What are the main ideas of the philosophy of the era, you will learn by reading this article.
Basic ideas of the Renaissance
The Renaissance covers the 15th-16th centuries and represents a transition period from the Middle Ages to the New Age. It began in Italy with the search for new guidelines in life that would correspond to new social conditions. Later the Renaissance spread to France, Germany and the countries of northern Europe. It implied the destruction of feudal orders, the formation of national states and church reforms. In the new era, social and political concepts, socialist utopias appeared, and new art and natural science developed. And although the Renaissance did not leave behind clear philosophical systems, it laid the foundation for ideas and views free from religion.
Renaissance philosophy basic ideas
- Philosophy tried to understand its reality, going into the structure of world knowledge and explaining the foundations of the universe.
- The dignity of man was affirmed: his beauty, the capabilities of the mind, creativity, and will were glorified.
- Humanism as the basis of the Renaissance, in the center of which is man.
- The position and opportunities of an individual in society depend on his own talent and intelligence, and not on his origin, as was previously thought. Social origin did not determine the entire future life of a person, the rules of behavior, what was permitted and what was not permitted, and what he had the right to achieve in life.
- Art and culture have emerged from the control of the church, but retain faith in God. Therefore, they are already secular in nature.
- Interest in understanding the earthly and real world has increased.
- Nature is considered a world of divine grace.
- The idea of human sinfulness is rejected.
- Belief in the limitless possibilities of man to change the world for the better develops.
- Ideas arise about utopia - an ideal place that does not exist.
- Aesthetic understanding of reality.
- Geometric-structural understanding of the world.
- A philosophy of moderate utilitarianism is emerging, the goal of which is to identify life and virtue with benefit.
- Pantheism: God lost his extra-natural character and merged with nature.
- Approval of the heliocentrism system. All planets revolve around the Sun.
Representatives of the Renaissance: Santi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Francesco Petrarca, Lope de Vega, Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante Alighieri, Nicholas of Cusa, Galileo Galilei, Thomas More, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Nicolaus Copernicus.
Renaissance, or Renaissance (from the French renaître - to be reborn), is one of the most striking eras in the development of European culture, spanning almost three centuries: from the middle of the 14th century. until the first decades of the 17th century. This was an era of major changes in the history of the peoples of Europe. In conditions of a high level of urban civilization, the process of the emergence of capitalist relations and the crisis of feudalism began, the formation of nations and the creation of large national states took place, a new form of political system appeared - an absolute monarchy (see State), new social groups were formed - the bourgeoisie and hired workers. The spiritual world of man also changed. Great geographical discoveries expanded the horizons of contemporaries. This was facilitated by the great invention of Johannes Gutenberg - printing. In this complex, transitional era, a new type of culture emerged that placed man and the surrounding world at the center of its interests. The new, Renaissance culture was widely based on the heritage of antiquity, interpreted differently than in the Middle Ages, and in many ways rediscovered (hence the concept of “Renaissance”), but it also drew from the best achievements of medieval culture, especially secular - knightly, urban , folk The Renaissance man was gripped by a thirst for self-affirmation and great achievements, actively involved in public life, rediscovered the natural world, strived for a deep understanding of it, and admired its beauty. The culture of the Renaissance is characterized by a secular perception and understanding of the world, an affirmation of the value of earthly existence, the greatness of the mind and creative abilities of man, and the dignity of the individual. Humanism (from the Latin humanus - human) became the ideological basis of the culture of the Renaissance.
Giovanni Boccaccio is one of the first representatives of humanistic literature of the Renaissance.
Palazzo Pitti. Florence. 1440-1570
Masaccio. Tax collection. Scene from the life of St. Petra Fresco of the Brancacci Chapel. Florence. 1426-1427
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Moses. 1513-1516
Rafael Santi. Sistine Madonna. 1515-1519 Canvas, oil. Art Gallery. Dresden.
Leonardo da Vinci. Madonna Litta. Late 1470s - early 1490s Wood, oil. State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg.
Leonardo da Vinci. Self-portrait. OK. 1510-1513
Albrecht Durer. Self-portrait. 1498
Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Hunters in the snow. 1565 Wood, oil. Museum of Art History. Vein.
Humanists opposed the dictatorship of the Catholic Church in the spiritual life of society. They criticized the method of scholastic science, based on formal logic (dialectics), rejected its dogmatism and faith in authorities, thereby clearing the way for the free development of scientific thought. Humanists called for the study of ancient culture, which the church rejected as pagan, accepting from it only that which did not contradict Christian doctrine. However, the restoration of the ancient heritage (humanists searched for manuscripts of ancient authors, cleared texts of later layers and copyist errors) was not an end in itself for them, but served as the basis for solving pressing problems of our time, for building a new culture. The range of humanitarian knowledge within which the humanistic worldview was formed included ethics, history, pedagogy, poetics, and rhetoric. Humanists made valuable contributions to the development of all these sciences. Their search for a new scientific method, criticism of scholasticism, and translations of scientific works of ancient authors contributed to the rise of natural philosophy and natural science in the 16th - early 17th centuries.
The formation of Renaissance culture in different countries was not simultaneous and proceeded at different rates in different areas of culture itself. It developed first of all in Italy with its numerous cities that had reached a high level of civilization and political independence, with ancient traditions that were stronger than in other European countries. Already in the 2nd half of the 14th century. In Italy, significant changes took place in literature and humanities - philology, ethics, rhetoric, historiography, pedagogy. Then fine arts and architecture became the arena for the rapid development of the Renaissance; later the new culture embraced the sphere of philosophy, natural science, music, and theater. For more than a century, Italy remained the only country of Renaissance culture; by the end of the 15th century. The revival began to gain strength relatively quickly in Germany, the Netherlands, and France in the 16th century. - in England, Spain, Central European countries. Second half of the 16th century. became a time not only of high achievements of the European Renaissance, but also of manifestations of the crisis of a new culture caused by the counter-offensive of reactionary forces and the internal contradictions of the development of the Renaissance itself.
The origin of Renaissance literature in the 2nd half of the 14th century. associated with the names of Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Boccaccio. They affirmed humanistic ideas of personal dignity, linking it not with birth, but with the valiant deeds of a person, his freedom and the right to enjoy the joys of earthly life. Petrarch’s “Book of Songs” reflected the subtlest shades of his love for Laura. In the dialogue “My Secret” and a number of treatises, he developed ideas about the need to change the structure of knowledge - to put human problems at the center, criticized the scholastics for their formal-logical method of knowledge, called for the study of ancient authors (Petrarch especially appreciated Cicero, Virgil, Seneca), highly raised the importance of poetry in man’s knowledge of the meaning of his earthly existence. These thoughts were shared by his friend Boccaccio, the author of the book of short stories “The Decameron” and a number of poetic and scientific works. The Decameron traces the influence of folk-urban literature of the Middle Ages. Here, humanistic ideas found expression in artistic form - the denial of ascetic morality, the justification of a person’s right to the full expression of his feelings, all natural needs, the idea of nobility as the product of valiant deeds and high morality, and not the nobility of the family. The theme of nobility, the solution of which reflected the anti-class ideas of the advanced part of the burghers and people, will become characteristic of many humanists. The humanists of the 15th century made a great contribution to the further development of literature in Italian and Latin. - writers and philologists, historians, philosophers, poets, statesmen and speakers.
In Italian humanism there were directions that had different approaches to solving ethical problems, and above all to the question of man’s path to happiness. Thus, in civil humanism - the direction that developed in Florence in the first half of the 15th century. (its most prominent representatives are Leonardo Bruni and Matteo Palmieri) - ethics was based on the principle of serving the common good. Humanists asserted the need to educate a citizen, a patriot who puts the interests of society and the state above personal ones. They affirmed the moral ideal of active civil life as opposed to the church ideal of monastic hermitage. They attached particular value to such virtues as justice, generosity, prudence, courage, politeness, and modesty. A person can discover and develop these virtues only in active social interaction, and not in flight from worldly life. Humanists of this school of thought considered the best form of government to be a republic, where, in conditions of freedom, all human abilities can be most fully demonstrated.
Another direction in humanism of the 15th century. represented the work of the writer, architect, and art theorist Leon Battista Alberti. Alberti believed that the law of harmony reigns in the world, and man is subject to it. He must strive for knowledge, to comprehend the world around him and himself. People must build earthly life on reasonable grounds, on the basis of acquired knowledge, turning it to their own benefit, striving for harmony of feelings and reason, the individual and society, man and nature. Knowledge and work obligatory for all members of society - this, according to Alberti, is the path to a happy life.
Lorenzo Valla put forward a different ethical theory. He identified happiness with pleasure: a person should receive pleasure from all the joys of earthly existence. Asceticism is contrary to human nature itself; feelings and reason are equal in rights; their harmony should be achieved. From these positions, Valla made a decisive criticism of monasticism in the dialogue “On the Monastic Vow.”
At the end of the 15th - end of the 16th century. The direction associated with the activities of the Platonic Academy in Florence became widespread. The leading humanist philosophers of this movement, Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, exalted the human mind in their works based on the philosophy of Plato and the Neoplatonists. The glorification of personality became characteristic of them. Ficino considered man the center of the world, the connecting link (this connection is realized in knowledge) of a beautifully organized cosmos. Pico saw in man the only creature in the world endowed with the ability to shape himself, relying on knowledge - on ethics and the sciences of nature. In his “Speech on the Dignity of Man,” Pico defended the right to free thought and believed that philosophy, devoid of any dogmatism, should become the lot of everyone, and not a select few. Italian Neoplatonists approached the solution of a number of theological problems from new, humanistic positions. The invasion of humanism into the sphere of theology is one of the important features of the European Renaissance of the 16th century.
The 16th century marked a new rise in Renaissance literature in Italy: Ludovico Ariosto became famous for his poem “The Furious Roland,” where reality and fantasy are intertwined, glorification of earthly joys and sometimes sad and sometimes ironic understanding of Italian life; Baldassare Castiglione created a book about the ideal man of his era (“The Courtier”). This is the time of creativity of the outstanding poet Pietro Bembo and the author of satirical pamphlets Pietro Aretino; at the end of the 16th century Torquato Tasso’s grandiose heroic poem “Jerusalem Liberated” was written, which reflected not only the gains of secular Renaissance culture, but also the emerging crisis of the humanistic worldview, associated with the strengthening of religiosity in the conditions of the Counter-Reformation, with the loss of faith in the omnipotence of the individual.
The art of the Italian Renaissance achieved brilliant successes, which began with Masaccio in painting, Donatello in sculpture, Brunelleschi in architecture, who worked in Florence in the 1st half of the 15th century. Their work is marked by brilliant talent, a new understanding of man, his place in nature and society. In the 2nd half of the 15th century. in Italian painting, along with the Florentine school, a number of others emerged - Umbrian, Northern Italian, Venetian. Each of them had its own characteristics; they were also characteristic of the work of the greatest masters - Piero della Francesca, Adrea Mantegna, Sandro Botticelli and others. All of them in different ways revealed the specifics of Renaissance art: the desire for life-like images based on the principle of “imitation of nature”, a wide appeal to the motifs of ancient mythology and secular interpretation of traditional religious subjects, interest in linear and aerial perspective, in the plastic expressiveness of images, harmonious proportions etc. Portrait became a common genre of painting, graphics, medal art, and sculpture, which was directly related to the affirmation of the humanistic ideal of man. The heroic ideal of the perfect person was embodied with particular completeness in the Italian art of the High Renaissance in the first decades of the 16th century. This era brought forward the brightest, multifaceted talents - Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo (see Art). A type of universal artist emerged, combining in his work a painter, sculptor, architect, poet and scientist. Artists of this era worked closely with humanists and showed great interest in the natural sciences, especially anatomy, optics, and mathematics, trying to use their achievements in their work. In the 16th century Venetian art experienced a special boom. Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto created beautiful canvases, notable for their coloristic richness and realism of images of man and the world around him. The 16th century was a time of active establishment of the Renaissance style in architecture, especially for secular purposes, which was characterized by a close connection with the traditions of ancient architecture (order architecture). A new type of building was formed - a city palace (palazzo) and a country residence (villa) - majestic, but also commensurate with the person, where the solemn simplicity of the facade is combined with spacious, richly decorated interiors. A huge contribution to Renaissance architecture was made by Leon Battista Alberti, Giuliano da Sangallo, Bramante, and Palladio. Many architects created projects for an ideal city, based on new principles of urban planning and architecture that met human needs for a healthy, well-equipped and beautiful living space. Not only individual buildings were rebuilt, but also entire old medieval cities: Rome, Florence, Ferrara, Venice, Mantua, Rimini.
Lucas Cranach the Elder. Female portrait.
Hans Holbein the Younger. Portrait of the Dutch humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam. 1523
Titian Vecellio. Saint Sebastian. 1570 Oil on canvas. State Hermitage Museum. Saint Petersburg.
Illustration by Mr. Doré for the novel by F. Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel”.
Michel Montaigne is a French philosopher and writer.
In the political and historical thought of the Italian Renaissance, the problem of a perfect society and state became one of the central ones. The works of Bruni and especially Machiavelli on the history of Florence, based on the study of documentary material, and the works of Sabellico and Contarini on the history of Venice revealed the merits of the republican structure of these city-states, while historians of Milan and Naples, on the contrary, emphasized the positive centralizing role of the monarchy. Machiavelli and Guicciardini explained all the troubles of Italy, which became in the first decades of the 16th century. arena of foreign invasions, its political decentralization and called on the Italians for national consolidation. A common feature of Renaissance historiography was the desire to see in people themselves the creators of their history, to deeply analyze the experience of the past and use it in political practice. Widespread in the 16th - early 17th centuries. received a social utopia. In the teachings of the utopians Doni, Albergati, Zuccolo, an ideal society was associated with the partial elimination of private property, equality of citizens (but not all people), universal compulsory labor, and the harmonious development of the individual. The most consistent expression of the idea of socialization of property and equalization was found in Campanella’s “City of the Sun.”
