Topic 5 AESTHETICS OF THE ERA OF REBIRTH 5 1 General trends in the development of aesthetics of the Renaissance

The aesthetics of the Renaissance is a natural continuation of the ideas of the aesthetics of previous eras, in particular, the ancient one. At the same time, it is a completely original phenomenon, reflecting a holistic, experiential-sensory and rational-comprehending approach to the natural world and man. A new worldview paradigm was formed during the Renaissance. It organically fits man into earthly life, without opposing the ideal and the real, the spiritual and the bodily-sensory principles of its nature, and the spirit is considered an active force that "processes" the matter of life and organizes its manifestations in the forms of perfection. The Renaissance overcame the asceticism of the medieval image of beauty, providing it with the fullness of life in the forms of artistic beauty. Man emerges as the personification of beauty, he is considered the creative beginning of life: "earthly God". The expressed creative direction of man's relations with the world is a characteristic feature of the Renaissance. It was with it that the rapid development of various branches of scientific knowledge began, scientific natural science was established, art became a special sphere of spiritual experience, and the freedom of creative self-realization of the artist was strengthened.

The first type of scientific knowledge, fully consistent with the spirit of the era and serving as its peculiar characteristic is humanitarian knowledge, and the first subject is the culture of mankind, in particular the culture of Greek and Roman antiquity. The culture of the Middle Ages underwent critical rethinking. An appeal to the cheerful culture of the ancient world, the center of which was man, made it possible to get rid of the feeling of sinfulness and fear of existence, which medieval European culture lived with.

The culture of the Renaissance drew man's attention to the earthly world and its charms, opening eyes to its beauty and forming the need for active interaction in the knowledge of secrets, as well as in the creative reformation and perpetuation of its image by artistic and aesthetic means. The beauty of the world became an aesthetic model of the creatively formative activity of artists, giving it a high (elevated, majestic) sound and unique beauty. Interest in the knowledge of earthly things, the rejection of the indisputable authority of the church, the growth of secular elements in culture are called by researchers a characteristic sign of the Renaissance [19, p. 414].

The Renaissance man for the first time turned his gaze to himself not as an object of sin and the denial of himself - sinful. An active creative personality is established in culture as the very manifestation of the beauty of the natural world. He is aware of his own creative powers, is filled with self-respect and the need to objectify experience in various types of spiritual and subject-forming activity. Universalism is a characteristic feature of the personality of the Renaissance. According to the well-known characterization of F. Engels, the Renaissance is "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 the power of thought, passion and character, in versatility and scholarship" [7, p. 326]. This is the era that paved the way for the development of European culture in subsequent eras. True, it is from the Renaissance that the criterion and measurement of perfection for man itself arises. The ideal of the Renaissance is Man with a capital letter, almost equal to God. "The divine in the aesthetics and art of the Renaissance gravitates toward the human, but, on the other hand, the human also gravitates toward the divine (or, perhaps, the demonic, but in any case - "not mortal")" [8, p. 470]. With the progress of history, the absolutization of the human principle will lead to subjectivism and the loss of the objective criterion of the aesthetic value of phenomena. The subjectivism of the heroes of the late Renaissance is noted, in particular, by W. Hegel, characterizing the work of Shakespeare.

The spirit of the Renaissance was formed on certain social and spiritual premises. It began in Italy, the birthplace of Roman antiquity (it was significantly influenced by Greek antiquity), and subsequently spread to all countries of Western, Central and Eastern Europe. The social premises of the Renaissance were, first of all, the democratic principles of Italian cities, based on the principles of self-government.

The Renaissance era began in the last quarter of the 13th century and lasted until the 16th century in Western European countries, and in the Eastern European region of the Renaissance it lasted until the 17th century. Researchers divide the culture of the Renaissance into several stages. Each of them is characterized by its own specifics and achievements. The first is the Proto-Renaissance (late 13th-14th centuries), the second is the early Renaissance (15th century), the third is the high Renaissance (late 15th - 1530s) and the fourth is the late Renaissance (until the end of the 16th century).

From the 15th century, the ideas of Renaissance humanism, its ideological principles and aesthetic and artistic principles spread to other countries of Western Europe, testifying to the formation of a secular cultural paradigm. The scale of dominance of Renaissance ideas in philosophy, the humanities, natural science, aesthetics and art grew.

in the life style, ethical and aesthetic ideals of the era. The most striking exponents of the spirit of the Renaissance in Italy were Dante (the Renaissance begins with his work), Petrarch, Boccaccio, Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico de la Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, Tomaso Campanella. In Germany, the outstanding representative of Renaissance aesthetics was Albrecht Durer, in England - William Shakespeare, in France - Francois Rabelais, in Spain - Miguel Cervantes. A. Losev notes: "Already through a superficial examination of the materials of the Western Renaissance ... we are surprised by the huge and, one might say, countless number of different names, countries, periods of development, trends and styles, usually called Renaissance" [14, p. 37].

The very concept of "Renaissance" (Latin Re - again and nasci - to be born) was first used by G. Vasari in his work "The Lives of the Most Famous Painters, Sculptors and Architects" (1550).

The aesthetic ideas of the Renaissance are organically woven into philosophical, ethical, social, natural knowledge, artistic creativity, forming a spiritual synthesis and determining the general aesthetic coloring of the era. Therefore, it is legitimate to note the all-pervasive nature of the aesthetic, inherent in the culture of the Renaissance, brings it closer to the culture of antiquity, nourished by the spirit of which it was actually formed.