painted 600 square meters. m scenes from the Old Testament. According to his project, the grandiose dome of St. Peter's Cathedral was built, which to this day has not been surpassed either in size or in grandeur. The architectural appearance of the entire historical center of Rome is still inextricably linked with the name of Michelangelo.

A special role in the development of Renaissance painting belonged to Sandro Botticelli(1445-1510). He entered the history of world culture as the creator of subtle, spiritualized images, combining the sublimity of late medieval painting with close attention to the human personality, which characterized the new times.

The pinnacle of Italian art of that era is creativity Raphael(1483-1520). In his works, the picturesque canons of the High Renaissance reached their apogee.

An honorable place in the history of Renaissance art is also occupied by the Venetian school of painting, the most prominent representative of which is Titian(1470/80s - 1576). Everything that he learned from his predecessors, Titian brought to perfection, and the free manner of writing he created had a great influence on the subsequent development of world painting. material from the site

Architecture

Architecture also experienced a real revolution in the Renaissance. The improvement of building technology allowed the masters of the Renaissance to solve architectural problems that were inaccessible to architects of the previous time. The founders of the new architectural style were the outstanding masters of Florence, primarily F. Brunelleschi who created the monumental dome of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. But the main type of architectural structure in this period is no longer a church, but a secular building - palazzo(castle). The Renaissance style in architecture is characterized by monumentality and emphasized simplicity of facades, the convenience of spacious interiors.

Introduction

The Renaissance is a revolution, first of all, in the system of values, in the assessment of everything that exists and in relation to it. There is a conviction that a person is the highest value. Such a view of a person determined the most important feature of the culture of the Renaissance - the development of individualism in the sphere of worldview, a comprehensive manifestation of individuality in public life. The ancient cultural heritage played a huge role in the formation of Renaissance thinking. The consequence of the increased interest in classical culture was the study of ancient texts and the use of pagan prototypes to embody Christian images. The revival of antiquity, in fact, gave the name to the whole era (after all, the Renaissance is translated as rebirth).

During the Renaissance in European states, during the formation of bourgeois nations, national languages ​​and cultures, there are noticeable changes in the activities of libraries. New university and public libraries are opening. Many monastic libraries are transferred to the ownership of cities. In library collections, books in national languages ​​are becoming predominant, new rules are being formed for compiling catalogs, arranging collections, and servicing readers.

Cities, creating libraries, open them not only for bishops, monks, scientists, students, but also for lawyers, merchants, sailors, craftsmen. During this period, the activities of many talented scientists were associated with library practice.

The works of B.F. Volodina, L.I. Vladimirov, O.I. Talalakina. Their monographs tell about the libraries of the Renaissance, their formation, as well as the construction and description of the interior. The works of E. Gombrich and E. Chamberlain describe the Renaissance itself, the culture of Italy. I would also like to note the works of N.V. Revunenkova, V.G. Kuznetsova and N.V. Revyakina, which tells about the emergence of humanism and its role in the formation and development of the Renaissance.

The purpose of this work is to review and study the Italian libraries of the Renaissance.

In the course of the study, the following tasks are solved: identifying the main features of the culture of Italy in the Renaissance, the development of literature, the emergence of humanistic thought, the study of private and public libraries, as well as their construction and description of the interior.

The work consists of an introduction; two chapters: Renaissance as a cultural flowering of Italy in the XIV-XVI centuries, types and purpose of Italian libraries; conclusion and list of references used in this course.

Renaissance as a cultural flourishing of Italy in the 14th-16th centuries.

Italian culture during the Renaissance

The era of the Renaissance or the European Renaissance is a process of parting with the feudal past and a time of active dialogue with ancient predecessors. The birthplace of the Renaissance is Italy, where humanistic tendencies in urban life began to manifest themselves clearly in the second half of the 13th century.

The culture of the Renaissance is usually divided into two periods:

The period of the so-called "Early Renaissance" in Italy covers the time from 1420 to 1500. During these eighty years, art has not yet completely renounced the traditions of the recent past, but is trying to mix into them elements borrowed from classical antiquity. Only later, and only little by little, under the influence of more and more changing conditions of life and culture, do artists completely abandon medieval foundations and boldly use examples of ancient art, both in the general concept of their works and in their details.

The second period of the Renaissance - the time of the most magnificent development of his style - is usually called the "High Renaissance". It extends in Italy from about 1500 to 1580. At this time, the center of gravity of Italian art moved from Florence to Rome, thanks to the accession to the papal throne of Julius II. Under him, Rome becomes, as it were, the new Athens of the time of Pericles: many monumental buildings are created in it, magnificent sculptural works are performed, frescoes and paintings are painted, which are still considered the pearls of painting.