New approaches to solving the traditional problem of the relationship between nature and God were put forward by natural philosophers Bernardino Telesio, Francesco Patrizi, and Giordano Bruno. In their works, the dogma of a creator God directing the development of the universe gave way to pantheism: God is not opposed to nature, but, as it were, merges with it; nature is seen as existing forever and developing according to its own laws. The ideas of the Renaissance natural philosophers met with sharp resistance from the Catholic Church. For his ideas about the eternity and infinity of the Universe, consisting of a huge number of worlds, for his sharp criticism of the church, which condones ignorance and obscurantism, Bruno was condemned as a heretic and committed to fire in 1600.
The Italian Renaissance had a huge impact on the development of Renaissance culture in other European countries. This was facilitated to a large extent by printing. The major centers of publishing were in the 16th century. Venice, where at the beginning of the century the printing house of Aldus Manutius became an important center of cultural life; Basel, where the publishing houses of Johann Froben and Johann Amerbach were equally significant; Lyon with its famous Etienne printing house, as well as Paris, Rome, Louvain, London, Seville. Printing became a powerful factor in the development of Renaissance culture in many European countries and opened the way to active interaction in the process of building a new culture of humanists, scientists, and artists.
The largest figure of the Northern Renaissance was Erasmus of Rotterdam, with whose name the movement of “Christian humanism” is associated. He had like-minded people and allies in many European countries (J. Colet and Thomas More in England, G. Budet and Lefebvre d'Etaples in France, I. Reuchlin in Germany). Erasmus broadly understood the tasks of the new culture. In his opinion, this was not only the resurrection of the ancient pagan heritage, but also the restoration of early Christian teachings, he did not see any fundamental differences between them from the point of view of the truth to which a person should strive, like the Italian humanists, he connected the improvement of man with education, creative activity, and the revelation of everything inherent in him. abilities. His humanistic pedagogy received artistic expression in “Easy Conversations,” and his sharply satirical work “Praise of Stupidity” was directed against ignorance, dogmatism, and feudal prejudices. Erasmus saw the path to the happiness of people in a peaceful life and the establishment of a humanistic culture based on all values. historical experience of mankind.
In Germany, Renaissance culture experienced a rapid rise at the end of the 15th century. - 1st third of the 16th century. One of its features was the flourishing of satirical literature, which began with Sebastian Brant’s essay “Ship of Fools,” in which the mores of the time were sharply criticized; the author led readers to the conclusion about the need for reforms in public life. The satirical line in German literature was continued by “Letters of Dark People” - an anonymously published collective work of humanists, chief among whom was Ulrich von Hutten - where church ministers were subjected to devastating criticism. Hutten was the author of many pamphlets, dialogues, letters directed against the papacy, the dominance of the church in Germany, and the fragmentation of the country; his work contributed to the awakening of the national consciousness of the German people.
The largest artists of the Renaissance in Germany were A. Dürer, an outstanding painter and unsurpassed master of engraving, M. Niethardt (Grunewald) with his deeply dramatic images, portrait painter Hans Holbein the Younger, as well as Lucas Cranach the Elder, who closely associated his art with the Reformation.
In France, the Renaissance culture took shape and flourished in the 16th century. This was facilitated, in particular, by the Italian wars of 1494-1559. (they were fought between the kings of France, Spain and the German emperor for the mastery of Italian territories), which revealed to the French the richness of the Renaissance culture of Italy. At the same time, a feature of the French Renaissance was an interest in the traditions of folk culture, creatively mastered by humanists along with the ancient heritage. The poetry of C. Marot, the works of humanist philologists E. Dolet and B. Deperrier, who were part of the circle of Margaret of Navarre (sister of King Francis I), are imbued with folk motifs and cheerful freethinking. These trends were very clearly manifested in the satirical novel of the outstanding Renaissance writer Francois Rabelais “Gargantua and Pantagruel”, where plots drawn from ancient folk tales about cheerful giants are combined with ridicule of the vices and ignorance of contemporaries, with the presentation of a humanistic program of upbringing and education in the spirit of the new culture. The rise of national French poetry is associated with the activities of the Pleiades - a circle of poets led by Ronsard and Du Bellay. During the period of civil (Huguenot) wars (see Religious Wars in France), journalism was widely developed, expressing differences in the political positions of the opposing forces of society. The largest political thinkers were F. Hautman and Duplessis Mornay, who opposed tyranny, and J. Bodin, who advocated the strengthening of a single national state headed by an absolute monarch. The ideas of humanism found deep understanding in Montaigne's Essays. Montaigne, Rabelais, Bonaventure Deperrier were prominent representatives of secular freethinking, which rejected the religious foundations of their worldview. They condemned scholasticism, the medieval system of upbringing and education, scholasticism, and religious fanaticism. The main principle of Montaigne's ethics is the free manifestation of human individuality, the liberation of the mind from subordination to faith, and the fullness of emotional life. He associated happiness with the realization of the individual’s internal capabilities, which should be served by secular upbringing and education based on free-thinking. In the art of the French Renaissance, the genre of portrait came to the fore, the outstanding masters of which were J. Fouquet, F. Clouet, P. and E. Dumoustier. J. Goujon became famous in sculpture.
In the culture of the Netherlands during the Renaissance, rhetorical societies were a distinctive phenomenon, uniting people from different strata, including artisans and peasants. At meetings of societies, debates were held on political and moral-religious topics, performances were staged in folk traditions, and refined work on the word was carried out; Humanists took an active part in the activities of societies. Folk features were also characteristic of Dutch art. The greatest painter Pieter Bruegel, nicknamed “The Peasant,” in his paintings of peasant life and landscapes expressed with particular completeness the feeling of the unity of nature and man.
). It reached a high level in the 16th century. the art of theater, democratic in its orientation. Household comedies, historical chronicles, and heroic dramas were staged in numerous public and private theaters. The plays of C. Marlowe, in which majestic heroes challenge medieval morality, and B. Johnson, in which a gallery of tragicomic characters appears, prepared the appearance of the greatest playwright of the Renaissance, William Shakespeare. A perfect master of various genres - comedies, tragedies, historical chronicles, Shakespeare created unique images of strong people, personalities who vividly embodied the traits of a Renaissance man, life-loving, passionate, endowed with intelligence and energy, but sometimes contradictory in his moral actions. Shakespeare's work exposed the deepening gap in the Late Renaissance between the humanistic idealization of man and the real world, filled with acute life conflicts. The English scientist Francis Bacon enriched Renaissance philosophy with new approaches to understanding the world. He opposed observation and experiment to the scholastic method as a reliable tool of scientific knowledge. Bacon saw the path to building a perfect society in the development of science, especially physics.
In Spain, Renaissance culture experienced a “golden age” in the 2nd half of the 16th century. - the first decades of the 17th century. Her highest achievements are associated with the creation of new Spanish literature and national folk theater, as well as with the work of the outstanding painter El Greco. The formation of new Spanish literature, which grew out of the traditions of knightly and picaresque novels, found a brilliant completion in the brilliant novel by Miguel de Cervantes “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha.” In the images of the knight Don Quixote and the peasant Sancho Panza, the main humanistic idea of the novel is revealed: the greatness of man in his courageous struggle against evil in the name of justice. Cervantes's novel is both a kind of parody of the chivalric romance that is fading into the past, and the broadest canvas of the folk life of Spain in the 16th century. Cervantes was the author of a number of plays that made a great contribution to the creation of the national theater. To an even greater extent, the rapid development of the Spanish Renaissance theater is associated with the work of the extremely prolific playwright and poet Lope de Vega, the author of lyrical-heroic comedies of cloak and sword, imbued with the folk spirit.
Andrey Rublev. Trinity. 1st quarter of the 15th century
At the end of the XV-XVI centuries. Renaissance culture spread in Hungary, where royal patronage played an important role in the flowering of humanism; in the Czech Republic, where new trends contributed to the formation of national consciousness; in Poland, which became one of the centers of humanistic freethinking. The influence of the Renaissance also affected the culture of the Dubrovnik Republic, Lithuania, and Belarus. Certain pre-Renaissance tendencies also appeared in Russian culture of the 15th century. They were associated with a growing interest in human personality and its psychology. In art, this is primarily the work of Andrei Rublev and artists of his circle, in literature - “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia of Murom,” which tells about the love of the Murom prince and the peasant girl Fevronia, and the works of Epiphanius the Wise with his masterful “weaving of words.” In the 16th century Renaissance elements appeared in Russian political journalism (Ivan Peresvetov and others).
In the 16th - first decades of the 17th century. significant changes have occurred in the development of science. The beginning of new astronomy was laid by the heliocentric theory of the Polish scientist N. Copernicus, which revolutionized ideas about the Universe. It received further substantiation in the works of the German astronomer I. Kepler, as well as the Italian scientist G. Galileo. The astronomer and physicist Galileo constructed a telescope, using it to discover the mountains on the Moon, the phases of Venus, the satellites of Jupiter, etc. Galileo’s discoveries, which confirmed the teaching of Copernicus about the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, gave impetus to the more rapid spread of the heliocentric theory, which the church recognized as heretical; she persecuted her supporters (for example, the fate of D. Bruno, who was burned at the stake) and banned the works of Galileo. A lot of new things have appeared in the field of physics, mechanics, and mathematics. Stephen formulated the theorems of hydrostatics; Tartaglia successfully studied the theory of ballistics; Cardano discovered the solution of algebraic equations of the third degree. G. Kremer (Mercator) created more advanced geographical maps. Oceanography emerged. In botany, E. Cord and L. Fuchs systematized a wide range of knowledge. K. Gesner enriched knowledge in the field of zoology with his “History of Animals”. Knowledge of anatomy was improved, which was facilitated by the work of Vesalius “On the structure of the human body.” M. Servet expressed the idea of the presence of a pulmonary circulation. The outstanding physician Paracelsus brought medicine and chemistry closer together and made important discoveries in pharmacology. Mr. Agricola systematized knowledge in the field of mining and metallurgy. Leonardo da Vinci put forward a number of engineering projects that were far ahead of contemporary technical thought and anticipated some later discoveries (for example, the flying machine).
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Ideological foundations of the Renaissance
1. Humanism
culture hedonism renaissance
The term “humanism” comes from the Latin “humanitas” (humanity), which was used back in the 1st century. BC. famous Roman orator Cicero (106-43 BC). For him, humanitas is the upbringing and education of a person, contributing to his elevation.
As a cultural movement, humanism arose in the 14th century in Italy and spread to Western Europe from the 15th century. The Renaissance, or Renaissance (from the French renaitre - to be reborn) became one of the most striking eras in the development of European culture, spanning almost three centuries from the middle of the 14th century. until the first decades of the 17th century. This was an era of major changes in the history of the peoples of Europe. In conditions of a high level of urban civilization, the process of the emergence of capitalist relations and the crisis of feudalism began, the formation of nations and the creation of large national states took place, a new form of political system appeared - the absolute monarchy, new social groups were formed - the bourgeoisie and hired workers. The spiritual world of man also changed. The Renaissance man was gripped by a thirst for self-affirmation and great achievements, actively involved in public life, rediscovered the natural world, strived for a deep understanding of it, and admired its beauty. The culture of the Renaissance is characterized by a secular perception and understanding of the world, an affirmation of the value of earthly existence, the greatness of the mind and creative abilities of man, and the dignity of the individual. Humanism became the ideological basis of Renaissance culture.
The poet and philosopher Francesca Petrarch (1304-1374) is unanimously considered the founder of humanism. Petrarch was the first great humanist, poet and citizen who was able to discern the integrity of the pre-Renaissance currents of thought and unite them in a poetic synthesis, which became the program of future European generations. With his creativity, he managed to instill in these future multi-tribal generations of Western and Eastern Europe a consciousness - albeit not always clear - of a certain spiritual and cultural unity, the beneficial effects of which are reflected in our modern age. The long-term love story of Petrarch for Laura, expressed by the poet in a wonderful cycle of canzones and sonnets, published under the title “Book of Songs,” has become world famous. This book, as well as other poetic works of Petrarch, made such a great impression on his contemporaries that during his lifetime he was recognized as one of the greatest poets and was crowned with a laurel wreath.
His work marks the beginning of many paths along which the development of Renaissance culture took place in Italy. In the treatise “On the Ignorance of His Own and Many Others,” he decisively rejects the scholastic scholarship inherent in the Middle Ages, in relation to which he demonstratively proclaims his supposed ignorance, because he considers such scholarship to be completely useless for the day of the man of his time. However, Petrarch is not only a poet, but also a unique and interesting thinker and philosopher. It was he who was the first in Europe to formulate the ideas of humanism and began to talk about the need to revive the ancient spirit and ideals of antiquity. It is not for nothing that already at the beginning of the 15th century. wrote: “Francesca Petrarch was the first on whom grace descended, he recognized and realized and brought to light the grace of the ancient style, lost and forgotten.” Humanism brought into ethical thought recognition of the very value of the human person and earthly life. From here the ideas of happiness, justice and equality of people gradually developed. Intentionally or unwittingly, the humanistic movement of the Renaissance contributed to the affirmation of individual rights and, in particular, the recognition of the right to a happy life. It should not be surprising that later humanism organically transformed into philanthropy, promoting gentleness in relationships, compassion, mercy, friendliness, and, over time, tolerance towards dissidents. Many philosophical movements have absorbed the features of humanism. Humanism as a phenomenon turned out to be a historically changing system of views. Originating in art, it opened the way to science, the scientific and technological revolution, and contributed to an economic boom, enlightenment, social transformations and revolutions.
2. Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism (Greek anthropos - man, and Lat. centrum - center) is the view that man is the center and highest goal of the universe. Anthropocentrism received its most complete development in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, influencing the cosmological, eschatological, social, ethical, legal and other concepts of these religions. For example, the theory of geocentrism, which has dominated the minds of believers for many centuries, is directly related to anthropocentrism. Under the influence of Christian doctrine, the anthropocentric view became widespread in medieval European philosophy. It was substantiated by the largest representatives of patristics and scholasticism. In the philosophy of the Renaissance and Modern times, the idea of anthropocentrism in its religious version ceased to be popular, which was due to the development of natural sciences and philosophy.
The emergence of new facts and theories has overcome traditional teleology and the thesis that man occupies a unique position in space. In philosophical and theological circles, the term anthropocentrism is beginning to be used in a different meaning. It is interpreted mainly as a way of solving ideological problems, when the researcher does not go from God and the world to man, but, on the contrary, from man to the world and God. This method of solving ideological problems was developed in detail in the philosophical systems of Rene Descartes and Immanuel Kant. In the 19th century, anthropocentrism was developed in the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (naturalistic anthropocentrism) and Søren Kierkegaard (irrationalistic anthropocentrism).
However, the most radical “turn to man” was carried out in the philosophical teachings of the 20th century. This can be clearly seen in the philosophy of life, phenomenology, philosophical anthropology, personalism, and existentialism. The “turn to man” also occurred in Christian theology of the 20th century. Many theologians believe that in our time we can say something meaningful about God and the world only by speaking at the same time about man. Moreover, they argue that one must first answer questions about the essence of man, the reasons and nature of his aspirations, his cognitive capabilities, etc., and then begin to construct traditional metaphysics, which includes the doctrine of God. Recognizing that anthropocentrism is an effective means of solving ideological problems, Christian theologians emphasize that it should be closely related to theocentrism. Otherwise, theology will be deprived of its religious dimension and its specificity among the disciplines that study man. The most important distinguishing feature of the Renaissance worldview is its orientation towards art: if the Middle Ages can be called a religious era, then the Renaissance can be called an artistic and aesthetic era par excellence. And if the focus of attention in antiquity was natural-cosmic life, in the Middle Ages - God and the associated idea of salvation, then in the Renaissance the focus is on man. Therefore, the philosophical thinking of this period can be characterized as anthropocentric.
Renaissance humanism and the problem of unique individuality. In medieval society, corporate and class ties between people were very strong, so even outstanding people acted, as a rule, as representatives of the corporation, the system that they headed, like the heads of the feudal state and the church. In the Renaissance, on the contrary, the individual acquires much greater independence; he increasingly represents not this or that union, but himself. From here a new self-awareness of a person grows and his new social position: pride and self-affirmation, awareness of one’s own strength and talent become the distinctive qualities of a person. In contrast to the consciousness of the medieval man, who considered himself entirely indebted to tradition - even when he, as an artist, scientist or philosopher, made a significant contribution to it - the individual of the Renaissance tends to attribute all his merits to himself.
3. Optimism
A wide range of creative impulses was opened during the period of the first heroic onslaught on the feudal world. People of this era have already abandoned the networks of the past, but have not yet found new ones. They believed that their possibilities were limitless. It was from this that the birth of optimism, which is so characteristic of the culture of the Renaissance, came about. A cheerful character and endless faith in life gave rise to a belief in the infinite possibilities for the mind and the possibility of personality development harmoniously and without barriers. The fine art of the Renaissance contrasts with the medieval in many respects. European artistic culture developed in the development of realism. This leaves an imprint both on the spread of images of a secular nature, the development of landscape and portraiture, close to the genre interpretation of sometimes religious subjects, and on the radical renewal of the entire artistic organization. Medieval art was based on the idea of the hierarchical structure of the universe, the culmination of which was outside the circle of earthly existence, which occupied one of the last places in this hierarchy. There was a devaluation of earthly real connections and phenomena in time with space, since the main task of art was to visually personify the scale of values created by theology.
Renaissance masters create images that embody a proud awareness of one’s own powers, the limitlessness of human possibilities in the field of creativity and true faith in the freedom of one’s will. Many works of Renaissance art are consonant with this expression of the famous Italian humanism Pico Della Mirandola: “Oh, the wondrous and sublime purpose of a person who is given the opportunity to achieve what he strives for and to be what he wants.”
If the character of fine art was largely determined by the desire to display reality truthfully, then an appeal to the classical tradition played an important role in the formation of new architectural forms. This consisted not only in the recreation of the ancient order system and in the renunciation of Gothic configurations, but also in classical proportionality, the anthropocentric nature of the new architecture and in the design of centric buildings in temple architecture, where the interior space was easily visible. In the field of civil architecture, many new creations were created. Thus, during the Renaissance, multi-story city public buildings: town halls, universities, houses of merchant guilds, educational institutions, warehouses, markets, warehouses received more elegant decoration. A type of city palace, or otherwise a palazzo, appears - the house of a wealthy burgher, as well as a type of country villa. New systems of facade decoration are being formed, a new structural system of a brick building is being developed (preserved in European construction until the 20th century), combining brick and wooden floors. City planning problems are being resolved in a new way, and city centers are being reconstructed.
The social status of the artist also changes. Despite the fact that artists are in search and enter the workshops, they often receive awards and high honors, take places in city councils and carry out diplomatic assignments. There is an evolution in man's attitude towards fine art. If earlier it was on the level of craft, now it is on a par with the sciences, and works of art for the first time begin to be considered as the result of spiritual creative activity.
The emergence of new techniques and art forms was provoked by expanding demand and an increase in the number of secular customers. Monumental forms are accompanied by easel forms: painting on canvas or wood, sculpture made of wood, majolica, bronze, terracotta. The ever-growing demand for works of art led to the emergence of wood and metal engravings - the most inexpensive and most popular form of art. This technique made it possible for the first time to reproduce images in large numbers.
4. Hedonism
Hedonism (Greek hedone - pleasure) is a type of ethical teachings and moral views in which all moral definitions are derived from pleasure and suffering. In a systematized form as a type of ethical teaching, hedonism was first developed in the teachings of the Greek Socratic philosopher Aristippus of Cyrene (435-355 BC), who taught that everything that gives pleasure is good. From the very beginning, hedonism emerges as a type of worldview that defends the priority of the individual’s needs over social institutions as conventions that limit his freedom and suppress his originality.
At the same time, hedonism could take extreme forms; Thus, already among the followers of Aristippus - the Cyrenaics - there were those who believed that any pleasure is justified, moreover, any actions and efforts are justified if they lead to pleasure. In this, the Cyrenaics differed from Socrates, who, while recognizing the importance of pleasure, interpreted it as the consciousness that something is being done well. In his polemics with the Sophists, Socrates insisted on distinguishing between pleasures - bad and good, as well as true and false.
Plato, in his mature works, hoped to show that although the good life is not good because it is full of pleasures, it is still possible to prove that the most pleasant life is also the best life. Aristotle believed that pleasure as such is not good and is not worthy of choice in itself. A moderate version of hedonism was proposed by the Greek philosopher Epicurus, who taught that only natural and necessary pleasures are worthy because they do not destroy the inner equanimity of the soul. The ethical teaching of Epicurus was called “eudaimonism” (from the Greek eudemonia - happiness). Epicurus considered the state of ataraxia to be the highest good, i.e. equanimity, “freedom from bodily suffering and mental anxieties.” However, the difference between hedonism and eudaimonism is insignificant: both teachings orient a person not towards good, but towards pleasure (personal happiness), and if towards good, then for the sake of pleasure (personal happiness). During the Renaissance, the ideas of hedonism, both extreme and moderate, received a new impetus, becoming an important theoretical means of humanistic affirmation of the value of man in all his life manifestations.
For the enlighteners (Gassendi, La Mettrie, Holbach), hedonism was a means of expressing spiritual opposition to the religious-dogmatic worldview. The most recent theoretical form of hedonism was the utilitarianism of J. Bentham and J.S. Mill (late 18th-19th centuries) Consistent criticism of utilitarianism by G. Sidgwick and J.E. Moore, along with the general development of human sciences, primarily psychology, revealed the limitations of the hedonistic description and justification of behavior in general and morality in particular.
5. Inconsistency
Renaissance culture, striving to resurrect antiquity and following its example in everything, was never able to achieve that clear and calm harmony that was characteristic of ancient culture and was fully revealed in classical Greece. The worldview of the person of the Renaissance, who went through the school of medieval Christianity, lost Characteristic of antiquity was a feeling of harmonious unity with the cosmos and nature. If ancient man nature acts as an object of contemplation - artistic and cognitive, then Renaissance man moves to an active position, acting as a conqueror and conqueror of nature. For a Renaissance man, the world very quickly loses its harmony. Anthropocentrism as a theoretical slogan of the Renaissance in the practical plane of social behavior often manifests itself as nothing, egocentrism and subjectivism are not limited. In place of traditional, conventional morality, which required each individual to unconditionally submit to custom and tradition, comes autonomous morality, which provides him with complete freedom in self-determination of his own actions. But the degree of autonomy to which the individual of the Renaissance strives is already beginning to contradict morality itself in any of its forms, threatening the destruction of society itself. The influence of humanists on their era found its very expression in the destruction of medieval ascetic morality.
But, as it turned out, the result of this was a general decline in morality. The downside of Renaissance titanism was the creative person’s absolutization of his exclusivity and individuality, which led to the humiliation of another individuality. In an attempt to assert itself, such competition often destroys the other’s surrounding world, denying his right to originality and independent existence. A war of all against all begins, in which there can no longer be winners. Even among the brilliant artists of the Renaissance there was a sharp struggle, competition led to open hostility between them.
6. Pantheism
The main philosophical system of the Renaissance is pantheism. Pantheism is a philosophical doctrine based on the identity of God and nature. (Literal translation: “pan” - everything, “theos” - god: “everything is God”). Pantheism thinks of God and nature as one. In pantheism, God is immanent to the world (located inside the world), and not transcendental (located outside the world), as in medieval philosophy. God is considered the energetic principle of the world, the world is alive, self-developing. Pantheism, to a certain extent, is similar to ancient hylozoism, but only on the basis of monotheism. At its core, pantheism is one of the Christian options for rethinking ancient Neoplatonism. The term “pantheist” was introduced by the English philosopher John Toland (1705). Scientists interpreted the new direction of philosophy in different ways. Thus, pantheism was called religious naturalism, and Schopenhauer believed that it was, first of all, one of the varieties of atheism. Despite the different interpretations of this concept, no disputes arose regarding the main idea of the teaching. She invariably remained the opinion that God is a kind of abstraction that surrounds us everywhere and does not have embodiment in a single person. In other words, pantheists denied the existence of a certain Creator God, God the Father, and the existence of his personal expression.
Forms of pantheism:
Physiomonic pantheism. Its adherents believe that God himself does not exist, he is embodied in nature, the surrounding world and the Universe. Among the scientists who worked in this direction are Haeckel, Ostwald and Taine.
Theomonistic pantheism. This direction was otherwise called acosmism. His main idea was that the world, in itself, is devoid of independent existence, only the divine principle exists.
Transcendent pantheism was also called mystical pantheism or panentheism. This teaching has its roots in medieval philosophy - echoing past scientific traditions, representatives of mystical pantheism believe that every person contains a so-called divine spark, through which each of us seems to merge with God. It follows from this that Catholicism is not the only possible form of communication in the man-God regime - for this position, panentheists were called oppositionists to the church.
Immanent-transcendent pantheism. The traditions of this direction were laid by the famous Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza. He believed that material reality was endowed with some kind of divine power, that it was a logical continuation of some transcendental world. God does not exist as an independent entity, but manifests himself in all the things around us. Representatives of this ideology were also Goethe, Eiken and Schleiermacher. The main idea of pantheism today is that man should not act as a conqueror of living nature and enslaver of the surrounding world. He must fit organically into the system of the universe, live and create in harmony and harmony with nature.
Return to the traditions of antiquity. The term Renaissance, which arose in the 16th century, meant the revival of classical ancient culture. The new era recognizes itself as a revival of ancient culture, an ancient way of life, a way of thinking and feeling, which is where the self-name “Renaissance” comes from, that is, “Rebirth”. In reality, however, the Renaissance man and the Renaissance culture and philosophy differ significantly from the ancient one. Although the Renaissance contrasts itself with medieval Christianity, it arose as a result of the development of medieval culture, and therefore bears features that were not characteristic of antiquity. The Middle Ages treated antiquity as an authority, the Renaissance - as an ideal. Authority is taken seriously and followed without distance; the ideal is admired, but admired aesthetically, with a constant sense of distance between it and reality. The main features of the Renaissance were: integrity and versatility in the understanding of man, life and culture.
Having revived ancient ideals, it at the same time reflected the Renaissance idea of the value of the individual and the beauty of the world around him. Renaissance humanism saw the value of a person in the unity of his moral and ethical dignity, in the nobility of the spirit and the beauty of the body.
7. Formation of bourgeois ideals
The Renaissance for the most advanced countries of Europe is the era of the emergence of capitalist relations, the formation of national states and absolute monarchies, the era of the rise of the bourgeoisie in the fight against feudal reaction, the era of deep social conflicts - the Peasant War in Germany, religious wars in France and the Dutch bourgeois revolution. The philosophical thought of the Renaissance arises in the struggle of Italian townspeople for the creation and strengthening of independent city-republics; it develops during the era of the rise of absolutism, the Reformation and Catholic reaction in Europe.
From the second half of the 19th century. The Renaissance began to be associated with the emergence of bourgeois relations and bourgeois culture. In the variety of facts of economic history, cultural life, scientific activity and artistic creativity, they began to highlight everything that could indicate the bourgeois roots of the Renaissance. Indeed, the Renaissance coincides with the beginning of capitalist production and exchange. The presence of capitalist elements in the economy of the Renaissance is undeniable, but they did not have a dominant position. Renaissance culture did not develop for the sake of the power of money. The political theory of the Renaissance thinkers was not the ideology of one of the classes. She strove to protect the interests of man in general. This ideal cannot be considered exclusively bourgeois.