The main thing that characterizes this era is the return in architecture to the principles and forms of ancient, mainly Roman art. Of particular importance in this direction is given to symmetry, proportion, geometry and the order of the components, as clearly evidenced by the surviving examples of Roman architecture. The complex proportion of medieval buildings is replaced by an orderly arrangement of columns, pilasters and lintels, asymmetrical outlines are replaced by a semicircle of an arch, a hemisphere of a dome, niches, and aedicules.

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

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

In the Renaissance, professional music loses the character of a purely church art and is influenced by folk music, imbued with a new humanistic worldview. The art of vocal and vocal-instrumental polyphony reaches a high level in the work of representatives of the "New Art" in Italy.

Various genres of secular musical art appear. New genres of instrumental music are taking shape, and national schools of performance on the lute, organ, and virginal are emerging. In Italy, the art of making bowed instruments with rich expressive possibilities is flourishing. The Renaissance ends with the emergence of new musical genres - solo song, cantata, oratorio and opera, which contributed to the gradual establishment of the homophonic style.

The development of knowledge in the XIV-XVI centuries. significantly influenced people's ideas about the world and man's place in it. The great geographical discoveries, the heliocentric system of the world of Nicolaus Copernicus changed ideas about the size of the Earth and its place in the Universe, and the works of Paracelsus and Vesalius, in which for the first time after antiquity attempts were made to study the structure of man and the processes occurring in him, marked the beginning of scientific medicine and anatomy .

Major changes have also taken place in the social sciences. In the works of Jean Bodin and Niccolo Machiavelli, historical and political processes were first considered as the result of the interaction of various groups of people and their interests. At the same time, attempts were made to develop an "ideal" social structure: "Utopia" by Thomas More, "City of the Sun" by Tommaso Campanella. Thanks to the interest in antiquity, many ancient texts were restored, many humanists studied classical Latin and ancient Greek.

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

Renaissance (Renaissance). Italy. XV-XVI centuries. early capitalism. The country is ruled by wealthy bankers. They are interested in art and science.

The rich and powerful gather the talented and wise around them. Poets, philosophers, painters and sculptors have daily conversations with their patrons. At some point, it seemed that the people were ruled by sages, as Plato wanted.

Remember the ancient Romans and Greeks. They also built a society of free citizens, where the main value is a person (not counting slaves, of course).

The Renaissance is not just copying the art of ancient civilizations. This is a mixture. Mythology and Christianity. Realism of nature and sincerity of images. Beauty physical and spiritual.

It was just a flash. The period of the High Renaissance is about 30 years! From the 1490s to 1527 From the beginning of the flowering of Leonardo's creativity. Before the sack of Rome.

The mirage of an ideal world quickly faded. Italy was too fragile. She was soon enslaved by another dictator.

However, these 30 years determined the main features of European painting for 500 years ahead! Up to .

Image realism. Anthropocentrism (when the center of the world is Man). Linear perspective. Oil paints. Portrait. Scenery…

Incredibly, in these 30 years, several brilliant masters worked at once. At other times they are born one in 1000 years.

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian are the titans of the Renaissance. But it is impossible not to mention their two predecessors: Giotto and Masaccio. Without which there would be no Renaissance.

1. Giotto (1267-1337)

Paolo Uccello. Giotto da Bondogni. Fragment of the painting “Five Masters of the Florentine Renaissance”. Beginning of the 16th century. .

XIV century. Proto-Renaissance. Its main character is Giotto. This is a master who single-handedly revolutionized art. 200 years before the High Renaissance. If not for him, the era that humanity is so proud of would hardly have come.

Before Giotto there were icons and frescoes. They were created according to the Byzantine canons. Faces instead of faces. flat figures. Proportional mismatch. Instead of a landscape - a golden background. As, for example, on this icon.

Guido da Siena. Adoration of the Magi. 1275-1280 Altenburg, Lindenau Museum, Germany.

And suddenly Giotto's frescoes appear. They have big figures. Faces of noble people. Old and young. Sad. Mournful. Surprised. Different.

Frescoes by Giotto in the Scrovegni Church in Padua (1302-1305). Left: Lamentation of Christ. Middle: Kiss of Judas (detail). Right: Annunciation of St. Anne (Mary's mother), fragment.

The main creation of Giotto is a cycle of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. When this church opened to parishioners, crowds of people poured into it. They have never seen this.

After all, Giotto did something unprecedented. He translated the biblical stories into a simple, understandable language. And they have become much more accessible to ordinary people.

Giotto. Adoration of the Magi. 1303-1305 Fresco in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, Italy.

This is what will be characteristic of many masters of the Renaissance. Laconism of images. Live emotions of the characters. Realism.

Read more about the frescoes of the master in the article.

Giotto was admired. But his innovation was not further developed. The fashion for international gothic came to Italy.

Only after 100 years will a worthy successor to Giotto appear.

2. Masaccio (1401-1428)

Masaccio. Self-portrait (fragment of the fresco “Saint Peter in the pulpit”). 1425-1427 The Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

Beginning of the 15th century. The so-called Early Renaissance. Another innovator enters the scene.