Still, the church still played a huge role in the formation of Renaissance culture; especially in artistic creation, architecture and music. The church remained the largest customer and richest patron of the arts. Outstanding monuments of Renaissance architecture are Catholic churches (the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence by the architect Brunelleschi, St. Peter's Cathedral by the architect Bramante in Rome), paintings are altar compositions, icons, temple frescoes ("Sistine Madonna" by Raphael, "The Secret supper" by Leonardo), sculptures are statues for temples and tombs ("Saint George" by Donatello, "Pieta" by Michelangelo). The art of the Renaissance owes much to the papal throne. The head of the church patronized humanists - thinkers, poets, artists - and gave them honorary positions at the papal court. To be a citizen of a free city, to participate in its management and decoration corresponded to the ambition of a city dweller. This proud feeling of a citizen encouraged him to stand out among others with power and knowledge. Thus, many patrons of the arts appeared, gifted with the extraordinary taste of amateurs, and the great cultural life of the era awoke, full of movement. Never has ambition been such a universal driver for a politician, a commander, a scientist, an artist. And there has never been a time when talent was so highly valued.
Thus, the Renaissance was the era of the emergence and rapid development of capitalist market relations in Europe, the emergence of science, the emergence of states and absolutist monarchies, and the rise of the bourgeoisie.
8. The value foundations of Renaissance art
The basis of the culture of the Renaissance, undoubtedly, was the principle of humanism, which affirmed the beauty and dignity of a real person, his will and reason and creative powers. The humanistic life-affirming culture of this time, unlike medieval culture, was secular in nature. Cultural values were no longer created by anonymous craftsmen, because guild mastery, subjugated to a common goal, began to give way to individual creativity, in which the human personality was highly elevated in the consciousness of society. The creative individuality of artists began to attract more and more attention from those who enjoyed their art. Unlike medieval ones, the cultural values of the Renaissance were fundamentally of an authorial nature.
The concept of individual manner gradually became more and more relevant. All these characteristics of art in different countries developed in their own way and in different time periods. For a long time, the starting point in the periodization of Renaissance art was the cultural history of Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance. The cultural values of the Renaissance were liberated from church systems, which greatly contributed to the development of science. Admiration for the real world and a passionate thirst for studying it led to the depiction of all aspects of reality in various fields of art. The most important role in the development of Renaissance art was played by ancient art, understood in a new way. The influence of ancient views and art had the greatest impact on the formation of the culture of that time in Italy, where a large number of ancient Roman monuments were preserved. The developing humanistic orientation, its optimism, the social and heroic nature of its images interested representatives of all strata of society.
The art of the Renaissance was formed when the consequences of the capitalist division of labor, which had a detrimental effect on the process of personal development, had not yet begun to appear; and resourcefulness, courage, strength of character and intelligence have not yet lost their importance. At this time, unique cultural values were created, causing the illusion of man's endless abilities. The image of a titanic personality increasingly appeared in art. The amazing brightness of human character during the Renaissance was reflected in art. This was explained by the fact that the heroes of that time were not yet slaves to the process of division of labor, which created one-sidedness and limitations of cultural processes.
The nature of the applied art of the Renaissance, which borrowed motifs and forms of ornamentation from ancient traditions, was more associated not with church, but with secular orders. The new demands facing art had a qualitative impact on the enrichment of its genres and types. Fresco became widespread in Italian monumental painting. Starting from the fifteenth century, easel painting was also very popular, the development of which was especially influenced by Dutch artists. Along with the already known genres of mythological and religious painting, such cultural values as portraiture, landscape and historical painting were filled with new meaning. The inquisitive minds of the Renaissance, who turned to the ancient heritage to find an ideal, looked for fragments of ancient statues and columns, found forgotten works of ancient authors in monastic vaults, discovered the classical world of antiquity in order to create amazing and original cultural values and works of art that still amaze contemporaries today .
9. Italian Renaissance
The tendency to reinterpret antiquity during the Italian Renaissance is strong, but it is combined with cultural values of many origins, in particular the Christian (Catholic) tradition. It is this combination that gives the culture of Italy in the 14th-16th centuries. Uniqueness and originality. Without losing God and Faith, the figures of the Renaissance took a new look at themselves. They have already begun to realize themselves as significant, responsible for their destiny, but have not yet ceased to be people of the Middle Ages.
These two equally significant trends in the culture of the Italian Renaissance determined the inconsistency of this culture. On the one hand, it can be boldly characterized as an era of joyful self-affirmation of a person, and on the other hand, as an era of a person’s comprehension of the whole tragedy of his existence. The collision of ancient and Christian principles caused a deep division of man, believed the Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev. The great artists of the Renaissance, he believed, were obsessed with a breakthrough into another, transcendental world, the dream of it was given to them by Christ; they were focused on creating a different being, they felt forces in themselves similar to the forces of the creator; set themselves essentially ontological tasks. However, these tasks were obviously impossible to accomplish in earthly life (in the world of culture, according to Berdyaev). Artistic creativity, which is distinguished not by its ontological but by its psychological nature, does not solve such problems. The artists' reliance on the achievements of antiquity and their aspiration to the higher world opened by Christ do not coincide. This leads to a tragic worldview, to revivalist melancholy. Berdyaev writes: “The secret of the Renaissance is that it failed. Never before have such creative forces been sent into the world, and never before has the tragedy of creativity been so revealed.”
When characterizing the culture of the Italian Renaissance, we must not forget that humanistic education became aristocratic in nature. Its influence on broad sections of the people was felt much later. Both the ancient faded culture of Rome and the new one, which sought support for itself in the old, were alien to the broad mass of the Italian people.
Due to the transitional nature of the Italian Renaissance, its chronological framework is quite difficult to establish. This era differs from both the Middle Ages and modern times, but at the same time has much in common with these periods of history. If we are based on the identified features of the culture of the Italian Renaissance (humanism, anthropocentrism, modification of the Christian tradition, revival of antiquity), then the chronology of the Italian Renaissance is as follows: the time in which these features only appear is characterized as the Pre-Renaissance, or Ducento (200s - 13th century .) and trecento (three hundred years, counting from the thousandth - XV century).
The time when the cultural tradition corresponding to these features can be clearly traced was called the Early Renaissance (Quattrocento - four hundred years - XV century). The time that became the heyday of the ideas and principles of Italian Renaissance culture, as well as the eve of its crisis, is usually called the High Renaissance (Cinquecento - the five hundred years, 16th century). The culture of the Italian Renaissance gave the world the poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), the painter Giotto di Bondone (1266-1337), the poet, writer, humanist Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), the architect Philippe Brunelleschi (1377-1446), the sculptor Donatello (Donato di Niccolo di Betto Bardi) (1386-1466), painter Masaccio (Tommaso di Giovanni di Simone Guidi (1401-1428), humanists, writers Lorenzo Balla (1407-1457), Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), philosopher, humanist Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), painter Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), painter, scientist Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), painter, sculptor, architect Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), painters Giorgione (1477-1510).
In the 17th century Rome became the center of development of a new style - Baroque. A transition is being made to the creation of entire architectural ensembles, which include not only individual buildings and squares, but also a system of streets. Thanks to this, the main entrance of the city is connected to the main architectural ensembles of Rome. Instead of a statue, an obelisk began to organize the square. Fountains decorated with sculptures are built. As development progresses, the accents change - if at the initial stage of Baroque the interior of the building, the courtyard, and the palace park are decorated, first of all, then in the late Baroque period the architectural decor is enhanced. A large area is decorated with facades, churches, villas, palazzos, parks, gardens, tombstones, fountains.
The largest architect of the century was Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). His main creation is the grandiose colonnade on the square of the Cathedral of St. Peter's in Rome. He designed the royal staircase in the Vatican. Bernini is a magnificent sculptor, the author of numerous sculptural portraits. His style is full of expression and drama. A wonderful example is the marble Apollo and Daphne, made for Cardinal Borghese. The representative of the early Italian Baroque in painting is Guido Reni (1517-1642). The fresco “Aurora” occupies a special place in his work. Reni is the creator of numerous religious images, including the Madonna. Italy became a country where in the 16th century. the foundation was laid for the doctrine of harmony by G. Zarlino (1517-1590). In the 16th century this doctrine developed and took shape. A new genre of musical art appeared - opera, to which the composer C. Monteverdi (1567-1643) introduced drama, achieving true harmony of words and music. His operas Orpheus and The Coronation of Poppea contributed to the development of this genre. In 1637, the first public opera house, San Cassiano, opened in Venice. There is a change in the themes of operatic works - mythological plots give way to historical, dramatic and heroic ones, sometimes intertwined with a comedic and even farcical plot.
The economic stagnation experienced by Italy was reflected in literature. Poetry was dominated by an elaborate style - Marinism, named after the Neapolitan poet D. Marini (1569-1625), although the leading people of Italy defended the art of high civil purposes, for example, Tommaso Campanella (1569-1625) - author of the novel “The City of the Sun, or the Ideal Republic” . The artist and poet Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) spoke sharply against the aristocratic style. A genre of parody-burlesque poems emerged with attacks on the church and aristocracy, on fashionable Marinism and academicism. The best work of this genre is recognized as “The Stolen Bucket” by Alesandro Tassoni (1565-1635).
Art during the Renaissance was the main type of spiritual activity. There were almost no people indifferent to art. Works of art most fully express both the ideal of a harmonious world and the place of man in it. All types of art are subordinated to this task to varying degrees. The main stages and genres of Renaissance literature are associated with the evolution of humanistic concepts during the Early, High and Late Renaissance. The literature of the Early Renaissance is characterized by a short story, especially a comic one, glorifying an enterprising and free from prejudices personality. The High Renaissance was marked by the flowering of the heroic poem. During the Late Renaissance, the genres of novel and drama developed, based on tragic and tragicomic conflicts between a heroic personality and an unworthy system of social life. The progressive humanistic content of Renaissance culture is clearly expressed in theatrical art, which is significantly influenced by ancient drama. He is characterized by an interest in the inner world of a person endowed with a bright individuality.
Professional music in the Renaissance was imbued with a new humanistic worldview, ceased to be a purely church art and was influenced by folk music. Various genres of secular musical art appeared - frottal and villanelle, which spread from Italy to all European countries. New genres of instrumental music are emerging, and national schools of performing the organ and lute are emerging. The Renaissance was completed by the emergence of new musical genres - solo songs, operas, and oratorios. The ideals of the Renaissance were most fully expressed by architecture, sculpture, and painting, and painting during this period came to the fore, pushing aside architecture. This is explained by the fact that painting had more opportunities to depict the real world, its beauty, richness and diversity.
A characteristic feature of Renaissance culture is the close connection between science and art. Artists, trying to most fully reflect all natural forms, turn to scientific knowledge. A new system of artistic vision of the world is being developed. Renaissance artists developed the principles of linear perspective. This discovery helped to expand the range of depicted phenomena, to include landscape and architecture in the pictorial space, turning the picture into a kind of window into the world. The combination of scientist and artist in one creative personality was possible only in the Renaissance.
10. Northern revival
The northern Renaissance (Germany, the Netherlands, France) had a unique character. The Northern Renaissance lags behind the Italian by a whole century and begins when Italy enters the highest stage of its development. In the art of the northern Renaissance there is more of a medieval worldview, religious feeling, symbolism; it is more conventional in form, more archaic, and less familiar with antiquity.
The philosophical basis of the northern Renaissance was pantheism. Without directly denying the existence of God, this teaching dissolves him in nature, endowing it with divine attributes, such as eternity, infinity, and limitlessness. Pantheists believed that in every particle of the world there is a particle of God, and concluded that any manifestation of nature is worthy of depiction. Such ideas led to the emergence of landscape as an independent genre in the artistic culture of the Northern Renaissance. Such ideas lead to the emergence of landscape as an independent genre. German artists - masters of landscape A. Dürer, A. Altdorfer, L. Cranach depicted the majesty, power, beauty of nature, conveying its spirituality.
The second genre that was developed in the art of the Northern Renaissance is portraiture. An independent portrait, not associated with a religious cult, arose in Germany in the last third of the 15th century. Durer's era (1490-1530) was the time of his remarkable heyday. It should be noted that German portraiture differed from Italian Renaissance portraiture. Italian artists, in their admiration for man, created the ideal of beauty. German artists were indifferent to beauty; for them the main thing was to convey character, to achieve emotional expressiveness of the image, sometimes at the expense of the ideal, at the expense of beauty. Perhaps this reveals echoes of the “aesthetics of the ugly” typical of the Middle Ages, where spiritual beauty could be hidden in an ugly appearance. In the Italian Renaissance, the aesthetic side came to the fore, in the northern - the ethical. The greatest masters of portrait painting in Germany are A. Durer, G. Holbein Jr., in the Netherlands - Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, in France - J. Fouquet, J. Clouet, F. Clouet. The third genre, which arose and developed primarily in the Netherlands, is the everyday painting. The greatest master of genre painting is Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He painted authentic scenes from peasant life, and even placed biblical stories in the rural setting of the Netherlands at that time. Dutch artists were distinguished by their extraordinary virtuosity of writing, where every smallest detail was depicted with extreme care. Such a picture is very fascinating for the viewer: the more you look at it, the more interesting things you find there.
Giving a comparative description of the Italian and Northern Renaissance, one more significant difference between them should be highlighted. The Italian Renaissance is characterized by a desire to restore ancient culture, a desire for emancipation, liberation from church dogma, and secular education. In the Northern Renaissance, the main place was occupied by issues of religious improvement, renewal of the Catholic Church and its teachings. Northern humanism led to the Reformation and Protestantism.
Albrecht Durer. Dürer's role in the history of world art is so great that art historians rightfully call the end of the 15th and first half of the 16th centuries the “era of Dürer.” In the art of the Northern Alps and Germany, which still had a medieval character, Dürer managed to instill innovative forms of the Italian Renaissance, which allows us to talk about Dürer's Renaissance. Dürer is considered the most accomplished master of wood and copper engraving. He achieved the unity of space and physical volume of the characters, almost photographic precision. "One Hundred Great Artists." D.K. Samin. Dürer expressed humanistic inclinations in some of his works (for example, “Knight, Death, and the Devil”, “St. Jerome in his Cell”, “Melencolia I”). A theoretician, Dürer wrote a treatise on human proportions, a work on practical geometry, and a treatise on the construction of fortifications. In 1502, Dürer traveled to the Netherlands, where he was recognized as a master. Thus, Dürer became the first German artist to be recognized outside his homeland. In the second decade of the 16th century, Dürer concentrated on translating light and tonal effects into graphics. http://all-biography.ru/alpha/d/dyurer-albrext-durer-albrecht.
Albrecht Altdorfer. A special movement of the German Renaissance, distinguished by a pronounced national identity, is formed by the work of the masters of the Danube school, the head of which was Albrecht Altdorfer. Albrecht Altdorfer German artist, born ca. 1480 in Regensburg in Bavaria and worked there from 1505 until the end of his life. Altdorfer is the most outstanding representative of the so-called Danube school, whose masters are characterized by an unconventional interpretation of Christian and other subjects, placed in a luxurious landscape environment. Altdorfer mainly painted small-scale paintings, which have a touch of fairytale; however, he was also capable of creating works of a monumental style, for example, an altar image for the monastery of St. Floriana in Austria. One of Altdorfer's most outstanding works is the painting The Battle of Alexander. Among his small paintings are the first purely landscape compositions in the history of German art. Altdorfer worked extensively in woodcut and other types of engraving; It is possible that he was the first to make etchings printed from copper rather than iron boards.
Lucas Cranach. The work of Lucas Cranach the Elder is an integral part of the culture of the Northern Renaissance. The range of his subjects is very wide: crucifixions, many triptychs on gospel themes, Madonna and Child, ancient subjects, portraits. The tastes of the Saxon court, with which the artist was associated almost all his life, left a certain imprint on Cranach’s art. Gothic motifs are especially clear in his paintings. Many details and some mannerisms were neutralized by the amazing beauty of color. His Madonnas and other biblical heroines are obvious city dwellers, contemporaries of the artist. They are too fragile, but they wear luxurious fashionable dresses and beautiful hairstyles. Nevertheless, his best works, written at the beginning of the 16th century, remain an example of Renaissance artistic culture. Among them is the famous “Crucifixion”.
Hieronymus Bosch. The work of Hieronymus Bosch is perceived by modern viewers as very complex and mysterious, since he constantly resorted to allegories. The artist populated his paintings on the themes of hell, heaven, the Last Judgment, and the temptation of saints with legions of fantastic creatures, which combine parts of different animals, plants, objects, and sometimes humans in the most incredible way. Modern scientists have come to the conclusion that Bosch’s work contains a much deeper meaning, and have made many attempts to explain its meaning, find its origins, and give it an interpretation. Some consider Bosch to be something like a 15th-century surrealist, who extracted his unprecedented images from the depths of the subconscious, and when they mention his name, they invariably remember Salvador Dalim. Others believe that Bosch's art reflects medieval "esoteric disciplines" - alchemy, astrology, black magic. Still others try to connect the artist with various religious heresies that existed in that era.
His technique is called alla prima. This is an oil painting method in which the first strokes create the final texture. Based on the results of modern studies of Bosch’s work, art historians attribute 25 paintings and 8 drawings to the surviving heritage of Hieronymus Bosch. The paintings are triptychs, fragments of triptychs and separate, independent paintings. Only 7 of Bosch's works are signed. History has not preserved the original names of the paintings that Bosch gave to his creations
11. Socio-political teachings of the Renaissance
The Renaissance and Reformation as anti-feudal, early bourgeois movements that undermined the foundations of the old medieval world. Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church. Formation of humanistic culture, art, worldview. The influence of the spiritual heritage of Antiquity. Affirmation of the self-worth of the individual. Using “Holy Scripture” to justify new demands and values. The relationship between secular and spiritual power and the idea of popular sovereignty among French jurists and W. Ockham. Dante's doctrine of the universal "secular monarchy": the division of spiritual and secular power, the ideas of universal peace and humanity. Marsilius of Padua: the state as a perfect community; the legislative people and the principle of the supremacy of natural law. John Wycliffe and Jan Hus: man is the rightful “holder of his own”; the principle of the reliability of internal evidence of faith and the denial of the authority of the clergy and its special status. N. Kuzansky and L. Valla: criticism of the legitimacy of the “Donation of Constantine” as the fundamental theories of papal power. Leading thinkers of this period: N. Machiavelli, Martin Luther, Thomas More, Tommaso Campanella, Jean Bodin, T. Gobbe, G. Grotius, J. Locke, B. Spinoza.
Features and characteristics of this period:
liberation of political thought from theology;
analysis of the problem of human rights and freedoms;
analysis of law and state, democratic structure of public life.
The socio-political teachings of the Renaissance are represented primarily by major philosophers such as Thomas More and Tommaso Campanella. The foundations of their views are the ideas of utopian socialism:
1) they sharply criticized the emerging capitalist society with its spirit of profit and the sacredness of private property;
2) they considered the liquidation of private property to be the first necessity for the formation of a future communist society;
3) they imagined communist society as a society of universal equality and justice, in which there would be no exploitation of man by man, market relations, or monetary circulation. Work will be obligatory for everyone, and needs will be satisfied according to the principle “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”;
4) society, in their opinion, should take care of the education and training of future citizens, providing them with all the means for comprehensive harmonious development. At the same time, the regulation of family and marriage relations was assigned to society;
5) utopian socialists called on people to fight for a better structure of society, which should be based on public property, be classless, in which equality and justice would be established.
The ideas of the utopian socialists later had a great influence on the formation of Marxist philosophy.
Political doctrines of the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages are characterized by the following political processes:
the creation of fairly large but poorly integrated monarchies;
their disintegration into fragmented political entities;
the rise of class-representative monarchies.
Features of political doctrines of this stage:
the undivided dominance of the Catholic Church in spiritual life;
political science has become a branch of theology, the dogmas of religion take the form of laws;
socio-political thought is developed through the efforts of religious figures;
substantiation of the theological theory of political power.
Political doctrines of the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Characteristic features of political thought of this era:
liberation of political science from theology;
development of humanistic principles in political theory;
analysis of human problems and freedoms, law and state, democratic structure of public life.
12. The increasing role of the individual in the social life of medieval Europe
The center of change in the Renaissance is man. His image and his position in life change. It became important to find yourself, to find your individuality. There was a great desire to realize oneself in life and to work. It began to be considered valuable not just to exist, not just to live and act according to certain traditions, life attitudes, but it became fundamentally important to be different from everyone else, so to speak, to find oneself. Gurevich P.S. Cultural science: Textbook / P.S. Gurevich. - M., 1996 [electronic. resource http://www.philosophy.ru/iphras/library/gurevich.html]. The Renaissance is a time of turning to the problems of human existence, albeit at the cost of abandoning universal ontological problems, which are closely related to theological ones. During the Renaissance, the focus on oneself and one’s inner world was especially pronounced, characteristic of Renaissance individualism: the path to a new ontology, to a new worldview went through a new kind of anthropocentrism. A kind of anthropocentrism was also characteristic of medieval consciousness. The path was being paved for a new, secularized anthropology, attention was drawn to the inner world of the human personality and through this to a new interpretation of human dignity, man's place in the Universe. Turning to oneself, to one’s inner aspirations is the main content of all the diverse creativity of Francesco Petrarch, his poems, philosophical treatises, letters. One of the brightest works of this period is “The Divine Comedy,” which reflects on the place of the individual in the world and the sinfulness of man.
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The spiritual revival of Russia as one of the most important conditions for its future prosperity is an urgent task facing our people. However, if we are talking about revival, the question inevitably arises: what exactly should be revived, that is, restored, revived? What should be the nature of this revival? It is no secret that our society today is plagued by various kinds of troubles: blatant inequality, social injustice, national conflicts, immorality and corruption. This is precisely the reason for the increasingly widespread reproduction of religion, this is what pushes a significant part of the Russian population to seek spiritual refuge in religion. The answer to the question of spiritual revival, it would seem, suggests itself: it is necessary to fully restore the religious traditions that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia and were undermined in Soviet times. But this approach is clearly one-sided. In Russia there are many people living behind the fence of the church. In addition, the revival of religion occurs not only spontaneously, but also thanks to the efforts of the current state and religious organizations (primarily the Orthodox Church). Other traditions that have developed over centuries in the spiritual life of the peoples of Russia, revived and developed in a socialist society - the traditions of free thought and atheism, secular culture - are recognized as untenable. Current social and other ills are blamed on atheism, which is identified with immoralism, Satanism, nihilism, etc. But why? Is it only because religious ideologists need to discredit “atheistic socialism,” many of whose values still remain in the minds of the working people and interfere with wild Russian capitalism?
Tradition of religious perception of freethinking
Not only. Of great importance is the tradition that existed in all societies and cultures - a hostile, or even hostile attitude towards everything that does not agree with the dominant religion. The attitude towards atheism and free-thinking in general was especially negative. In religion, hostility to dissent was systematic, which was also reflected in idealistic philosophy. For example, Plato spoke in line with this tradition. Atheism for him is a socio-political evil, because it leads to confusion, it is a kind of obsession with illness, and finally, it is a moral vice. In “The Laws,” discussions about atheism begin with a moral and legal assessment of the latter: those who do not believe in the existence of gods commit an “ungodly deed” and utter a “lawless word.” The destiny of atheists, according to Plato, is prison or the death penalty.
With the advent of Christianity, the position of freethinkers did not improve. Words attributed to Jesus Christ: “ He who is not with me is against me"(Matthew 12:30), became the ideological basis for a negative attitude towards freethinkers. Almost every Christian apologist, father or teacher of the church, be it Tertullian, Irenaeus of Lyons, Epiphanius of Cyprus, Jerome of Stridon, or even the non-church Christian writer Lactantius, has angry expressions against atheists, polytheists, heretics, accused of immoralism, ignorance, blindness and deafness, madness, and, of course, connections with evil spirits. Cyril of Alexandria called the atheists “the devil’s food.” This tradition was not rejected by Orthodoxy either. Joseph Volotsky, in order to justify the legality of the execution of Novgorod-Moscow heretics, collected evidence from the sacred books that it was appropriate for kings, princes and judges to send heretics and apostates “into captivity and subject them to cruel executions.” John Chrysostom, says Joseph, wrote: “ If someone kills according to the will of God, murder is better than any kindness" And further: “ Therefore, all our reverend and God-bearing fathers, shepherds and teachers, begged the pious kings and princes to exterminate the heretics". Most Christian ideologists considered secular culture detrimental to the salvation of the soul and condemned it, although, nourished by folk juices and sanity, it continued to live and develop along with church culture. But the tradition of the church’s attitude towards secular culture was so influential that even highly intelligent religious philosophers of the late 19th - early. XX centuries argued that there should be no secular culture at all. S. N. Bulgakov, stating the split of life into secular and church, directly wrote that there should be nothing fundamentally secular, “ no religiously indifferent zone». « Religion, and, consequently, the church as an area of religious life should be everything...". A somewhat more tolerant V.V. Zenkovsky called for “fighting the idea of a secular school”: “ The time has come to put an end to the myth of the neutrality of culture and recognize the impossibility of it being outside the sphere of religion". This tradition, interrupted as a result of the socialist revolution, which opened the way to mastering the riches of domestic and world science and culture, has reasserted itself in our days.
But perhaps secular culture and free-thinking really pose a danger to the moral foundations of humanity, lead to the degradation of society and the individual, and one should focus only on the religious heritage?
The meaning of the concepts “free thought”, “secular culture”
Secular culture is an infinitely diverse, rich layer of creative activity of mankind.
To answer this question, it is necessary to determine the meaning of the concepts “secular culture” and “free-thinking”. Let me first note that our culture, like the culture of other peoples of the world, cannot be reduced only to religion - there are other types of spiritual activity - art, morality, science, philosophy, law, etc. - they are qualitatively different from religion, although they may be related to it.
What is meant by “secular culture”? Secular culture is an infinitely diverse, rich layer of creative activity of mankind. It is usually defined as a secular, non-church culture, often as a non-religious state of consciousness, a culture free from religious influence. In general this is true, although, in my opinion, not completely. In secular culture one can find at least three spheres: firstly, a culture indifferent to religion with a tendency towards an autonomous non-religious existence (scientific research, works of art that realistically reflect life, political teachings free from appeals to the supernatural etc. - these forms of culture contain freethinking potential). Secondly, this is a culture focused on criticism of religion and its institutions - these are diverse manifestations of free thought. Among them are skepticism, anti-clericalism, rationalism, agnosticism, naturalism, spontaneous and philosophical materialism, as well as atheism, which was understood by A.V. Lunacharsky as a “complete secular worldview.” And, finally, this is a non-church culture, not free from religious and mystical sentiments and ideas (for example, the novels of F. Mauriac, M. de Unamuno or D. S. Merezhkovsky, or the philosophy of V. Solovyov). In addition, there are many manifestations of secular culture that use religious images, terms, plots, but are filled with worldly content. In other words, secular understanding of the world can be carried out in the old sign system, while being indifferent or critical of religion. The range of such phenomena is quite wide; These include, for example, pantheistic philosophy, the fine arts of the Renaissance, and Russian anticlerical satire of the 17th century, or, say, a significant part of the works of the famous Italian sculptor Giacomo Manzu.
The content of the concepts “secular culture” and “free-thinking” largely coincides. Religious indifferentism is one of the forms of freedom of thought in relation to religion, not to mention a critical approach to it. Freethinking in relation to religion is the recognition and exercise of the right of reason to a free critical examination of religion, to a free study of man, society and the world around us. This right is realized through human activity in the spheres of secular culture. Free thought, especially in its critical aspect, reflected humanity's need for social and spiritual freedom, moral and intellectual autonomy and improvement. A common feature of free-thinking is that criticism of the dogmatism of religion and the authoritarianism of religious organizations does not in itself encroach on either the national culture or the personality of the believer.