Masaccio was the first artist to use linear perspective. It was designed by his friend, the architect Brunelleschi. Now the depicted world has become similar to the real one. Toy architecture is a thing of the past.

Masaccio. Saint Peter heals with his shadow. 1425-1427 The Brancacci Chapel in Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

He adopted the realism of Giotto. However, unlike his predecessor, he already knew anatomy well.

Instead of blocky characters, Giotto is beautifully built people. Just like the ancient Greeks.

Masaccio. Baptism of neophytes. 1426-1427 Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence, Italy.

Masaccio. Exile from Paradise. 1426-1427 Fresco in the Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence, Italy.

Masaccio lived a short life. He died, like his father, unexpectedly. At 27 years old.

However, he had many followers. Masters of the following generations went to the Brancacci Chapel to learn from his frescoes.

So the innovation of Masaccio was picked up by all the great artists of the High Renaissance.

3. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. 1512 Royal Library in Turin, Italy.

Leonardo da Vinci is one of the titans of the Renaissance. He greatly influenced the development of painting.

It was da Vinci who raised the status of the artist himself. Thanks to him, representatives of this profession are no longer just artisans. These are the creators and aristocrats of the spirit.

Leonardo made a breakthrough primarily in portraiture.

He believed that nothing should distract from the main image. The eye should not wander from one detail to another. This is how his famous portraits appeared. Concise. Harmonious.

Leonardo da Vinci. Lady with an ermine. 1489-1490 Chertoryski Museum, Krakow.

The main innovation of Leonardo is that he found a way to make images ... alive.

Before him, the characters in the portraits looked like mannequins. The lines were clear. All details are carefully drawn. A painted drawing could not possibly be alive.

Leonardo invented the sfumato method. He blurred the lines. Made the transition from light to shadow very soft. His characters seem to be covered in a barely perceptible haze. The characters came to life.

4. Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Daniele da Volterra. Michelangelo (detail). 1544 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor. But he was a universal master. Like his other Renaissance colleagues. Therefore, his pictorial heritage is no less grandiose.

He is recognizable primarily by physically developed characters. He depicted a perfect man in whom physical beauty means spiritual beauty.

Therefore, all his characters are so muscular, hardy. Even women and old people.

Michelangelo. Fragments of the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

Often Michelangelo painted the character naked. And then I added clothes on top. To make the body as embossed as possible.

He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel alone. Although this is a few hundred figures! He didn't even let anyone rub the paint. Yes, he was unsociable. He had a tough and quarrelsome personality. But most of all, he was dissatisfied with ... himself.

Michelangelo. Fragment of the fresco "Creation of Adam". 1511 Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

Michelangelo lived a long life. Survived the decline of the Renaissance. For him it was a personal tragedy. His later works are full of sadness and sorrow.

In general, the creative path of Michelangelo is unique. His early works are the praise of the human hero. Free and courageous. In the best traditions of Ancient Greece. Like his David.

In the last years of life - these are tragic images. A deliberately rough-hewn stone. As if before us are monuments to the victims of fascism of the 20th century. Look at his "Pieta".

Sculptures by Michelangelo at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Left: David. 1504 Right: Pieta of Palestrina. 1555

How is this possible? One artist went through all the stages of art from the Renaissance to the 20th century in one lifetime. What will the next generations do? Go your own way. Knowing that the bar has been set very high.

5. Raphael (1483-1520)

6. Titian (1488-1576).

Titian. Self-portrait (detail). 1562.

Titian was an unsurpassed colorist. He also experimented a lot with composition. In general, he was a daring innovator.

For such a brilliance of talent, everyone loved him. Called "the king of painters and the painter of kings."

Speaking of Titian, I want to put an exclamation point after each sentence. After all, it was he who brought dynamics to painting. Pathos. Enthusiasm. Bright color. Shine of colors.

Titian. Ascension of Mary. 1515-1518 Church of Santa Maria Gloriosi dei Frari, Venice.

Towards the end of his life, he developed an unusual writing technique. The strokes are fast and thick. The paint was applied either with a brush or with fingers. From this - the images are even more alive, breathing. And the plots are even more dynamic and dramatic.

Titian. Tarquinius and Lucretia. 1571 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, England.

Doesn't this remind you of anything? Of course, it's a technique. And the technique of artists of the XIX century: Barbizon and. Titian, like Michelangelo, will go through 500 years of painting in one lifetime. That's why he's a genius.

Read about the famous masterpiece of the master in the article.

Renaissance artists are the owners of great knowledge. To leave such a legacy, it was necessary to study a lot. In the field of history, astrology, physics and so on.

Therefore, each of their images makes us think. Why is it shown? What is the encrypted message here?

They are almost never wrong. Because they thoroughly thought out their future work. They used all the baggage of their knowledge.

They were more than artists. They were philosophers. They explained the world to us through painting.

That is why they will always be deeply interesting to us.

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