Freethinking: Humanism and Nihilism
A non-religious individual (as well as a believer) can carry within himself both highly moral and immoral, cynical principles.
But here is one more point, without which we will not understand the role of free thought in the life of our country. Secular culture is not homogeneous in terms of values; it has many levels and spheres of existence. Not every teaching or behavior within a secular culture promotes the good of society and the individual. At the same time, a non-religious individual (as well as a believer) can carry within himself both highly moral and immoral, cynical principles.
In secular culture, elements of callousness, destructiveness, nihilism and immoral extremism can manifest themselves. The characteristic features of a nihilist are the desire for self-affirmation by trampling on the dignity of other people, extreme individualism and selfishness, and disregard for morality. It is this circumstance that is often used by religious ideologists: by equating nihilism and unbelief, they seek to denigrate the latter.
A careful approach to the history of secular culture will reveal that within freethinking there was and is a struggle of humanism against nihilism, which appears in a secular, non-religious form (nihilism can also take religious forms, especially as contempt for the “downworld” and “rejection of this world”). Thus, French educators drew attention to the moral bankruptcy of a certain type of non-believers; at the same time, they contrasted “genuine”, “real”, i.e., non-nihilistic atheism, with nihilism. P. Holbach believed that a true atheist, striving to understand nature and cultivate good principles in man, differs from his immoral, superficial imitators, who under unfavorable circumstances can cast aside their disbelief. The last chapter of Holbach's System of Nature contains a code of moral standards for atheism. Later, the topic of real and false atheism was developed by S. Marechal, who distinguished among non-believing people fanatics who destroy sacred images, hypocrites, debauchees and, in contrast to them, true atheists, whose religion is “ that natural love which makes one sympathize with the misfortunes of another and unites people to help the sufferer". K. Marx and F. Engels in “The German Ideology” thoroughly analyzed Max Stirner’s essay “The One and His Property,” showing the moral and philosophical inconsistency of egoism, rejection of the values created by humanity, and contempt for everyone except one’s own “I.” It turned out that Stirner’s nihilistic criticism of religion is incompatible with the atheistic humanism proclaimed by Marx back in his youth: “ The criticism of religion ends with the doctrine that man is the highest being for man, and therefore ends with a categorical imperative commanding the overthrow of all relations in which man is a humiliated, enslaved, helpless, despicable being..." 10 . The secular cultural tradition in its humanistic manifestations, which does not exclude criticism of religious ideology, contains the highest values, familiarization with which enriches a person morally and intellectually. Secular culture is open to everyone, regardless of their faith or non-belief, therefore, in the minds of almost any believer, secular culture occupies a more or less significant place. Usually a believer knows and loves Pushkin and Lermontov, Turgenev and Tolstoy, admires self-portraits of artists, landscapes painted by them, loves the music of Mozart and Beethoven, songs of Schubert, reads poetry to a child by S. Ya. Marshak or Korney Chukovsky... And many believers create secular culture in in the field of natural and human sciences, artistic creativity, etc. It is also important to emphasize that the basis for mutual understanding between believers and non-believers are the values and traditions of secular culture. On its basis, family, work, scientific, moral, aesthetic, political, legal, environmental and many other relationships are built.
Today, our country's secular culture is in danger. The media plays a special role in discrediting its values. Flawed, wretched, vulgar crafts of secular culture are especially actively promoted, reinforcing, by contrast, the impression that everything lofty is connected with religion. Religious faith with all its attributes, and, above all, with belief in the supernatural and miracles, is opposed to the vulgar and boorish “culture” generated by wild capitalism as a genuine, undeniable value. F. M. Dostoevsky in “The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor” (“The Brothers Karamazov”) wrote about miracle, mystery and authority as effective means of controlling the consciousness of believers. Nowadays, rarely does any electronic or print media do without promoting fantastic ideas about miraculous healings, salvation from death, from financial ruin, the power of prayer, etc. Nowadays, legions of magicians, astrologers, fortune tellers, shamans, sorcerers, soothsayers, bearers have arisen mysterious supernatural force, the number of New Age followers is growing. Accordingly, not only its highest examples, but also critical thinking and free-thinking are being squeezed out of Russian culture. All this, of course, reduces the level of public morals, destroys culture and gives rise to various forms of crime.
No matter what they say about socialism today, but “looking from there” it is difficult to imagine such a widespread rampant of occultism, paranormal beliefs, the unbridled spread of unthinkable religious groups, psychocults, etc. Nowadays there are few people among the philosophizing (not to mention the theological) intelligentsia who value rationalistic and materialistic traditions. In general, society is losing its realistic perception of reality, especially society and human relationships. They are corroded not only by irrationalism, but also by cynicism, calculation, old and new prejudices.
Nevertheless, if we keep in mind the main vector of development of secular culture, its content throughout the history of mankind, then we can confidently say that it was distinguished by its ethical consistency and humanistic orientation. Within its framework, based on its values, people for centuries have defended the freedom and dignity of man, his right to a better, dignified life on earth, to unlimited creativity in all types of human activity.
Nihilistic tendencies in the sphere of religion have always been unacceptable for humanistic free-thinking. For centuries, freethinkers have opposed the extreme intolerance of religious organizations towards dissidents, the denial of religion of everything that goes beyond the boundaries of the religious worldview. Defending religious tolerance and fighting for freedom of conscience is a trait inherent in freethinkers from different countries and peoples 11 . Religion has often been and remains today the ideological basis for interethnic and interfaith hostility. It is interesting that even in the Middle Ages, when there were bloody wars that had a pronounced religious overtones, we find calls for peace not so much in religious as in secular literature. The most cruel wars, wrote Erasmus of Rotterdam, are religious wars. “Priests, God’s servants among Christians, and monks who claim even greater holiness than priests, all of them kindle a passion for murder and war in the states and among the common people.” Nature teaches people harmony and peace, says Erasmus, and “the teaching of Christ cannot convince those who profess it of the beneficence of peace and mutual love” 12. Further, freethinkers opposed the preaching of the idea of the insignificance of man and the nihilistic disregard for human earthly life in the name of other life. History knows many examples of the struggle of secular humanists with nihilistic tendencies in the teachings of church leaders. Thus, Pope Innocent III (d. 1215), a cruel fighter against heresies, eloquently described the original and incorrigible depravity of man: “ What else is a person, if not dirt and ashes?”, “Oh, the insignificant vileness of the human condition, oh the vile state of human insignificance!" 13 . And in the 15th century, Italian humanists entered into polemics with the pope, fearlessly opposing a humanistic position to such an interpretation of man, although they often referred to the Holy Scriptures. Gianozzo Manetti wrote a treatise " On the Dignity and Excellence of Man,” in which he enthusiastically describes how “great and amazing is the power of the human mind,” and reveals “the great and wonderful deeds of man» 14 – sailors, architects, painters, sculptors, physicians, astronomers, etc. In the treatise of Manetti’s contemporary, Paolo Vergerio, there is almost no mention of God. This is essentially a secular pedagogy of educating a free person who masters “free pursuits”, “ by which virtue and wisdom are cultivated and perfected" 15 . Here the humanist advises educators to warn young men against blasphemy, and this is also evidence of the moral strength of the thinker.
They may say: “ and what does the Catholic Pope, Italy, and the humanists of the Renaissance have to do with it if we are talking about Russian traditions of secular culture?»
Is the free-thinking culture of other peoples alien to the Russian people?
The culture of any people cannot develop successfully without interaction with the culture of other peoples.
The question is logical. In fact, to what extent is free-thinking secular culture domestic; perhaps it is the result of a mechanical transfer of Western theories designed to harm Russia? Accepting the point of view that free thought is alien to the Russian people due to its foreign nature is both erroneous and not beneficial. It is well known that the culture of any nation cannot develop successfully without interaction with the culture of other peoples. Russian culture was no exception in this regard 16 . Yes, she accepted, for example, Christianity, and with it the ancient Jewish culture and, to a certain extent, the ancient heritage. Later, Russian culture absorbed the heritage of world free-thinking thought. It must be said that those foreign products of spiritual activity that defended selfishness, permissiveness, contempt for people, and acquisitiveness rarely received recognition and fame. Peter I made full use of Western secular culture in all its diversity to improve state building, education, and the development of science and art in Russia. Catherine II's sympathy for Voltaire and the spread of educational ideas in Russia did not prevent her from strengthening the Russian Empire. An interesting fact: one of the most prominent monks of the 18th century, I.V. Lopukhin, according to him, willingly read Voltaire’s ridicule of religion, and, reading Holbach’s “System of Nature,” “ in which the ideas of materialism are combined with undeniably sincere moralism, I was so carried away by this book that I translated the conclusion of the book into Russian and decided to even distribute this translation» 17.
Domestic freethinkers of the 18th century learned a lot from Western culture, successfully creating Russian culture. Thus, M.V. Lomonosov had an excellent knowledge of ancient and Renaissance, as well as contemporary Western culture. In some works he directly relies on the heritage of Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Lucian, whose attitude to religion is well known. And it is no coincidence that Lomonosov was a Copernican, and it was no coincidence that he referred to Erasmus of Rotterdam. We can confidently say that Lomonosov’s successes in the field of serving the Fatherland were largely a consequence of the creative development of the achievements of the secular culture of the West. But it is well known that Lomonosov is a truly Russian, a Russian educator, a classic exponent of the national interests of Russia, who does not tolerate spiritual violence, and is not afraid of authorities, including church ones. He himself made a rich contribution to non-religious culture, opening up the prospect of the development of the spiritual life of the peoples of Russia outside the church and religion. The same is typical for subsequent freethinkers who successfully melted down valuable elements of foreign culture to enrich their own. One of the many examples is Lomonosov’s younger contemporary, E. R. Dashkova. She knew and appreciated the free-thinking thinkers of France 18 and was personally acquainted with Voltaire, Diderot, Falconet, Houdon and other figures of European culture. Her enthusiastic attitude towards the atheist Diderot, whose “sincerity, unchanging friendship, insightful and deep mind” she deeply revered, is impressive. " I mourned his death and will regret him until the last day of my life... Virtue and truth were the engines of all his actions, and the public good was his passionate and constant goal" 19 . The idea of public good permeates all of Dashkova’s work. And on October 17, 1783, this outstanding woman, imbued with the ideas of Western free-thinking, gave a speech at the opening of the Imperial Russian Academy, intended for the study of the Russian language and Russian literature. There is not a word about God or the church here, but “our most august monarch” gives patronage to the Russian word. Dashkova, the chairman of this Academy, speaks about the richness of our language, about its ability to express “ the most subtle philosophical imaginations, the many different natural properties and changes that occur in this visible structure of the world" But, she admits, there were not enough rules that would prevent the borrowing of foreign languages, disfiguring our language. The Imperial Academy must " to perfect and magnify our word to the glorified age of Catherine II" 20 . Soon, on Dashkova’s instructions, the complete collected works of M. V. Lomonosov in 6 volumes were prepared and published, and then the normative and explanatory “Dictionary of the Russian Academy”. This fact is one of the many threads of continuity in the tradition of free thought in our country over the course of just a few decades.
Subsequently, Russia was the recipient of many foreign cultural traditions. Wolffianism, Schellingism, Hegelianism, Kantianism, Marxism - all these philosophical movements found their ardent supporters in Russia. The teachings of Marx and Engels had a particularly great influence on the consciousness and activities of the radical wing of the Russian intelligentsia. The idea of social justice underlying Marxism is the national idea of the working people of any country. Marxism responded to the aspirations of the working people of Russia, who for centuries have felt the need to implement social justice. And this in no way infringes on the originality of Russian culture. The same can be said about domestic free-thinking as a whole: forming in the depths of the people's consciousness, it is carried upward, into the sphere of theories, teachings, concepts, which generalize not only popular ideas, but also the corresponding experience of other peoples. In turn, the secular culture of Russia constitutes a bright, unique fragment of the holistic picture of world progressive culture. This is a stable tradition that cannot be thrown out of the spiritual life of humanity in the past and present; do not throw it out of the history and culture of Russia.
Patriotism is a stable tradition of Russian free-thinking
The humanistic direction of freethinking (at least theoretically) was predominant in our country. As a rule, free-thinking in relation to religion is associated with political free-thinking. What is typical in this regard for representatives of the centuries-old tradition of freethinking? First of all, patriotism 21. In Russian literature, it clearly manifested itself already in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (XII century), the author of which, a secular man, a warrior, faced the real problems of defending the Motherland and clearly showed the heroism of Russian soldiers. He did not trust in God, but was clearly aware of the need to overcome civil strife, violence, and enmity between different regions of the Russian land 22. Patriotic motives penetrated into Russian literature from the sphere of folk art. Thus, in epics the memory of events that were very important from the point of view of folk ethics was deposited 23. V.P. Anikin, considering the variants of the epic about Dobrynya, substantiated a position that has important methodological significance: the most ancient (9th century) traditional basis of the epic was a plot free from religious interpretation, and in it the heroic principle was manifested much more convincingly than in its later versions subjected to religious interpretation. This, according to the author, weakened the heroism of the epic epic 24.
The content and meaning of true patriotism consists of selfless love for the Fatherland, 25 civil and intellectual courage in the struggle for social justice, selflessness in protecting the interests of the people, the desire to alleviate their plight, the idea of a person as a valuable individual capable of solving his problems without resorting to supernatural forces and to institutions. There were many freethinkers in Russia who possessed these qualities, some of them were highly valued even by religious thinkers.
This alone suggests that the Russian free-thinking heritage can be positively perceived by people with different views on the world and gradually become a generally recognized tradition of Russian culture. The first Russian revolutionary A. N. Radishchev proclaimed the right of the people to decide their fate, to rebel against despotism, and even to execute the tsar; he argued: man is born free; and yet faith and despotism, sacred and political superstition reinforce each other. It is interesting that the assessments of Radishchev by religious philosophers N.A. Berdyaev, V.V. Zenkovsky and Marxist V.I. Lenin largely coincide. All of them emphasize the thinker’s patriotism, his originality, and devotion to his native people. N.A. Berdyaev noted that the Russian intelligentsia was born when Radishchev wrote: “ I looked around me - my soul became wounded by the sufferings of humanity"What is the main thing for this" the founder of radical revolutionary movements in the Russian intelligentsia"was the good of the people. "ABOUT He is remarkable for his desire for truth, justice, and freedom. He was seriously wounded by the untruth of serfdom, and was its first denouncer. He asserted the supremacy of conscience. The main thing for him was the welfare of the people» 26. Zenkovsky considered Radishchev “a bright exponent of Russian humanism,” “ the pinnacle of the Russian national movement of the 18th century... He asserted the primacy of social and moral themes in the construction of a new ideology... Radishchev is a witness to the possibility of independent philosophical creativity in Russia» 27. V.I. Lenin, who openly relied on the tradition of Russian freethinking, believed that people like Radishchev should be proud. " We love our language and our Motherland, we work most of all to raise its working masses (i.e. 9/10 of its population) to a conscious life... It pains us most of all to see the violence the royal executioners and nobles subject our beautiful Motherland to and capitalists. We are proud that these violence caused a rebuff from our midst - the Great Russians, that this environment brought forward Radishchev, the Decembrists, the revolutionary democrats of the 70s, that the Great Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses in 1905...» 28
Patriotism in Russia cannot exist without appealing to the heritage of Russian freethinkers.
Decembrist V.F. Raevsky, an atheist who considered faith to be the steel shield of kings, “a bridle for the superstitious rabble,” wrote: “ Patriotism, this sanctuary of civil life, this mysterious force controls me. Can I see the enslavement of the people, my fellow citizens, the sad robes of the sons of the fatherland, the general murmur, the fear and tears of the weak, the violent indignation and bitterness of the strong - and not have compassion for them?» 29. Involuntarily, the thought comes to mind that one who, by robbing the working people, humiliates their dignity, cannot be a true patriot. The people's defenders and true patriots were the revolutionary radical democrats-enlighteners V. G. Belinsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov, A. I. Herzen, N. P. Ogarev, N. G. Chernyshevsky, populists P. L. Lavrov, N. K. Mikhailovsky and others. They did not think about the selfish interests of the narrow ruling stratum, but about the good of the people. It is no coincidence that A. M. Bukharev (Archimandrite Theodore) gave high marks to some of them, speaking about “Belinsky’s ardent love for the truth,” “Dobrolyubov’s strict truthfulness,” “Chernyshevsky’s sincerity of conviction” 30 . In 1865, this religious thinker wrote that “what is most to his heart is that Sovremennik ardently defends a fresh, elevated above spiritual slavery and striving forward to a better direction of spirit, thought and life...” 31 . A. M. Bukharev analyzed in detail the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What is to be done,” seeing in it “a wonderful expression of Russian thought, uncontrollably striving for the light of truth” (albeit, reproaching the thinker for “pre-occupied theories and literary prejudices”) 32.
The patriotism of the free-thinking intelligentsia of Russia was also manifested in its educational activities. She captured the mood of workers, deprived of the opportunity to gain knowledge in a society divided into irreconcilable classes.
In the West, the desire for education was reflected in the Chartist movement of the 30s - 50s of the 19th century, in the struggle of the English working class for the exercise of the right to universal free, compulsory, labor and, what is especially important for our topic, secular education. The Chartists declared: " We strongly demand the complete separation of the church from the upbringing and education of the younger generations.» 33. But even in Russia, where the majority of the population was illiterate, and parochial schools did not provide the opportunity to obtain even basic knowledge in the field of science, literature, art, among workers there was an awareness of the need to go beyond religious education, as well as an understanding of the connection between education and social freedom. Already A. N. Radishchev outlined a unique program of secular upbringing and education. In the chapter “Sacrimals” of his “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” he paints the image of a father who told his children about God only after their minds had become stronger, so that they themselves could choose Revelation or its refutations. The father “taught knowledge of the sciences”, about various peoples, taught children painting, music, agricultural work, military affairs, languages (so that the “elasticity of the spirit of freedom in speech” would accustom the mind to solid concepts); fostered morality, teaching children to physical and mental work, to mercy and the search for truth. He also introduced disobedience to the king if he orders the law to be broken 34 into the concept of morality. And the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia of the 19th century. already in fact carried out the secular education of workers in a variety of ways - publishing popular scientific, political, fiction literature, organizing Sunday schools, libraries, courses, clubs at enterprises, etc. This tradition was adopted and developed under the conditions of socialism, which introduced people to the achievements world culture a significant part of the working people. The domestic culture of this period - folk art, art, literature, pedagogy, philosophy, etc., which was predominantly secular and humanistic in nature, was aimed at nurturing high moral ideals. And this greatly contributed to the victory of our people over fascism.
Revival of the traditions of free thought in the Russian Federation -
Is it appropriate now in the regions?
preferential spread of Islam?
It is known that in recent decades Islam has been spreading among the Tatars, Bashkirs, peoples of the North Caucasus, as well as a number of representatives of other nationalities, presented by its ideologists as the only basis for the spiritual life of these peoples. But historically, these peoples were not spiritually alive through “unified Islam,” especially during the years of Soviet power. The Russian language as the brightest phenomenon of secular culture, Russian and world literature, poetry, fine arts, etc. have become, along with the national cultural heritage, an organic element of the social consciousness of these peoples. The national intelligentsia sought to understand the spiritual life of the people in the past and present in all the diversity of its manifestations. Not the least place in scientific research and artistic works was occupied by the free-thinking heritage of this or that people, as well as the peculiar free-thinking of the peoples of the Near and Middle East, historically associated with Islam, but not identical to it. The sphere of free-thinking culture of the Arab-Persian- and Turkic-speaking peoples is unusually vast: poetry, philosophical teachings, natural science treatises, social theories, historical writings, works of art, which already in the Middle Ages contained anticlerical, humanistic, materialistic ideas that retained their humanistic and educational significance for all peoples of modern Russia. In the 20th century, scientists from the former eastern republics of the Soviet Union and the republics of the RSFSR recreated the deep foundations of freethinking - popular freethinking in its history and modernity, reflected, in particular, in folklore. One must think that the traditions of free thought, despite the sharp turn towards Islam, have been preserved here and will continue to be preserved, just as part of the national intelligentsia has been preserved, who have not renounced them. But now it is unlikely that it has wide opportunities to spread the free-thinking heritage. The question arises: is it necessary in modern conditions to reawaken interest in Eastern free-thinking? I think that ignoring this heritage will damage the spiritual revival of not only the eastern, but also all peoples of Russia. The cultural policy of the Soviet state, aimed at strengthening and developing the tradition of free thinking among different peoples, was a factor in strengthening mutual understanding and friendly relations between the peoples of the USSR. Free-thinking towards Islam contained ideas of religious tolerance and respect for people regardless of their religious affiliation. Preaching the ideas of humanism and religious pluralism from the medieval thinkers al-Shahrastani and al-Biruni to the Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Ossetian, Tatar enlighteners of the 19th – early 20th centuries. served the cause of bringing people closer together and overcoming religious hatred. The free-thinking culture of the peoples of the Near and Middle East contributed to the liberation of the spiritual world of people from mystifications. In this regard, it is worth remembering Ibn Khaldun, a thinker of the 14th – early 15th centuries, who explained the development of forms of social life by the specifics of production, and saw the reason for the forward movement of society in himself, and not in supernatural forces. This culture shaped a free, creative attitude towards traditional forms of spiritual life; thinkers such as Ibn al-Ravandi, al-Maarri, al-Razi criticized religious authoritarianism and dogmatism, the Muslim clergy, and critically interpreted religion. The free-thinking heritage of medieval poets, including the Sufi movement, highlighted the undeniably humanistic principle in him: a person appears here as a creator, capable of achieving moral perfection through his own efforts. The high artistic level of the poetry of Omar Khayyam, Jaleletdin Rumi, al-Jami, Ferdowsi, Alisher Navoi and other poets, felt even in translations, contributes to the enrichment of the emotional life of society, which is important in connection with the widespread penetration of pragmatism into the souls of our contemporaries. Through the heritage of Arab philosophers - the works of al-Ghazali, Ibn al-Arabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and others (by the way, published in our time, which is gratifying) - a high intellectual level of culture is revealed, and at the same time the bright world of ancient philosophy , which inspired these free-thinking philosophers of the East. The revival of the heritage of Eastern freethinkers should contribute to raising the educational and moral level of not only Turkic-speaking nationalities, but also the peoples of Russia as a whole.
The spiritual life of the peoples of Russia needs to expand the sphere of cultural interests, to go beyond the limits of religious precepts of one kind or another. Be that as it may, free-thinking, the beneficial traditions of secular culture, have been nurtured by generations of not only Russian people, but also representatives of all the peoples of Russia. One should not ignore the indifferent or atheistically-minded part of the population, which does not find satisfaction of its cultural needs either in the religious-mystical sphere or in low-grade Western products. Appeal to the heritage of humanistic secular culture would make it possible to fill its spiritual needs. But the believers of our country also objectively need to master this heritage.
Our common heritage is art created on religious subjects (so-called religious art). Back in 1926, A.V. Lunacharsky noted that in our revolution, like some previous ones, “under the sign of violent hatred of the entire past,” “half-blind forces of destruction unfolded.” And so " “among the waves of raging people, often completely ignorant and hungry, straightening their backs with a feeling of unquenchable revenge... amid all this chaos, we managed to preserve our museums... preserve with minimal losses all the enormous architectural, sculptural, pictorial, artistic and industrial heritage of the past.” He finds wonderful words to express his admiration for the Novgorod Sophia: “No, this is not a building, this is some kind of huge, silent creature, constantly thinking" And then follow the words that make it possible to understand the logic of the attitude of freethinking to phenomena associated with religion due to historical circumstances: “ For some, this is an old church, from where prayers to God came, for others, it is a monument of antiquity, which they protect in the name of a growing culture that cares about its past.» 35. Such a careful attitude towards the best achievements of the spiritual activity of the people is also a tradition, as is an understanding of the inconsistency of the historical process, during which “half-blind forces” can destroy the creations of spiritual creativity.
The tradition of Russian free-thinking, therefore, contains immeasurable moral and intellectual potential, and to bypass it by concentrating efforts on the revival of religion means unwittingly impoverishing the spiritual life of present and future generations. In the broad sense of the word the entire world and domestic culture is the property of Russian freethinkers; the whole point is What exactly it needs to be revived in Russia today.
This culture also includes religion as an area of the spiritual life of many people, as a phenomenon historically associated with the most diverse spheres of secular culture. For centuries, the struggle for social justice was carried out under religious slogans. If only for this reason, free-thinking does not reject religion. The latter, as a phenomenon of history and culture, is an important object of attention of a variety of sciences - philosophy, history, cultural studies, psychology, etc. The successes of religious studies are associated with the development of free thought. Actually, secular religious studies is itself freethinking. The scientific study of religion in its past and present, the study of its interaction with other forms of attitude towards the world contributes to the comprehension of the inner world of people, as well as the human community in its specific manifestations. Is it necessary to revive and propagate a religious picture of the world? After Russia entered the uncivilized market, it has already spontaneously revived, reflecting the irrationalism of today's social relations. Modern criminalized and corrupt society spontaneously reproduces religion in a wide variety of forms, including those that are far from humanism.
As life shows, in post-Soviet Russia the level of morality is in many respects lower than in Soviet Russia, although the level of religiosity in a wide variety of forms is increasing. And this is understandable: the predominance of a market economy in the conditions of Russian wild capitalism gives rise to a market ideology that erodes moral principles. Fundamental values have fallen out of it: work, social responsibility, social solidarity, citizenship. This ideology, which has captured a significant part of the population, gives rise to greed, envy, thirst for money and power, unrestrained by any moral norms. It is unlikely that the restoration and strengthening of religious tradition will be able to overcome the deep social, cultural and moral crisis into which our country has been plunged.
That is why it is worth thinking about the revival and development in today's Russia of the best, humanistic traditions of a secular, fundamentally freethinking, culture. In the name of cultural and moral revival, it is necessary to return to the fold of spiritual life the names, teachings, ideas of foreign and domestic free thinkers - philosophers, writers, poets, politicians, artists, etc., now undeservedly forgotten or just as undeservedly desecrated. It is vitally important for us to revive the traditions of Soviet culture in its best examples and traditions.
Plato. Works: In 3 vols. M., 1972, part 2. P. 381, 382.
Joseph Volotsky Rev. Enlightener. M., 1993. pp. 337, 326, 327. By the way, between pages 336 and 337 in the library book of “The Enlightener” there was a strange note written in an elegant, even handwriting: “Reader! Be careful! Before you is an apology for the Inquisition!” Indeed. “Words” 13, 14, 15, 16 of “The Enlightener” breathe death, torture, and cruelty. The book of Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) “Russian ideology” (published in Sofia in 1931, republished in the Russian Federation in 1992) contains an idea indicating that religious traditions are not so easily overcome: “in future state legislation Russia needs to provide for a law that severely punishes, even with the death penalty, the propaganda of atheistic views.” (p. 100).
Innocent III.
14 About contempt for the world, or about the insignificance of the human condition // Italian humanism of the Renaissance. Collection of texts. Saratov, 1988. S. 118, 120. Gianozzo Manetti.
15 About the dignity and superiority of man. // Ibid. P. 12. Pietro Paolo Vergerio.
About noble morals and free sciences. // Ibid. P. 82. 16 In an interesting, albeit sometimes contradictory, book A. P. Andreeva And A. I. Selivanova “Russian Tradition” (Moscow, 2004), equipped with abundant references to the works of religious and secular philosophers, politicians, and cultural experts of Russia and the West, contains judgments on this topic. The authors, citing the opinion of N. A. Berdyaev that “other cultures for Russia are invariably not an adversary, but an interlocutor,” rightly note that “the Russian people have shown themselves to be
spiritual communicator and integrator of cultures" 22 See: Rybakov B. A.
Pyotr Borislavich. Search for the author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign.” M., 1991. B. A. Rybakov notes that in the “Word” there are “no traces of church training,” soldiers do not take blessings before a campaign, do not cross themselves before battle, do not offer prayers of thanks in case of victories; the attitude towards the church in the “Word” is “indifferent inattention.” All this, according to the scientist, reflected the peculiarities of the consciousness of the military class of that time. (Ibid. p. 274). 23 See: Azbelev S. N.
Historicism of epics and the specificity of folklore. L., 1987. The author notes that “the content of almost every epic goes back to the facts of Russian history.” (p. 267). Analyzing the epics about the defeat of the Tatar invasion, he concludes that their main idea is a reckless determination to liberate their native land from enemy invasion.
34 History of Russian philosophy. M., 1991. T. 1, Part 1. P. 102 – 104. Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow. // A. N. Radishchev and the Decembrists. From the atheistic heritage of the first Russian revolutionaries. M., 1986. S. 51 – 52.
35 Lunacharsky A.V. Enlightenment and religion. M., 198. S. 423 – 427.
- 82.50 KbEssay
Course: "World Art Culture"
on the topic: “Humanism as the basis of Renaissance culture”
Cheboksary
2010
- Introduction………………………………………………………… …..…….. 3
- General characteristics of the era……………………………………..…….4
- Humanistic thought of the Renaissance……………………….
- ...7
- Conclusion……………………………………………………………14
List of references…………………………………..18
Introduction
The art of the Renaissance arose on the basis of humanism - a movement of social thought that originated in the 14th century. in Italy, and then during the second half of the XV-XVI centuries. spread to other European countries.
Originated in the 16th century. the term "revival" meant the emergence of a new art that revives classical antiquity and ancient culture.
General characteristics of the era The Middle Ages, or rather the period of transition from medieval culture to the culture of modern times ( XIV-XVII centuries)
, called the Renaissance.
The Renaissance was the greatest progressive revolution of all that humanity had experienced 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.”
The history of human culture knows many ups and downs, bright flourishings, artistically abundant, intellectually rich and fruitful eras. And yet, the European - primarily Italian - Renaissance of the XIV-XVI centuries. became Renaissance with a capital letter - to all renaissances Renaissance.
At this time, antifeudal sentiments, humanistic worldviews, and an appeal to the cultural heritage of antiquity prevailed in society. Hence the name "revival". The revival arose and was most clearly manifested in Italy.
The figures of the Renaissance themselves contrasted the new era with the Middle Ages as a period of darkness and ignorance. But the uniqueness of this time is rather not the movement of civilization against savagery, culture - against barbarism, knowledge - against ignorance, but the manifestation of another civilization, another culture, another knowledge. The Renaissance is a revolution, first of all, in the value system, in the assessment of everything that exists and in the attitude towards it. The conviction arises that man is the highest value. This view of man determined the most important feature of Renaissance culture - the development of individualism in the sphere of worldview and the comprehensive manifestation of individuality in public life. One of the characteristic features of the spiritual atmosphere of this time was a noticeable revival of secular sentiments. Cosimo de' Medici, the uncrowned ruler of Florence, said that he who seeks support for the ladder of his life in heaven will fall, and that he personally always strengthened it on earth. A secular character is also inherent in such a striking phenomenon of Renaissance culture as humanism. In the broad sense of the word, humanism is a way of thinking that proclaims the idea of the good of man as the main goal of social and cultural development and defends the value of man as an individual. This term is still used in this interpretation. But as an integral system of views and a broad movement of social thought, humanism arose during the Renaissance. The ancient cultural heritage played a huge role in the formation of Renaissance thinking. The consequence of the increased interest in classical culture was the study of ancient texts and the use of pagan prototypes to embody Christian images, the collection of cameos, sculptures and other antiquities, as well as the restoration of the Roman tradition of portrait busts. The revival of antiquity, in fact, gave the name to the entire era (after all, Renaissance is translated as rebirth). Philosophy occupies a special place in the spiritual culture of this time, and it has all the features that were mentioned above. The most important feature of the philosophy of the Renaissance is the anti-scholastic orientation of the views and writings of thinkers of this time. Another characteristic feature is the creation of a new pantheistic picture of the world, identifying God and nature. Finally, if the philosophy of the Middle Ages is theocentric, then a characteristic feature of the philosophical thought of the Renaissance is anthropocentrism. Man is not only the most important object of philosophical consideration, but also the central link of the entire chain of cosmic existence. An appeal to man and his earthly existence marks the beginning of a new era, which originated in Italy, and at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries. is becoming a pan-European phenomenon.
Humanistic thought of the Renaissance
The new worldview that arose during the Renaissance is usually called humanism (from Latin - human, humane), which was used back in the 1st century. BC. famous Roman orator Cicero (106-43 BC). For him, humanitas is the upbringing and education of a person, contributing to his elevation. In improving the spiritual nature of man, the main role was given to a complex of disciplines consisting of grammar, rhetoric, poetry, history, and ethics. It was these disciplines that became the theoretical basis of Renaissance culture and were called “studia humanitatis” (humanitarian disciplines). The poet and philosopher Francesca Petrarch (1304-1374) is unanimously considered the founder of humanism. His work marks the beginning of many paths along which the development of Renaissance culture took place in Italy. In the treatise “On the Ignorance of His Own and Many Others,” he decisively rejects the scholastic scholarship inherent in the Middle Ages, in relation to which he demonstratively proclaims his supposed ignorance, for he considers such scholarship to be completely useless for the day of the man of his time. The aforementioned treatise reveals a fundamentally new approach to the assessment of ancient heritage. According to Petrarch, it is not the blind imitation of the thoughts of remarkable predecessors that will allow us to achieve a new flowering of literature, art, and science, but the desire to rise to the heights of ancient culture and at the same time rethink and in some way surpass it. This line, outlined by Petrarch, became the leading one in relation to humanism towards the ancient heritage. The first humanist believed that the content of true philosophy should be the sciences about man, and throughout his work there is a call to reorient philosophy towards this worthy object of knowledge. With his reasoning, Petrarch laid the foundation for the formation of personal self-awareness of the Renaissance. In different eras, a person perceives himself differently. A medieval person was perceived as more valuable as an individual, the more his behavior corresponded to the norms accepted in the corporation. He asserted himself through the most active inclusion in a social group, in a corporation, in the divinely established order - such is the social valor required of the individual. The Renaissance man gradually abandoned universal medieval concepts, turning to the specific, individual. Humanists are developing a new approach to understanding man, in which the concept of activity plays a huge role. The value of a human person for them is determined not by origin or social affiliation, but by personal merit and the fruitfulness of its activities. A striking embodiment of this approach can be, for example, the versatile activities of the famous humanist Leon Battista Alberta (1404-1472). He was an architect, painter, author of treatises on art, and formulated the principles of pictorial composition - balance and symmetry of color, gestures and poses of characters. According to Albert, a person is able to overcome the vicissitudes of fate only through his own activity. “He who does not want to be defeated wins easily. He who is accustomed to obey endures the yoke of fate.” However, it would be wrong to idealize humanism and not notice its individualistic tendencies. The work of Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457) can be considered a true hymn to individualism. In his main philosophical work, “On Pleasure,” Valla proclaims the desire for pleasure to be an essential property of man. The measure of morality for him is personal good. “I cannot sufficiently understand why someone would want to die for their country. You are dying because you do not want your homeland to perish, as if with your death it will not perish either.” Such a worldview position looks asocial. Humanistic thought of the second half of the 15th century. enriched with new ideas, the most important of which was the idea of personal dignity, indicating the special properties of man in comparison with other creatures and his special position in the world. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) in his vivid “Speech on the Dignity of Man” places him at the center of the world: “We do not give you, O Adam, neither your place, nor a certain image, nor a special duty, so that both a place and you had the person and duties of your own free will, according to your will and your decision.” It is argued that God (contrary to church dogma) did not create man in his own image and likeness, but gave him the opportunity to create himself. The culmination of humanistic anthropocentrism is Pico's idea that the dignity of man lies in his freedom: he can become whoever he wants. Glorifying the power of man and his greatness, admiring his amazing creations, the thinkers of the Renaissance inevitably came to bring man closer to God. “Man tames the winds and conquers the seas, knows the count of time... In addition, with the help of a lamp, he turns night into day. Finally, the divinity of man is revealed to us by magic. She creates miracles with human hands - both those that nature can create, and those that only God can create.” In similar arguments, Giannozzo Manetti (1396-1472), Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639), Pico (1463-1494), etc. The most important characteristic of humanistic anthropocentrism emerged - the tendency towards the deification of man. However, the humanists were neither heretics nor atheists. On the contrary, the overwhelming majority of them remained believers. But if the Christian worldview argued that God should come first, and then man, then the humanists put man in the foreground, and then talked about God. The presence of God in the philosophy of even the most radical thinkers of the Renaissance presupposed at the same time a critical attitude towards the church as a social institution. The humanistic worldview, therefore, also includes anti-clerical (from the Latin anti - against, clericalis - church) views, i.e. views directed against the claims of the church and clergy to dominate society. The works of Lorenzo Valla, Leonardo Bruni (1374-1444), Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469-1536) and others contain statements against the secular power of the popes, exposure of the vices of church ministers and the moral depravity of monasticism. However, this did not prevent many humanists from becoming ministers of the church, and two of them - Tommaso Parentucelli and Enea Silvio Piccolomini - were even erected in the 15th century. to the papal throne. It must be said that until the middle of the 16th century. persecution of humanists by the Catholic Church is an extremely rare occurrence. The champions of the new secular culture were not afraid of the fires of the Inquisition and were known as good Christians. And only the Reformation forced the church to go on the offensive.
Humanism proclaimed man and his good as the highest value. Humanists believed that every person has the right to freely develop as an individual, realizing their abilities.
Certain features of humanism are present in ancient culture, but Renaissance humanism was broader and more holistic.
Humanism means not only that man is recognized as the highest value, but also that man is declared the criterion of all value. This feature of humanism was expressed in antiquity by Protagoras: “Man is the measure of all things.” This view presupposed human self-knowledge.
The ideas of humanism were most vividly and fully embodied in art, the main theme of which was a beautiful, harmoniously developed person with unlimited spiritual and creative capabilities.
Humanism develops as an ideological movement, it captures merchant circles, finds like-minded people in the courts of tyrants, penetrates into the highest religious spheres - into the papal office, becomes a powerful weapon of politicians, establishes itself among the masses, leaves a deep mark in folk poetry, architecture, provides rich material for research artists and sculptors. A new secular intelligentsia is emerging. Its representatives organize circles, give lectures at universities, and act as the closest advisers to sovereigns.
Humanists bring freedom of judgment, independence in relation to authorities, and a bold critical spirit to spiritual culture. They are full of faith in the limitless possibilities of man and affirm them in numerous speeches and treatises. For humanists, there is no longer a hierarchical society in which a person is only a spokesman for the interests of the class. They oppose all censorship, and especially church censorship. Humanists express the requirement of the historical situation - they form an enterprising, active, enterprising person. Man already forges his own destiny and the providence of the Lord has nothing to do with it. A person lives according to his own understanding, he is “set free” (N. Berdyaev).
Humanism as a principle of Renaissance culture and as a broad social movement is based on an anthropocentric picture of the world; a new center is established in the entire ideological sphere - a powerful and beautiful personality.
The cornerstone of the new worldview is laid by Dante Alighieri (1265-1324) - “the last poet of the Middle Ages and at the same time the first poet of the New Time” (F. Engels). The great synthesis of poetry, philosophy, theology, and science created by Dante in his “Divine Comedy” is both the result of the development of medieval culture and the approach to the new culture of the Renaissance. Faith in the earthly destiny of man, in his ability to accomplish his earthly feat on his own, allowed Dante to make the Divine Comedy the first hymn to the dignity of man. Of all the manifestations of divine wisdom, man is for him “the greatest miracle.”
This position was developed by Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374), a philosopher and brilliant lyric poet who is considered the founder of the humanist movement in Italy. The work of Gianozzo Manetti (1396-1439) “On the Dignity and Superiority of Man” is filled with admiration for man, his beauty, and intelligence. The treatise “On Pleasure” by Lorenzo Vala (1407-1457) affirms the naturalness of human earthly joys and sensual pleasures. Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) Renaissance humanists are convinced that man, like God, has freedom of action, he himself controls fate and society, making the right, rational choice.
But the formation and flourishing of humanism are deeply contradictory. Science is reaching an unprecedented scale, poetry, architecture, and fine arts are flourishing. Many rulers become patrons of the arts. But problems of social relations are solved with dagger and poison, conspiracies and wars. The Borgia family, led by Pope Alexander VII himself, went down in history - a murderer, robber and libertine, who, however, was endowed with brilliant talent as a statesman. The famous historian, poet and diplomat Machiavelli finds a justification for this: the ideal sovereign, he notes, must be able to combine the techniques of a fox and a lion, to be not only a man, but also a beast. According to contemporaries, the tyrant Sigismund Malatesta “surpassed all barbarians in cruelty,” stabbing his victims to death with his own hands. But he also had a wide knowledge of philosophy, there were many humanists among his courtiers, and when discussing works of art he showed the most refined taste. And the dagger that Malatesta used was an example of jewelry art. Researchers have repeatedly noted that good and evil were intertwined in the most bizarre way during the Renaissance. People have emerged from the Middle Ages, the high ideal of humanism has illuminated their spiritual life, but they are still new to free-thinking. Harmony in the social order was not achieved and unbridled passions possessed individuals, prompting them to act without stopping at anything or thinking about the consequences. Content
Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..…….. 3
General characteristics of the era……………………………………..…….4
Humanistic thought of the Renaissance………………………. ...7
Conclusion……………………………………………………………14
List of references…………………………………..18
